I picked up my name tag and walked into the reception hall juggling a tripod, two cameras and a video camera. My eyes focused on the open bar, and I made my way across the room. I needed a drink for tonight.
I ordered a run-of-the-mill Cabernet Sauvignon even though I really just wanted a beer. Yuengling didn't seem swanky enough for this crowd, though.
"Do you have your white ticket?" the bar tender asked.
"White ticket?" I raised an eyebrow. "No, I didn't know I needed a ticket. Where do I get one?"
I left my glass on the bar and trekked to the woman in charge of the white tickets, feeling strangely reminiscent of Willy Wonka seeking the Golden Ticket. The woman was portly and looked unhappy that I did not already have a white ticket. She fished in a pocket of her large, elastic wasted pants and handed me the coveted white piece of paper. I trudged back to the bar to fetch my wine.
| There will be time, there will be time | |
| To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; |
On the way there, I saw at least a dozen people I knew from my "old" life. Colleagues. Movers and shakers of the city. Politicians, directors of non-profits, hospital officials. They smiled for my camera, and we made idle chit chat about life, catching up on the last five years.
I don't dare tell them how four months ago, I abandoned everything to live in a one-room cabin in the northwoods in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, or how I came back because I was busted flat for cash. There's more money in this room than I care to think about.
I clutch my glass of Cabernet and seek out my seat at my assigned table, #18 where a salad of mixed field greens awaits me. The room smells like onions. I sit next to the contact who hired me to shoot videography and photography of the event. Next to the plate of field greens, two forks sit neatly next to each other; another fork rests above the plate like the number 12 on a clock. Rule of thumb says to start from the outer-most utensil and work in toward the plate, but the rule of thumb forgot to mention this third fork. I assume it is for the lavish dessert that is already placed at the 12 o'clock position, above the fork. I choose the outer-most fork and dig into the greens.
| Time for you and time for me, | |
| And time yet for a hundred indecisions, | |
| And for a hundred visions and revisions, | |
| Before the taking of a toast and tea. |
As I finish my salad, the person next to me frowns. "I used the wrong fork," she says quietly and looks disappointed with herself. There is prattle about lipstick shades.
A caterer brings dinner ("a spinach and artichoke stuffed braised chicken along with a grilled salmon fillet topped with caramelized onions and a side of potatoes") to my place setting just as the guest speaker is announced.
The speaker is an author. She tells stories about being a reporter, breaking the mold, dancing to her own drummer. Her stories seem to illustrate various ways she is an awesome leader and those around her are lemmings. She speaks of a friend who "has arrived" because she has five houses; she sings the praises of this room full of philanthropists for raising over $2 million for "those less fortunate" and for doing all they do for the community. She encourages us to "live for today."
I am immediately bored with her "carpe diem" spiel. It is so played out. I try to focus on my cameras, but my mind drifts back to my dogs, to winter. It feels like a sort of culture shock to be back here, among faces familiar enough, but strangers nonetheless. I feel alien in these heels instead of my boots.
I have sent resumes off for so many positions just like the ones the people in this room are locked to. I've tried for months to land a "real" job, get my career back.
It all seems so stifling and phony. These same people are inspired by the cliched unique individual who tenaciously clings to their individuality despite pressures to conform, the fictitious protagonist in the blockbuster movie who is revered as a hero. Meanwhile, they go home to their own lives in sub divisions with growing ulcers and fretful brows about the mortgage, the car payment.
In the real world, the one who follows their own path is not the protagonist. The one who follows their own path is the outsider, the antagonist.
I left this dinner tonight with a few hundred photos, an hour's worth of video, and the quiet knowledge that I cannot go back to that life.
As I walked out of the meeting center, about 30 women stood in the foyer of the building waiting on the valet to bring their cars to them. These same women had just spent two hours at a dinner to celebrate the independent pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps woman who makes things happen. Ironic?
I stepped out of my truck after the 40 minute drive back to my seven acres in the sticks and sighed at the swirl of stars, invisible within city limits, but twinkling bright out here. My rooster crowed from the barn, and my dogs - my beautiful, amazing dogs - danced in circles around their houses, elated to see me. Genuine.
Give me real. Give me genuine, even if it's not pretty. Give me muddy boots and a sweatshirt. Give me no forks but my bare hands.
Give me real.
| Do I dare | |
| Disturb the universe? |
* The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
Shannon Miller is a freelance writer and photographer from northeast Ohio.
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