Angel On My Doorstep (and a contest on yours)…

 

…and he wore wings of gold and shorts of blessed-UPS-brown. 

This morning, the first copies of Trespassers Will Be Baptized found their way to my front door.  They were overnighted by my editor.  But really, they took years to arrive.  Almost 30 of them.  Since I announced their arrival over email to family and friends, I’ve been bombarded with umpteens dozen calls and messages, most oozing at the corners with shoulder-shaking, neck-snapping, Dr.-Phil-esque demands of HOW DO YOU FEEL!?!?!!!

And I say, “Very good, thank you so much for asking.” 

Or, “Happy.”

Or, the cringe-worthy, closest-as-a-humble-Christian-gal-can-get-to-prideful: “Blessed.”

Shudder.  I don’t know why that word does that to me lately.  It’s not that it’s become less accurate to describe people like me who find themselves in situations like mine.  Someone just brought my life story to my porch with a price tag inside the front cover.  There can only be one word for I scene like that.  It was…it was…

I can’t.  Sorry. 

Maybe it’s because lately, “blessed” is just overplayed.  Last week, everyone from Oprah to the lady at the DMV told me to “have a BLESSED day”  (Too late and you know it, DMV Lady.) 

But I think it’s more than that.  Where I grew up, in long shadows cast by steeples and shoulder-padded choir robes, “I’m blessed” had an alternate meaning.  It meant, “I’m braggin’ on myself without braggin’ on myself.” 

As many of y’all know, in the land of good Southern church people, self-deprecation is an art form.  You just give the glory to God at the end of any boast, and you can get around “pride” seven ways till Sunday:

“Carl got that promotion at work, so we’re buying a new Cadillac we’ve been praying for.  Praise the Lord.” 

“I knew that county fair pageant was just no contest a-tall.  Jesus just blessed my little Luella with the most beautiful voice in the kindergarten.” 

If any of that comes off sounding the least bit big-headed, it’s the Lord’s fault, not yours. 

I don’t know.  Maybe it’s just that I’m searching for a word big enough for what happened to me today.  Not at the doorstep, but inside.  I opened the box, containing a manuscript I started writing when I was 23 years old, living alone, in a tiny studio in Boston.  The first copy of the first printing of that manuscript, in bound form, was lifted from its packaging by my baby son, this morning, almost seven years later. 

A lot of living has happened since I wrote that first chapter.  And maybe that is too big for a single word.  Maybe it’s a whole other book.  

Stay tuned…

*** Oh, the contest!  Almost forgot.  First in the comment thread to tell me who the angel is in the photo above, and the real reason why many think she looks forlorn (it’s not as simple as you think!), gets one of my first copies of Trespassers, inscribed!                      

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