Repatriation in Summary, Omens, and a Series of (Un)fortunate Events

It's been sixty-five days since I bade Praha and Eastern Europe farewell, and where am I now? Well, I'm certainly not where I thought I might be. But I'm happy, because my present station seems to me the most logical follow-up to and continuation of my Watson Year. But the transition to my present happiness wasn't without difficulty and anguish. I'll recap.

On 30 June, I sat in a dirty computer room at my Prague hostel and applied for an Admissions Counselor position at the University of the South. It was the only job of the thirty for which I had applied that I found remotely exciting, and my delirious brain, fed of financial necessity on contaminated tap water and sandwiches for a week, thought it might be some kind of guiding spirit (mom?) pointing me in a certain direction. Thus it began. I spent less than 48 hours in Batesville before taking the same garments and toiletries that had sustained me for a year in Europe back to my second home, my Mountain and alma mater. I took temporary lodging with my girlfriend, Whitney, in Courts 101, the same room I'd had my freshman year. It felt at once like an odd completion of a cycle and a new beginning in an old place.

I'm not usually much for omens, but with my new partner and my old room and the only job I was both interested in AND qualified for all in the same place, it all seemed as though it were leading to something--something big and good. I spent my first Independence Day on the Mountain and met with a series of old professors, all of whom assured me I'd "be here a while." I spent my days reading, seeing old friends, and taking in every verdant inch of the place I'd missed so much. After some email correspondence, I had a "pre-interview" with the Dean of Admissions. It went really well, and we even got to the point of discussing benefits and salary, and he assured me I'd hear from him inside two weeks. It seemed another omen: the prospective date for my interview would be somewhere between three days to a week before my mother's memorial service and scattering at Green's View. Everything was falling into place. My time felt unlimited and my security assured, with a little patience.

Two weeks passed without word from admissions, and I went to Green's View with a ziploc bag full of...my mother. My father took it as an omen when a buzzard flew across the valley at the precise moment he scattered his half of mom. We take reassurances when and where we can, but I'd really like to think of my mother's spirit as something other than a turkey vulture; likewise, I suppose God's messengers could come in any form they liked, but a carrion bird seemed to me a little undignified for the occasion. My omen was something different entirely. I started crying no more than forty-five seconds into the service and only stopped when I was almost through scattering mom's ashes. It sounded like sand on rock as it spilled out of the bag. The ash dusted my dress shoes with what was left of the woman who gave me life and taught me to write a sentence, cook, manage my financial affairs, and trust my instincts--among countless other things I can never really express gratitude for or repay. I'd spent countless hours watching my guilty pleasure sitcoms (Mama's Family, The Golden Girls, The Nanny) with someone who was at that point something. Something on my shoes. The bag was nearly empty when I heard a *ting.* Metal hitting rock. It was one of the most surreal moments in my life. The only source I could give this *ting* was the surgical plate in mom's right leg, the result of a car accident she'd had at the age of 16. I still don't know much about my mother beyond the twenty-two years I spent with her. That little *ting* was the ultimate concretization of one of the few solid things I knew about her early life, an anecdote from an enigma brought to life in onomatopoeia.

After the service Whitney and I pow-wowed with a bunch of dad's old college friends at a lovely house on Tennessee Avenue. I couldn't help but hope that my college friends and I get along as well as dad and his did after thirty-odd years. It was like nothing had changed between them, even though realistically speaking, everything had changed. They sang songs and caught up on times old and new. Our hostess, Susan (Suki to dad et al.) offered me the prospect of a place to live, and it only took a few days before summer term ended and with it my accommodation in Courts Hall.

The end of summer term coincided with the Watson Conference. The Watson Conference for Returning Fellows is supposed to provide a degree of closure on what was a truly overwhelming experience for all forty-nine attendees. It wasn't so much closure for me, since my lifestyle, as you will see, is not substantially different from the way it was on my Watson year. But I digress. I was completely in awe of my fellow fellows; I've never shared a room with so many interesting people before, and I don't expect to again anytime soon. Projects ranged from worldwide study of sharks to cows to bread to socioeconomic healthcare policy and industrial architecture. That aside, we also filled two fifty-gallon recycling cans with spent glass bottles. It was a remarkable three days, but when the conference concluded, I was without lodging and still waiting on job notification. I pulled a DuBois (you know, depending on the kindness of strangers) and called Susan, who graciously put me on as caretaker of her sometime bed and breakfast. As Whitney and I found out later, Susan has a policy of "taking in strays," but even a stray dog can pull his weight. Thus employment #1 availed itself, and I'm now an innkeeper of sorts. So I had a place to live for a simple exchange of services--another omen, something leading to something larger.

I couldn't figure out for the life of me what that "something" was, however, because my frustration with the University's various organs grew as my bank balance shrank--in other words, daily, and I began to have a looming sense of dread that perhaps the relevant parties hadn't even received my application. I sent voicemails and emails, but to no avail. People were far too busy to be professional or responsive. Meanwhile, I was getting pressure from some parties saying I "lost my motivation and spirit of adventure" when the fact of the matter was that I simply had no other palatable options. And maybe my inclusion of the adjective "palatable" makes me a wuss, but the longer I stayed in Sewanee, the more I realized I was truly happy here. I had a place to live, food, friends, and a pretty excellent job prospect that I would surely get if I simply played the waiting game long enough.

My other options were few and not very fun. I would be imposing on people and back to living out of a suitcase once again. By the end of my Watson year, I hated my material possessions, my baggage, more than almost anything else. I felt the sheer physical weight of everything I deemed necessary to my existence every time I changed cities. I would be...willing...to do that again, but from my perspective living from suitcases again would be a quantity devoutly NOT to be wish'd.

Beyond my subconscious dislike of my material possessions, there were the money and transit issues. I would be jumping into completely unfamiliar territory with no fiscal resources, contacts, or desirable job prospects to speak of. I'm perfectly comfortable with the preceding sentence up until the word "with." The Watson stipend afforded me the fiscal flexibility to lead the necessarily wayfaring lifestyle of a Watson Fellow; if I ended up sleeping in a box or at a bus station while I was abroad, it was my own damned fault. But the prospect of my lifestyle in Atlanta or Chattanooga, though similar in some ways to the Watson (e.g. going into a situation more or less blind and with only the vaguest idea of what's to come), it was actually the anti-Watson, on closer examination. The Watson provided freedom of movement and financial stability, until the money ran out. Jumping in to a job market that's barren for someone of my skill set and experience level would be thus: chained to a city with no assets until I get hungry and desperate enough to work at Safeway, a landfill, a septic tank cleaning service, or, worst of all, Abercrombie and Fitch. Regardless of how dismal the non-Sewanee prospects seemed, though, I went to network and look at possibilities through Career Services, despite unpleasant experiences with them in the past. In retrospect, I suppose there's only so much you can do for someone's career over the internet, because I was pleasantly surprised with the assistance provided me, especially following my decision to remain in Sewanee.

With all this talk about omens, I'm sure you must be certain it's really leading up to something big. If you're not, then I suck at building suspense. But I digress. After fifty-four days of waiting, four voicemails, seven emails, and two personal messages regarding the status of my application, I finally got the glassy-eyed pod person to answer the phone while he was in his office. He could not evade me; fake smiles don't carry over the phone, and hanging up on someone leaves the jurisdiction of the unprofessional and enters the territory of the extremely rude. He apologized "that it didn't work out" and made sure to say "thank you for considering employment with us." He might as well have been reading it from a computer screen; it was said with the same hollow amity he said everything else. I sound bitter, but I'm really not. Not about the job, anyway. I'm bitter about the way I was treated, bitter about the apparent fact (yes, apparent fact) that professionalism is either a one-way street or it's just dead altogether. I never thought I would have to add my alma mater to the list of all the places that have rejected, ignored and otherwise snubbed me (the count of which is in the thirties now).

Until last week, I was struggling with this inescapable feeling that I worked my ass off in college, got good grades, was involved in everything, and now that I'm back and what I do is supposed to matter and be rewarding and provide me a livelihood, I've striven and fought and worked and watched it all lead up to this little tiny sentence: I am unemployable. Or at least I felt that way. I don't have enough experience in my relevant fields to get an enjoyable job in the southeast, and the jobs I could conceivably get would likely make me miserable. The counter-argument is "It's just a year. Suck it up and take whatever you can get.", but to me that's settling, it's taking the easy way out by compromising my personal happiness for the sake of financial stability. I would rather be poor and happy than financially secure and miserable.

I'm now pretty sure this epiphany was the "something," the crux and resolution of all this turmoil, the culmination of all the omens. My arrival at this conclusion essentially inaugurated my factotumship. Now I tutor, I proctor exams, I bartend, I landscape, I build, I write, I research, I housesit, I innkeep, and in the process I stay away from the cubicle farm with militant vigilance and zeal. If you need my services for any of these things and more, give me a call at (931)-598-0274 or email me at harrijb1@gmail.com. Unlike much of the world, my reply will be professional and prompt.

Please comment if you feel so inclined, and I'll keep writing as developments come or things occur to me.