Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Spit out of the beast - 1/13/05

Flux, the core element of change, a term used to refer to an agent added to a glaze recipe to enhance the violent magic that occurs in a glowing kiln as it reaches temperature, to facilitate the melting, which, in a process called quartz inversion, achieves carefully colored glass fused with rock-solid clay, impervious, making something tangible and permanent, what we still have from early civilizations. Something beautiful, initially untouchable, is spit out of the shining white-hot beast. My life has been in flux, in an intense period of change. As the earth shudders, knocked off kilter by quakes and waves felt in every inch of every ocean, just doing what she does, complex organic being that she is, I continue to crawl out of a surprising escape from what had been my life, and seem to be the only member of my immediate circle who is calm and optimistic and grateful. It is hard to describe how interruptive it is to invent something, at least if it has significant commercial value. When I look at the destructive havoc my husband’s invention brought into our lives, it is staggering. In retrospect, my enthusiasm for the project probably prolonged the cohabitation phase of our marriage, but at this moment, I don’t regret trying. I can’t say that’s always true. In retrospect, we should have taken the very first offer of purchase for the portfolio, so many years ago, although, if we had done so, I would never have learned all these things about intellectual property and contracts, promotion law and privacy laws related to information technology, offline to online media integration and customer relationship management. If we had done so, we wouldn’t have experienced this trauma and might still be living together. I continue to look for a job. My search is, at best, eclectic. I’ve come close to something juicy once, and there are at least two viable opportunities in progress. At least one person in my inner circle is in some way opposed to each possibility I consider. They are a diverse lot, my inner circle, and each has their own strong opinion of what I’ve done wrong and what I should do next. Every possible scenario has intimate opposition and my resolve to be alone, solidifies. My children are wonderful, and somehow, the two oldest boys are back at their respective colleges, stabilized. I am forever grateful to those who made this possible, including the financial aid staffers at both universities. Mostly, I am just grateful to have escaped. A long-smoldering fire finally reached temperature, and, in a moment of violent rebirth, miraculously, I was spit out of the beast.

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