to the natural flow of Chi, and you feng
shui your life, a principle that came to me
when my love and I finally got rid of all
our old computers, printers, and electronics
in the disposal bin behind Giant Tiger
in the town of Midland Sunday morning,
that’s when it kicked in, the synchronizing
rhythm of the Feng Shui Principle, and
everything fell into place as our day
unfolded with all the grace of easy,
harmonious living.
My Study Window
and I see the whole world,
not literally, of course; but
a reflection of the world
we live in, and all the people
who inhabit it, everyone moving
about their own life and being
who they are and want to be,
and I smile at the quiet dignity
of nature’s way of making
this into that and that into this,
and something more, forever
evolving the perennial soul
of man in knowledge, wisdom,
and understanding; and one
day too, they will know who
and why they are.
an inner garden, which is private
and sacred, and an outer garden,
which is public and safe; but I
often forget that I tend two gardens,
and when I’m talking with people
I have a pedantic tendency to blend
my two gardens into one, which
only confuses people and puts me
in a bit of pickle, adding an alien
flavor to what could have been an
easy, salutary conversation.
A Long Way to Go Yet
I invested a lot of time and energy
reading his books and listening to his
lectures and interviews and writing my
own book One Rule to Live By: Be Good,
inspired by his bestseller 12 Rules for Life:
An Antidote to Chaos, but the questing
psychology professor no longer spoke
to me; not because he stopped being one
of the most provocative intellectuals
of the 21th Century, but because he had
given up his secret and had nothing more
to say to me but novel iterations of the
same wisdom, following his successful
bestseller with the hopeful sequel Beyond
Order: 12 More Rules for Life. But I
refused to admit it, until something Jung
said reminded me of how he would lose
interest in people when he discovered the
secret of who they were, the divine mystery
of soul-making essential to his psychology
of individuation, a secret so sacred that
it led him to say, in a moment of exasperation,
“Thank God I am Jung, and not a Jungian!”
And I moved on from the world-famous
mentoring professor, knowing full well
that as far as his heroic path had taken him,
he had a long way to go yet.
The Family Curse
Family demons, karmic baggage, sins
of our parents, or character flaws, it
doesn’t matter what we call the human
condition of Hillbilly Elegy, a story
of family dysfunction, we can all identify
to some degree with the misery it sets
free from the dark recesses of our unbeing,
unleashing tiny explosions of chaos into
the normal routine of our comfortable
existence; and as I watched the movie
with the love of my life, holding her hand
now and then for comfort, she could not
fathom how people could behave that
way, losing their center and spinning into
chaos like a whirling dervish from hell,
but it was all much too familiar to me,
a Calabrese boy born into my own family
dysfunction like the young author of the
distressing memoir whose only goal in life
was to redeem himself from the family
curse of unforgiving hubris.
Like a Tornado from Hell
Everybody’s right, and everybody’s wrong,
it’s only what we believe that matters;
and if what we believe no longer resonates
with our soul, it’s up to us to change our belief
system. That’s what came to me this morning
as I wrote my chapter, “Opening the Door
to My Soul,” my active imagination discourse
with my inner guiding principle, which came
to me this morning in the guise of my mentor
Carl Gustav Jung. But it takes courage
to walk away from what we no longer believe,
and even more fortitude to seek another
belief system that will give our life more purpose
and meaning. This is what my oracle wanted
me to convey to take the oppressing dismay
out of this covid pandemic that has interrupted
our life like a tornado from hell.
This Need for More
Is it enough to fill one’s life
with the activities of daily living
to give one enough meaning
to go on living? And if not, how
much living does one have to
do to fill the hole in one’s soul
with wholeness? Must one endure
this need for more and leave
this world wanting? Another
round of golf, another cruise,
another fortune; how much life
does one need to satisfy this
need for more?
A Simple Gnosis
I’ve read all the books,
explored all the teachings,
and lived my life in full,
and I’m left with nothing
but a humble truth: not
a new religion, philosophy,
or radical way of living,
just a simple gnosis that
this life is all we have; but
what a life it is, when we
know who we are, and
our reason for being.
Ersatz Virtue
When I slipped on my work jeans
the other morning to do some leafing
and taping and sanding to finish off
the rest of our garage, my right foot got
caught in the frayed tear of the worn
knee and ripped a bigger hole, making
my jeans look more like the fashionable
denims that are distressed and fatigued
at designer jean factories to imbue them
with ersatz virtue that can only be earned
by genuine effort and honest labor, and
which sell for ten times more than what I
paid for my old reliable blue jeans that I
distressed and fatigued working my trade
of drywall taping and painting old and
new homes here in Tiny Beaches, in
beautiful Georgian Bay, Ontario.
A Long Way to Go Yet
I invested a lot of time and energy
reading his books and listening to his
podcasts and interviews and writing my
own book One Rule to Live By: Be Good,
inspired by his bestseller 12 Rules for Life:
An Antidote to Chaos, but the questing
psychology professor no longer called
to me; not because he stopped being one
of the most fascinating intellectuals
of the 21th Century, but because he had
given up his secret and had nothing more
to say to me but novel iterations of the
same wisdom, following his successful
bestseller with the hopeful sequel Beyond
Order: 12 More Rules for Life. But I
refused to admit it, until something Jung
said reminded me of how he lost interest
in people when he discovered the secret
that made them who they were, the divine
mystery of soul-making essential to his
psychology of individuation, a secret so
sacred that it led him to say, in a moment
of exasperation, “Thank God I am Jung,
and not a Jungian!” And I moved on from
the mentoring professor, knowing full well
that as far as his heroic path had taken
him, he had a long way to go yet.
A Bloomian Whimsy
Professor Bloom is back from
the dead, the Promethean critic who
did not believe in life after death,
his last kick at the can, a posthumous
book that does its best to prove the
savior Jesus wrong, and all the prophets
of redemption—Take Arms Against
a Sea of Troubles: The Power of
the Reader’s Mind Over a Universe
of Death—a man possessed by the
spirit of nihilism that refused to set
him free from an incomparable genius
“edged by nothingness,”a man whose
Faustian longing for more life always
moved me to tears, but hearing his
voice once more from his place over
there, I despaired the ironic echo
of his hero Hamlet’s last words, “The
rest is silence,” a Bloomian whimsy
much too tragic for tears.
The Big Rock
Brenda was on her coffee break, and Cathy and Cindy
we’re shocked by Christine’s profane outburst. An old-fashioned Roman Catholic,
who still harbored the illusion that her religion was the only true religion
and the Pope the infallible spokesman of God, it was out of character for her
to display such outrage; but she couldn’t help herself.
All Brenda did was show the girls her new diamond
ring. But this simple gesture, in the context of the deep emotional
undercurrent of office personalities, was enough
to set Christine off— “As if that big rock is
going to change anything! It’s not, you know! She’s still going to treat Gordy
like a piece of shit! That’s no way to treat your husband! No wonder he goes on
those big benders! She drives him to drink!”
Cathy laughed, and so did Cindy. They had never seen
Christine so upset. Her face was so red it looked like a chilly pepper.
Gordy Henderson, a grossly overweight elementary school
teacher who took an early retirement at fifty-five and Brenda’s husband of
twenty-seven years, had just called the office at the St. Jude Memorial
District Hospital. It was his second call that morning.
The first call Christine, whose job was to mind the
switchboard, picked up and switched him to his wife Brenda; but Christine was
on her coffee break when Gordy called the second time, and Cathy answered:
“Good morning. St. Jude Hospital. How can I help you?”
“Is that you Cathy?”
“Yes.”
“This is Gordy.
“Oh, hi Gordy. How are you today?”
“Fine, thank you.”
“That’s good. I’ll put Brenda on—”
“No,” Gordy
quickly said. “I don’t want to talk to her. I want to ask you something.”
“What?” Cathy asked, curious by the sound of his
voice.
There was a long, uncomfortable pause. “So, what do
you think of Brenda’s new ring?” Gordy finally said, sounding like he was
confessing to an indiscretion.
Taken aback, Cathy didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t
noticed Brenda’s new ring. No one in the office had, despite the fact that she
had worn it for the past three days. She had even taken off all of her other
rings for her new diamond to stand out. Cathy stammered, “Oh, does Brenda have
a new ring?”
“Yes. I bought it for her last week,” Gordy said, apologetically.
“She never said anything.” Cathy replied, glancing at
Brenda.
“Well, look; don’t tell her I called,” Gordy said; but
Cathy could tell that Brenda knew it was her husband on the phone. In fact, she
sensed that they had set it up during his call earlier; but she played along.
“Okay, if that’s what you want,” she said.
“Yeah, I don’t want Brenda to know I called,” Gordy
added
“Okay,” Cathy said, with another glance at Brenda.
“Thanks Cathy. So, I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Brenda pretended to be working, but Cathy knew she was
listening. “Bye,” she said, and hung up the phone and went back to work.
Later, when Christine returned from her coffee break,
Cathy made like she needed something from the filing cabinet next to Brenda’s
desk. “Brenda, do you have that invoice for McAllen? I can’t find it,” she
said, flipping through another folder.
“I’ve got it here,” Brenda said.
“Oh good. I need it,” Cathy said, knowing she had it.
Brenda picked it up and handed it to her with her new
diamond ring hand.
“Brenda, is that a new ring?” Cathy asked.
“Oh, that thing? Gordy got it for me last week.”
“And you never said anything?”
“No. Why should I?”
“My God, it’s beautiful! Hey girls, come and take a
look at Brenda’s new ring!”
Brenda’s face lit up. In a mock display of movie star
glamor, she flashed her hand for the girls to see her new big diamond ring.
“Wow! That must have cost a fortune!” Cindy exclaimed.
“I’m worth it,” Brenda said, like the woman in the L’Oreal commercial.
“Where are your other rings?” Christine asked, her
brow furling.
“I left them at home,” Brenda said, with a casual shrug.
“I never take my wedding rings off. Just when I’m
washing dishes,” Christine replied.
“I don’t do dishes,” Brenda said, in that same pseudo
voice that mimicked the woman in the L’Oreal commercial.
“Humph,” Christine
huffed, and returned to her desk and put her head down and pretended to be
busy. A few minutes later, Brenda went for her coffee break; and when she was
out of the office, Christine lost her cool—
“Who in the fuck is she trying to fool? They don’t even sleep together!”
But Brenda was petty that way. One Christmas, I gave
Cathy a new watch. It was an Alfred Sung,
with a locking gold bracelet band with a black stripe running through it, very
striking and original, and the girls loved it so much that Brenda hunted all
over the city until she found an Alfred
Sung watch just like Cathy’s, but she never wore it to the office.
One day, however, she forgot herself and wore it to
work. Cathy noticed it. “Brenda, you have a watch just like mine—”
Brenda’s face flushed red. “Oh, that? I got that a
long time ago,” she stammered.
“You had to go out and buy one just like mine, didn’t
you?” Cathy said.
“Gordy bought it for me,” Brenda stammered again. “I
mentioned to him how I liked your watch, and the next thing you know, he bought
this for me. I had nothing to do with it. I swear—”
She could have sworn on a stack of bibles for all
Cathy cared, she knew Brenda was lying. “Well I don’t care,” Cathy said. “I’m
not going to stop wearing mine.”
But Christine’s disgust was more personal. She
resented the way Brenda treated her husband. Marriage was sacred to Christine.
That’s why her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary meant so much to her. Her
husband had recently booked a weekend at the Blue Dolphin Inn on the
north shore of Lake Superior just across the border in Minnesota for their silver
wedding anniversary, and Christine couldn’t stop talking about it—
“It was so romantic. We had a room with a window
overlooking the lake, and we signed the guest book and had a candlelight
dinner—”
“No wonder my marriage failed,” Cindy mocked, putting
her hand to her heart. “I didn’t have a window overlooking the lake, and we
didn’t sign the guest book—”
Cindy was single again. She had left her husband for
good this time, and to prove it she went back to her maiden name; but Brenda
didn’t have the courage to leave her husband, despite how much more miserable she
was in her marriage than Cindy, and she made Gordy’s life hell. Sometimes she
didn’t speak to him for months at a time, which only drove him to drink more,
locking himself in the basement for days at a time and only going out for more booze;
but her nasty behavior spilled over into the office…
When Cathy beat Brenda out of the office Lead Hand
position, Brenda refused to speak to her for five weeks. She only spoke to her
if it was work related. Otherwise, it was the same stony silence that she gave
to her husband.
“How long are you going to keep this up?” Cathy asked
her one day, when she bumped into her at the lobby in the post office and
Brenda deliberately snubbed her.
“Until I’m good and ready,” she icily replied; and
taking the mail out of her mail box, she strutted out of the post office lobby.
Brenda was slighted by Cathy’s promotion. She had been
given the Lead Hand position by the new CEO, expecting no one to challenge his
decision; but Cathy did.
“This position has to be posted,” she told Colin, the
new CEO. “Brenda can have it for six months, that’s what the union allows; but I’m
going to grieve it if you don’t post it after six months.” And when the
position did get posted, it was tailor-worded for Brenda to get the position;
but Cathy had more seniority, and she was equally qualified. So, Colin had no
choice; he had to award it to Cathy to avoid a union grievance.
But try as she may, Brenda could only suffer the
burden of her grudge for so long, and she finally broke her silence; but it was
Brenda at her petty best—
“Oh, I see somebody’s been shopping,” she’d say, when
Cathy walked into the office with something new. “It must be nice to have money
to spend on new clothes,” implying that she would also afford new outfits if
she had been given a raise like Cathy; but it was only a dollar an hour more,
and Brenda was just being spiteful.
But she felt she had good reason to be spiteful. Her
position used to be management (general ledger clerk and office manager)
before Cathy was hired on at the St. Jude Memorial District Hospital as
a cost analyst accountant—a position that never materialized because of office
restructuring that made Brenda’s management position bargaining unit work which,
to her bitter disappointment, forced her wages to be reduced to what the union
allowed for that type of work—a drop of three dollars and twenty cents an hour.
Brenda felt cheated by Cathy, who had five weeks more
seniority than her because Brenda’s management position was restructured after
Cathy was hired for a position that never came about because of office
restructuring; but Brenda could have applied for the cost analyst accountant’s
position,” Cathy explained to me. “She felt threatened by that job, that’s why
she didn’t apply for it. She suspected that management was trying to get rid of
her, which they could have if she got the cost analyst’s job because it wasn’t
a union position; so, she has no reason to feel that I cheated her. It just so
happens that the cost analyst accountant’s position never came about because of
the restructuring, but I had nothing to do with that.”
So, the new Lead Hand position meant more to Brenda
than the simple one dollar an hour raise; it meant that she could get her
authority back in the office.
Brenda had worked at the St. Jude Memorial District
Hospital for nineteen years, much longer than Cathy; but because all those
years were management, her seniority meant nothing when the new CEO, who was Director
of Financing, cleverly restructured her position to bargaining unit work; but
try as she may, Cathy could not get Brenda to see that she hadn’t cheated her.
She was simply going by union rules, so she stopped trying.
I was flabbergasted. “To think she would get her
husband to call just so you girls would notice her new ring,” I said to Cathy,
when she related the incident over dinner that evening. “She can’t be that
desperate for attention, can she?”
“She must be. But that’s just her karma coming back to
her, that’s all it is.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Brenda never gives compliments. Never. Anytime one of
us comes into work with something new, she never says anything. All she says is
her annoying little ‘Ummm.’ And now she wanted her big rock to be noticed. But
no one did. That’s karma.”
“The civil servant mentality never ceases to amuse
me,” I said, and laughed.
“Hey, I’m a civil servant too!” Cathy said to me, in mock defense.
“Yes, you are; but your values are different. And
believe me, sweetheart; that sets you apart from the self-serving ethic of the
civil servant mentality.”
“Thank you for clearing that up for me,” she said, and
laughed again. Cathy hated being labelled a civil servant. She had witnessed
too many occasions of flagrant abuse at the hospital to be defined by the
self-serving ethic of the civil service mentality, especially management; but
just to keep her on her moral toes, I teased her every now and then.
“It’s not like she didn’t try to get her ring
noticed,” Cathy said, reflecting on Brenda’s behavior. “I couldn’t understand
why she was making such a big fuss over her mood watch the other day, but it
all makes sense now.”
“Mood watch? What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s supposed to show the color of your emotions, or
something like that. Anyway, Brenda came over to my desk the other day and put
her wrist in front of my face and asked me what color her mood watch had turned,
but that was just a ploy to get me to notice her new diamond ring; but I
didn’t. Honest, it just didn’t register; and that must have really got to her.
That’s why I think her and Gordy set me up.”
“With the phone call?”
“Yes. I think she got Gordy to ask me if I had noticed
her new ring.”
“Unbelievable. Can people be that small?”
“You wouldn’t believe how small they can be up there.”
“Brenda can’t be that desperate for attention, can
she?”
“There’s no love left in her marriage. But she
pretends there’s nothing wrong. That’s what makes it so sad. I feel sorry for
her. I really do.”
“Why? She makes her own choices, let her live by
them.”
“I know, but it’s so petty,” Cathy said, perplexed by
Brenda’s behavior.
“Look, Cathy; it’s not complicated,” I replied. “Brenda
envies you. You have a life, and she doesn’t. That’s what bothers her.”
“I know. It bothered her when I lost twenty-four
pounds with Weight-Watchers in six months while she’s still trying to lose
weight with TOPS, and she’s been in TOPS for twenty years. And it bothers her
whenever I come in with a new outfit. But what really bothered her this time was
my new emerald ring. I’m not bragging, but everyone at the hospital just loved
it, and Brenda couldn’t stand it. She must have told Gordy, that’s why he
bought her that big rock. Christine’s right; she didn’t’ need a new diamond.
But can you imagine going home every night for three days and telling Gordy that
no one had even noticed it? That’s why she had him call to ask me about it. She
couldn’t stand it any longer.”
“I can just picture it. Brenda walks thought the door,
and Gordy says, ‘So, how did they like your new ring?’ Brenda would be so
pissed off that she’d blame Gordy for not buying her a bigger rock and then
make him cook his own dinner.”
“Again,” Cathy said,
and laughed.
But it wasn’t Cathy’s new emerald ring (and
matching necklace that she wore to work now and then) that bothered Brenda;
it was the love that imbued the gemstone.
“So,” Cindy said to Cathy, all excited. “Is that your
engagement ring?”
I had taken Cathy to Duluth for her fiftieth birthday
the previous weekend, and I finally asked her to marry me; but we decided to
keep it secret, so Cathy replied, “It’s a birthstone ring, not an engagement
ring.”
“But it’s on your engagement ring finger!” Cindy exclaimed.
“It’s my coming-of-age ring,” Cathy calmly replied. “I
turned fifty, and Oriano wanted it to be a special day for me; that’s all.”
“No, it’s not! It’s an engagement ring, I
know it is!”
“It’s a coming-of-age ring, Cindy; so, don’t try to
make anything more of it.”
All the girls were waiting for Cathy to come back from
Duluth. They thought for sure I would propose this time, because she was
turning fifty. Whenever Cathy and I went away, especially on our yearly leafing
getaways, Cindy or one of the girls in the office would ask if I had popped the
question yet, but when Cathy wriggled out of it this time by telling them it
was a coming-of-age ring, it excited their curiosity all the more, and Brenda
couldn’t stand for Cathy to get all of that attention.
“That’s ridiculous!” Christine exclaimed, letting it all out. “Spending that kind of money
on another ring! She’s got more rings than Carter’s got pills! They could have
gone on a real nice holiday and enjoyed themselves! But not her! No way!
She has to have another big fancy diamond to show off! No wonder her daughter
can’t keep a relationship—”
For Christine, a diamond meant forever, and Brenda’s
pretentious display of Gordy’s affection pushed the wrong button, and she
continued to rant— “If I was Gordy, I would have left her the moment I found
out she was screwing around! She’s got no ethics at all! And she pretends to be
such a good Christian! ‘Oh, I’ve got
choir practice tonight.’ Choir
practice, my ass! She was screwing his principal, and everyone in town knew
it!”
“Christine, get a grip,” Cindy said. “You’re going to
drive yourself back to the other side if you let her get to you.”
Cathy smiled. Cindy was referring to Christine’s
breakdown, which Doctor Jamie diagnosed as Postpartum Depression that kept her
in a hospital bed for three weeks.
“I don’t care! She’s just a big phony, and she’s not
fooling anyone around here!”
“Calm down, Christine,” Cathy repeated.
“Why? Why should I?”
Christine replied.
“Because your face is all red. Your blood pressure
must be going through the roof.”
“Is it? Is my face all red?” she asked, her brow
furling.
“Like a lobster,” Cindy said.
“Well, someone had to say it. She makes me so sick
sometimes—”
Only four people worked in the office, Cathy, Brenda,
Cindy, and Christine, and one would think they would all get along, and they did;
but not really.
Colin Hamilton, who was the Director of Finances
before he became the new Hospital Administrator (the old CEO had taken an
early retirement with two years full pay and a twenty-thousand-dollar buy-out,
leaving him free to double dip as temporary administrator for the hospital in
the northern community of Sioux Lookout, an egregious example of civil service
ethics that drove independent workers like myself insane), can’t make a
decision and stick to it, because he wants to please everyone; consequently,
everyone is left frustrated, like Colin’s inability to deal with what everyone
referred to as “the Christine situation.”
After her breakdown, everyone tiptoed around Christine,
making sure not to push her over the edge again; but the girls in the office
finally decided that if she couldn’t do her job, she shouldn’t be there,
because all the extra work from the fund-raising department had to be absorbed
by them because after the office restructuring they had eliminated that
position, which meant that Christine had to help out. But Colin didn’t want to stress
Christine with more work, and he let her off the hook. In her job as
receptionist and switchboard operator, she had more than ample time to help the
other girls out, especially during audit and year-end, but she refused to offer
a hand, and she always got away with it.
It was flagrant favoritism, and the other girls
resented it. So much so that Cindy, who was normally very timid when it came to
speaking up about her job, lost it with the overload of extra work, especially
when they dumped fundraising onto them—
“And don’t give me that nonsense about no money in the
budget!” she blew up at Colin. “If you really wanted to save money, you’d cut
Christine’s job! Job! What job? It’s a goddamn joke! She doesn’t
do a damn thing out there! All she does is write up a few receipts and answer
the phone, and she doesn’t even do that half the time! It’s not fair Colin, and
you know it! She’s getting away with murder out there!”
Shocked by Cindy’s outrage, Colin didn’t know what to
say. Finally, he told Cindy that he would have a talk with Christine and ask
her to help out with the extra workload; but, as usual, he waffled and never
said anything to her.
“I’ll bet he wouldn’t treat her like that if they
didn’t go to the same church,” Cindy said to Cathy one day when Christine was
on her coffee break.
“It’s the Catholic connection,” Cathy said, and
laughed.
“Well, I can’t keep up this extra work load,” Cindy
said, with a determined look on her face. “I’m just going to go on sick leave
and see how he likes it!”
And Cindy did go on sick leave. She used the excuse
that the stress of her marriage breakup was too much for her, and Doctor Jamie
gave her sick time, so she was off work all summer and Colin had to hire a temp
until Cindy returned; but when she returned, nothing had changed. Christine
still refused to help out with the extra workload.
“That’s why Christine blew up, you know,” Cindy said to
Cathy. “She’s just as big a phony as Brenda. Even bigger. She sits there all
day pretending to be busy when we all know she’s not doing a goddamn thing.
It’s a joke. Her job’s a big fucking joke! I mean, how long does it take to write
up half a dozen receipts? One hour?”
“If that,” Cathy said. smiling.
“Yeah, right!” Cindy replied.
“She’s got a big skunk on her conscience, Cindy,”
Cathy said. “That’s why she lost it when she saw Brenda’s new diamond ring.”
“Yeah; maybe, eh? I couldn’t figure out why she got so
mad. I mean, she really lost it,” Cindy said. “I thought for sure she was headed
for the other side—"
Cathy laughed, but as unresolved as it was, the girls
managed to live with “the Christine situation.” But that didn’t bother
Cathy as much as Brenda’s work ethic.
Unable to come to terms with Cathy’s promotion to Lead
Hand, Brenda did everything she could to sabotage Cathy’s job—withholding
information; or giving Cathy just enough information for her to complete some
work but which would all have to be redone when Brenda gave her the rest of the
information that she was deliberately holding back. That finally got to Cathy,
and one day she confronted her—
“I’m not playing games with you, Brenda. If you continue
to withhold information from me, I’m going to Colin—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Go to Colin.
You’ve got nothing on me.”
“We’ll see about that,” Cathy said; but she couldn’t
bring herself to lodge a complaint about Brenda’s sabotaging behavior, she
wanted to work it out between them. “But she won’t change,” she confessed to me
over dinner at the Mosport Inn (a quaint old inn on the shores of Lake
Superior half an hour’s drive from St. Jude). “She’s too stubborn to
change.”
“That’s sad,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“I know. And it’s so damn frustrating. But what can I
do?”
“Grin and bear it, I guess,” I said.
“I’m going to lose it one of these days,” Cathy said.
“Sweetheart, do your job as best you can and let the universe
take care of the rest. You know how karma works, don’t you?”
“What else can I do? But it’s so damn petty. I mean,
can you imagine having her husband call and ask me if I had seen her new ring?
My God, if I ever become that small and desperate for attention, I want you to
tell me.”
“Are you out of your mind? You’re so
thin-skinned that if I ever hinted at anything like that you wouldn’t speak to
me for months. No thank you, dear; you can work out your own karmic
relationship with her. I don’t want that responsibility.”
Cathy knew only too well what I meant, and didn’t respond;
and after a moment’s silence, we continued with our Trout Hemingway
dinner.
——
