Write in your margins, talk back to your life
Ah, Greensboro. Home of my college years. Site of a fantastic Life is a Verb event last Friday night. After two days of driving to points here and there in Georgia, I arrived back in NC, in Greensboro, just in time for a LIAV reading at the Barnes & Noble Friendly Center.
I graduated five or twenty-six years ago from college (OH MY LORD, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?) and, *cough*, the city has changed a mite since then. I was lost immediately on exiting the highway and never DID find out where I was relative to Guilford College, though I'm told it was VERY CLOSE BY.
I was tired, I don't mind telling you. Worn slap out. Lots of driving, meetings, workshops, and more driving–in the pouring rain–and I was whooped. Thankfully, though she would be out of town, my friend Karrie had emailed directions to her house in case I wanted to break in and crash there. I did. I walked into her house and immediately wanted to be Goldilocks and try out the beds and eat some porridge and sleep for a very long time. But before I could, the Barnes & Noble–if I could ever find it again in the dark, cold rain–was expecting me.
You know how you are utterly exhausted and one person, not to mention several dozen of them, can be the spark that wakes you?
The first person I saw at the reading was wearing a big smile and a "Free Hugs" sign around her neck. She is getting married next June to a man who is 91.
And then a woman named Nicole, way pregnant and due in less than a week (I imagine she is a first time mom by now! Congratulations, Nicole, if you are reading this–which I'm sure you are since giving birth and taking care of a newborn is such a breeze that you are probably wondering most of the day what on earth to do with all your spare time), was on the front row, early. I walked over to say hello, and thank her for coming. It was then that I saw that her copy of LIAV was very, very fat.
What on earth?
She held it out to me. "I've been reading and making notes and putting paper clips in where I want to go back," she explained, handing me her book, swollen with brightly colored paper clips.
It was the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen.
The pages were full of notations in blue ink, words and phrases circled, arrows and hearts drawn here and there as exclamation points of a sort. She was doing with Life is a Verb just what I envisioned–making it her own, using the wide margins to talk back to it, folding down pages, adorning it with paper clips.
It was so incredibly moving to me.
As I spoke with Nicole, a woman's voice asked, "is this seat taken?" I said, "no," and then turned to look at the woman who had sat next to me.
"OH MY GOD," I yelled very loudly, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"
It was Mrs. Rockett, my ninth grade Algebra teacher. She had driven hours to get there. 
A moment later, up walked Mr. and Mrs. Culberson, parents of a junior high friend of mine–Mr. Culberson was president of the bank where my mother worked for years and years and years. And then in walked Adele Wayman who created a beautiful piece of art for page 66 in LIAV and was a professor at Guilford when I was there–and still is.
And so many other amazing people.
It was that kind of a night, an extraordinary evening. We laughed, we cried. It woke me up and filled me up. I slept well like Goldilocks in Karrie's house that evening, and got up early to get home sweet home again.
My thanks to Becky at the Barnes & Noble Friendly Center for her gracious hospitality.
Next on the book tour: Canton (Nov 5), Cleveland (Nov 6), Reston, VA (Nov 9) and Washington, D.C. (Nov 9). Come, say hello. Let's sit and talk a while.
[photos 1, 3, and 7 by Michael Crouch from Guilford College – thanks for being there, Michael!]
