Paperback reflections, thank you, and a free book. . .

[image error]I tried, a year ago when my book was published, to see what was ahead.  And of course it soon became obvious that I could see nothing at all.  

I was not one of those authors who pops a bottle of champagne the day the first finished copy arrives on the doorstep.  In fact, the opposite.  There had been one mildly positive review in Publishers Weekly, not much else to make the world sit up and take notice, and I was pretty certain that "The Gift of an Ordinary Day" would come and go without leaving so much as a trace.  That, I told myself, was just fine with me. After all, there had been so many times, as I was writing it, that I completely lost confidence in what I was doing.  

Why should anyone need three hundred pages anyway, just to work through some rather personal and complicated feelings about mid-life and children growing up and leaving home?  And more to the point, why would anyone feel compelled to read a  memoir in which no one's marriage falls apart, no deep dark secret is unearthed, no goal is reached, no great epiphany ever achieved?  

"What are you writing about?" various friends and acquaintances would ask along the way.  I never did figure out how to answer:  "Um, myself. Getting older. The kids changing. How hard it is to live with them, and how it's even harder to let them go. Wondering what's next, what really matters, and, well, how to deal with it all. . ."  Somewhere in there I would trail off, embarrassed by my own lack of a plot. 

Not exactly a compelling sales pitch.  Every once in a while, I would send chapters to my mom to read, and ask, "Do you think anyone will be interested in this?"  And she would read, and call me up, and say, "Well, I'm interested, but of course, I know you."  That was honest, if not exactly encouraging.  Finally, in order to finish, I just had to sit down at my kitchen table and write.  And in order to do that, I had to pretend that no one would ever actually read it.  

We were in Maine on vacation, at the very end of last summer and a few weeks before pub date, when, to my  surprise, the first couple of advance reader reviews popped up on amazon.  Apparently, bound page proofs had been sent out to a few hundred serious book bloggers and amazon faithful; now, they were beginning to weigh in.  A friend e-mailed me the news and so, heart pounding, I logged on and typed in my book title.  "Has this woman ever had an unexamined thought?" wondered my first reviewer, a woman who admitted she had lost patience with me within the first couple of chapters.  Unfortunately, I did know the answer to that one.  But the review stung.  It also confirmed my own worst fears.

I took a long, fretful swim that day, and then I took my friend Ann Patchett's advice:  "Don't even read the amazon reviews," she warned.  "There's not much you can learn from the good ones, and the bad ones will pierce your heart.  Just write what you are meant to write.  Trust your own voice." 

A few weeks later, when a box of finished copies arrived, I put a couple on the shelf and then got busy making dinner.  Did I want to have a little celebration? my husband asked. "No thanks," I replied, having already decided to pretend I hadn't just had a book published.  

I had, however, promised my publisher that I would create a web site and start writing a blog; it was the least I could do to help their sales effort along, given how very well they had treated me.  I wasn't sure that I could come up with something meaningful to say every week, but I was pretty sure that it didn't matter much; who would ever see it anyway?  My son Henry set me up with a basic template, showed me how to slip in behind the curtain and manage my own content, and I typed up my first blog post on publication day, September 7, 2009.  Hitting "save and close" I felt a bit like a pine toppling in the forest.  If no one is there to watch, does the tree actually fall? 

It wasn't long, though, before the first letter magically appeared in my in-box, an e-mail from a mother of three in California.  "If you lived next door to me," she wrote, "I know we would be great friends."  A few hours later, another e-mail arrived, this one from a reader who was halfway through the book and paused to say, "I can't believe how much we have in common."

Since that day just over a year ago, I've received hundreds of letters from women (and a few men) who have read "The Gift of an Ordinary Day" and then been inspired to visit my web site and write to me.   And each of these letters has taught me something.  One by one, my readers have reminded me that, in fact, our stories do matter.  That a book can make a difference in a life.  And that we humans are strengthened and supported by the simple act of reaching out across time and distance to say:  "I hear you.  I understand.  I've felt that, too." 

So here I am, a year later and feeling very much a part of a larger community, all thanks to you -- you who are reading these words at this moment.   Different as the details of our days may be, it is so clear to me now that we are bound together by our hopes for our loved ones and our aspirations for ourselves. What we seek, and what we find, as we write and read and share our fears and doubts and dreams with one another, is connection.   Turns out that we are all struggling along, trying to make sense of the way things are and to become the people we are meant to be.  We are all making an effort to be more present in our lives, to love our children just as they are, to appreciate life's simple pleasures, and to be grateful for every ordinary moment of every ordinary day.

What we know, of course, is the very thing that we continually need to be reminded of: that life is fleeting and precious and beautiful, and that heaven is right here on earth if we will only pause long enough to really look, to really see:  the cup of hot coffee, the tousled head, the wagging tail, the small hand held up in greeting, the curve of a chin, the blinked back tear, the sun, the moon, the stars. . .the very life that we are blessed to live. 

I began to write a blog a year ago because someone told me that I should.  But I continue to write because, as it turns out, the forest isn't empty after all.  It is full of friends and fellow travelers, all of you who are willing to show up, to listen, and to offer compassion and insight and, perhaps, a story of your own in return.   Sitting here, at my same old kitchen table, I no longer feel alone and uncertain of my own voice but, rather, surrounded by soul mates.  

Last week, the paperback copies of "The Gift of an Ordinary Day" arrived in bookstores.  This time, though, when my own box arrived from the publisher, I didn't hide them away -- because the other thing I've learned over the last year is that a story told is at once an invitation and a gift.  When we offer up the truth of the way things really are for us, we invite others to tell their truth in return.  And when we give the gift of our trust--trust that we will be heard and not judged--we receive trust back, in spades.  Those of us who write blogs or read them figure this out pretty quickly:  the learning and caring goes both ways.  Out there in the space beyond our fingertips, out where love is energy, our words to one another are alive and potent, weaving an ethereal, indestructible safety net of compassion and concern.   

Today, my dear friend Karen Maezen Miller is giving away a signed copy of "The Gift of an Ordinary Day" on HER wonderful blog, Cheerio Road.  Visit her there to win yours.  And in the meantime, thank you, my friend, for being here.