Queen for a Day

When I was in 6th grade at Alden Place school in Millbrook New York, I won 1st place for the best costume at the Girl Scouts Halloween party. It's one of those cherished memories that, incredibly, has actually remained intact inside a head that's become host to an increasingly faulty memory. I'd dressed-up as a little old lady and the prize was a jewelry holder: A folding plastic ladder with holes in the rungs to hold earrings, a little tray at the top for rings, and a perfectly darling plastic silver poodle resting on a red velvet cushion at the base. I was thrilled with my treasure and for good reason, not simply because I absolutely adored it, but it marked the last time I carried home the prize.

But then several days ago I was notified that my novel, The Secret of Lies, had won 2nd place in the Royal Dragonfly Book Award Contest, in the category of Newbie Fiction. It's very possible that I may have sprang through the house in wild abandon on a current of abundant joy -- I may have -- but my immediate reaction remains something of a blur.  What I do vividly recall is how terrified I was to scan the list of winners for my name, fully unsure what I expected or dared hope for.

Honestly, but that's just the way it is. I'm not someone who wins stuff. For me, buying a 50/50 ticket is a donation, because I well know and understand that the numbers in my hand will not match those printed on the winning ticket. The squares on my Bingo card will never fill-up with the letters announced by the caller. Just as my scratch-off lottery tickets will not have three matching cherries, leprechauns, or treasure chests once the silver squares are scratched off with a coin. Nearly all of my Field Day ribbons that I've kept in a cigar box from my school days are bright yellow -- 5th place. And I mention this not because of any particular sense of heartbreak or long-running pity party. It's just the customary state-of-the-union. It is what it is. (And I happen to love the color yellow.)

Only now there's this -- the winning ticket, the second runner to cross the line, silver medal looped around my neck.  Does this award which has arrived on the wings of unsurpassed joy somehow help to validate my work as a writer?  Yes, no...well maybe. Though it could just as well be nothing so deep as that it feels good. Really.  It just feels pretty good. 

Yup, definitely, Queen for a Day