Mini carnations from a granddaughter.
She bought the vase in New Mexico.
My grown children like to poke
fun at me for my participation on Facebook. I think they believe that I take
any word from any source as gospel. My protests that I check out reliable
sites, ignore the crazies, and try to be responsible about what I read and what
I share fall on deaf ears. But the other point they cannot grasp is the
friendships I have made on Facebook. Many many people that I have never and
will never meet in person but whom I consider good friends and with whom I
enjoy frequent exchanges.
That was brought home to me
with this birthday. Colin, my oldest and perhaps the biggest skeptic, asked me
how many birthday wishes I got on Facebook, and I’d say as of today it’s about
250. Most of them came on the birthday site that Facebook posts but today others
have come in on a post Jordan put up and a few other ways. A good number of
those came from members of the Guppies subchapter of Sister in Crime, my fellow
sisters and misters in writing mysteries. Guppies are a wonderfully supportive
group, and I have many acquaintances and a few good friends in the chapter.
Then there were wishes from people from various times in my long life, like the
children of some of my childhood friends, and people I knew when they were
children, regular readers and commentators on my blog, people who share my
social and political sympathies, and a couple who don’t but remain friends. It’s
really a remarkably varied group, and to say I am flattered beyond words is an
understatement. It’s been a lesson in
A glorious orchid from a young friend.
gratitude.
I think I mentioned on a Facebook
post recently if not on this page that Colin dug out my lifetime statistics for
Amazon book sales. Amazon has sold slightly over 99K books by me, though I must
confess almost 9/10 of them are one title—Mattie, the first adult novel
I wrote and one which won a Spur Award from Western Writers of America. For
years I sold it on Amazon for ninety-nine cents, which accounts for the
tremendous sales numbers. (Today a reprint edition is available from TwoDot, a
subsidiary of Rowman & Littlefield publishers, and it’s a bit more than
ninety-nine cents.) But that total figure does not count copies sold by
publishers. Regardless, the thought that I have perhaps brought reading
pleasure to that many people is a significant accomplishment for me. I have
said before that it’s my core belief that we must leave the world a bit better
than we found it, and so perhaps my books have done that. I am surprised and
delighted. Best-selling authors might laugh at my figures, paltry compared to
theirs, but for me, a low midlist author, those numbers represent
accomplishment.
The two things—birthday greetings
and book sales—may seem unrelated, but in my mind they go together. I have made
friends, and I have given people reading pleasure. To me, that indicates a life
well lived. I don’t mean that in a smug way at all but in a happy way. We all
want to know that our lives have meant something.
Having taken stock like that
doesn’t mean that I’m checking out. It’s just that eighty-five does seem, as
Jordan kept telling me, some sort of milestone birthday and an appropriate time
to take stock. So what I find is a life that has been enriched by so many
people, so many friends, and moderate success at writing. Who could ask for more?
Flowers for my desk from a neighbor
Sometimes life is glorious and
wonderful. Sometimes, though, it is mundane, and so tonight, after all the
glorious food and good times of the weekend, I found myself improvising a
shepherd’s pie out of the roast beef left over from poor boy sandwiches for a
crowd Saturday night. And oh boy, did we have leftovers! Turkey salad, anyone?
To share a bit of my birthday
joy, I’m posting pictures of the flowers I received.
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