True Calling
And the Goddess stopped time for a moment and took Miranda aside—as She does with all newborn babies—and She cupped Miranda’s soft newborn head against Her breast and whispered Miranda’s Calling into the delicate shell of her ear. And the Calling passed through Miranda like a force unto itself, and Miranda felt time restart and the world surged forth on rusty hinges. Miranda began to cry lustily, for Miranda was only a newborn and could not understand the Goddess’ divine whisperings. This frustrated Miranda immensely. The crying, however, seemed only to delight the obstetrician and Miranda’s parents.Miranda struggled as only those Called Upon can struggle, throwing up in the back seat of a red station wagon on the way to kindergarten wearing pop-bottle prescriptive lenses and orthopedic shoes and where the thuggish Johnny Black, who no doubt had been called upon by the Goddess to be some sort of criminal later in life, tattled to the teacher that “Miranda was crying” when young Miranda felt overcome at the prospect of not seeing her Mommy again until 11:45 a.m. But, thankfully, a great deal of vomit was not enough to prevent Miranda from realizing her Destiny.
In later years, Miranda engaged upon a Quest to consume every serialized young adult novel in the hope that her Calling would be Revealed to her. Despite her persistence, Encyclopedia Brown did not hold the answers. Nor did Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden or the Dana Girls or Sweet Valley High. Worse, Nancy’s Ned Nickerson remained a lackluster Beta male throughout the series, and Trixie never got lucky in the back seat of Jim Frayne’s jalopy.
Nevertheless, Miranda felt compelled to believe. Her spiritual compass assured her that the Divine Path was paved with Stories.
The scope of Miranda’s Quest was further expanded when the Goddess directed Miranda’s parents to purchase a Videocassette Recorder. The inaugural viewing was of An Officer and a Gentleman. Everyone attended, including Miranda’s grandmother, grandfather, her parents, and her eight year old brother. Despite her grandmother’s emphatic and repeated conclusion that although Richard Gere might be portraying an officer, he was no gentlemen, Miranda believed the Goddess was onto something.
The power of the Videocassette Recorder revealed Flashdance and Grease to Miranda and through these divine whisperings Miranda came to understand the magic of the Glittery Hoo-Ha.1
Soon after, the Goddess ordained that Miranda would watch the film Sixteen Candles on a near-perpetual loop for a one year period of time. Despite Miranda’s fevered hopes and an abundance of perms and red hair dye, no boys of Jake Ryan’s caliber decided to ditch their hot girlfriends and kiss Miranda on the dining table. Miranda was instead kissed by a fat-lipped boy named Regis Castle who later dumped Miranda for her best friend.
Although the Videocassette Recorder had been a powerful force, the Goddess selected Mercy Meyer to be Her next conduit. Mercy loaned Miranda her first romance novel. The novel remains Unnamed due to Miranda’s inability to recall it, but the word “Sunrise” may have been featured. That, or Miranda has since confused the title with the bronzed man-titty that was featured on the tangerine orange cover. Miranda does remember that the “tattoo” of the rain on the roof recurred throughout this novel, bugging the crap out of her. Miranda cannot remember any scenes featuring the hero’s penis, although the Goddess had undoubtedly instructed her to scan for this type of information. Shortly after this experience, Miranda swore off romance novels, evidence that the Goddess works in mysterious ways.
The Goddess later saw fit to allow Miranda to escape the repressive confines of home for college. Once there, she became obsessed with the repressive confines of Victorian society and literature. In her continuing Quest, Miranda journeyed all the way to Oxford where she read Jane Austen and the Brontes for the first time at the age of twenty. Miranda learned that portions of her public school education were crap, but that she was, without a doubt, a Bronte girl at heart.2
Shortly after graduating from college Phi Beta Kappa and with an academic medal confirming her mastery of Victorian repression, Miranda answered telephones for a year while waiting for the Goddess to Call with the travel details for the next leg of her journey.
Soon after, the Goddess Revealed Miranda’s itinerary during a visit to WalMart, where Sujaree, one of Miranda’s best friends from college, convinced Miranda to give Mary Jo Putney’s The Rake a try. Miranda consumed this novel with a spoon in a single sitting. The dent in the couch cushions remains visible today.
At last, with a chorus of angels singing, Miranda had found her Calling or, as some might want to describe it, her Special Purpose. She determined to pursue the most honorable vocation of a Writer.
She mentioned her Calling to her father who explained that Miranda had misheard the Goddess. Indeed, he convinced her that the Goddess actually said, “Miranda, you shall cover your own rent and living expenses through the divine power of a law degree. Or a medical degree. Whatever. In any case, you will stop relying on the pecuniary goodwill of your sire.”
Miranda readily concluded that the Goddess could in no way be speaking of medicine as her Calling. That path involved math, blood and more years of school than law. Miranda instead consented to the quack ministrations of the juris doctor.3
By the end of first semester it felt too late to go back, and so she pressed on. As a means of fulfilling her Creative Urges during this time (which Miranda still refers to as the Black Period), the Goddess suggested Miranda become a limericist. Despite a strong inclination to the contrary and a wealth of precedent for the subgenre, Miranda avoided writing any limericks of the dirty variety on the theory that these would not go over well on the holiday occasions when her relations called upon her to showcase her work.4
Aside from the limericks, the only pinpoint of light for Miranda during the Black Period was the subconscious continuation of her Quest through consumption of the entire historical romance canon. If Miranda was to be forced to read the collected works of Justices Brennan, Black, Frankfurter, Douglas and Cardozo, the Goddess saw fit that she rounded out her education with the backlists of Kleypas, Gaffney, Kinsale, Chase, Quick, Putney, Garwood, Krahn and Brockway (to name just a few).
And then, one day, after years of legal practice and the birth two babies (whose Callings yet remain unknown), Miranda removed the cotton wool from her ears and sat very still. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply and searched her skull for the words the Goddess had whispered to her on her natal day. Time and starvation had diminished them to the faintest of cries, but she found them, knocking aimlessly about her skull. And she gathered those words, her Calling, and determined to cherish them.
And the Goddess was pleased.
Image: Wandering Among the Clouds © Tiffini Elektra X. Used with permission.
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1 Sandy Olsson, one might recall, literally brings Danny Zuko to his knees with the mere promise of a Glittery Hoo-Ha.
2 With a nod to Lucia Macro for identifying the distinction.
3 Years later, when able to pay her own living expenses, Miranda realized her father had an ulterior motive. In addition, she came to doubt his claims to have heard the Goddess given his atheism.
4 Having overcome this sense of awkwardness, Miranda has determined to write some the dirtiest limericks imaginable. She plans to post these on the World Wide Web (not invented by the Goddess but instead by Al Gore) so that they are accessible to the entire universe.