Wait and see...

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven..."
~Ecclesiastes

I have been talking a lot lately about being in a "wait and see" period. Waiting goes against the grain in our "take charge and just do it" society. "Don't put off 'til tomorrow what you can do today." In many ways this has been a very busy summer. I look at everything that is needing to be done, and then I look at how busy I have been, and it is no wonder if I am craving a pause.

There are times when intuition seems to go against logic. I am thinking I used to trust it a lot more than I do now. I remember getting my first library job in Oneonta. Every step seemed fated. I had to believe that there was a purpose I couldn't see, and that everything would work out just fine. It had been nine months since my first job interview at Yale University, with not another nibble. My job applications seemed to be going into a black hole. I might as well have just spent that time waiting. Every action I took seemed to be a waste of energy. The last of my money had been used up when I saw the small advertisement in Library Journal. It wasn't what *I* wanted. I'd been looking for an academic setting, perhaps in a place like Boston, or New Haven, or even Ithaca. This was a very small town public library, with a very small, even laughable salary. But the instant I saw the ad I knew this was my next job. I railed against God for the next two weeks before I gave in and sent my application. Could I have said no? It didn't seem so. My financial situation was now desperate, and I couldn't ignore any avenue.

The job situation turned out to be a disaster. Oh, I know that moving out there just at that time, enabled me to attend Welsh Heritage Week for the first time, meet my dear friend Alice Williams, then President of the Welsh Folk Dance Society, and become one of 11 certified Welsh folk dance instructors in North America. And Welsh folk dancing and the contacts I've made since then have brought a lot of joy and purpose to my life. But in terms of the JOB, and of my library career, it was a disaster. And for a long time after that, I treated my intuition with a great deal of suspicion and distrust. "NOW, where are you leading me, and why.....?"

The whole library career came after a lot of struggle to figure out what to do with my life. I had followed my heart into musicology hoping to teach in a University and direct a collegium. But health and other issues made that goal all but impossible. At first the library career was to be a stepping stone in achieving that goal. I'd get a job in an academic music library, be able to finish my thesis, and then perhaps get a Ph. D. in Medieval Studies. That was what *I* wanted. It didn't happen. I knew that taking a job in a public library would likely mean the academic career I wanted would be a closed door. As time went on, I realized that I truly loved the public library setting, with its much broader focus on serving the entire community, not just a narrow part of it.

Of course, just as I lost the job in Oneonta, Reagonomics had devastated library budgets across the nation. It took two years before I got the job as an oncall substitute for the Minneapolis Public Library system. Except for a cataloging job that lasted only a year-and-a-half before I was "down-sized," all of my efforts to find a permanent full-time position have come to nothing. Believe me, it isn't for lack of trying. I have followed my "bliss." I have agonized over every choice, every turning point, and asked myself over and over what could I have done (or do now) differently? The only possible answer is to let go of the outcome and trust the Universe to provide. If I can't see the way ahead, all I can do is wait. Everything else is wasted effort.

Somehow all of this ties into the manifesting lessons. Things seemed to be moving ahead at last with this permanent position (though part-time) with Waconia Library. I am one month away now from the end of my probationary period. But is a part-time job enough? There is now a bottom line to my income, but that bottom line only provides a bare minimum. So I am still "dependent" on the Universe to provide extra hours to cover any desire or necessity beyond basic bills, gasoline, and groceries.

Just like I knew at least a year ahead that the Minneapolis job was ending, yet was powerless to make the next job appear any sooner that it did -- which entailed a year-and-a-half of unemployment culminating in bankruptcy -- I have known for the past year that I will have to move out of this apartment at some point. The landlord is in the process of converting these buildings to condos. I started looking at places earlier in the summer, but I am quite limited by my current income. Or am I? I just can't quite find the leap of faith to consider a higher rent without a more sure income. I keep looking at that bottom line.

I should be encouraged by the fact that since the start of this job I have had an average of 27 hours per week instead of 20. My "logical" self says, "Yes, but, most of that was because the branch manager was out on maternity leave. Over the last 7 weeks it has only been about 22.5 hours average. Still, that extra 2.5 hours represents at least $150 a month. So stop worrying..." Yeah, right. My car required over $1,000 in repairs a few weeks ago. It took every cent I had saved above what I need for bills and groceries. Back to where I was in March. Only no maternity leave this time. On the other hand, I WAS able to pay it, without borrowing any money. I just don't like how vulnerable it makes me feel. And every time I hear brakes squealing outside - and it seems to happen a lot lately with some idiot car driver racing down this narrow street - I pray "PLEASE, don't hit my car!" Hey, it happened here 10 years ago. Someone hit my parked car. It was totalled, and for the next 7 years I took the bus everywhere. I can't do that now. My job is 35 miles away.

So trust and intuition has taken a beating. I feel vulnerable and at the whims of a capricious Universe, even though some part of me also believes in Divine Order, and that we create our reality. I have been trying to heal that vulnerability for a long time now. I thought this job would be a turning point. And maybe it is, but right now it is "wait and see." The landlord keeps changing his mind about when he is going to start work on the building. In mid-July he told me March. I decided to quit looking at apartments and try and get another part-time (or even a full-time?) job before then. I had great hopes in an accompanying job that my church organist was leaving. It would have brought an extra $6,000 a year. Perfect! And doing something that I have loved in the past. I got myself through graduate school as a high school accompanist. So I put that desire out to the Universe.

I thought I had a very strong resume with all of my previous experience. But the same day I paid the car repair bill, I got a phone call that they are not selecting me to audition for the position. I was very depressed for the next few days. On top of that, the landlord told me "it's going to be a lot sooner than March..." Now what. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.