From a purse to a suitcase

I packed a suitcase last night. It seemed the best way to cart books. You don’t ever know how many will attend a talk or how many will buy or what they’ll buy. Do I pack a dozen copies of all three books of A Course of Love? How many of The Given Self? Should I throw in a couple of The Grace Trilogy? Having determined to take the suitcase on wheels, I simply decided to fill it up. Why waste the space? I can always keep it on hand for the next time.

It got me thinking of the whole purse theme that I wrote of yesterday. I was fully prepared. Had $30 in one dollar bills to give as change. Had my notes. Had my bottle of water. Had my worn copy of A Course in Miracles in case I got one of those audiences that wanted to (what usually feels like) rake me over the coals about differences they see.

I didn’t need much of it. But I was prepared.

I reminded myself of the artists who used to show their work at our coffee shop. What a lot of work! They’d be hauling and hanging for hours and hardly any of them ever sold a thing. I’d start out feeling sorry for them from the first. I’d wonder if it was worth it.

My evening was worth it. The books looked nice displayed on the table. I used seven of the dollar bills. I could have gotten a free bottle of water, but hey, I had my own, and I don’t care what they say about the dangers of refilling them…mine get refilled at the faucet so it didn’t cost me anything.

The audience once again looked bored out of their minds. It got me rattled after a while and I wound down more quickly than I’d planned. Then I got the most sincere, and even courageous questions! Questions used to scare the beegeesus (how do you spell that?) out of me, but these were absolutely wonderful and almost (dare I say it) fun to answer. The bored faces quit looking bored. The hands eventually clapped, and then all of those who’d only pretended to be dullards started coming up and telling me something that I’d said was relieving or resonated or some such thing. One man told me about losing a six-month-old child.

My host, a beautiful man named Leon, sat on his haunches beside me as I re-packed my suitcase. I told him I'd misread the audience and had no clue they were relating or responding until the questions. He said, "This is Minnesota," and shared a similar experience he'd had. He told me about a book he’s writing, and we talked of Miles Davis and Irv Williams and hugged on the way out.

It’s all kind of a blur really. But it was worth it.