News

I didn't get in.  Motif: Résultats insuffisants en langue française

The story is not going how I want it to, and the enterprise I've thrown all my tangible resources at is not panning out. For every fabulous dream that 'magically' becomes real, there are a hundred stories that end like this.

I feel a little numb, and I haven't been able to tell anyone yet, but soon I will have to. I want to be able to be calm when I do it, because I've found that grown people aren't much different from small children in that way: their reactions to novel pieces of stimuli, including information, are very often modulated by the spirit in which that stimuli is presented. If I can remain calm, respond reasonably, proactively, positively, these attributes will be mirrored in what surrounds me, and in that space between people where invisible things intermingle, they will become real. Sigh. Sigh, sigh, sigh. But do not cry.

On my way to pick up my aunt for lunch today, just after I'd found out, I drove past a marquee sign at an auto-body shop bearing the reminder: “Don't think only of your own life.” Timely, I thought. But then again, it's 'timeliness' depended on my doing exactly that which it advised against. It's true though. This thing, this errance of the path I've been drawing up for myself does not hurt anyone else the way it hurts me. My disappointment is mine. I think that's why I can't justify crying. I will feel this. And soon, it will stop, and I will go on.

Funny, I was thinking about the sensitive plant, Mimosa pudica, this morning before I got the news. My friend introduced me to this plant a few months ago, the day, in fact, that I took the language exam that now stands as a barricade to my dream. The Wikipedia entry for the plant is as follows:

Mimosa pudica (from Latin: pudica "shy, bashful or shrinking"; also called Sensitive Plant and the touch-me-not), is a creeping annual or perennial herb often grown for its curiosity value: the compound leaves fold inward and droop when touched or shaken, re-opening minutes later.

People are generally amazed by this plant's strange, very tangible, self-protective tendency. This morning, though, I found myself reflecting on something else about it. What is actually most amazing to me about this plant, and the reason I love it, is the last part, the part that is almost an afterthought in its description. The part where it re-opens minutes later. Over and over and over again. The grace and courage to live like this, to put forth the concerted effort to protect what is sacred and delicate in one's self, and then, when it is safe to do so, offer it to the world- over and over and over again- is quite simply the most beautiful thing in the world to me, and what I aspire to.

I am not giving up on this dream. Failure always shakes me, and this wasn't the way I wanted things to happen right now. But this dream is still the one nourishing the most inner part of who I am, and in the quiet of my heart, in the place where I retreat when my leaves are folded inward, there is no question that I will continue to seek it.

Sigh. Open. Onward.