You know that quote that says, ‘Life is what happens to
you while you’re making other plans’?
Well, I think that’s pretty accurate.
For the past couple of years I’ve been involved with the Tucson Festival
of Books, a wonderful event that takes place every year in March on the
University of Arizona campus. It
involves hundreds of authors, dozens of vendors of all types and more than one
hundred thousand visitors to the event.
It’s exciting, fun, and exhausting.
As soon as my involvement in the festival was over, my plan
was to finish revisions on a book, send it to a friend who is also a copy editor,
then get started on the next book.
Life had other ideas.
Spring arrived with its irresistible need to plant
things, clean out things, organize things – paint the guest room! -- so the
book got put off for a while. Then a
friend needed me to watch her three young children for a few days and life has
become even more interesting. Since I
raised four children of my own, I know what a challenge it can be, but I think
I’d forgotten how much fun it could be, too. I’ve laughed every day that
they’ve been at my house, many times a day.
Something is happening every minute.
We can’t walk through the house without stepping on Legos or Hot Wheels
cars. The children are a girl, ten, and
boys who are eight and almost four. The
little girl is very smart, takes good care of her brothers, and understandably becomes
exasperated with them at times. The boys
play well together until they both want the same Lego. The little one is convinced my bathroom is
haunted, or maybe the ghosts are under the bed.
He tells lengthy stories about cows or whales or space guy ninjas, or whatever
else pops into his mind, and keeps us all in stitches.
These three will definitely show up in a book someday,
maybe even the one that I’m going to start as soon as their mother picks them
up – and I emerge from the deep coma I plan to fall into.
Plans change, life happens, and the surprises never
end. Excuse me while I go check under
the bed for ghosts.
