Today I was reminded how lucky I am and how truly good my life is. Why this revelation? I bought some pears at the 99 Cent Store. Pears, you say? Yep, pears—small, rosy, and almost honey-flavored. They took me back to the summer of 1970. My brother and I spent nine weeks backpacking through Europe together. In an orchard along the Rhine we filched some pears, and they tasted unlike anything we’d ever eaten—so sweet the juice dripped off our chins. We agreed it must’ve been a pear tree in Eden, not an apple tree. So special is that memory that I’d already written it into my historical novel-in-progress, and then I found these pears (and in such an unlikely place) and enjoyed them all over again.
Further sweetness: Karen Cushman, whom I met at the SCBWI Conference in LA last weekend, actually emailed me three times this week with recommendations for research on my novel. What a wonderful lady. And in Friday’s mail I found an acceptance letter from the Rutgers One-on-One Conference in October. Granted, I still haven’t heard back from the agent, but I sent her an email “Status Check,” so I expect I’ll hear one way or another in the next day or so. But even if she declines my project, life is sweet.
