a coruscation of plan

The way is dark, the road is steep;

But He's become my eyes to see.

The strength to climb, my griefs to bear,

The Savior lives inside me there

~from "A Living Prayer"

I have been feeling as if the way is dark...dark with mystery. I like the dark just as I like mystery, but to continue trudging towards the unlit future is daunting indeed. I am used to living under the scrutiny of school's stage-light which floods its fluorescent rays over every thought and examines each, even those I should prefer to clean up before displaying. Intelligence and ignorance are illuminated alike, for in college there is no corner which the stage-light does not reach.

The future, in contrast, is dim. It's like my backyard at night: I'm pretty sure I know what's out there, for I've spent the day weeding and mulching and mowing and planting until I am familiar with its present components. But what if, during Apollo and Artemis's shift-change, the beds were rearranged? What if a vole destroyed the roots of the hydrangea or a bear crushed the maple sapling? What if the flimsy plastic chairs tipped over or my neighbor's volley-ball rolled over into the middle of my yard? The nighttime veil covers over my physical sight and allows my mind's eye, the imagination, to see better, making the familiar unfamiliar. I would just stay comfortably in my well-lit house, but sometimes the back beckons me and I venture onto the deck in order to peer beyond. I see shadows mostly, so I turn to go inside.

Ting. A little light flashes near the fence. Ting-ting. Two more are over by the blueberry bush. The fire-flies are out, speckling the shadows with their humble coruscations, and I catch glimpses of what could be out there.

What might the fire-flies have illuminated? Here is the outline of some shape I think I saw by the light of the two over by the blueberry bush: I plan to...

• work at an entry level position in my local library, or, depending upon openings, someone else's local library for a year in order to gain experience and save up
• take the GREs (I hoped it would never come to this, but...)
• attend an ALA accredited master's program in library science (I will look into the programs at Catholic University [D.C.], University of Kentucky, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--always my dream to go there! and St. John's University [NY]). Or I could always join Meagan at the University of Pittsburgh, where she will be studying for her master's in library science--we could room together and go Scottish Country Dancing every week!
• procure a job as a librarian--either local or collegian
• pay back my graduate school loans

All the while, I should continue to clean houses and continue to write short stories for the volume I hope to finish before I'm fifty.

I hope the fire-flies showed me well.