I went to my monthly storytelling event while still in a delighted daze about all the amazing things that have been going on in my life, in terms of the StoryCorps anthology and the anthologies that I’m planning to publish myself, so naturally that’s what I wanted to talk about, even though tooting my own horn does not come naturally to me.
But it was a tricky month for horn tooting, because the theme for this month’s event was “Mistakes–Stories of Getting it Wrong.” So I had to be a little creative. Let me know how you think I did. Here’s the recording of my story on Sound Cloud, and if you are unable to get audio or don’t want to hear the dulcet tones of my voice, below that I’ll post the text I practiced with for weeks prior to the event. I think I stayed pretty faithful to it this time.
I truly believe that if there’s a lesson you’re supposed to be learning but you aren’t, then the universe will throw it at you over and over and over again until it finally sinks in. One of those lessons, for me, seems to be that despite my best efforts, life just isn’t going to be predictable.
I’m a Capricorn through and through. I like everything to be foreseeable and expected. I like all my triangles to be equilateral and my t’s to be crossed and my I’s dotted. And my ducks better behave themselves and stay in a nice little row.
But if they don’t, what will I do? What can I do? Nothing. Because life just isn’t going to be predictable. I don’t know why that always takes me by surprise. I think my life has taken an unusually high number of 90 degree turns simply because I’m supposed to be learning that lesson.
“You think you can have it all under control? Well, buckle up baby. Here we come!”
I have to say, though, that recently I’ve been enjoying this lesson a heck of a lot. It started when I got a phone call from StoryCorps asking if I remembered that interview I did for them back in 2009 about how much I loved being a bridgetender.
“Yes…”
“Well, we want to include it in our next book.”
So here I am, on page 17. They even spelled my name right!
But oh, that’s not all. Of course they want to promote this book, so they asked if it would be all right if they played part of my interview on National Public Radio’s Morning edition.
Heck yeah!
So now you can hear it on the NPR Website and the StoryCorps website. And because of that, overnight, visitors to my daily blog, the View from a Drawbridge, tripled in number.
Hooooo… so now things will die down and become nice and predictable again, right?
Noooooooo! Next, I was featured in Parade Magazine, which has a readership of 54 million.
And then a friend went to one of the book signings in Austin, Texas, and of the 53 people in this book, Dave Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, mentions my story specifically. What???
So now, when I google my name, I get almost 4,000 results.
Even so, I wasn’t expecting the next phone call, from a senior editor of O Magazine. Yup. I’m going to be in the September issue. Are you freakin’ KIDDING ME? Oprah Winfrey is going to know my name for about two seconds! How cool is that?
I cannot believe this is happening to me. I’m so excited! I’ll ride this wave as long as I can, even though sometimes it can be a little bit exhausting.
But I’m now working with the AMAZING Deborah Drake to start publishing a series of anthologies based on my blog.
Predictable life? Pfft. Little did I know.
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