Change

A friend with wisdom and experience offered sage words upon the release of my book, Garden.    She said gently, “Sometimes when a first book launches writers expect everything to change.”  She was warning me that this can cause deflation because people somehow have an idea that, kinda like the glass slipper finally getting on the right foot, the achievement of a goal will whisk us into fantasy existence. 

The first entry for the noun change from dictionary.com is what I am thinking about. 
1. to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc. of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone.

My first book published December 1 (click book at right for details).  I’ve been editing it, talking about it, dreaming about it, fretting about it.  On a cold Thursday it happened:  my book became alive.  That morning I did something I had never done before, searched for my book at Amazon and giggled with glee when I found it.  I followed with the things I normally do:  made breakfast, packed lunches, took the kids to school, yoga, housework, a bit of writing.  I shared a fabulously fun afternoon book-launch lunch celebration with the greatest writing and creativity coach ever (www.CassiePremoSteele.com).  Later I looked up my book on Amazon again.  Same grin.  At bedtime I reflected that while I plan to schedule readings in the New Year, truth resides in the comment of my mentor, life showed not much change that day.

On the outside, that is.  The future course for me is different from what it would have been if left alone.  Something that was inside me is now out where other people can see it, read it, share it with me.  Garden has created change in my life because it gave me a place to see words I’ve had stewing around in my head arranged, bound and beautiful.  In Garden’s first pages I talk about how the book is a creation story, a journey.  I walked the path of those words either first hand or through others’ stories.   

Where we start is blessed, where we falter is holy, where we reclaim ourselves is tremendous.  I try to hold fast to that perspective because my friend is right to warn of the pitfalls of thinking we have “arrived” by achieving one dream.  Change is not about an endpoint nor does it have to be fantasy.  Change is often subtle in its transformation. 

                                Change

                                Paper into coins clinks away
                                round edges and raised images
                                chinks and jangles a pile of spent
                                nights and days offered as hour
                                by hour Kali reminds us, devour
                                each bite a tangy taste of what
                                at every moment is altered.

                                Shift is a gift only truly you
                                can offer yourself, a golden cup
                                sharp lipped, luminous reflected
                                held up with working, open hands
                                sipped beyond intoxicated, full
                                to the verge with that you are
                                not once (only then) but now.