parallelism

A week ago I watched that old classic The Holiday with my fam, and throughout the movie Asha kept pointing out moments of parallelism: Most notably when Cameron Diaz ends up in a car with a sexy man, looking at him in the driver's seat, for the second time. The significance of this moment is the second man is different from the first man, and her relationship with him is portrayed far more positively than her relationship with the man from the first five minutes of the movie.

I got to thinking about this in a different context this week, when Jason brought me a copy of this month's In Wilmington. It features the annual Wilmington Fringe Festival, coming up I think in 2 weeks.

I first arrived in Wilmington about a year and three weeks ago, just to refresh your memory; so we're entering the second lap in a race of ambiguous meterage. Some of you may recall that I spent three weeks after my arrival frantically searching for a job, so as not to lose momentum and get stuck wallowing around aimlessly in my parents' house.

You know what that means: This week marks my one-year anniversary at what has turned out to be the firm of my dreams. Exciting! And mildly terrifying. Stability is a coveted but elusive state and I'm never sure if I trust it. Maybe it's best not to, completely -- but I'll save that heavy metaphysical discussion for another day. Or just try not to have it.

Sidenote: Other anniversaries this week include the 11th anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, and 150 years after the bloody Battle of Antietam (September 8th). On a more vague and less death-oriented note, it's 5 years since I started college and my second fall not going back to school. Talking about parallelism, my "twin" sister is getting settled at St. Olaf instead this week, in Kittelsby (which you Oles can pick apart for layers of parallelism -- I lived in Kildahl first year), and starting classes. Things seem to be falling into a strange but somehow comfortable rhythm.

Back to the mag. Soon after I started working last September, I went to a networking event at World Cafe Live at the Queen. It just so happened to be the evening of Wilmington's Fringe Festival kickoff celebrations, held downstairs at the Queen and at other local venues. This was the first indication I had that Wilmington had an arts scene -- something I understand, something I can latch onto and use to build my nest in a place.

This also just so happened to be the evening I met Carly, who was the first person my age I met in Delaware and who also happened to be an anthropology major. We walked up to check out one of the Fringe Festival art exhibits and got to talking, and I remembered what it was like to be on the same page with somebody. It was something I had been craving. Talk about raining down hope for this new life.

So you can imagine the odd cocktail of feelings springing up as I take the magazine from Jason's outstretched hands: Surreal. Sad. It's bittersweet, knowing I've survived a year and knowing that Carly is now studying anthropology at McGill and may never come back to Delaware. And yet how far I've come since last September.

Last September I was doing some major vocational discernment (although to be honest, that hasn't really quit even now; actually working, and working at something I like, is teaching me an infinite amount more about myself than I could have possibly postulated). Last September I was figuring out who I was, as a woman and a daughter and a sister, figuring out what I wanted out of life and what I was willing to give in that barter system. Last September I was relieved that I hadn't met any "nice young men" yet, and that I had no clue where to go to meet one of those mythical creatures. Last September I was testing out my security net and the resilience and strength of the threads binding me to the people I had worked so hard to love, that suddenly needed to stretch cross country and learn to tie new kinds of knots.

Last September I was scared. Of almost everything.

I can't honestly say that has changed a whole lot, but I'm just now getting to a point where I can look my fear in the eyes and say, "Suck it. You're coming with me." And grabbing it by the hand and dragging it out where I can meet people and get into situations that are enriching for everyone in them.

To illustrate how much has changed, I shook hands with at least 6 new people yesterday, and exchanged email addresses with two. I finally found a writers' group! (Somehow I never thought to look at Facebook...?) I forced myself to brave the pouring rain yesterday afternoon to go to Jackson Inn, an incredibly sketchy-looking bar that turned out to be really lovely inside, even with broken air conditioning! I tried a very local pale ale that I actually really liked, from Twin Lakes Brewing Co. in Greenville. And there was an open mic, and it was fantastic, and I thought, Finally! HERE are my people! HERE is where I belong!

In other news, the weather today is gorgeous, the sun is hot but the air is cool in a fall-is-coming kind of way. I walked to the library, planting my feet on the streets of my new neighborhood, and managed to snag a computer for more than 15 minutes (though my time is running low by now). I made major strides in setting the kitchen in order yesterday, and I get to drink my tea every morning staring out the kitchen window into the jungly back garden, with roses and lovely purple morning-bloomers and fruit trees and flowers, and that unique September yellow sunshine slanting through the whole thing.

I'm more settled in at the new place than I was on Tuesday, but it's still a work in progress. I wonder if it ever ceases to be that. I wonder if I will ever stop marveling at the cycles and stages that roll out through my life. I wonder if the Fringe Festival will ever stop reminding me of Carly and of Tim Otte and Sean and James Doyle, and I wonder who else it will remind me of next year.