In the Library
Sometimes I have to give myself a talking-to.
I got back from my whirlwind library tour and had a lot to do. I tried to get things done and felt like I was spinning my wheels, leaving tire tracks on my office floor.
One of the things I had to do was record the comments made on the surveys handed out at my performances. This was something I was dreading. I suspected most of them would be nice—and there is nothing harder for me to do than read nice things written about me. I get embarrassed. I don’t want to do it. But recording those surveys was one of the things on my long to-do list. So I started.
People were not asked to provide their names, but the first survey was signed “Pearl.” I remembered Pearl. She had bright blue eyes. She told me she had recently moved into a senior assisted-living facility.
Pearl wrote, “It was very good and very interesting. I like hearing about books.” Pearl and I chatted after the show. She had come to the library with a walker because she had taken a bad fall that spring and broken both her femurs. I told her that sounded terribly painful. She told me she had almost lost her life numerous times, and now she thought she should write about that: how she had almost died several times but was still alive and well—with a walker—attending a presentation at her local library.
I talked a lot about optimism in my presentation, and a woman came up to me afterward and asked, “Do you think there is a difference between optimism and hope?”
I told her I wasn’t sure and asked her what she thought. She appeared thoughtful for a moment. She was going straight from the library to a fish fry to support a political candidate who probably will not win. But she felt he wanted to do the right things, so she was campaigning for him anyway.
“I think hope is what you do even if you know it won’t work out,” she said. “Because it might work out for your kids—or your grandkids.”
I liked that a lot. Another man told me he was turning 90 later this year. When he heard a character in my book had a passionate romance at 86, he said he thought 86 was kind of young. I promised him that the next romance I wrote would involve mature adults.
I kept reading surveys. “You inspired me so much! I was feeling old and down—not anymore. I’m not a writer but a painter, and I am going to try.”
I had no idea who this painter was. I wondered if they would start painting. I wished they had told me in person so I could have encouraged them.
“Loved your enthusiasm and can-do attitude. I left feeling good today. Thank you.”
“Very uplifting. Food for my soul.”
“You inspired me to write my story for family.”
And that was when I gave myself a talking-to.
I saw how foolish I was to be embarrassed. I have been given the chance to provide a little optimism, a little entertainment and maybe a little hope. It isn’t a big thing that I do, but maybe it helps. And that is enough.
“People keep telling me I should write my story down!” Pearl said, right before she left.
“You should!” I agreed. Pearl nodded thoughtfully. “I might have to do that. I hear they’re starting up a writing group in the library.”
Till next time, Carrie