So, I finally asked Charlie--for his vote to graduate, I mean.
Putting it off wasn't entirely emotional, I should explain. Yes, I was dragging my feet because I don't want to face my studenthood actually being over, but I had a few things to wrap up, too. There was the poetry book, for one thing. Charlie and I finally finalized the content--which poems, and which versions of the poems to include--about two months ago. It's 365 Elizabethan sonnets, all about a single spot in the woods near campus, roughly organized to depict a full year (although I actually wrote them over the course of more than two years), plus eight pen and ink illustrations and a full-color cover illustration that I also did. I've spent the last two months in a publication process, of sorts, and I've just this week finished.
Charlie and I had discussed my options, whether I ought to seek a traditional publisher, self-publish, or what. Finally Charlie advised me to not only self-publish, but to format and bind the book myself, and not put a lot of energy into selling it. Reason being, he says poetry is difficult to sell, and since the point of the project was art, not business, I could get more out of learning formatting and binding than by struggling through trying to sell my book to a publisher. I can always attempt formal publication later.
So, now I've made eight hand-bound copies, one for each of the Six, one for the school library, and one for me. I've always kind of wondered how the masters get such nice stuff--their furniture, I remember from my days on the janitorial team, is a collection of artwork--and I guess this is part of why; people, mostly students, give them things. I have no immediate plans to have it professionally printed, but I have started posting poems on social media and sharing the poems at local poetry readings off-campus. And I plan to submit individual poems to literary journals and see how that goes.
Then there's my project studying the school itself, find out how it runs, who does what, and what the school looks like to people who aren't here. I just finished the last of the interviews I wanted to do last week and I'm in the process of formatting my report . When I'm done, I'll print and bind a copy for the school library of that too. It's been a fascinating project--no big surprises, but a lot of little ones. Turns out, the school requires the labor of at least three times as many people as I'd thought it did, most of them allies working for free part-time. The whole thing is also a lot more prosaic and ad-hoc than I'd thought. This place is not run by mysteriously well-organized elves but by human beings who are mostly barely organized at all--that it works, and has worked consistently now for almost thirty years, is magic, but not the same kind as I'd expected.
And finally there's the issue of how all this fits into some kind of...I guess you could call it a ministry, if I don't get hired by the school, which logic suggests I probably won't, given that there aren't any anticipated openings and there about 75 qualified applicants in line ahead of me anyway. This one was hard. I mean, on some level, I've bee feeling and thinking and acting as though I will be hired, and so has everyone else. But what if I'm not?
I have several sources of income lined up, but they're not thematically related--they don't form a whole. They don't even form a career.
Finally, I admitted that my ministry is here. My mastery is here. Whatever magic I possess consists of my willingness and ability to serve a community--this community--in whatever capacity they need me.
So, this morning I said all this to Charlie. I got a bit long-winded, I think, and I started repeating myself. Finally, Charlie interrupted me.
"Daniel, I believe you have a question for me?"
And so I said it.
"Charlie, do I have your approval to get my green ring?"
"Yes," he said. "Because you have yours. I have come to trust you, Daniel."
And I felt like weeping, I really did.
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