Oh. My. Goodness.
You know how it feels to walk around all day in snug shoes, like all day at Disneyland or on a hike for hours in the mountains? and when you get home and pop those shoes off your feet and your feet go "aaaaaahhhhhh" ...? Yah, that's where I'm at. My spirit just kicked off it's shoes.
Aaaahhhhhhh.
I did it. I finished the book. It's done. I reviewed the pages over and over, making little adjustments and corrections, and at a certain point I had to agree with the little voice in my head that said the book wasn't going to get much better than it was. Not that it's perfect. It's not, but it had reached a sort of plateau (also, to be clear; the voices in my head never tell me I to create my own militia or to set animals free from zoos or anything). It was time to send it on to it's next life.
I wrapped it in bright colored tissue like an amazing present for Ellen, the book's author. A box with twenty paintings. The last couple of years of my life, off and on, all in one cardboard box. As I walked into the empty post office lobby on a Saturday afternoon, it seemed strangely poetic that there was no one there to witness this momentous occasion. I paid extra for insurance. I popped on the label. Then I just stood there in front of the big swinging package drop door. I hugged the box protectively to my chest, suddenly nervous to let it go out to a faceless system, to trust it would be handled carefully. I said a prayer and slipped the package into the drop box. Immediately, I wished I had put it into a bigger, more well padded box. Or double boxed it! Why didn't I double box it? I started picturing that scene in Cast Away where he fishes an artist's FedEx package out of the ocean, dripping wet. This was a box full of watercolors, for gosh sakes! The paint will run! Were there any oceans or big lakes between here and Tennessee? Or one bad move on a conveyor belt and my paintings could be massacred! Whimper.
It took till Thursday (even though the postage label said Monday!) for Ellen to get the package. She called me for the grand opening. She wrestled with tape, and gushed a little at the fun wrapping. Then one by one the paintings came out. She read the captions I had put on Post-Its to go with each picture. She wept a little here and there, and commented, and sometimes was very quiet.
"I'm just speechless... speechless..." she said a few times. She expressed her gratitude with love. The phone connection got weird because of my very old, dropped-once-in-water cell phone. She had to get to a meeting. Our little moment was finished.
Now new work will begin. I won't be involved in a lot of it. Tennessee is far away. But I trust Ellen implicitly. Well, what's not to trust? I was just sending her baby, her book, back to her.
I can't wait to see what she does with it.
