Saguaro Wanderings: Seeing 2010 (#54)

For your consideration: notes on the strange duality of bittersweet outcomes.

After several months edgily awaiting news of California's budget axe wreckage, today the blow was delivered -- and how sublimely ironic that it fell on April 15th (not only Tax Day, but also the anniversary of the Titanic's sinking). A cruel bit of timing employed by the Powers That Be.

Relief, of course, at this: I escaped the worst-case scenario of being laid-off, a particularly bleak outcome for others not so fortunate. That would have been truly horrid news.

However, deep grief -- and yes, anger: come July 1, 2010, I shall be ousted from my cherished, beloved, nurturing and fulfilling position with the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., library, shuffled to another IT department elsewhere on campus. The final destination has yet to be determined (or so I've been told). Easily the best job I've had during the long course of my career, knowing that the decision to eliminate my position and thus force a reassignment utterly ignored any sane criteria with respect to performance, institutional knowledge, team chemistry or any other facet of common business sense, is acutely frustrating and bleakly disappointing. Making a significantly positive and visible impact here, and having earned the respect of my professional peers and (large) end-user community -- all for naught -- is a hard reality to swallow.

There are several facets of losing this particular job which I will grieve; the deepest sadness arises from the inevitable dimming of the daily interactions with quite a few people, an aspect of my work which has been a source of tremendous pleasure . . .

Nonetheless, for some time now I've been blessed to be traveling a spiritual path which teaches me that Impermanence is a core reality of life, and the degree to which I resist accepting this truth is the measure of my attendant pain. Even as one aspect of my life's journey draws to a close another will simultaneously begin. Therein rests the possibility of yet more positive growth, joy and revelation.

Thus, these two photographs.

The first: a meeting room on the fifth floor of the library, in the Special Collections area. I've long loved its airiness, light and solitude; it is a good space in which to meditate. This composition reflects the emptiness and sterility which describes my feelings about the impending forced exile from this wonderful building and the friends who I'll miss.

The second: a decidedly different setting, cool, inviting, and flourishing with life and its accompanying possibilities. Between parted curtains of darkness, an optimistic view of what may yet await at my next station on campus. More will be revealed.

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