A tall woman answered the door of the farmhouse on that drizzly gray April morning. She wore earth-toned, loosefitting clothes, and a pair of reading glasses hung around her neck by a string of brown beads. She greeted me in a very matter-of-fact way and invited me inside with a wave of her thin, sinewy arm. A jumble of leather boots, filthy with mud, stood guard by the door like a faithful mutt. I noticed the woman wore only a pair of turquoise wool socks, so I kicked off my pair of black leather flats, set them neatly next to the pile of boots, and followed her inside.
What struck me immediately upon entering the house was the large painting that was displayed proudly above the mantle. The vibrant oil painting showed a man in front of a grand piano with his coattails hanging over the bench on which he sat and a top hat perched on his head. Before him stretched a vast expanse of white desert, sparsely populated with low shrubs. The sky was a bright blue so intense that it ruined the effect of realism. It was painted by a close friend, the flower woman told me.
I sat beneath the painting on a low, overstuffed sofa and anxiously wiggled my toes in anticipation of the first question. The flower woman settled into a wingback armchair opposite me, rested her ankle on her knee, and folded her calloused hands. “You’re in school for a degree in engineering. Why do you want this job?”
Why did I want this job? It didn’t make sense that I wanted this job. I had been working tirelessly at the Institute for the Bachelor of Science that had been the object of my desire since I was old enough to form a hypothesis. My relentless pursuit of a high-paying, honest career led me to a school that would maximize my return on investment and prepare me to enter the field at full force. The basis of my decision-making rested on applications of logic, reason, and reality. My heart sat quietly on a stool in the corner while my head stood at the bar and ordered drinks for them both. Yet, here I was, barefoot, sitting before the flower woman beneath the painting of the piano man.
The flower woman slid on her spectacles and peered at me with a furrowed brow. “I wonder if you have an eye for creative design. Do you have any experience with the arts?” In my younger years, I had been exceptionally creative. I used to paint, play music, write stories. Where did this thirst for expression go? Had the spirit that fueled my childhood fantasies been neglected to the point of passive destruction? Had my technical immersion cost me something more than a load of student debt?
The flower woman asked, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Five years? Five years? My first thought scoffed at the question for being such a cliché. My second thought was an image nudged into the spotlight by my subconscious. I saw myself with wispy gray hair standing between rows of brilliantly orange tiger lilies. There was dirt underneath my fingernails and a peaceful, all-knowing expression showed through the wrinkles on my face. A pair of glasses dangled from my sunburnt neck. I looked remarkably like the flower woman.
I realized the heart of my mistake lay in the narrowmindedness of the approach. What is success? What does that word even mean to me? I had focused my energy on earning the degree because somehow I had decided that was success. In five years I would be an engineer. I would wear business casual from the department store and I would bring my lunch to work in an insulated lunchbag. In five years I would live in a house in a tract housing development and walk my dog around the block every evening. This was all part of the plan I had formulated. This was success.
“In five years? Honestly, I haven’t planned that far ahead. I do things I am passionate about, things that bring me joy. I don’t think in terms of the future because the present is too compelling.” Yes, that was a lie. But people always lie in interviews, right? The lie stemmed from the imbalance of which I had suddenly and painfully become aware. The disproportionate ratio of passion to practicality, resulting from a silenced heart and an intense focus on my conquest, came to me with great clarity on that gray morning in April. My carefully crafted vision of the future lacked a passion of the heart and I felt the realization in the depth of my being.
I looked up at the flower woman, desperately hoping my lie would slip past her. Maybe the truth was written on my face or maybe it was my restless, wriggling toes that gave me away. Whatever the case, I knew that she knew. She sat very still and studied me with a worried expression. After a moment, she began to tell the story of her flower farm. She told me how she had built the farmhouse with her own hands, cultivated the land, and how each flower is grown from seed. Her hands unfolded and moved to emphasize her words as she described the beauty of the work and her philosophy for a successful business. With every word she spoke, my respect for her grew. Her tone of speaking was not boastful, but her sense of pride leaked through and pooled in my mind. She concluded her monologue by offering me a job.
When I saw the flower woman again, she was sitting in the shade at the street market behind a table stacked with the most breathtaking array of flowers. I was trailing behind a group of my middle aged suit and tie coworkers when I saw her. As I walked slowly past, my eyes locked with the flower woman’s. Her subtle but pleasant smile sunk from her face like a stone to the bottom of a still lake. I felt the creep of doubt return and the weight of a mistake pushed down a bit harder on my shoulders. By turning down the flower woman’s offer and accepting the better-for-my-career office job in the city, I allowed the head to shadow the heart as I had for many years. The flower woman knew this and I knew this. I imagined that her eyes grew sad as she watched me walk away.