EDIT: LIFE…

EDIT:  LIFE. ERROR.

Due to a recent editing error in Friday’s Review stating the gallery was slated for an April opening,  the article should have instead read:  April closing. Lively yet wrong speculation over this now closing event begat rumour-mill drivel.  I apologise for any circumstance in or beyond my control this may have caused. Even though I tried to make this closing  event not about me, it became as such. To the point: My Reader would like me to… move on.

Abbreviated version:  my job is moving to another location. Actually, another state.

Additional  abbreviated version: My job is moving. I am not.

I have been pathetically confused and lost. Honestly?  Mostly pathetic.

I find myself sitting at the breakfast table well into the noon hour still wearing pajamas instead of my sleek and snappy three-inch Franco Sartos tucked neatly underneath my computer desk in my stylish art gallery.  It has been several slogging month-long,  pajama wearing afternoons coming to terms with (dare I say it?)…retirement, she whispered through pursed lips.

Three years ago, at the younger age of sixty-two, I drew the blinds and locked my dressmaking studio doors for the last time. My small dressmaking business became [yet] another victim of an unforgiving and devastated US economy. My handmade products were caught in the shipping lanes between here and all foreign out-of-country ports selling garments/wearing apparel for women and children.

Not one to wallow in a broken-hearted stupor for longer than necessary, and finding that swearing was actually cheap and beneficial to no one except myself…My Reader once again encouraged and harangued  me to…move on.  Very quickly I found another job as a research assistant to owners of  an art gallery within walking distance of my flat.

My job: research signature authenticity, provide provenance, explore unknown artists for historical information, and correspond with major museums and historical societies throughout the United States. I answered the phone. And, yes…got the coffee. My master’s degree is in art education. I’m an artist. This was a perfect job. Yes, it was I confess, all about me and my life-long passion for all things about, to and for…ART.

This was such a perfect job…I worked for free. Yes, River City residents, again I confess, I volunteered. My bosses were absolutely the toot’s potatoes and going to work was a joy. The job had purpose. So did I. It was educational. I was swept up in an artistic vortex. My mingling amongst those who extrapolate their view and then transpose it into something new and different was not unlike an emotional experience of falling…up. It was THE perfect fit.

Consider me…fortunate.

 

EDIT: LIFE. OPPORTUNITY

 

What this means, I say, is a younger-old life staring at me square in the face.

 And again this is what I see: opportunity.

 Again a confession: It took a wee-while to get to this place.

I can now look in the mirror and see my view not only for what it is but, and better still,  for what I can make of it.

Yes, consider me…fortunate.

 Very.