What's real?

I've had so many wonderful experiences with people who do not want my characters to stop being in their lives. I just talked with a woman this morning who just read my book twice so she could keep them in her life a bit longer. So, my daughter's come up with a plan, and that is to create snippets of Langsberry life right here on my blog and post the happenings as they occur.

 A lot of people have wanted to know how much of this is autobiographical. They think because I'm a fiber artist I made Grace one. That's not how it happened at all though. While writing the book I would get visions in my head of what Grace was making, and since those visions wouldn't go away, I devised ways to make what I saw. Therefore, Grace made me a fiber artist. Hm...

What is autobiographical? I really did have a dear friend died of ovarian cancer. I really did work for my husband in his office and despised it. However, it was a chiropractic office, not an accountant's. I did leave him, but I did it long after the manuscript was written. So, again Grace did it first.

I live and work on a square now, but didn't while writing the book. I really didn't even know anyone who did until moving to McKinney, TX in 2008. I did grow up in the Dallas area. My mother is still alive, but my dad died of myocardial infarction (better known as a heart attack) when I was 24 years old. I was married for a hundred years to the same person and we have a daughter, unlike Grace.

What's interesting to me is that the husband character, Jack, is really based on someone I had a crush on in high school. When Grace is talking with Gordon about what her high school boyfriend said about love, that was a conversation I had had with this guy back in the '70s.

As soon as I graduated from Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas, I did go to Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado. I did meet the man I would eventually marry there. He was two years older than me, but I did complete my undergrad degree before marrying, unlike Grace.

We did live in a small town in Colorado, but there was no square to be found there. As a matter of fact, it was a metropolitan area compared to Langsberry.

The question I get asked the very most is if there was a Gordon in my life. The answer is no, and yes. It was interesting because I happened to be in Aspen one weekend editing my manuscript. I was on a page that described Gordon's flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots. There were very particular things about his clothing, and I had just read it when a friend of mine from college called to take me out to lunch. When I got in his car, he was wearing exactly what I had written about Gordon's attire. This man and I did not do art together. However, he opened me up to my own love of flying. The first time we flew together was from Aspen to Gunnison on my 48th birthday. The next day I asked for a divorce. I wanted to fly in every aspect of my life. I still do.

Believing anything

The very first copy of my very first book. As my father would say, "How 'bout them apples?"

The very first time I saw the digital proof of the cover I was working for a shaman in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I pulled it up on the computer at the front desk, and my heart pounded to see my name in print. The cover is in Tibetan prayer colors, my shaman's wife informed me. She said that it would be perfect to sell in the office with her Tibetan singing bowls and her red and gold decor. The book never came to life there in Steamboat. It took a year after moving to McKinney, Texas before it materialized.

What was the delay? I have no answer for that. I realize that I'm not in a rush for so much in my life. Before, years before now, I wanted everything NOW. Now, now, now. Now, I just want to be in the now. Now, I want to pay attention, to absorb the textures of what's around me, to have the sounds sink in, the colors swirl through me, and I want to feel the joy in it all. And after a whole bunch of nows, the book is finally published. And the length of time it took doesn't matter. It's here now. It's on the couch beside me as I type this. There are many, many moments throughout my days and nights where I forget it's done. It used to consume me, and now I can go through most of my waking hours without a thought of it.

Now, what consumes me? Besides the PR department at the publishing company? Besides the artwork that flows through my thoughts? Besides the to-do list that sits on the coffee table in front of me? Besides the dirty footprints and pawprints on the floor that need to be cleaned up? Besides all of that, nothing really. Nothing.

And if you believe that...well, you'd believe just about anything.

final submission

Finally, after receiving a birthday card from my best friend from high school more than 13 years ago, daring me to write a book, I finally, yes, I repeat that, I finally approved the last detail about it so that it can now go into production.

Thirteen years, two months, and six days later, it is done. Dear God, what was the frickin' hold up? Life? Moving several times? Going for my pilot's license? Getting a divorce? Raising a teenager? Working waaaay too much? I don't know. Maybe it's always about everything being in perfect timing.

In the meantime, between the date when I first wrote the first sentence to this morning when I approved the last correction on the book jacket, I raised my daughter from teenage hood to adulthood. I designed and had built a new home. I took flying lessons. I traveled to foreign countries. I got a divorce. I moved to the mountains in Colorado. I fell in love. I moved to Texas and finally finished the book.

I did not sit on my hands while working and not working on this book. I discovered myself and rediscovered myself. I entered relationships that pulled me in directions I didn't know existed before. And I fell in love. Again and again and again. I fell in love with the mountains, and then I fell in love with McKinney, Texas and the people here. I also fell in love with my daughter all over again. And with all these experiences I fell in love with the best parts of me.

I love me. I truly, truly love me. I am capable of the grandest of lives, the utmost bliss, and the most amazing experiences. I walk through this life knowing that all is well at all times. I open my eyes to the joy, my heart to the love, and my arms to the ability to give. I am. I am. I am.

And nothing more needs to be written.

It's a wonderful world.

I'm on my last read through. I feel like I've been saying this for years. Every time I finish editing this manuscript I think it's done, but then it returns with a message to read through it one more time. I've been putting this last read-through off for so long it's pathetic. There's no excuse. And today I'm feeling too sluggish to physically move my entire body, so it's a great time to get this done.

I'm sitting in my daughter's RejuveNation LifeSpa on the square in McKinney, Texas with a kitten sprawled across the table with a paw resting on the keyboard. Moo the dog is curled up under my chair and "Over the Rainbow" is playing on the radio while I type this, the reggae version that's mixed with "What a Wonderful World." I can't keep my foot from tapping on the hardwood floor.

And, yes, I'm really and truly reading this manuscript for the very last time before it grows up to be a book. That's what I've been told -- if there's no further corrections. Oh, sweet Jesus, let this be the perfect version.

Anyway, while reading I ran across this paragraph that took my breath away. It's lovely when that happens to me, when something I've written sparks something within me that touches me deeply.

And, when I read something I've written and I'm moved by how it's written. The writer in me jumps for joy. It's a moment when I want to toast to myself for allowing whatever force there is to work it's magic through me.

I came across such a paragraph at the end of a chapter where Grace, the main character, is interacting with her long-time husband. I love how the words speak volumes of what is way too common in long relationships:

"She looked into Jack's eyes, at the little flecks of brown around his irises. She felt the burn of his hands on her shoulders and his breath on her cheek. There had been a time that being this close to Jack would have melted her knees. Now she felt badly, horribly guilty, that being this near to him only made her gasp, for she had never noticed before the tiny lines crisscrossing alongside his eyes or the fresh gray in his sideburns."

* * * * *

And now it's been days since I wrote the above entry, but today, 9-9-09, at 5:16 I sent my last digital proof to the publishers. In a while (I don't know when.) I'll receive the first printed version of it to read through again before it gets sent out into the world.

This has been so long in coming. So long. I would have normally spent at least a few moments beating myself up about how long I've procrastinated, how long I've spent NOT doing what I knew I needed to do to get it done. Instead, something else very magical happened. I spent the last read-through while sitting in a business in the square of downtown McKinney, Texas, which is surprisingly very much like the town described in my novel. I wrote this book long before I ever divorced, left my husband, quit working in his office, moved to the mountains in Colorado, and finally moved to this small town-like city where I work in the coolest building on the square with my daughter.

What's most astonishing about this is that I wrote the main character's story long before it became my own. The book is based in a fictional town called Langsberry, Colorado where the main events center around the square where the people work and play and some live. While re-reading the manuscript I felt as if I was reading about the town I live in now and reading about my life now, years after writing the words I had been reading. If I had finished this all those years ago, I would have never had the magical experience I had today.

So, I wonder is there really such a thing as procrastination or is it perfect timing instead? Who says the book was meant to be finished any sooner than right now? Who says there's anything wrong with allowing a manuscript to go untouched for years before completing it? Who says? Not me anymore. Now I know better. I showed up. I just showed up and the magic happened. How beautiful is that?

And today I was gifted by a lovely man with a download of a song I absolutely love, a song that I've wanted to have for many years now, but didn't even know the name of the singer. That very song happens to be the song I wrote about listening to at the beginning of this post. Now I'll be tapping my foot on the hardwood floor in RejuveNation LifeSpa on a regular basis, because now I have "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/It's a Wonderful World" on my computer because of him.

It really is a wonderful world and I feel as though I've discovered the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Again.

Back again...

I emailed a friend that I would work on my last edit of Healing Grace today. So far I haven't, but I have had a meeting with a new business partner to set up a date, time, and place where we will talk with prospective clients about joining us.

I washed the sheets, towels, and quilt. Yippee!! Clean sheets for tonight! I love crawling under the sheets when they're freshly washed. Yum...

And I gave the dog a bath. That's always such a huge accomplishment.

So, I still need to work on the final read-through and set a meeting with another business partner to go over a business plan for a separate business venture.

It feels like I've got so many irons in the fire, but what's really wonderful is how they're coming together and meshing into one big conglomerate. I couldn't have figured this one out if I had tried. Nor, would I have wanted to.

It seems the lesson here, as always for me, is to let go and truly trust the magnificence around me to bring the right people, places, and circumstances into my life. Things have been gelling for a while now, but recently people have been coming together in amazing ways, so it's time to put it all into action.

Do I dare blog about it yet?

There's still so many meetings to go to and details to work out yet that I think I'll just let it ride for now. I'm just so thrilled about the wonderment of it all.

Friends have circled back into my life and it just feels so good. One friend is Bo. I am still shocked that we've been communicating so much lately. He was a new friend in Steamboat right before I left. I was so intent on leaving that I'm not sure that I ever took our friendship to be anything more, to have any lasting significance. Not that I know that now either, but here we are in different states and we're talking and emailing and it's wonderful.

What I needed when I left Steamboat was to create a new life totally different from what I had built there. I needed action, networking, moving and shaking, high energy, flowers year 'round, no snow, wide open spaces, a wide variety of culture and arts, a metroplex and yet a place with a small town feel. I have that here. I also have friends with colorful backgrounds, stories that have made my hair stand on end, friends who create adventures without thinking twice about it. I am surrounded by the friendliest people who wear beautiful shoes and sandals and aren't in Tevas and Columbias all the time. I'm surrounded by people who don't look like they just stepped out of a sporting goods store. Lots of women here wear dresses and heels and make-up and lots of chunky jewelry. After 34 years in Colorado, I'm mesmerized by it. Not that Denver area was so different than this, but coming from a mountain town, I'm just a bit shell-shocked.

I have worn make-up a couple of times. I've yet to blow dry my hair. I'm still wearing my Keen sandals, but I'm more often in a skirt than jeans mainly because it's just too hot for the denim.

I needed the time to immerse myself in big city life, to experience what I haven't, to try out a different lifestyle, and then allow myself to come back around to something that could possibly last through months of separation. I listen to Bo and read his emails and I want more of them. I want more of him. I appreciate him, the man he shows me he is. I love reading his words. I love how they make me feel, so I'm just allowing myself to be open to whatever this could possibly be rather than saying it's over because we live in two different states, geographically speaking, because in another sense our states are very together.

Another recent rekindled friendship is with Michelle. I've missed her so much, but yet knew, just knew, that it would all come back around. It was just a matter of the right circumstances presenting itself, the ability for her to determine who she really is and how she wanted to be. Once she got really clear on it, the door opened for our paths to meet so beautifully again. I so look forward to having her as a business associate as well as a dear, dear friend.

I know the universe has this perfect orchestration of people and circumstances that ebb and flow in my life. I know how easily the right things show up in perfect timing, so why do I feel edges of panic when I don't know what's going on? Why has it been even slightly necessary for me to feel the need to know? When will it be so effortless to just let go and swing in the flow of it all on a regular basis?

When will the lessons be learned?

Or, will they never all be learned fully and completely? Is this the reason I am here? To learn, grow, evolve, expand? Over and over and over?

No matter what the answers, I have wonderful friends to do it all with, and I'm thrilled to have them back in my life. The trip is so much more fun because of it.