"You could be swept off your feet today," my horoscope says, "possibility of a red-hot romantic encounter."
I smile.
"Good chance you'll meet your soul mate," it says.
A "soul mate" sounds so tantalizing when that mate is just a possibility. How many thousands of women would read a prediction like this with a flutter of hope—despite statistical evidence that assures them that they have about as much chance of being hit by a truck as of finding everlasting love?
Possibilities hover out there like brilliant lights, an aurora borealis in the mind. Reality is so much more solid, so dense.
"Play your cards right, and that promotion could be yours," the horoscope promises.
I read horoscopes to remember what I longed for now that most of those glowing possibilities have turned into earthly realities. Red-hot romantic encounters are a little thin on the ground for women like me, over sixty—and not necessarily the first thing we long for in the morning, either. I've been married for many years, and sometimes my husband and I are soul mates. I no longer play my cards in an office setting, and I wonder how I ever felt angst over promotion politics.
Yes, reading my horoscope can make me feel like most of the possibilities that used to be ahead of me lie behind me now. But that's not necessarily a bad feeling.
Possibilities can make you nervous. "I could marry him and move to Arizona," a young woman thinks, "but what would happen to my work here? My parents here? The place where I'm comfortable?"
"If I take this job, will I get stuck in sales all my life?"
"If I stay with Tom, then what about the guy at work—Harry? He's so wild. It's like we clicked, from the first . . ."
Just thinking about the possibilities can give someone indigestion. And the smorgasbord of possibilities laid out in front of people can seem like a mind-boggling buffet. Middle-class young people all over the world face a groaning salad bar of potential jobs, lifestyles, partners, and attitudes.
Just a generation ago an Indian woman knew what awaited her: marriage, family, and possibly work if her family was progressive enough to encourage it or poor enough to need it. Now Indian women float on the same sea of possibilities as their Western sisters.
Possibilities can make you seasick, if too many exist. Who doesn't know a young person these days adrift because he or she can't decide whether to try to be a musician, maybe, with all the self-selling that entails? Or maybe for that job that helps save endangered wildlife-that sounds cool—or one in publishing, something out there on the edge?
Too many possibilities plague some people, while millions of others still suffer from too few choices. I know a girl who says she was sent to an aunt when her mother died, and when the aunt had financial problems she sent the girl off to work in Bombay. My friend prefers not to discuss the Bombay period of her life. She ran from there, hoping to return to her family, but never found them. She'd been too young when she left; all the places looked different when she made her way back. Sent to a protection home, she obtained only a spotty education, and now, at age fifteen, stands a chance of passing her Class Five exams. Her possibilities seem to be: work, domestic or assembly line; or marriage, if she can find a decent man who's not upset by the glitches in her background.
I suppose it's possible she could hit on some business scheme that would make her rich, and that might make her feel better about herself, like the woman in Patna who made a surprising success out of collecting and selling junk. Anything's possible, right?
But to have a famine of possibilities when young is terrible; like malnutrition, it stunts growth and dulls enthusiasm. This girl has a child-minding job, now. She tries to find the energy to study but doesn't always succeed. No possible future seems real enough to motivate her to do anything beyond doing her job, keeping her friends, and staying on the right side of morality.
To have too few possibilities is a sad state, but to see possibilities dwindle with age is actually not a bad thing. With several possibilities removed, I can focus on the remaining ones—to help someone, a little; to write something good; to think more clearly.
The important possibilities always stay with us.
BIO: Lucinda Nelson Dhavan first went to India on a Fulbright Foundation grant, immediately after graduating from College. She's still there. After several years on the staff of a regional newspaper, she feels she may have learned enough to write fiction. She is polishing a collection of short stories and working on a novel. Contact Lucinda at: ldhavan@yahoo.co.in
