On July 20, from 11am-2pm, I will have my first book-signing at Barnes and Noble, here in my hometown.
Will anyone come? Will I sign any books? As a new author, will I be accepted?
I worry about all that.
Acceptance is what we all want, isn’t it? From the time we are born until the time we die, we strive for the acceptance of those we admire.
There’s a character in one of my novels, “The Distance Between High and Low,” which I hope to have published soon. Hobart McSwain, born in Detroit, is adopted as a child by an Alabama family. Expressing his need for acceptance in the fictional town of Highlow, he says:
“I never asked for Alabama; I never asked to be her son. I had no choice over my deliverance. A child has no muscle, at all; just a displaced leaf riding on a stale wind, blowing this way and that. But when the wind stops, the leaf descends. I descended into the high side of Highlow and was raked aside, and it hurt that I wasn’t good enough to be noticed.”
Not good enough to be noticed. A frightening and continuous worry that most of us have throughout our lives.
In high school, in college, on the job—am I good enough?
In marriage, in parenthood., as a friend —am I good enough?
Living on the edge of a materialistic world that places wealth, power, and beauty on the altar of success—am I good enough?
Do I hide as if I’m inferior, and only now and then, peek out?
The fact is, we really don’t have to please another’s version of ‘good enough.’ We only have to satisfy that place in our own souls that pricks us to follow our highest inclinations, not our lowest ones.
In that place, we can relax in comfort and hear: “I love you no matter what you’ve done, or who you are. I accept you. You are mine.”
Translating a World on the Edge 