For the past two days, I have been so caught up in the publication of “The Story Of Rose,” my first e-book. Calls and updates from the publisher, excerpts and reviews, technical issues and sales monitoring, phone calls, e-mails and messages. It is so easy to become swept up in this, to smell a big book, to feel and see the rest of the world shrink and vanish. I was online all day, checking my numbers, watching for reviews monitoring my Facebook page. Once again, the thought of the big book. I even suggested to people that they post reviews of my new book if they liked it, something I have never done and will not do again, as wonderful as these people are to care. Once again that intense and powerful feeling of being at the center of the universe of breaking new ground making history. I know better, I know better, it is not how I live.
It isn’t that I don’t wish to fight for my books or care about them, it is that this can be just another maze, another system to be drawn into. Must it be a big book? Does it have to have a million great reviews? Does it have to be a huge hit? How many messages can I post or read? Can’t it just be a good book that I am proud to write and people will find? The world has changed, I know, but there is the core of me, and I want to keep it.
I was posting something on Facebook when Maria and I went out to the pasture with Red and we saw this beautiful old ewe on her side. We both thought she was dead. I leaned over her and saw she was breathing and Maria cradled her head in her hands. I went to get the rifle, but something stopped me. It was seeing Maria, I think, and Red. He focused on the ewe tried to get her up and then we carried her into the barn. She was barely moving, could not stand up We got her into a stall. Red stayed by her side, watched her, sat with her. He wouldn’t move, as if he was willing her to get up. Or perhaps helping her to die. Or perhaps just guarding her. I don’t know and I don’t believe anyone who is sure they do know.
How grateful I am for this, pulling me back into life. I can hardly ever express my feelings at the moment, I couldn’t even say them to Maria even thought she always knows. I grab the camera, I turn inward. But I feel it. But my fingers can express my feelings, they talk for me, my feelings come out my fingers when I write, these feelings.
I am 65 tomorrow. Maria is taking me up in a balloon ride and off to a secret hideaway. I will be posting tonight and then again in the morning. I will visit the ewe again shortly. Red is out there with here.
Even though she seems to be dying, she pulled me back into life, into what really matters, what is truly important. Seeing Maria’s love, and Red at his work opens up my heart and stirs my emotion. I hope my book is a raging bestseller, I do, I want that. More than that, I want to always remember what is important in life. This is what I do, capturing these feelings, these moments in life and recording them. This is who I am.