Picture by Jill Gustafson
The last version of my new book finally arrived. I was
afraid to open the cardboard- package a UPS van delivered to my home. Yet, in
the fridge, a bottle of Rosé Champagne Taittinger relaxed in a cold atmosphere.
July had just started when a heat-wave assaulted
Northern California. While spending one night in Sonoma with a girlfriend, my
soft-cover book was waiting for me on the footstep of my present home. Not
without anticipation, I had to wait to open my package and discover if my last
reformatting efforts paid off.
Back to Novato after experiencing Sonoma in extreme
heat, I was ready to celebrate and enjoy a glass of Champagne. But at the same
time, I was also mentally ready to find imperfections I had possibly missed
while reformatting my book. I didn’t want to rejoice too soon.
That late
Sunday morning my drive back home from the Sonoma Lodge felt a pleasant ride. Miles
of wild marshes and yellow prairies colonized by chocolate-brown cows busy
grazing in vast pastures, unraveled before my eyes. Old vintage barns also
appeared along the way. Seeing such beauty nurtured my creative mind.
In my bedroom, I found the UPS cardboard package. I
grabbed it and proceeded towards the outdoors. My new home patio looked
inviting with white grapes dangling from a wooden-arch-umbrella that gave shade
to all below.
A glass of water in one hand, I headed for one of the patio’s glass-tables,
while holding my package in the other hand. I need a scissors, I thought. Back
into the kitchen, I grabbed the blue scissors and started to carefully cut the
tape protecting my package. Inside, a transparent plastic covered my precious
work. I was ready to unwrap and find out the result of my multiple changes.
Patience, I told myself, and put your glasses on your nose.
The changes I had made looked perfect, except,
perhaps, one picture I edited last and now looking a wee out of focus. What
else? I continued, questioning myself. As I turned pages, I suddenly spotted
two pages having a different Line Spacing
format that of the other pages. Is that new? I wondered. After reflecting
awhile on the necessity of further work, I concluded that more editing needed
to be done.
That afternoon, my friend Jack joined me. I told him
of my findings and project. Jack proceeded to read my book again. I silently
waited. A perfectionist would never let those details ignored, I reminded
myself while waiting for my friend’s approval.
“Yes,” my friend eventually said. “You are almost
there.”
“Almost,” I responded. “But I’m happy. I don’t mind doing
one more replica of my book. It is necessary.”
“Is it costly?”
“Well, let’s say it is not cheap,” I replied.
“Let’s open some bubbles anyway,” Jack announced.
“I’ll have a Belgian Ale.”
“I’ll take a glass of Crémant de Limoux, from Toques et Clochers,” I asserted while
reading the label on one of the two bottles Jack brought along. “Let’s wait
before opening the good one,” I continued.
“Ok,” Jack said. “It is your movie.”
Each of us holding our own glass of cold bubbly
beverages, we cheered to good fortune, and to dreams.
Pathways leading to dreams are never without efforts
or challenges, I discovered. Patience seems to also be a key component while
walking the roads of life. Reminding myself to be very patient helped me
remember what I had once learned in school while reading literatures written in
English.
In those University days, I payed attention to: words, nouns, adjectives
and adverbs, grammar and tenses, short sentences versus long sentences,
punctuations, paragraphs, plots, protagonists, antagonists, heroes and heroines,
also the various other characters, and the settings, without forgetting the
variety of endings. All those words, full of meanings, participated in my literary
education.
“Cheers,” Jack said out loud while raising his glass.
“Here is to your dream.”
“Cheers, and thank you for your understanding,” I
declared. “I have to try. I do not want to ever regret not trying.”
“Good for you.”
Fin
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