Thank-You All So Much

This is me, unadorned, old and pondering.

I'm all swishing around in the toilet bowl of life this morning. Well, that's how it feels even though it's the most beautiful of mornings and I just got back from yoga and the sweet little man who lives down the road saw me at the post office and wants to bring me a book on running- RUNNING- of all things because I walk past his house and I think he has a little crush on me. He's probably seventy-something years old, he has one of the worst cases of dental neglect I've ever seen, weird things are growing all over his face and he is adorable. He's just one of those people whose souls shine so brightly you can't help but smile when you see him.

Yesterday Mr. Moon told me that he was probably going to go play some cards at a guy's house (this is a regular card-game group) and that he probably wouldn't be home for supper and we discussed that and I told him that was fine and I thought we agreed he would check in with me and let me know his final plan. And then he didn't. And Mr. Moon is the best checker-inner in the world and the times he has left me worried about his whereabouts I could count on one hand, unlike my previous husband who was really just a boy and whose funeral I planned on countless endless nights lying in bed and waiting for the sound of his car pulling up the driveway or the sheriff's car or the phone to ring with someone on the other end with some very bad news.

But the really crazy and weird thing about last night's situation with Mr. Moon was that I could not reach him on his phone.

I sort of quietly freaked.

Had he lost his phone (this has happened before- two weeks ago for instance), had he left it in the car, had he been in a terrible wreck, had he abandoned me for some hussy?
Well, I didn't really give much time worrying about that last question in that his boat is here and also, his Cutlass and his hunting bow and his guns and his trucks. He might want to leave me but I don't think he leave his stuff. Not to mention his dogs and his chickens.

So I fretted and I worried and when he got home at eleven I was not kind. I didn't blow up, as I would have in the olden days because I wasn't angry so much as I had just been very, very worried.
And he understood why I was worried and he apologized again and again and he told me he was so sorry, he thought I knew that he was going to play cards for sure and that his phone was on! I said, "Check the fifty messages I left for you."
Well. He went to check and the battery was dead and there you go but you know, life gets freaky and things happen and the number one rule around this house is: DON'T WORRY THE MAMA!

I mean it.

But all is well and all is forgiven and I am just so glad he's safe, that man of my heart, that man of my life, that man of my dreams, the man in the moon who is my Moon, who is my love.

But it left me feeling all weird and discombobulated, those hours of anxiety.

And then the Apalachicola Rose thing.
You all have left me so much encouragement and so many great suggestions and here I am, not knowing what to do again.
I have tried to find other agents. I have tried to find publishers on my own. I have tried and tried and tried. Not lately, because my trying-bone got all worn down.

And here's the thing- this is the book I learned to write on so really, it's probably not that great a book. Just because I LIKE IT doesn't make it a great book. And by now, it's so dated. There were no cell phones when I wrote it. Do you realize how many books were written before cell phones when if cell phones had been invented there would have been no plot points to revolve around?

The missed call. The inability to communicate.

If Romeo and Juliet had had cell phones, neither one would have had to die!
Think about it.
"Hey Romeo, I'm going to fake a death. Don't worry. I'm fine. So don't do anything stupid when you see me in my casket. Okay?"

Not that Apalachicola Rose hinges on miscommunication or anything like that. But still.

Anyway, I don't know if the book is good enough to try and self-publish or put on paper. Obviously, many editors surely didn't think so. And who am I to second-guess PROFESSIONAL EDITORS?
Not me.
Which is why I was thinking of just putting it up online. If I did get a nice response, that might help me acquire a new agent for a different book. Know what I'm saying?
Plus, I like things to be simple. Simple, simple, simple.
I don't know why I am being so wishy-washy about this. Do I want to put it out there or not?
Perhaps, like many, many people, I am incredibly sensitive and shy about what I've created. What if it sucks? What if it's just plain sort of not-great? What if people read it and determine that I should have any sort of writing materials from pen and paper to the computer taken away from me? What if?

It is no coincidence that I do not dive into water. I walk into it. Slowly. And that is the way I am.

And now I am going to feed my chickens and I am going to take a walk and I am going to finish Lily's quilt. I am! Don't laugh.
And I just want to say here that I don't even know what I'd do without this blog and all of you, ALL OF YOU who read and respond and your words about your births and your big babies (did we ALL have giant babies?) have given me so much peace in my heart and I hope in Lily's too. And hearing that so many of you would indeed want to read a book I wrote makes me just feel so humbled. So humbled and so grateful and so scared, too.
Because what if I let you down?
Would you still respect me in the morning?

Okay. Enough of this toilet-bowl swishing, this out-loud pondering, this self-doubting and second-guessing. As I told Petit Fleur a long time ago, there is no ONE path, there is only the path we make.

Where the fuck is my machete?

Happy Friday.
Love....Ms. Moon