I didn’t win but…

I had a damned good time!  The food was better than edible.  I have never been to a big banquet dinner where I actually ate the food.  Not only that, I didn’t know that I knew so many people.  It’s going to sound weird, it’s a hard feeling to explain, but it felt like I was beginning to be part of this writing community.  Seriously.  People kept coming by and saying hello, giving me hugs, and it didn’t stop after the prize was handed to someone else.  If anything, I had an even better time. 

Christianne whooping and hollering her hands clapping wide and big over her head when my name was announced and I had to stand up.  (I’m grinning at my computer right now remembering it.)  Her fierce hug afterwards and her note that I read when I got home and washed my face.

The white rose that was pinned to my dress, so everyone would know that I was a nominee.  It felt special. 

The bagpiper who walked with a bent-kneed-glide and led the procession of the Lieutenant Governor and the other dignitaries that were there.

Rita Wong won the poetry prize for her poetry collection Forage.  And I am so happy for her.  We spent the last week on the book tour and if I could have chosen anyone to win something, it would have been her.  Not just because her poetry rocks, but because of everything she is, how she walks in the world, the straight forward, pure truth that surrounds her. 

Karen was there, and James too.  And a lovely man in a velvet jacket and a kilt said such sweet things to me, and he had such kind eyes, and I enjoyed talking with him and wished I knew him better so I could ask him if the rumors about what was, or wasn’t under the kilt were true. 

Another man in a green shirt and a dark blue blazer introduced himself and told me how much he loved Gemma.  That it was a hard, but important book.  And when he said this and other things too, my eyes filled up, because Gemma is my child that nobody wanted, and that he saw her beauty, said these things to me, moved me deeply. 

Several of my favorite booksellers came by and said hello.  It was cozy.  I wish I didn’t suck at names.  I remembered faces, incidents, conversations even, but I don’t remember the names.

And then when Robert Wiersema and Dennis Foon joined up with me and Don, well the conversation topics got a little out of hand, but I suppose I am to blame partly for that.  It’s fun being bad.  I haven’t laughed so much in quite a while. 

Robert is almost finished the first draft of his new novel, which is really exciting.  And he and his family are going on a very long cruise, which I hope will be exciting and action-packed in a good way, not the throwing-up variety.

It is one o’clock in the morning, and I should go to bed, but sleep is impossible.  I’m still too excited by the evening.  Tonight made me want to write.  But Don is waiting, patiently upstairs, so tomorrow. Tomorrow I write.  And hopefully, write well.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Saturday, April 26, 2008 in Chewing the Fat