Washington D.C.

Last night I bought tickets for Palmer and I to spend the 4th of July in Washington D.C. That is always a great time to be in "our nation's capital" and I think Palmer will get a kick out of the firework displays and the folklife festival. My former boss at the Smithsonian will be in Mongolia in June and early July, so he said we could stay at his house, which is right on Capital Hill, just two blocks away from the Supreme Court Building. So Palmer and I will be able to walk all around the Mall, see the monuments and the museums. It should be fun.

This has got me thinking a little bit about when I used to work at the Smithsonian. I was hired on with special funds from the Nordic Council of Ministers, for the express purpose of working on the Viking exhibition, and started working there in 1997, just as they were beginning to plan the Viking exhibition. That exhibition opened in 2000, and toured around the U.S. and Canada until 2003. So when 2003 rolled around, the money for my position had dried up. But I had impressed my boss, and impressed other people at the Smithsonian as well, and they were all willing to keep me on, and try to find me a permanent position. It would have involved publication work, which I had been doing on and off anyhow--desktop publishing and editing type stuff. 

Every once in a while, I think maybe I did the wrong thing, leaving the Smithsonian. 

Even more often, I think I should have moved to Iceland right then, in 2003. Gone to graduate school in Iceland (something I did look into, by the way, but was dismayed by the lack of fellowships). 

Instead I decided to move to California with the man I was dating, and then in 2005 we had Palmer. So of course there is no way I could possibly say for a moment it was a mistake. 

And so I just have to have faith that although I could now have considerably more job security than I have, everytime we let go of the safety net around us, and take a chance on something unknown, unexpected opportunities will present themselves. When we cling to the safety net, opportunities pass us by, for better or for worse. 

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