Yes it was one of those days. After many late nights working
and many full and wonderful days, I hit a wall. I kept yawning, couldn’t focus.
I had 108 pages to print for my copy editor and my printer
jammed. It jammed nine times. I cut my finger trying to fix it. “No problem!” I
yawned, I’ll give it a break, thinking that rest would help it, “and do
something else.
I worked on addressing and stamping postcards. Blessing
House Press decided to print some postcards to let people know about my novel,
Solomons Puzzle. Because the novel is
about a community, it has a wide and uncommon range of appeal. The postcards
have different promotional sentences, meant to speak to different interest
groups, on the front, beneath the novel’s title. Some are printed for the
quilter’s quest at
Cottonseed Glory, which will see many quilters visit the
store just weeks before the book is in hand. Some are printed to explain that
the novel is full of local, Annapolis color.
I got these ready to go to the post office. My son, Karl,
who works up the street, stopped by for lunch. I explained that I was having
trouble focusing. “Take a nap,” he said between bites. “You’ve been working
non-stop.
When he left, I decided not
to do as he recommended. “No, I can’t take a nap!” my inner determination
refused to admit exhaustion, but my muddled brain kept trying, “But Karl is such a wise and kind ‘kid.' Maybe he’s right.” No, no naps for me. I decided to go to the post
office, then make myself do something I was dreading: visit the St. John’s
College bookstore.
I got into my car, reviewing the e-mail exchange I’d had with
the bookstore manager. I had written to explain that I was an alumna of St.
John’s and that I had written a novel, to be released this November. Would they
consider offering it there? He replied with a short, nice message saying they would work
with me and to stop by the store sometime.
It was a gorgeous fall day. Thinking I’d mail the postcards
on my way to St. John’s, I stopped at the post office first. Reaching into the
back of my car, I realized I’d left them home on the counter. Sigh.
I drove downtown—a gorgeous drive over my favorite bridge
where the water sparkled in the autumn sunshine. Surely this would revive me! I
found the most miraculous parking spot right in front of the main walk up to McDowell
Hall. Anyone who has been here knows this never happens. I felt encouraged.
The air felt cool, smelled clean, the sky its incomparable
October blue, the brick of the campus walks and buildings beautiful in the sun
surrounded by trees with leaves just beginning to turn red and gold and orange.
Yet, I was apprehensive for reasons I’ve always known were imbedded in my own idealistic, practical soul, St. John’s and I don’t always see eye to eye. Composed of paradoxes, I'm hard to please.
The bookstore was where it always has been, in the basement
of Humphrey’s Hall. Exposed brick arches make the low, dark space charming and
bookish. There were books piled everywhere with their exciting scent. This made
me wonder if now, after all these years, I would feel at home. When I asked if
the manager might be in, the sales people told me that he was in the back and
kindly motioned in the direction of where the back could be found. I asked if
it was okay to just go back there and was told, “Sure. It’s pretty casual here
at the bookstore.”
Oh, okay. Good.
That little sentence gave me a bit of courage and hope.
Casual was what I needed if casual meant that the manager might be willing to
take a break to meet with me in the middle of the day. Casual would be good
because it isn’t easy asking people to take a chance on a book by me, a new
author with different ideas. Everyone is used to being told what to buy, where
to buy it and what is good.
In the back there were two women and one man sitting in
chairs staring at a computer beneath the solitary window. The man was gesturing
as he talked to the computer. I listened for a minute and then felt
uncomfortable eavesdropping so I said, cheerily, “Hello! They said I could find
you here.”
The poor trio looked so shocked I felt sorry for them. The
man slowly swiveled around in his office chair and stared up at me. “Hi,” I
said, growing nervous. “Sorry to interrupt,” I said to the women in the room.
“I can come back; I see you are busy.”
“No, no,” he said, still staring at me, looking
uncomfortable.
I said, “I wrote you…” and tried to help him recall our
e-mail exchange and the exciting information about my novel. “It’s set in
Annapolis and is full of local color,” I said to finish and handed him one of
the postcards mentioned above.
“I did tell you to stop in,” he remembered as he took the
postcard and flipped it over a few times. “Is the book available in the normal
ways? Is it being distributed by the major book distributors?” he asked.
“No,” I said and the silence fell hard. It struck my idealism odd that St. John's, the college of Great Books, would care about something like normal channels and major distributors when a beautiful book was the concern at hand. As he flipped the
postcard over again, then scooted his chair over to the computer, my practical side rose to the rescue and I said, “But it will
be available on November 26 and Blessing House Press is local, so it would be easy to get copies.”
He did some things on the computer. The women in the room
waited with serious faces. “No, you’re right,” he said, “I can’t get copies in
the usual way. Hmmm.” He seemed honestly puzzled.
One can feel when things aren’t going well, whether it is an
interview, a visit or something like this. Tension, though invisible, is
perceivable. Finally, he scooted his chair toward the women waiting and said to
us all, “It’s my job to support alumni, so…hmm I’ll look at this and see…” he
looked at the postcard.
the precise contents of my mind
So did I, too. And I saw that I’d brought the cards meant
for the quilt shop.
Inside,
silently, I sighed again. Here I was in the very halls of intellectual accomplishment
and scholarship and elitism and I had brought the card that emphasized the other things about the book—not the
turns of phrase or the carefully knitted symbolism, not the hard-hitting
characterization and social commentary—but the homey-ist, most practical
images.
“You have my email and now you have the postcard with more
information about the website,” I said, “so if you can work with me on this, let me know.” I apologized again for interrupting and left with a realization
remembered: St. John’s is neither casual nor free-spirited.
Instead, they are an institution well-respected and probably don't often carry books where quilts are a literary motif. (Though...in my defense, Madame Defarge did knit).
I was disappointed not to have figured something out, because their bookstore is a book lover's dream.
Nothing to do but let my practical side take over. It was a beautiful day.
I hurried out into the sunshine. I hurried to
my car. Wait. No. A ticket, tucked beneath the wipers, flapped in the cool autumn breeze.
That lovely, open parking spot I’d found was smack in the middle of the fire
lane.
I think I should have taken a nap.
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