Today

Word On The Street was fun!  Thanks to everyone who showed up and crowded into my tent.  It is heartwarming to see so many smiling faces, taking the time out of your day to come and talk for awhile, to show such awesome support for us writers.  It makes us feel like we aren’t writing into a void.  That it truly is a give-and-take proposition. 

And then there were the surprises.  Like Cheryl.  The best neighbour I have ever had.  This woman has such a huge generous heart.  And not in the namby-pamby-look-what-a-good-giving-person-I-am.  She is the real deal.  Was “just a neighbour” but was there for me, solid as a rock, when I was struggling on my own, with three small children, living in a log cabin in the woods. 

The way she and her husband would lend a hand, was in the way that you didn’t even realize that help was being quietly and solidly given until years later, after we had lost touch, and I had added a few years of maturity under my belt.  Then I could see the full extent of how lucky I was, how blessed to have this loud, rowdy, heart-warm person as my neighbour and friend.

Anyway, she was there, hadn’t aged a day, and she gave me a huge hug, and a card and a canned jar of homemade salsa.  And I am so glad she heard about WOTS and showed up.

And Val came by.  A woman that was in the ballet class above me, that I looked up to.  Who was a beautiful dancer.  Hard working, like me.  And I’d always wondered what had happened to her. 

And I saw Bryan Pike who helped organize Word On the Street, but more importantly, it was the same Bryan Pike who drove us over countless mile on the BC Book Tour and it was lovely to see his smiling face.

I had a wonderful time today, with my writer friends from afar who have flown in for the week to write and talk and they took time away from their computers to came to support me.  I haven’t read outloud from First Time before, and people seemed to really respond to it, and that is always a good thing…and a relief. 

And afterwards we had Dim sum at The Pink Pearl and it was good.  And it didn’t pour with rain, like it did last year, and what could be better.  Sunshine, friends, old and new, and books and food, you can’t beat that!

Posted by Meg Tilly on Sunday, September 28, 2008 in Chewing the Fat