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A while back I received an email from a publisher collecting essays on New Orleans so I wrote one and sent it in. Recently, I received an email saying the book, New Orleans by New Orleans was published and was being launched and I could even read it at the event.

I went, curious because more than anything, I couldn’t remember what I had written.

I even thought this evening of not going because I was in a mood.

Then a friend text me from the event and said, “Did you know that you’re in this book that is being launched here tonight?”

So I was lucky enough to move out of the long line I was in into the author’s line and get a book by the hair of my chinny chin chin, because they sold out. Therefore, I was able to read what I had written before accepting the notion of reading it to others.

Interestingly enough, because it/I mentioned my mother, I actually felt her there beside me while I read. And more interestingly, in the essay I was half heartedly bemoaning that instead of becoming this great writer, I am a character in books in New Orleans without ever having published one of my own. And there I was, reading from a published book, with my writing in it, and I felt, well authorial.

This happened to come on the heels of being at the Smoothie place the other day after Tin’s swim class when I witnessed two teenage girls trying to park their parent’s car and ramming into the car beside it and then trying to just drive off. Me and another woman of a certain age called them out on it to which the girl said to me, “Is that your car?” in a very sarcastic tone and I said, “No, but I’m an adult and you are a child and you hit that car and we need to find the owner.”

The woman who was my compadre in this event turned out to be a woman named Lorraine Neville – she said, “Neville, like the New Orleans musicians” and believe me, I had heard Neville the first time she said it. When I told her my name, she said and I quote, “The writer?”

Huh?

So tonight as I was listening to the authors and artists reading their works, and waiting my turn to go up and read mine, I was listening to Kimberly Nagle read her essay, which she introduced herself by saying she writes plays and would love to see one of hers performed in this city that she loves. I was listening to the beginning of the essay and halfway through she mentioned her daughter’s chemotherapy, casually almost, and my ears perked up.

Now let me tell you why. The woman seemed vibrant, not downtrodden, she had a gleam in her eyes, not the downcast look of someone burdened by the unfair life of having a child with cancer, and I looked at her as she read instead of following the words in my newly acquired book and I felt like I wanted to hug her. I would have walked up to the podium but it seemed not the thing to do.

So afterwards, we exchanged autographs and I hugged her. And then I hugged her again. When I walked out I realized I had probably overhugged. Since I lost my hair most people have thought I had cancer and have hugged me, and now people hug me so much, I’m getting used to it. But I always feel like this is a little odd, how much I’m being hugged these days now that I’m bald, and yet, I too, have become a hugger.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2012 at 11:15 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.