Let us count the perks

Walking on the riverside trail near where I live, I passed three boys, grade 5 or 6. Didn’t recognise them, but said, as you do in a small town, “Hi, guys.”

One nod.

One suspicious glance.

One mumbled: “Hi.”

Walked on.

Then, from behind me: “Hey. You’re the author!”

Looked around.

Three grinning, waving kids, who must have been in a class I’d visited recently. (Had to have been recent for the visit not to be forgotten.)

That started me thinking about the perks of writing.

Came up with …

A bit of travel … Writing has taken me all over New Brunswick, as well as to Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Newfoundland, Nunavut, Ontario, and Addis Ababa and Debra Zeit in Ethiopia.
Being able to work at your own pace – and in peace and solitude. (I say this after happily spending a big chunk of my working life in the frenzied and crowded and noisy environment of school.)
Being able to set your own deadlines, although one consequence of this is that I tend to be stricter with myself over meeting them than I used to be dealing with externally imposed deadlines. (You can always come up with an excuse for not meeting someone else’s deadline, but you can’t lie to yourself.)
Being greeted at school doors by students when you arrive to do your writers in the schools thing. (My favourite greeting: The student welcoming committee at a Toronto elementary school with a banner strung across the classroom window behind them: Welcome Mr. Robert.)

What am I forgetting?