Winds of Change

It's amazing what happens when I open my big mouth.  Seriously.  One of these days I'm going to say something and it's going to start raining frogs.  Which will thoroughly gross me out.

That's sort of beside the point, really- you didn't come here for another metaphorical mumbling, did you? 

I honestly don't know why I did it.  I didn't even know where the bloody town was, for Gods sake.  I was in a stupor- three days married, seven days depressed...banged out this swell interview for this swell job and got told I was a second pick.  And that's all well and good and all, but second place doesn't go home with a paycheck.  At least in the Olympics you go home with a blasted silver medal.  Needless to say, I was feeling a little hopeless.  The lack of honeymoon didn't fucking help.  Returning to a minimum wage slave job didn't help.  Returning to a locale that didn't give a damn about me or my husband...also...did not help.  Are we getting the image yet?  Was not exactly in an amazing frame of mind.

But, incredibly, even in my most dim-witted of moments, I seem to do something that sends off some message to the heavens along the lines of: "Damn it, pull yourselves together up there!  She's giving up for fuck's sake, will you PLEASE come to order!"  And some planet or being or whatever you want to call it shoves those motherfuckers around until they're aligned in some trippy enough way that something downright unbelievable happens.

And that is what we- my collective mind- have decided to call this strange interview coming up.

I don't know what I did, really.  I've been off the circuit for a year, abandoned ship up north and flew south to be with the man I love and do mostly unimportant things.  I slept a lot.  I hid in the bedroom and ate potato chips a lot.  I fought flashbacks and therapists and spaced out a lot.  A whole year- just a blip of spiritual death on the radar screen.  A whole year of not creating some stunning glitzy resume, recording with some smashing symphony, teaching baby geniuses how to play the damned cello at 3 years old.  A whole year of that plus a year of rejection letters from various places- "impressive but no thanks", and so on.

And then I get this...phone call.  From a woman whose name is plain and whose voice is pleasant, and eager sounding, and would I like to interview next week?

Yeah, sure, why not.  Let's embrace another crushing blow to my ego.  Hell, I need a few more rejection letters to stitch to the quilt I'm going to wrap myself in when I'm homeless and the military shoves my husband and I ass-first onto the streets.  And she writes me back when I send my RSVP.  And she thanks me.  And she asks me if I have any other questions, or if there's anything she can do to assist me in making my trip convenient.

Another formality.  It has to be.  I'll make the million hour trek, trek it right back home, and get that lovely little rejection phone call two days later.  I'm used to this.

But...
...really, sincerely pleasant. 

Do I even know where I'm going, here?  I decide to look at the traffic route to this piddling interview I'm supposed to be taking.  And my jaw drops out of its socket.

It's...it's coastal New England. 

Let's backtrack here.  Little baby Claudia is a born-and-raised New Englander.  That means she likes the cold, flips people off in traffic, has to be everywhere in a hurry, and is a sucker for chowder of any and all varieties.  Little baby Claudia grew up vacationing on the New England coast.  Little teenaged Claudia grew up AUDITIONING on the New England coast.  Little grown-up Claudia grew up longing for vacations on the sandy white beaches she knew since she wore diapers- on the New England Coast.  Little Claudia lived in land-locked New England.  Coastal life was one of thsoe pretty dreams she enjoyed playing with on her few days of vacation with the sand squishing between her toes.

Big girl Claudia...now has an interview...on big girl Claudia's dream landscape. 

Big girl Claudia has somehow been granted this teeny tiny shot at living the dream that all of Claudia has embraced...being a musician, on the New England coast, happily married and living with her pets and future offspring in some cozy little nook not on the waterfront but in what coastal people call "sketchy" areas that are really anything but.  (I've lived in DC, people.  I have seen things that cannot be unseen.  Sketchy has a whole new dictionary.)  What exactly does big girl Claudia do after she accepts the interview on the phone?

She hangs up.  She smiles.  She chokes back a flashback of her last horrifying employment experience.

And she bawls.  Like a two year old who got their favorite toy ripped out of their hands.

Why?

Because she's...because I'm...afraid.

I just don't understand.  What does a pretty coastal town with a pretty "in-season/off-season" town website and pretty, privileged looking people, want with ME?  Me- the slightly awkward, severely damaged, overachieving attention whore of a musician who hasn't faced reality since the last time she got her nose, heart, and several other appendages broken by it?  Why, out of the thousands of candidates, pick me to make the trek out and put on a show for a panel that may have never seen a podunk hillbilly in their life?  What could I possibly offer high-class, coastal coin society, that someone with a fancy doctorate or pedigree or whatever, could not?  I don't have any more passion than I did when I started.  If anything, I have a lot less passion and a lot more caution.  I have a lot more insight and a lot less I want "out".  I have...battle scars.  What do they want....with me?

And is it a want I can trust?  What if they're calling me out there just...to laugh at me?  Just to see the poster child for what they could never want in their posh little town?  There's a laundry list of things they once preferred for this position- I'm close to some of those things, but hold none of the official achievements- I never got granted the chance.  Why aren't they asking why? 

I can't handle being disappointed one last time.  I'm temporarily relocating, away from my husband, to haul up in a hotel somewhere to see if this is where I'm meant to be.  He'll follow if I'm offered the job and I accept- but while it's still under interview circumstances, I'm flying solo.  One of us has to keep our bank account steady, after all.  I'll be interstate- far away from the home I took a year adjusting to, the psycho kitty that spoons between the sheets with us at night, and the man who saved my sanity when it exploded all over the wall from my last job.

I can't be let down any more.  I will seriously shatter.  I'm not talking Witch of the West meltdown- I'm talking Glinda of Gillikins spontaneous combustion of faerie glitter- and not the dust-away stuff, but the craft herpes sort of glitter- KAPOOIE!  This is not a carrot on a stick- this is a carrot cupcake with fondant and cream cheese frosting with a champagne center and a glass of Pinot Grigio.  You do not stick that shit in my face and then pull it away.  You're better off not sticking that shit in my face at all.  Don't offer me things I can't have.

Unless, of course, you really are willing to let me have it....and eat it too...

In which case...if that's the case...

Nah.  Better not get my hopes up.

Then again...a gourmet cupcake isn't outstretched to just ANYONE...right?

Gods.  Just please don't feed me any stupid lines about this place being my next "Mr. Holland's Opus", or the next Richard Dreyfuss movie I see in the bargain bin, I'm buying and having a bonfire over.  Just be real with me.  Just be straight with me.  Just don't lead me on to let me down.

And...if you want to offer me the position...well...I'm okay with that, too.
I'll be ecstatic if and when, but more if, the dream comes true.
For now...it's just a delusionary interview.