"Wilson!"

It is the end of an era.  Today is my last day at Wilson Library at Western Washington University. I will miss library work and the students, especially.  Working on University campuses and in academic libraries over the last 15 years has been a privilege that I have appreciated deeply.  

My tenure at Wilson Library has not been without excitement and growth.  I was laid off due to "budgetary cuts" and after giving my choice to stay in another position a serious amount of consideration, I opted to leave. 

Certainly I have learned things about myself in that library - things that one could never find in a book.  Who knew that I was so difficult and that  a "good job" comes with no guarantees of happiness or even stability?  These are blind spots and unconscious expectations that needed to be revealed and addressed when deciding what I need in a work environment.  There was difficulty.  I am difficult.  Everyone is.  How we manage our complexities in our relationships with others determines who we are.  In this case, I carry my complicated ways and my new awareness out the door and on to new horizons with a renewed sense of what is valuable and productive within me and my relationships with others.

The day that I was told that my position at the Music Library had been cut, I came home curled up on my couch and watched "Castaway".  Films, stories, poetry, music help when words fail and it was a capitol day for language dysfunction.  Art can take the worst day and make it the first day.  So it was as I watched Tom Hanks as Chuck Noland struggle to hold on to the plane and his precious time piece as his aircraft plummeted into the Pacific Ocean.  I took comfort in the story of his process of surviving an impossible situation by using only what knowledge he had and what happened his way.

I cried with renewed appreciation as he mourned the loss of his best friend and constant companion, Wilson.  Grief and loss.  It seems that I've seen plenty of this in the last five years.  I laughed again appreciating the subtlety of the symbolism of the whale that kept an eye on him on his floating journey home, reminding me that whatever element you are thrown into someone or something calls it home and wants to love you.

I started this blog NightMonkeyShines back in 2007 as a Library 2.0 exercise.  That was back in the phat days when we had time to actually learn things and try to develop a sense of integrity and involvement to our work in serving others. That was before Golem and the great baggage of budget woes darkened the door blowing out the side of my cargo plane.  

I've maintained two blogs. I suppose many people keep two blogs but I see no reason to continue. This one was primarily for work and for my association with a group of Elder Bloggers I enjoy at Time Goes By.  It was my thought that keeping two blogs would allow the option of sharing the tamer writing and putting more radical thoughts in the other blog.  Initially, as well, I thought I would be blogging more about things work related.  That is not what happened. I've used this blog for more local notices of events and such. I never hid the other blog but I realized that most people would not bother with digging any deeper.   I often double posted.

 I also have come to realize by now that I underestimated the mettle of my elder blogger friends.  There is little of strong language or scurrilous thinking that they have not already dealt with in spades!  The rest of cyberspace will just have to endure or skip my local fixations when they are posted.

I'm feeling hopeful, if a bit tremulous.  So in the in the spirit of change - doors closing and discovering others and opening them - I leave Wilson Library and this blog NightMonkeyShines with a link to my other blog and a nod of thanks to everyone who made my last six plus years an often enjoyable and an always enlightening enterprise. 

"...And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"

                                                        ~ Chuck Noland,

                                                                    Castaway

Hopefully, I will see you at my other digs and I will find something of interest to write about:

http://cilesfineline.blogspot.com

Cile