Longtemps

Yes, it has been a long time since I last blogged. Was I at least busy? Yes, mostly. I travelled with the book: to Dallas (Wild Detectives Books), Nashville (Southern Festival of Books), Berea College (Black Women Writers Symposium), Baton Rouge (Louisiana Book Festival). All of these events were magnificent in their own right, but the experience overall of spending so much time talking about my work and meeting so many kindhearted, purely delightful people is worth noting. I could not have asked for better experiences.

I also spent time mourning the loss of a good friend. Gretchen Tremoulet was unquestionably kind and thoughtful. She reminded me of all those great women I grew up with, the ones that always seemed to have it together, who understood as if by instinct how to step outside of themselves. What this allowed her, and those women, was then the opportunity to think about others, to truly understood what everyone around them needed. I want to grow up to be like that.

The holidays were pretty special, except for some personal problems, which I won't get into, ha. Most of my father's children spent the day together. When he lived, he was always so happy when everyone could gather around him for some holiday or birthday. It was his children who gave him solace and happiness after my mother died. So we met at Sally's and ate lots of good food and shared gifts and played games. Great, great fun.

These days, I am working hard in this Rooster year. I thank God for the ability to work and for all the wonderful people I work with. My goals include, as usual, being more organized and not letting the minutiae of life take over. One thing I want to do is spend more time blogging. I told my buddy Richard that I was going to blog about writers, by focusing on one writer at a time. Writers are very special, after all. So, more to come on that topic. Until then . . .