When Disappointments Transform into Precious Moments
Periodically I take my creativity crusade on the road. Since the publication of my book, Be Brave. Lose the Beige! Finding Your Sass After Sixty, I’ve been invited to speak before groups like the Winter Park Women’s Club, Legacy Point, UCF, the Enrichment Academy in the Villages and a few others. I don’t love public speaking. I’m happier hiding behind the words in my book and blog. While standing before a room full of people makes me anxious, I want to sell books and promote the philosophy that is BBLB.
BBLB (Be Brave. Lose the Beige) stickers. Let me know if you want one.
I really do feel passionately about the potential impact creativity can have on brain health and the aging process. Football coach Vince Lombardi urged his players to “run for the daylight; find the open space”. That’s what I think about creativity – finding the cracks of light in the darkness and slipping through them into the unknown and untried.
Yesterday my pilgrimage took me to Celebration (a Disney developed community in Kissimmee, Florida) for a Lifelong Learning session. The topic was “Exercise Your Creativity”, one that I’m quite familiar with since I help facilitate a once a month “Exercise Your Creativity” session at the Center for Health and Wellbeing. “Doodle for your Noodle” was the exercise de jour for the Celebration group. Doodling is a non-threatening way to exercise creative muscles while engaging the mind. It felt like I was preaching to the choir, but not in a good way. These twenty or so +65-year-old participants routinely partake of the educational and artistic menu of classes offered by Celebration Lifelong. My words felt flat and uninspiring among this group of veteran students. And I didn’t make any new book sales, except those purchased by my friend Jerry Greenberg. I wrote about Jerry in a previous blog post. Jerry has now bought twenty-six of my books. This 82-year-old gentleman is by far my biggest collector. And he’s not even my target demographic.
My Friend, Jerry Greenberg
Following the event, Jerry invited me to coffee at McDonald’s. I confess that my snobbish inner self grumbled at the prospect of coffee at McDonald’s rather than the independent coffee shop nearby, but I responded, “yes, of course.” Over coffee I signed Jerry’s newly purchased stash of books. “Are you an author?” I heard a tentative voice ask from an adjacent table. Jerry jumped in to respond, “Yes she is, and these are her books.” Gesturing toward the girls seated at her table, she said, “My girls want to be creative writers. When they saw you autographing the books they thought you might be a real author.” I couldn’t get out of our booth fast enough to visit with the soon-to-be college student and her fifteen-year-old sister. “I really like writing short stories”, Elena shyly declared, her sister Carmen nodding in unison. Oh my gosh, I wanted to spend the rest of the day with them supplying tips and support for their future writing careers. Of course I gave them a signed copy of my book. “This feels like it was meant to be,” said their mom. “I took my kids out for junk food, and we got to meet a real author.” “Be Brave is in the title of my book and you were brave enough to approach a stranger on behalf of your kids! You have no idea how much meeting your family means to me following a disappointment I experienced earlier,” I replied. Jerry was beaming like a proud Dad. If he hadn’t proposed coffee at McDonald’s this chance encounter would not have occurred.
Mom (whose name I failed to get) and her budding writer
A disappointment transformed into a precious moment within an hour! You just never know which life experience might be lurking right around the corner. Thanks for letting me process this experience with you, dear readers.