Just Put it out There

I was nervous about finding an agent. That is an understatement. I get nervous about wearing high heels or swimming in big water or driving without my glasses. I was terrified of finding an agent. Or worse, of not finding one. The Worry (as I thought of it) began to loom very large in my mental real estate, taking over whole city blocks and evicting former tenants left and right. It would jump up and down while I was trying to talk to friends about something totally unrelated. I would answer questions like, "Do you want half my papaya?" with "Do you think I will find an agent?" I felt disloyal, self obsessed and just plain weird. This was not me.

What I was really wondering was, "Is it good enough?" Is it worth asking a total stranger to take the time to read this? Am I just deluding myself that anyone other than my endlessly patient mother would want to read this? About that time, my wonderful friend Adriana (Ad) came to the island to visit. She is a terrific artist in London, fun, gamine, silly, frighteningly insightful and I had been missing her terribly.

"Just put it out there," she said with simple logic. "Tell people exactly what you are doing and what you want to happen and something will happen. Something will happen to you when you make yourself do it and something will happen in the world to bring you closer to what you want." I did not really believe her. It sounded a bit airy-fairy, if you just believe-ish. I wanted something concrete to happen, not good just thoughts sent out on cosmic airwaves. Cosmic airwaves took too long and anyway wasn't that what all my worry was anyway?

"Just promise me that you will do it," she said while she was packing up to leave and I was seriously considering hiding her passport to keep her on the island. "It can't possibly hurt and it will do you good to just say it as if it is going to happen. It will make you believe it." "I need an agent to believe it," I thought grumpily.

But I started to do it. At the farmer's market, at the beach, at foodland, at pilates, at the bakery. Each time got a bit easier, came more naturally and rang with more conviction. She was right. I changed. I hadn't really believed it. My worry was a deteriorating rather than ameliorating process. And so it started to happen...

what happened was miraculous and I want to write about it but I must wake up Noah from his Saturday afternoon nap and take him up on his offer to go and see The Time Traveler's Wife. I currently have a couple of broken ribs and am asleep by 930 and so we must go now...more tomorrow!