NONFICTION  
"I arrived early at my office in San Francisco's financial district."
                                            Photo by Weebly.com                                  

Chaos and Creation
by  Matt Ginsburg

​​It wasn't an ordinary Monday morning. I felt like I had woken up buried under a pile of bricks. My back ached and my neck was stiff. I had a long day ahead of me.
 
It was March 2012 and the debt crisis that had been smoldering in Europe for years had exploded over the weekend. Greece had held an election and the leftist Syriza party had surged in popularity. Syriza's platform called for Greece to exit the European Union to escape the economic obligations the country had agreed to in exchange for a financial bail-out. The bail-out's requirements were squeezing the economy. Credit was tight, businesses were failing, and jobs were vanishing. Now Athens was rocked by violent demonstrations inspired by Syriza’s radical rhetoric.
 
I arrived early at my office in San Francisco’s financial district. I managed a group that sold investment products to our bank’s wealthiest clients and had to catch up on the morning's events before the U.S. stock market opened at 6:30. I needed to have a view about the crisis in Europe and how it might affect the positions held by our investors. I wondered if I had any Advil at my desk.
 
If Greece left the European Union, the economy of the entire Eurozone, the 17 countries that shared the Euro as a common currency, would be imperiled. When the Euro was established, it was not contemplated that a participating country might abandon it and revert to issuing its own currency. Incredulously, there was no exit plan. If Greece ditched the Euro, its banking system would freeze and its economy would collapse. Ripples, if not shock waves, would be felt across the global markets. Every client would want to know how much money they had lost.
 
But I wasn't thinking about the markets. I was thinking about the phone call I’d received the previous day from Marie, the specialist at the adoption search group. She had surprised me by providing information about a woman she thought was my birth mother. I'd only contacted Marie a few weeks earlier and hadn't expected things to unfold so soon. Now whenever I tried to focus on my work, my mind rebelled. I couldn’t stop thinking about everything I didn’t know about the mother I never knew.
*          *          *
1
​I was ten years old when my older brother David told my twin brother Mike and me that we were all adopted. David had found out while snooping around in our parent’s bedroom. He found an envelope of papers stuffed away in a drawer and asked my parents about them. He then approached Mike and me while we were playing a game in our bedroom, acting like he had a big secret.
 
“You guys need to know this,” he said, disrupting our game. That was a line we had heard before. We kept playing and waited for him to go away.
 
“Mom and Dad aren’t your real parents. You’re adopted and so am I.”
 
It wasn’t easy for Dave to distract us. We were three years younger than him and were used to doing our own thing. This time however it felt like he’d splashed us with cold water. We both stared up at him. He said that he had confronted Mom and Dad with the papers and that what he was telling us was “swear to God” true. He explained that we weren’t biologically related to our parents and we weren’t even related to each other as he was adopted from a different family. I understood what he meant and realized straight away that our familial relationships would never feel the same again. I was bewildered. What was I supposed to think?
 
I wondered what being adopted meant from a practical perspective, perhaps that was all I was old enough to consider. There weren’t any immediate consequences. Adoption was something that had happened long ago and beyond my control. There was nothing to do about it and nothing need come from it—no one else needed to know. As I tried to process Dave’s disturbing news, I was more perturbed than distraught.
 
I asked about the circumstances, but Dave had few details. Soon there was nothing more to convey and he wandered away. Mike and I barely discussed what we had just heard; we weren’t sure what to think or say about it. We took some comfort in knowing that we were still related to each other. What Dave said was troubling, but it wasn’t obvious that anything about his information would affect our day to day lives. We continued with our game.
 
Later that day, I asked my mother if it was true and she casually admitted it. There weren’t any tears, or hugs, or soothing words. The tone of her answers was very matter of fact.
 
She said that all of us were adopted from birth, but that Dave was adopted from a different family. He was still our brother, she reassured me, yet I knew that in some way he wasn’t. He was so different from me, I thought, we had so little in common. Now I knew why.
 
Mike and I were adopted together. Our birth mother was single and the man she identified as our father never acknowledged paternity. She was unable to support us and had arranged our adoption through the agency that Mom and Dad were working with to find a child.
 
Mom had only briefly spoken to our birth mother during the adoption process and said little about her. “She was a very nice person,” is all I remember. I took away from our discussion that our birth mother was not that important, she was out of our lives, it was as if she were dead. She was certainly dead as a topic of discussion. Mom’s attitude was that she and Dad were our parents. What was there to discuss?  
2
A few years later Mom gave me some papers that identified my birth parents by name and provided some ancillary information that was not particularly helpful. For example, a hospital receipt disclosed that my circumcision had cost $25. I pondered that briefly and concluded that at least the price wasn’t painful.
 
As time went by, I thought about my adoption more often and came to realize that it was a critical component of my identity. One of the first things that I grasped was that I probably wasn’t Jewish. My adoptive parents were Jewish, I attended Sunday school, and was expected to have a Bar Mitzvah. But when I asked my mom if my birth parents were Jewish, she said, “probably not.” Since I wasn’t much of a believer, that sort of settled things, I concluded that I “probably” wasn’t Jewish.
 
If I wasn’t Jewish, then what was I, or rather what religion did my ancestors practice? Knowing that wasn’t going to make me a believer, but it might have made me feel differently when I entered a church as I was taught that I wasn’t Christian. Now it seemed like that wasn’t true either. The adoption papers that my mom gave me listed my birth mother’s ethnicity as Spanish and French, and my father’s as German and Slavic. That was all they said, but it was enough to believe that my ancestors “probably” were Christian.
 
These thoughts led to a deeper interest in my genealogical background. I wondered where exactly did my ancestors come from and when did they arrive in America? I thought it would be nice to know if anyone in my family tree had ever done anything noteworthy, especially if it was something good or an activity I could relate to. Were there any aptitudes, something to be proud of, something to work on, that I might have inherited?
 
The bubble of optimism that inflated when I imagined positive familial attributes popped whenever I was asked by a health care provider about my family medical history. I had to acknowledge that I didn’t know anything. There are many things in life that one may be better off not knowing: family medical history is not one of them. Nearly everyone, except adoptees, can answer some of these questions. It sucks when you don’t know basic things that might be useful to living a happier, healthier life.
 
Did my adoption lead to a better life? Every adoptee contemplates this question at some point. Most likely view adoption positively. I was almost certainly better off. My birth mother was single, abandoned by my father, and couldn’t afford to raise me. On the other hand, my adoptive parents sacrificed, gave me many things, and provided a cohesive home.
 
But it wasn’t very happy. My father was physically abusive and emotionally absent. My mother could be loving, but when things got bad, she sided with him. As my teenage years progressed, I rarely spoke to either of them. I applied for, paid for, and started college without their involvement. When I left and said goodbye, it was perfunctory.
 
I wanted to love my parents, but it was hard. I wondered to what degree that was because I was adopted, or we had a poor relationship, or I was emotionally deficient. It was a difficult, disconcerting, and unanswerable thought.
3
I questioned why my birth mother was cut out of my life. I had a closed adoption which meant that contact information between my birth parents and my adoptive parents was not shared. I wasn’t supposed to know about or ever meet my birth parents. At the time that was the norm; it is rare today. Who decided the adoption would be closed?
 
I never asked my parents. From everything they said, I was certain they were happy with it. It made sense from their perspective—they were my parents and how many parents does a child need? I was more uneasy wondering if my birth mother was okay with it. That was a painful thought. If she did want to keep in contact, who had denied her? And if she didn’t, well, that felt even worse.
 
Because of these questions and concerns, I lived with an undercurrent of abandonment, loneliness, and loss. Like a helium balloon released into the air, I floated through space and time without a connection to anyone except my twin brother Mike. I believe I had these feelings even before I learned of my adoption because my subconscious was always aware of what had happened. This may sound nutty to some people, or like whining to others. After all, I wasn’t abandoned. I was adopted into a stable family and turned out okay. Nonetheless, these feelings lingered, they followed me like a shadow, I was stuck with them.
 
Finding my birth parents would help with some of these issues. It would enable me to learn about my family background, information that would be useful to me and my children. I might also feel more grounded and secure knowing that Mike and I weren’t alone.
 
I especially wanted to meet my birth mother. She was poor, yet she had carried me to term and made arrangements to place me for adoption. She didn’t have to do that and I was grateful beyond words. I wondered if meeting her could somehow assuage, even in some small way, my emotional deficiencies? It wasn’t impossible that a loving relationship might flower as we got to know each other. That last thought seemed a bit fanciful but I had to be optimistic if I was ever going to take action.
 
Prior to the advent of the internet, no contact information meant no contact, unless one were willing to engage a private detective. That option always seemed like something more suited for a TV show, or at least someone with more disposable income than I had. As I became an adult, pursued a career, and started a family, I never seriously considered conducting a search.
 
I began using the internet in the mid 1990s when I was living in the U.K. To the extent that I realized the search power of this new technology, I thought my foreign location made a search impractical. That at least was my rationale. After I returned to California, I had a demanding job and a family with three young children; still, that wasn’t an excuse not to get started. I told myself that I wanted to find my birth parents, I wanted to meet them, I wanted to know them, but I acted like I didn’t. Every time I considered doing something, I stopped short.​
4
​The truth is, a part of me didn’t want to meet my birth parents. My life was good. My birth parents’ life, or rather my birth mother’s as I mostly thought of her, was possibly pretty bad. Did I want to know her? What could meeting her in middle age do for me now? What could or what should I do for her? And what about my adoptive parents? They were indifferent at best and likely against opening this can of worms. They had done so much for me, we had buried the worst of the past, and I didn’t want to hurt them. These thoughts were the only thing holding me back. Yet for many years that was enough.
 
The catalyst for my search was the death of Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple. After he died in October 2011 at the age of 56 from pancreatic cancer, variations of his biography appeared across the mass media. I was familiar with Jobs’ business success; what intrigued me was the story of his adoption. After he started Apple and became famous, he sought to discover his birth parents and succeeded with the assistance of a doctor listed on his birth certificate. He subsequently became close with his birth mother and his half-sister, but chose not to meet his father.
 
We both had been adopted in San Francisco and had closed adoptions. Thinking about Jobs’ premature death, learning of his successful search, especially his relationship with his birth mother, convinced me to get started. Something clicked, I was committed to finding my birth parents. Hopefully it wasn’t too late.​
*           *           *
5
​Before Marie called from the search agency, I wasn’t sure if anyone was working on my case. But she had reviewed my file, scoured the internet, and checked several proprietary databases. She said it seemed likely that both of my parents were still alive as there was no public death notice for either one. She hadn’t made notable progress locating my father, but she might have a lead on my mother.
 
Marie was an energetic woman who spoke with a sense of urgency. However, at this point in the discussion she kicked it up a notch. I could feel her excitement seeping through the phone. She said she found a woman with the name listed on my adoption papers. She was 25 years old when I was born in 1960. She had given birth to twins that year at a hospital in San Francisco.
 
Marie paused for a reaction but I was speechless. In my profession I was trained to think in probabilities and this calculation wasn’t very complicated. As we said on the trading floor, this was a “done deal.” Oh—my—God!
 
I looked across the kitchen table and saw the salt and pepper shakers, an empty coffee cup, and the Sunday paper turned to the sports section. The Giants were in Arizona for spring training. My cat slept on a chair nearby, his furry chest rising in time with the tick of a clock in another room. Everything around me looked just as it did when Marie had called, and yet nothing was the same.
 
Until that moment, my birth mother was a concept, not a living person. I had so little to go on, it had seemed fruitless to engage in flights of fancy wondering what kind of person she was. The part of me that didn’t want to know had suppressed these thoughts but now they had broken free. ​
6
My eyes teared, and then the right one began to twitch, just like when things got hectic at work. The uncertainty of the situation was making me anxious and excited. I asked Marie what was the next step.
 
“I have to warn you,” she said. “I can see where she’s lived over the years. I looked at where she’s living now using Google Maps. It isn’t like your neighborhood. Do you understand what I’m saying? Are you ready for that?”
 
I was. I knew what she was saying, but I tried not to visualize it. The dark thoughts that had previously restrained me had dissipated. A more powerful force had shoved them aside. Fuck Google Maps, I thought.
 
“And what if she’s not interested in speaking with you?”
 
My heart sank. That was a possibility I had avoided thinking about. Being rejected, again, would hurt, for sure. I dropped the phone to my chest, looked away, and considered her question.
 
“I can deal with that.” I replied. I decided I wasn’t going to let anything stop me. I told her I had no expectations, was prepared for the worst, and wanted to make contact as soon as possible. Marie was reassured by my reaction and switched back into her customary can-do mode. She was confident that she could get my mother’s phone number and promised to email me as soon as she did.
 
When I hung up the phone my mind unleashed a newsreel featuring highlights of my childhood, adolescence, college years, meeting my wife, professional success, and starting a family, all things that my mother knew nothing about. My eyes closed, my shoulders slumped, and my chin dropped to my chest. Energy drained from my body. I felt so sad for everything we had been unable to share.
 
I started to cry as my mind raced. I wondered what my mother was like, what she would think of me, and whether or not she would be part of my future. The maternal bond that I had repressed was now gushing from somewhere deep inside. The sadness passed and shifted into a sense of elation. My body radiated warmth, like I had been wrapped in a blanket after being caught in the rain. I felt as though I had just won a prize, but there was no one to bestow it. My only audience was the sleeping cat. I smiled, my eyes opened wide, and I began to chuckle. I clutched my shoulders, hugging myself, practicing for the embrace that I imagined was coming. 

​I didn’t hear from Marie the rest of the day. I went to sleep trying to think about the situation in Greece, all the clients that I needed to call, what to tell them, and what trades they might want to make. But as I imagined these discussions my mind kept drifting toward a different one that had nothing to do with the markets. That discussion was about how I got here, who I was, what had I missed, and what I was about to share. I was in need of a good night’s sleep, but I tossed and turned like a ship buffeted between two rocky shores.​
*          *          *
7
When I stepped out of the elevator onto the 34th floor, I felt frazzled, like I’d already worked an entire day. I walked past the empty receptionist's desk. Behind it, a sheet of frosted glass clouded a vast trading floor filled with nebulous apparitions moving to and fro. The clock above read 6:00 am; the U.S. markets opened in 30 minutes. The European markets would surely be down; the main questions were how much and how would our markets react?
 
I wasn't going to tell anyone about what might happen today. My colleagues didn’t know that I was adopted. I’d have to start with that. And what would that be like? A therapy session on the trading floor. Could anything be more preposterous? I hadn't even told my wife about the discussions with Marie. She was away and I couldn’t express my emotions over the phone. Besides, I rationalized, this might be a false alarm, and then what? Let's see what happens.
 
I pressed my thumbprint against the small rectangle within the security box next to the door to the trading floor. It clicked open and I walked in clutching a briefcase stuffed with issues of The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and a draft Power Point for a presentation later in the week to a group of brokers in Palo Alto. I continued down a row lined with tiny work spaces, each occupied by a banker wearing a headset. Some were seated, others were standing, and on the desk in front of each was a keyboard, a switchboard, and a stack of video monitors. The aroma of coffee swirled about; it smelled good but I didn’t need any. I said "morning" to anyone who looked up but only a few people did.
 
I sat down next to the window overlooking Fremont Street, a featureless passage that sliced through the financial district. I booted up the computer and pulled up the Bloomberg news feeds on the two screens on my right and my email and the Financial Times (FT) front page on the two screens on the left. Red numbers blazed across the Bloomberg screen. The markets in Europe were getting crushed. Holy shit! I leaned my head against my hand and studied the damage. I had expected this and still I was jolted. The U.S. market was about to open down, way down. Rampant wealth destruction flashed before me.
 
The FT reported the surprising performance by Syriza, concerns about the Greek banking system, and the financial contagion that was sure to spread through Europe and beyond if Greece collapsed. It also stated that the leaders of the G-20, the 20 largest economies in the world, were meeting in Mexico over the next two days. It was hoped that some hint of a plan to address the crisis would emerge from the meeting.
 
Within Europe, the Germans called the shots. They had enough money to placate the Greeks. Their Chancellor, Angela Merkel, was in her second term in office and was the strongest leader in Europe. Known as Mutti (Mommy) Merkel because of her calm demeanor and empathetic approach, the market was expecting her to put forth a solution. To its dismay, the Germans were playing hard ball. Merkel had said nothing about the crisis. ​
8
A television attached to a column in the center of the trading floor presented a stream of talking heads discussing the financial news. When I looked up, the screen showed footage of the German delegation arriving in Mexico. They were strolling across the manicured grounds of a government complex that resembled a ritzy resort. The sun was shining, they were laughing, shaking hands with diplomats from other countries. The sound was off, but we all understood the irritation, even anger, this scene was bound to inspire.
 
Despite the crisis, my phone wasn't ringing, it was too early. I had plenty of emails to respond to, but most involved administrative duties that I could slog through without concentrating. I folded my hands behind my head, lifted my chin, and felt a crackling sensation unfurl along the back of my neck. As I got busy approving or denying requests, I glanced occasionally across the floor at the sea of computer monitors and frenetic traders who popped up and down like prairie dogs in a pasture. I felt oddly detached, like I was in a bubble. I was numb, even as the phones rang, people shouted, and tension filled the air.
 
After about three hours I had worked through my email, edited the Power Point presentation, and spoken with several clients who expected to hear from me. Now is the time, I thought. I had put off checking the email on my iPhone, my personal email, all morning. I felt that if I had a message from Marie, I would have to act, so I didn't want to check until I had caught up with work.
 
I slipped the phone from my pocket. Three new emails, two of them were junk, but one was from Marie. She’d sent it just after I’d started working. God, does this woman sleep? I thought. Then I remembered that she was in New Jersey; still, her efficiency was mind-blowing. I opened the email with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.
 
This may be your birth mother, was the title. Whoa! The words pulsated as though my mind was having trouble absorbing the meaning. I gulped some air and exhaled slowly as goosebumps rippled across my arms. I lost awareness of everything around me. I saw the name, address and phone number of the person we had speculated about yesterday. She was in San Jose, only 50 miles away!
 
Meanwhile, the traders nearby barked orders to buy and sell, mostly to sell. My phone was just starting to ring. I tried to explain what was happening to my worried clients, but with so much uncertainty, I was just regurgitating the news. The European Union was failing, there was still no statement from Mexico, and the markets had imploded. It was like the wealth of the world was on fire. And while the fire may have originated in Europe, in our interconnected world the flames spread far and wide. Everyone got scorched.
 
I put down the phone and tried to block out the cacophony from the conflagration. I thought about the call I had to make and my chest tightened. I felt unsteady. I gripped the arms of my chair, closed my eyes, and tried to quell the queasy sensation. I leaned back to relax but only for an instant. I couldn’t let my colleagues notice anything askew. ​
9
When I looked up, the chaos continued, the markets were melting. But it would all be there when I returned. I glanced at the phone and copied the number onto a yellow sticky pad. I stood up, passed between the rows of desks, and turned into the aisle. One of the equity salesmen, a Brit named Burley, was slumped in his seat, apparently resting between phone calls. He glanced at me, a dazed look on his face. It was red, a bit blotchy, and his eyes were moist like he was either fighting a hangover or having a hell of a day. It could have been both.
 
"It's a real shit show in Europe," I said, trying to sound like I cared.
 
"Blame the bloody Germans," replied Burley. “Frau Merkel needs to get her head out of her ass.”
 
I walked to the end of the trading floor and entered my private office. When I closed the door, the sounds of financial frenzy vanished; the room was silent. I walked behind my desk and looked out the window. The top of the Transamerica Pyramid pierced a layer of fog and pointed toward the sky. Below, commuters spilled out of the BART station.
 
I turned away from the window and placed the yellow paper with the phone number on my desk. I ran the base of my hand over the wrinkles, smoothing the surface. The numbers seemed sacred and deserving of a gentle caress. My heart was pounding, I felt light-headed, even tipsy. I reminded myself that I had made thousands of phone calls and this was simply one more. Yet my hand hovered over the phone, suspended by Marie’s warning about rejection. I recalled being a kid, scared to dive off the high board into the town pool. I learned then that thinking about it only make things worse. I lifted the receiver.
 
As my mind went from the yellow paper to the number pad on the phone, my fingers moved in slow motion. It felt like I wasn’t dialing, instead I was observing the action from somewhere else in the room. Is this really happening? I thought. The ringing sound inside the receiver pulled me back to the phone. In between rings there was just enough time for my mind to wonder, what if this and what if that? A seed of doubt sprouted. I could always do this another time. But my arm was frozen. I wasn’t going to hang up. At last a ring was truncated.
 
"Hello.” I heard the voice of an old woman, crackled, fatigued, and faint. She spoke slowly, the word wafted toward me, waves of weariness inflecting each syllable. It sounded like her voice was passing through a narrow tube, along a cord stretching across more than five decades.
 
I cleared my throat. My temples throbbed, my palms were damp, and my feet felt like I was standing in snow.
 
"Is this Irene Grimes?"
 
"Yes, it is." ​
10
The words tumbled out. "My name is Matt Ginsburg and I was born on September 11, 1960, in San Francisco, and I was adopted with my twin brother immediately after that. I apologize if I have the wrong person, but I think you may be my birth mother. I'm really sorry if I have the wrong person. I apologize if I do. I’m sorry to bother you." Beads of sweat broke out as I caught my breath.
 
She was crying before I finished. It had been fifty-two years. She continued to sob intermittently as I explained in a few sentences how I had found her and how my childhood and adult life had progressed.
 
“Oh Lord, how I prayed for this day," she said repeatedly. Though she was no doubt shocked by my call, her tone was relaxed and expressed a mixture of relief, gratitude, joy, and divine intervention.
 
She asked about my twin brother Mike. She wanted to know if he was well and what he was doing. She asked about the health of our parents. Did I have any other siblings and perhaps a family of my own? And I asked about her. How was her health? Who did she live with? Did she have other family? Our conversation flowed through a stream of warmth and excitement. It didn’t feel like we were talking for the first time.
 
We agreed to meet. She had a sister near San Francisco that she had been planning to visit but hadn't yet made arrangements. It was difficult for her to travel, but she would find a way. She suggested that we meet at her sister's house. It was closer to where I lived. I promised to call her back to schedule a date. I would bring my wife, maybe my three children. When the call ended, she was still crying.
 
“I love you," she said.
 
“I love you too," I replied. I was crying too.
 
I squeezed the phone, placed it in the cradle on the desk, and stared aimlessly at the trading floor, my vision blurred by tears. I fell into my chair, a warm glow permeating my body. I could still hear her initial reaction, the sound of her sobs, and her parting words, I love you. My reaction had been automatic, unthinking; I wasn’t sure exactly what it meant, but it felt right. Leaning back, my chest swelled and my spine tingled. A smile spread across my face.
 
Hearing my birth mother’s voice had reduced the need to imagine her. Of course, I wondered what she looked like, there was so much I didn’t know, but I didn’t wonder if she was still alive. I had met her, if only over the telephone. And she said she loved me. It sounded sincere. I needed time to process that, but I knew how I felt. Wow! ​
11
​I became giddy and couldn’t wait to tell my wife. I knew she would be excited, happy for me, and keen to meet with Irene and perhaps better understand the man she married. I also had more sobering thoughts. I wondered how Mike would take the news. I hadn’t shared my search with him and I had no idea how he would react. I wasn’t sure he’d be as pleased as I was. And then there was my adoptive mother. Would she feel betrayed? Probably, a bit, maybe a lot. I would have to break the news gently, but that was for another day.
 
As I considered these future discussions, I realized I had one call to make before getting back to work. I grabbed the phone and dialed Marie.
 
"It's me, Matt," I said when she answered. "We found her!"
 
"That's wonderful. I thought she was the one," she replied. "What did she say?"
 
"It felt like she was waiting for my call. She started crying."
 
I recounted the rest of our discussion and promised to update her on the progress of our relationship. I thanked her profusely before hanging up and gazing out the window onto the skyline of San Francisco. Somewhere out there was the house where my mother had lived when she was pregnant, the hospital where I was born, and the lawyer's office where my adoption was handled. The balloon that was my life was still drifting, but it was more buoyant, and its string was finally attached to something. I could feel a tiny tug.
 
I began pacing. I didn’t want to leave my office. I was about to move from a warm bath into a cold pool. My emotions were sinking like I was coming down off a stimulant. The tingling sensation was gone. My body was limp, my throat parched. I imagined walking across the trading floor, out the door, and heading for home. I cracked a wry smile at the impossibility of that.
 
It was time to go. I grabbed a tissue and wiped my eyes. I took some deep breaths, rolled my head, and pulled my shoulders back. I had to get back into banker mode.
 
When I opened the office door, the commotion from the trading floor flooded in. Across the room, several traders were gesticulating and shouting into their headsets. Red numbers flickered across every screen. The TV talking heads looked pallid, like they were reporting a funeral. My colleagues, their shirts untucked, hair disheveled, and faces drawn, looked exhausted. Burley stood up as I approached his desk.
12
"The bloody world is melting down," he said.
 
"Any word from Mexico?" I asked.
 
“Radio silence, Mate. Merkel has gone AWOL,” he replied, shaking his head, his face expressing a mixture of anger, sadness, and resignation.
 
“She can’t hide forever,” I offered. I tried to collect my thoughts and prepare to talk about the markets. But I continued to relish and relive my recent conversation. My emotions morphed from hot to cold like they were rotating on a spit over a roaring fire in the Artic.
 
I had to let go and dive back into the world of money. A knot tightened in my stomach. Burley was right. Everything was bad. It was undeniable. A few fucking Greeks were holding the world hostage and the Germans were too stubborn to engage them. How much money had been lost today? The number was too large to imagine. And how much money had I lost in my personal accounts? On any other day that the market collapsed I would have been concerned, even obsessed, about my own money. But that thought had just occurred to me. What had I lost?
 
I considered the idea and the absurdity of it struck me like a thunderclap. What had I lost? Really? Today! I started laughing, regained control, and glanced around to see if anyone had noticed. They hadn’t, nothing had changed. It still looked like the world was coming to an end. In some ways it was. But in other ways, it was just beginning.
13
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​​Matt Ginsburg received an MFA degree in Creative Writing with a concentration in playwriting at San Francisco State University. His work explores his interest in business, economics, and politics. His plays have been read or performed at numerous theaters in San Francisco. He has also had three short stories and three works of memoir published in previous editions of Vistas & Byways. He serves on the Editorial Board of our publication. 
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Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University​.​
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