Reciprocating Joint

In which our Hero is getting a chance to try out how the other side lives again, even though it’s his side already and he shouldn’t be surprised by it

The funny thing is that I remember so very little of the ceremony despite having stood on either side of it. I know the words, of course. They are in an obscure little certificate framed on my wall. They are on a little wallet card that I smile at when I find. And they are in my heart, of course.

Because I am an Engineer, and proud of that. Because the words were crafted as if for my own soul from a master, now 90 years ago. Because it is so carefully constructed, not oath or promise or anything that can be shed by the mere act of failure, but an Obligation, a mantle that still covers me no matter how hard or far I fall.

As part of the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer, we newly qualified receive our rings from the hand of the already Obligated. It’s a chance for the family tradition to be handed on in a most literal sense, and so the new minted engineers are asked if we want someone in particular to give us our rings.

And so to this personally sacred moment, I was left with the question of who to ask to give me my ring. I am the first of my family to become an Engineer, so there’s no kin to turn to. Somehow, despite my profound introversion, I somehow found it in me to ask a professor of mine for his time. And I remain grateful at his kindness in doing me this service in my hour of need, though his reasons are a riddle at every chance I have to ponder the question of why he’d do it.

First of the family to become an engineer, but soon there were others. Some years later, my cousin Happy came to me to ask me if I would ring her, and I took a day off work and a red-eye flight home so that I could be the one to give her her ring. I was honoured that she’d ask, and I hope our connection would add to richness of her moment.

Happy insisted to be the one to ring her sister Sleepy, and since then the family children have mostly taken other roads. It’s not that I didn’t know there were other engineers in the wings, but I just never considered this extra detail when I thought of them. Of her.

So I was startled when Coal asked in her “If you have time, I know you’re working, it’s okay” sort of way, if I’d attend her ring ceremony.

I’ve learned to appreciate that the ritual doesn’t mean the same thing to each person who passes through it. And so I’m conscious of the idea that this can be an asymmetric experience, so the honour of me giving my cousin her ring is maybe to her the fact that I’m the only other engineer in that branch of the family. Maybe I’m booked in the name of practicality, rather than sentimentality.

It doesn’t really matter. It is my honour to be there, to participate in whatever this moment proves to be for her. Maybe it will be something for her like it is for me, and I wish her that, without the pain it took me to learn what I know.