The House at Royal Oak Read Free Page B

Ihired editorial help, there were always stacks of resumes for every position and at higher levels the competition was fierce, with directors of other publishing programs applying to work with the rank and file in ours. If I left, I would never get my job back, or one close to it.
    The rational mind urged staying put, trying to keep doing what you’ve always done well. Forget about reinventing, redefining, retooling, reengineering. Forget taking a leap of faith and striking out in a new direction.
    This is what almost everyone we know—friends and family alike, in professions from medicine to law to teaching to business—has done. This they judged to be the wise course. The only three exceptions, who did not stay put because they lost their jobs or quit, were worth noting. Two went on to make a spectacular success of redefinition; the third, who went into day-trading, crashed and burned the first time the stock market took a dive.
    My own sister, a bank director, survived mergers and takeovers for decades. When the latest round of new young bosses arrived, she sensed that her days were numbered. The bank wanted its executives young and lean and actually warned them about gaining weight. She was as lean as anyone, but she couldn’t help getting older. A music major back in college, she had set her flute aside to earn a living. Now she dusted it off and began practicing. She started flute lessons again. She organized a trio. When the ax fell, her trio already had bookings. She trained as a Suzuki flute instructor and went on to a full schedule of teaching and performing.
    From getting down on the floor, eye to eye with her youngest students, coaxing them to make a beautiful soundfor their favorite teddy bear, to attending advanced training sessions with the master teachers and musicians, to performing with her trio and other ensembles, it’s a rosy picture. The only shadow is the competition for a coveted position with an orchestra. “I’m doing as well as I can, but I’m competing with musicians who have played the flute two hours a day for thirty years. That’s a little disappointing. No matter how hard I work, I’ll never make up for that.”
    The second eye-popping success was a close friend I’d known since our sons were born, who worked as a lawyer for the federal government. Deciding that she had accomplished as much as she could there, Rita landed a plum university position when she “retired” that allowed her to conduct research, teach, write, and promote racial diversity. This opportunity, like my sister’s, did not fall from the sky. Before entering law school, this friend had initiated a class action suit against the state of Tennessee for a system of higher education that discriminated against African Americans. “If I had known more at the time, I probably wouldn’t have tried it,” she said when the case was finally settled thirty-eight years later, bringing her public attention and the new job. She sees this as the third and final phase of a career devoted to public service and equality issues.
    Several acquaintances have made less dramatic changes with mixed results: boredom and a sense of unease at consulting in their fields, rather than being at the center of their universes. But everyone else we know is staying put, doing what they’ve always done well, a careful and evidently contented group.
    One reason our plans raised eyebrows had to do with the “service industry” aspect of the new business. “Do you thinkCarol has the . . . stamina for all the bed-changing and cleaning?” my sister asked Hugo in confidence. “I hope you’ll enjoy the innkeeper’s tasks,” a museum colleague remarked. “Lotsa luck,” said Hugo’s brother Paul, a neurologist. The remarks jolted me, but only momentarily, because I chose to dwell on the creative aspects of our plans, rather than the mundane ones.
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