ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching

Book Two, Chapter 155: The Giveaway

Joshua and I are still in the Charles Street garage. I’m sitting on a camp chair Ernie and I found at a yard sale, and Joshua’s still waxing the little red car.

“You chose to marry Daddy. The bad thing was, he was almost twenty years older than you, so chances were he’d die too soon for you. But maybe it’s a smart move for a woman to marry an older man. He’s been around. More experienced. More stable. Daddy took you out of the world you knew and introduced you to books, art, excitement.”

Oh, yes, he did that for me. My life has been a surprise. What were the chances that I would meet Ernie? A man like Ernie.

“Daddy never sold the novels he really wanted to sell. Artists pour themselves into their work and when it’s rejected, they feel rejected. That’s hard to deal with. It made him angry.”

Ernie knew he was a good writer. Lots of New York editors agreed with him. They didn’t buy his novels because publishing is a business, and what editors buy is a judgement call. Sometimes the novels they buy are wildly popular and sometimes they’re not. Sometimes an editor passes on a manuscript another house buys and makes big money on. Sometimes good stories never find a home.

Joshua finishes the car work and drops me off at my place. I think about what he said. I think the bruised and brooding side of Ernie did feel like a failure because of the rejections.

I remember what Eckhart Tolle says: “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.” Eckhart Tolle also says: “Neither failure nor success has the power to change your inner state of Being.”

Perhaps Ernie gave away too much of his power.