Laura,
Yes, I like rain, and I like to walk uncovered in it. Preferably in Colorado. (We don’t get enough in Texas.) At home, I just duck. No umbrellas. No hoods.
Also, I drink my tea in mugs — all of which are precious to me, like your cup with the frog. At Christmas, I switch to cups and saucers, all from various china patterns.
I have not read every book, but I do read an awful lot. I know very little.
I’ve read your book twice. I’m sorry it took me longer than usual, but it was the first week of school, and it had more than enough drama. Anyway.
I’m still in shock. I feel like someone just gave me a check for, oh, $500,000, and I never planned for that contingency. What on earth does a person do with a gift like this? It is truly bizarre to see my name in the story, on Amazon, and to know that in some odd way, I did get you to write a novel.
My favorite sentence? “Megan had lost her mind.” I know I should pick another, but it’s true. And, “This thing with Megan was ridiculous.” And, “Megan with her crazy dreams.” And, “how unusual Megan really was.” Oh, and, “Damn that Megan.”
Of course, there are lots of other things I like, too. The recurring purple imagery. (In fifth grade, I wore purple every day. Mr. Henry, the bus driver, called me the Queen of Purple). I love Laura’s mother, who is sneaky—a word that got redeemed for me through “The Artist’s Way.” A woodsman bearing rescue tea equipment. The de-hinged screen door. The unusual poem illustrated with Kelly’s photo of sorrowful feet. The wreck. Frankenstein. Poems I recognized and poems I didn’t.
I think you are the James in the novel, both teacher and mischief-maker. You pick people out of obscurity and help them to bloom profusely. Our Galinda.
I am taking Jeff Overstreet’s fiction class at Laity. I haven’t decided what to bring, if anything. I’m mainly going because he titled his workshop “Tell it Slant.” If I ever tell my story, that’s how I’ll do it. Maybe I’ll just bring poems and freak him out.
I would like to be “happily perseverant,” but right now I’ll settle for plain ol’ perseverant. I am happy when I walk my dogs under the ever-changing moon. I am happy when I make my tea and drink it and write on my back porch. I am happy in the mysteries of Catholicism (I came into the church at Easter. One woman proudly introduced me saying, “She is doing this all by herself! She’s so strong.”)
Signing off with Earl Grey with lavender — the only way I will drink Earl Grey. Happy Labor Day, now that this labor, at least, is finished.
Megan
