I'm waiting to strike gold in the home rental department. The goal is to be completely moved into a new home in Columbus by September 1st. Originally, we thought of renting a downtown riverfront loft and it's still an attractive idea in theory, but having a 90 lb. bulldog complicates things. Since he needs a backyard, we'll probably be somewhere in the suburbs. I never thought of myself as a suburb kind of gal, since I've either lived out in the country or in the middle of town, but for now I'll be happy to just find a reasonably-priced place to lay my head. At least I am able to have a home and the means to provide for my family, and I am content with that.
At the end of August, I'll leave my current job and I have mixed feelings about my last day in the office. I'm sure that I will miss my coworkers and the quiet, focused environment, but I already see myself clicking my heels together and dancing in the parking lot. I am soon to be at a "career" crossroad-- do I look for another administrative-type job and enjoy the salary or do I pursue my writing, grad school, language and craft interests with no guarantee of income? Like most other things in life, I think a happy medium will be my outcome, like tutoring or teaching Spanish and doing Etsy or a part-time office job. On the other hand, this is not the time for career cowardice.... if I want to do something I truly love or am passionate about, it feels a little like now or never!
Last week I found the Spanish section of the Leon County Library, something I had no idea about for these past three years, and which would have been very helpful when I started studying Spanish lit. at FSU! I'm roaring through El amor en los tiempos del cólera, one of my first novels read in Spanish. Márquez is more than gifted; his poetry in novel prose form makes me wish that the world he writes about were still alive, as harsh and painful as it was.... the world of discovery. This reminds me of my correspondence with another of my favorite writers, the Spanish (Laura) Espido Freire, she wrote:
Nos espera la noche nace un poco a raíz de las historias que tanto mi abuela, como mi abuelo me contaban. Un mundo perdido, rural, cruel y muy hermoso. Yo era niña cuando me hablaban de los perros rabiosos, de los bandidos, de la guerra. Esa realidad habían desaparecido, suplantada por la tecnología, lo seguro, la realidad. Mis abuelos murieron pronto. No eran de este mundo.
(Nos espera la noche takes root a little from the stories that my grandmother told me -- a world lost, rural, cruel and very beautiful. I was a little girl when she spoke to me of rabid dogs, bandits and war. This reality had been disappearing, supplanted by technology, the secure and reality. My grandparents died soon after. They were not of that world.)
Storytelling weaves the fantastic and beautiful into our accounts to make the suffering parts a little more bearable. To hear of others' sufferings is to take part in them, if at least for a moment. While this blog will detail very little suffering (hopefully!), I will set the loom in order and begin to weave the beautiful into the sometimes mundane. Like bright yellow daydreams in a gray office or Márquez's bright yellow butterflies in Cien años, reality and fantasy are made for each other.
