CHARTED TERRITORY

Two days later, I arrived at the appointed address, feeling optimistic, though somewhat nervous. After pressing the buzzer one short time, someone promptly let me in. I pushed the door open, stepped inside the dark lobby and, judging the dubious maintenance of the narrow stairway, climbed up to the second floor.
“It’s open!” A jovial voice announced before I could knock. I accepted the invitation and let myself in.
A perfectly round man, as tall as he was wide, stood by a desk, quietly studying me over thick bifocal lenses. All around him, a charming mess of tomes and papers conferred an air of skilled professionalism. Half a dozen certificates hanging on the wall behind the overloaded desk further confirmed that I’d put my destiny in highly capable hands.The rotund fellow took off his glasses and wiped them clean on his red polo shirt. “You must be Laura.” He said, smiling through white facial underbrush.
“Merkurio,” I guessed, struck by the unseasonable sight of a Santa Claus look-alike in the middle of summer.
“Welcome to astrocartography!” Ho-ho-ho!“Please have a seat.” He said and, to my relief, he pointed at the uncluttered chair across from his desk, instead of his own lap.
I set my purse on top of a pile of scribbled papers and made myself comfortable. The room was stuffy and stale despite the overworked air conditioner buzzing loudly in the background, as though the clutter had absorbed all the coolness out of the air. Some beads of perspiration were visible on Merkurio’s shiny pate, and I instinctively fanned myself with both hands.
“Hot, isn’t it?” Agreed Merkurio. “I hate summertime in the City.” Then, as an afterthought, he arched his eyebrows and added, “Not that winters are any better.”
A tiny red flag, no bigger than a stamp, went up in my head, and I wondered, Then why didn’t he just move? Wasn’t finding the perfect place the whole point of astrocartography? But I decided that it wasn’t such a big deal. The world was full of professionals that didn’t take their own advice. Take my gyno, for instance, she smoked; my manicurist bit her nails to the quick; some hairstylists sported sorry-looking heads; and I was a financial adviser who didn’t bother to balance her own checkbook.
“Tell me a little bit about yourself.” He started, reminding me of any job interview I’d ever had. I took a minute to organize my thoughts, and then proceeded to sum up my life in a few stilted sentences. “Um… I live in the city, and um… I’m 28 years old… Aquarius ascendant Pisces, but you have my chart, so… um… let’s see, what else? I’m single” And here I paused, as though mourning my condition with a minute of silence. Then, with a sigh, “I work in a bank. Boring, I know, but it pays the bills.” Shrug.
Merkurio raised his large, bushy eyebrows and said, “I see. Any aspirations, besides finding The One?” Big quotation marks plainly audible in his deep, belly voice.
I instinctively looked up at my own lashes, as though bits of discarded dreams might be nestled there, like mascara clumps. “Um… not really. I mean…”
“Well, you don’t like your job.“
“I didn’t say that,” I immediately contradicted him. “I said that it’s boring, but it pays well enough, and I get great benefits, like dental and… stuff.”
“Hmmm…” He said, hardly impressed. Then, with more enthusiasm, “You’re considering relocation, which is a very big step. It’s important to understand what your expectations are at this point, as well as your long-term goals,” He said wisely, “Finding the optimal location will alleviate some sharp aspects of your chart, and it will cause house placements to shift, thus allowing each planetary pattern to fulfill itself.”
I tried to listen carefully to every word, but I was slightly distracted by the droplets of sweat inching toward Merkurio’s shaggy eyebrows, which seemed to have magic absorbing powers. I briefly envisioned testing them for moisture retention, like on those diaper commercials.
“What does that mean exactly?” I asked, looking away from the furry sponges.
“It means that if your Venus isn’t currently in a house and at an angle that can actualize its full potential, it is no wonder that your search for The One has been, so far, in vain.”
“I see…” I said slowly. “So, if I move, my Venus will move, too?”
“Among other planets, yes.” He said with emphasis. But I wasn’t concerned with any other planets.
“Merkurio?”
“Mmm?” He answered, scrawling some notes on a map.
“Please send me somewhere nice.” I pleaded, as one would with a travel agent.
His reassuring smile inflated his round, ruddy cheeks, causing his bifocals to lift off the bridge of his nose. “Don’t worry. Embrace the adventure, Laura, and everything will fall back into place.”

This entry was posted on 25. June 2008 at 18:26 and is filed under AMERICANATA, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.