the power of thank you

It has been a fall of vast proportions and very little sleep and soon, soon, I will sit very quietly in a still and silent spot and reflect upon it all. What have I learned? What lessons carry forward?

But there is no need to find a quiet space to reflect upon this: the power of thank you. That simple truth—so well known, so often disregarded—was reinvented for me yesterday by the arrival of a yellow-brown envelope from the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church Tutoring Center, which I had visited two consecutive Tuesday evenings not long ago. I had met with the children of West Philadelphia and their tutors. I had to read to them from books by Jacqueline Woodson, Sandra Cisneros, and others. I had talked to them about language, and what it can do, and then the children had written stories for me. Stood up before their friends and let their dreams ring out.

The joy during those two evenings was palpable. I wrote of one young writer on my blog. I left, and I left them to their stories, but I did not forget their hearts, their faces.

Yesterday, in that envelope, I received their notes, their kindness, their sprawling enthusiasm, their books of dreams, and one fine Thanksgiving turkey. I received the autographs of aspiring writers and inspired readers and home builders. I received these words: "I am really excited that you put me on your blog. That was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life."

The keepsake of this whirring fall. The authenticity that lives in children.

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Big Apple, Bryn Mawr, Jersey City, Hoboken, Buzz, El Salvador, Berlin: Where I've A-Been Running To

The snow would not defeat me. I've been flying. Through crusty white landscapes and down the slushed streets of the Big Apple (on Friday). Into the quiet calm of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, where I spoke about memories and memoir after Nicole Duran gave her powerful sermon on turning the other cheek. (That is my father, that is me, that is the Reverend Charles Grant, who extended the invitation and introduced me.) Up to Jersey City, then along the Hudson into Hoboken, to spend an evening and then a morning with our son (he showed us where Eli Manning is rumored to live; he showed us where Justin Timberlake recently collected a crowd (my son among them)).

Then a dash back to my home, so that I could interview two corporate clients and then set off running again—to the train station and into my own city and up through the campus of Penn, toward Kelly Writers House, where Buzz Bissinger, one of three 2014 KWH fellows, gave the best reading of his life before both students and friends who have known him for a very long time. Buzz was powerful. He was honest. He was among those who deeply respect his talent and heart. (There is Buzz, above, with the great Rolling Stone writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the fabulous famous author/editor Stephen Fried, and myself). After that a meal hosted by Al Filreis (who runs the hugely popular KWH fellows program) and another dash to the station. This time I missed the train, but it didn't matter that much; I had my students' papers with me and plenty to do.

Now I am moments away from heading back down to Penn to greet a classroom full of students whose expectation essays filled me up with joy and wonder. That's what my students—year in and year out—do. I think some angel up there is plucking strings.

In between everything, Serena Agusto-Cox found a book I'd written long ago—my memoir about marriage to a Salvadoran man (Still Love in Strange Places)—and wrote beautifully of it. Thank you, Serena. Finally, a dear book/life friend wrote to me about Going Over, that Berlin novel due out in a few weeks. She wrote with words that bolstered me.

My red shoes are at the door. I lace them up. I go running.

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Flowers for my Mother, on the Third Sunday in Advent (at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church)

Earlier this morning, 5 AM, I was on the phone with my son, who is Los Angeles bound. It's a business trip—a chance to spend some time at the parent company of his media planning firm. It's also a chance for my son to see a city he's never been before—a few hours of not work for the hardworking son who has taken just a half day off in the past nine months of his first out-of-college, it's-for-real job.

In time, he set off in the dark for his adventure. I waited for a little more sun, then stepped outside into the crystal palace the world had overnight become to chop the ice away from the car. It's the third Sunday in Advent. I needed to be in church, near Christmas words and Christmas songs. I was married at Bryn Mawr. Our son was baptized there. My mother was beloved there and in her absence my father has become so engaged in the life of this community that I call him The Big Man on the BMPC Campus. He modestly shakes his head. He says, No. But I know. I see. I go to church there with him now, whenever I can. At Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church my father is equally vital and young. He's necessary, and happy.

Today my father (having gone to the early service) was long gone, on his way to see my brother, when I finally cleared the crystals and got on the road. The ice on the trees and electrical lines kept shattering as I drove—dazzlingly minor key crashes. By the time I opened the door to the sanctuary, the St. Cecelia Girl Choir, St. Andrew Boy Choir, Youth Chorale, and Sanctuary Choir were already bringing Christmas into Christmas. Soon the advent candles were lit, and now Reverend Agnes Norfleet, nearly one year into her job as the pastor of this church—into her bold, bright, life-giving tenure—was giving the kind of sermon that we remember for how it moved us and how it made us laugh as well (she tends to do this). After that the Reverend Nicole Duran webbed together the big and the small of now into an artful prayer, and then there were more songs, another prayer, the postlude. I stood to go.

At the door, Reverend Norfleet gave me one of her welcoming hugs and asked me if I had noticed the flowers. I had. They were full-headed, unusual, white, and many times throughout the service I had studied them, thought how rich and prepossessed they were, how perfectly graceful for Advent.

"They were given by your dad in honor of your mom," she said.

Just like my father, at Christmas.

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What is the what in publishing? How funny is Anne Lamott? And Alyson Hagy: thank you.

New York City was at its hospitable best yesterday.  Through the windows of a train I watched the sun both rise and set on Manhattan.  In between I opined on the future of YA at the Publishing Perspectives Conference, saw old friends (Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Jennifer Brown, Laura Geringer, Melissa Sarno, Dennis Abrams, Ed Nawotka), made new ones, did a little Amen shout as Doris Janhsen, David Levithan, Francine Lucidon, Eliot Schrefer, and Dennis Abrams (pictured above), reminded people what publishing is really about, or should be about:  good books.  By mid-afternoon, I was sitting with the remarkable team at Gotham, discussing the future of Handling the Truth.  I was thinking—truth—how lucky I am.  (Then got even luckier sneaking in a little stolen time with Jessica Shoffel of Philomel and my own son, at 30th Street Station.)

It took every bit of driving craftswomanship I have (and there isn't much) to get to Anne Lamott's talk (and promotion of her new book on prayer, Help Thanks Wow) at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church by the 7:30 start.  My father had saved a seat for me in the balcony, and a lucky thing that was, for there were at least 1,000 people gathered in this church where I grew up, wed, and baptized my son.  Anne does what I cannot do.  Talks without a plan ("I have prepared nothing," she began), works her way toward a theme, gets grace right out there, where it belongs, and triggers a bout of group hysteria with a single word (Okay) and a prop (my father's pen).

And so we laughed.  And so it was ten before I finally got home, after a day that had begun at 3 AM.  The mail had been brought in.  There was a card, the smart, precise handwriting of an amazing writer whom I love.  Alyson Hagy, you of the million things to do, you of the bad bronchitis, Good Lord, girl, you didn't have to.  But I love this from you.  I will treasure it, always.

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If I Could Give You This

If I could give you the sound of Vespers within the stone walls of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church.  If I could give you the ride back to my father's house.  If I could give you the pink edge of the sky, or the lawns alight with Christmas.

If.

I can only give you this.

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Where Truth Meets Fiction

"Recently I was going through some of the poetry I wrote as a teen, and truly there’s some pitiful stuff. So sentimental and sloppy and overcooked and romantic, and yet, there it sits in the high school magazine, alongside the work of my genuinely genius brother (number one at Radnor, tops at Princeton, a soaring PhD from Stanford), not to mention David Brooks of Bobos in Paradise fame. There it was, somehow earning me the community poet award, the night just before graduation. I was given gifts as an aspiring young poet—more than my poetry ever actually deserved. Mostly it was this gift of learning to believe in myself so that I would keep working at this thing called writing, keep testing myself, keep reading the works of others, keep trying, until I could get some part of it right. I was emboldened by others. I learned to persevere. And because of this, I found a way to make language my ally, to emerge in the world as myself."

— from my talk yesterday to the gracious, intelligent, and warmly inviting women of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church

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