|
I’m walking along
Ocean View Boulevard in Pacific Grove and it’s one of those spring
days so stunning it makes you want to cry. The ocean is four
shades of aquamarine that line up with a powder blue sky with
wooly clouds grazing across it. Black oyster catchers, with
mandarin orange bills, are stuttering across the rocks,
“dr-r-r-tt, dr-r-r-tt,” and every flower along the trail has
opened its face to the sun.
So why am I tearful? Because I’m wincing from rejection. I just
called a VIP at their home (they gave me the number once) and they
treated me like a paparazzi stalker.
You see how hard this book is? I’m trying to get releases from 62
celebrities and I’ve had to be shamelessly persistent about it; to
exercise persistence in the face of rejection, a quality I admire
in every person in the book.
So, I blubbered on a friend’s voice mail, took this walk, and got
my head on straight. Which is to say, in the presence of nature I
had this humble elucidation: my ego expected this person - who
gets hundreds and maybe thousands of requests for interviews,
money, what have you - to remember me.
Then I took my introspection, or Mental Pause® if you will, a
little further: I am a very private person. If I gave you my phone
number it was probably for one time use, after which I want you to
shred it. I revile intrusions into my inner sanctum. So imagine a
celebrity and how they might feel. Also, they are entitled to bad
hair days.
I’m truly working on expanding my hurts and resentments to the Big
Picture these days.
So guess what happens next? As I’m walking along mulling this
over, still feeling like a penny waiting for change, I start up a
chat room with this octogenarian and his wife. Then the woman asks
my name, and when I tell her – voila! – instant recognition. She
has been reading my Quotable Notables column in the newspaper for
years and loves it.
So I hesitatingly venture, “Do you have a computer?”
“Oh, yes!” she says.
“And you know how to go on-line?”
“Sure.”
So I tell her she can keep reading me at this Web Site, and walk
away like Sylvester with Tweety feathers in my mouth . . .
This is but one example of the synchronicity happening in my life
right now. Goethe’s inspiring words come to mind, about following
our dreams, and all manner of aid and unforeseen things “no man
could have dreamed” will come our way.
That’s exactly what’s happening with my book. |
