Thank You Synchronicity
The synchronicity of things never ceases to amaze me.
For months I put off writing a short newspaper article about famous local author GH to help Britt with the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival. After a final push last week, the work was done and it ran in this week’s paper on page two…Page two, the other side of which is page twelve where an article announcing an education scholarship for residents of my county pursuing a higher education degree in the arts was posted. I called the local arts council to confirm and learned that not a single person has applied yet for the $1,000 scholarship. Applications are due in two weeks and I completed a draft this morning.
After weeks of waiting, today I get a reply from the MFA office confirming that I will be offered health insurance at a student rate of $765 per year, saving me over $1,300 annually in such costs. The coverage begins June 1 and is chargeable under my federal student loans.
And furthermore, after months of waiting to negotiate my position at the Montessori school next year, and just when I am ready to give up in exasperation over unskilled negotiating tactics, Jill calls to tell me the local arts council is looking for a web page writer and someone who can write profiles about local artists. In other words, a part-time job for something slightly akin to the freelance work I already do – but with security and local contacts. This same organization also offers brief residencies for teachers who can do literary related workshops in the public schools. Although I’m not ready to leave the kids I love at Montessori behind, it makes the negotiating process a little less scary because I know there are other options out there.
For all my fretting and talk about money issues, this ought to be enough to hush me up for a while. Everything is lining up and with grad school less than a month away, it finally feels so right that I did not defer until January. Sixty pages left to go in the Jack Driscoll novel, then onto the next faculty author.
