Life Happened And It Led Me Here!

A year ago I met someone who was bigger than life, who would never grow old, wasn’t going to be dead till they were dead, was going to keep living life to the fullest, keep growing, learning and doing. This person wanted to see me write and paint again, be able to live life doing things that I loved.

This positive energy was an inspiration and came at the perfect time. I had lost my antique store, had to liquidate everything, sold my house, had to have an estate sale (in the middle of which I hemorrhaged, there was a possibility I had cancer, had emergency surgery – no cancer. Thank you, God), I had to move the business, move from my house, buy another house, renovate it, do real estate and boom…crash! On the 4th of July, I had 104 temperature and was in convulsions. I refused to let my daughter take me to the hospital. Not very wise of me. When I went to the doctor that Monday, they thought I could have had one of the many unreported cases of West Nile Virus.

So when this person came into my life, I was ready to get rid of the negativity, to enjoy life…to start living again. It was time for me to take some of the bad things and turn them into good. The people who bought my old house became my friends. Today, Rickie Fray, is one of my best friends and we walk every day. Anyway, three months later, I sat down to do some journaling and poof, without realizing it I had written 3 chapters of a book. And I couldn’t quit writing. I am now doing the editing on the first book and have the second one almost completed.

Three months after that, my daughter, Autumn, called and said a woman in Los Angeles had called and ordered 2 cases of pickles because she loved them so much and wanted to give some to Oprah Winfrey for her birthday. I was ecstatic and oh so grateful. I had pulled back from pickle pushing and in an instant I was given hope and couldn’t wait to start marketing again. But when I heard she was a writer doing a screenplay for Oprah…I kept telling myself there are no coincidences.

I emailed to thank her and we started emailing back and forth about writing and she gave me the encouragement to keep going. Up to this point I’d never thought of myself as a “writer”. I was someone who’d been writing her whole life and a few years ago had an agent in New York handling another book I’d written, I’d had some poetry published, but I didn’t consider myself a writer because I wasn’t known or famous. But this wonderful woman assured me I was and to not give up. She is now in the process of moving from LA back to Oklahoma and I can’t wait to meet her in person and learn from her. She has even put me in touch with a publisher friend of hers.

So in the last year, I have let myself live again. I’ve taken chances, opened my heart, gone on an insane trip to Mexico with my daughter, Autumn…son, Zachary, granddaughter, Rhiannon, son-in-law, Michael Thomas and even my granddaughter’s biological father, Chris Cox was there. That trip alone I could write a comedy about.

I spent Halloween in Austin with my ex-stepdaughter and had a blast. I took off in a car with two teenage girls (my granddaughter and one of her friends) for spring break and headed for New Orleans…I should have been awarded a medal of some kind for that! But I have so many good memories and tons of fodder for my writing. Thank you my wonderful family!

I spent my birthday in New Orleans with three of the most beautiful amazing, talented, wise women, Matilde Alberny, Lucille Golden and Ellen Wall…all of them having gone through so much since Katrina and I felt so surrounded by such unconditional love and support. I felt at home.

My friend Ellen came to my new little home in January. I picked her up New Year’s Eve and the week she spent with me was cold and icy…so we locked ourselves in and I wrote and she read and edited and gave me so much support and love and I kept emailing her chapters after she went home to the Big Easy.

Autumn, Carrie Myers and I went to Apache to push pickles at the Rattlesnake Festival and we had the most amazing time at our cabin in Medicine Park and I got to meet so many wonderful and talented musicians like Zachary Austin Baker and had such a dream worthy experience the night we had a concert under the stars.

So many others have put up with me, my real world and my fantasy world. I just want to say how blessed I am and a big thank you to everyone. And more than anything always feel grateful. Try to turn those lemons into lemonade. And believe…I believe in miracles…I’ve seen them. I believe that love is all there is or ever will be… And I believe that God puts you where you need to be when you need to be there…you just have to be open and realize it. And if he’d given us everything we ever wanted when we were young, we’d have nothing to look forward to as we age.

And a big thank you to Rhiannon Cox and Ethan Burris who gave me the most wonderful character who’s always coming to the rescue of the insane redheaded writer in the book. At one point he says, “I could save her life, I could save her from certain peril, but I could never save her from herself.”

Perhaps that’s why her pages are full instead of blank.