The Art of Good Timing

I don't know if there is a Grand Plan carried out by some chess-playing God who nudges my knight just so, that I might have another good move or two before someone topples my queen.  But I do know that, at times, timing really is everything, and that those times often feel benevolently directed by some sort of Grandmaster Flash.

It's kind of embarrassing, however, to assume that an almighty god would pencil in "5 minutes with Jane" on Tuesday at 6.  As though my tiny life is worth the attention.

How, then, to explain when things fall into place?

Maybe explanation is the wrong approach.  Maybe the right approach is gratitude.  Gratitude, for example, that my friend Roxi--East's recently retired (and audaciously awesome) full-time librarian--longed more to be a grandmother than a school employee last spring.

And why am I so grateful that she made such a decision?

Soap opera fans will be disappointed to know that my happiness has nothing to do with some seedy, Dewey-laced drama burbling between the two of us.  See, I'm quite fond of Roxi.  Rather, my gratitude--which took nearly a year to surface--is framed by realities that have emerged outside of the hallowed walls of East High's library.  Namely, the death and demise of too many good folks in my life.

A couple of weeks ago, a time when, historically, my blood pressure would begin rising and my fingernails  begin shrinking in direct correlation to yearbook deadlines and distribution, I realized that I probably would not have survived this school year had I not swapped my "journalism" moniker for "full-time school librarian."  The absence of said deadlines made space in my heart and brain for other, more intimate challenges.

This revelation--that Roxi had rescued me by focusing on her grandchildren rather than on our school's fiction collection--nearly took my breath away.  Especially when I think about how much joy my library job has brought me this year.  Joy wrapped up in the good folks who work beside me, in the blind embrace of new things, in the certainty of satisfying collaborations.  Truly, it has been a sparkly year for me in Room 126.  Bump-filled, to be sure.  But mighty good, too.

For a lifelong fence walker, my timing for finally committing to just one side of that fence has proved significant.  Whether Roxi and God had been working up this plan last spring, knowing I needed just such a year?  Well, it's not for me to say.

I'll stick, instead, with an attitude of gratitude, grateful for the timing and the happy space that it has provided.