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Silvia was surprised to find herself waking up at seven in the morning so she could get to work early. Having always had a problem with punctuality in the past, she managed to get to work on time every day since she started her candy store job. Today she was even going in early. Maybe it was a new leaf, or maybe an increased sense of responsibility that was growing inside of her. She wanted to be a good example to the employees as a store manager, and she even took interest in boosting the sales. She never imagined that she would have cared if she received a shipment of blue whales instead of gummy bears, but she did. In fact, she cared so much that when she did get a box of blue whales instead of the gummy bears she had ordered, she called the distribution center and practically screamed at them for messing up, and demanded that they send a box of gummy bears to her store location immediately.
As she loaded a bin full with gourmet jellybeans, a mother and three children came in. These kids were especially cute and well behaved, and two of them were carrying child-sized instruments with them. The mom appeared to be particularly strict, letting them each have only five candies. One of the children required assistance in getting some candy, as she was too short to reach the bin that contained the lemon drops she wanted. Seeing this, Silvia ran over and helped her get out a small scoop of five candies. The little girl shyly said thank you to Silvia and walked over to stand by her mother. They were so amazingly well behaved that they seemed like they were from a few generations in the past.
Not all children were sweet and cute. They sometimes were rowdy, demanding, or whiny. Some threw tantrums with shrill shrieks. Candy was the last thing the rambunctious and hyper kids needed, and Silvia felt tempted to tell their mothers how their kids might be better off with carrot sticks and grapes. But she held her tongue. Besides, such advice would not be the best thing for business. When the not-so-sweet and happy kids came into the store, all Silvia could think of was how much happier they would probably be if art was a part of their lives. Of course, she couldn’t possibly know that art wasn’t already a part of their lives. She just assumed that they were leading art-free lives and wanted, very badly, to fill this void. She thought that the challenge of working with the more difficult children might be even more rewarding than working with the easy ones.
She couldn’t wait to tell Donna about this latest realization. She imagined Donna smiling proudly at her and then asking if she had had a chance to check out any teacher certification programs. She imagined Donna trying to convince her to attend school somewhere in the area as she had previously expressed her concern about her daughter’s inability to stay still.
Silvia knew in her heart that her mother was right. She might move to Portland, get another dead end job, and again put off getting into a meaningful career. She was starting to see the senselessness in her continual relocating and how much time, money, and energy had been wasted on all her moving. The starting over had been hard and stressful. She saw herself pushing a big box full of her stuff up a five-story walk up in Brooklyn. She remembered being so broke in Tucson that she lost weight from not having money to buy food. She saw herself being lonely, depressed, and freezing in Chicago. She remembered living in a slum apartment in a bad neighborhood in Philadelphia because it was all she could afford. It had been hard. And despite all of the many and varied experiences all of her moves had given her, they had really only held her back.
In part, she wanted to settle down simply because she was tired. Tired of moving from place to place like she was an outlaw; tired of sleeping on a futon mattress on the floor; tired of not having enough money to shop anywhere else but Goodwill and the Salvation Army; tired of being afraid to establish relationships because she would be leaving soon; tired of living in places with five or six other roommates. She wanted to sleep on a bed and not a futon on the floor. She wanted to shop for new clothes in real shops. She wanted to live in an apartment by herself or with one other roommate at the most. She wanted a cat, a boyfriend, and a place to call home.
Olive Branches Don't Grow On Trees Page 23