What Means More Than a Red Rose?

“A black one.”

September 2024

In my twenties, then my thirties and well into my forties, I would dream—not of becoming a published author—of swirling words that joined into sentences that started each of the books I was destined to write.

Only to watch—back in those days—all those words fade away in the growing hours of each new day. When I made the conscious decision to, instead, work hard at that power plant, and harder still beside my husband, living his dream of raising leaf-cutter bees. Then to combine our passion and build our house to create a home where we would raise our two amazing kids. Not once have I ever looked back on those days and regretted my decisions.

You would think that when I did finally sign on the dotted line to join forces with a publisher for The Deafening Sound of Sorrow that I would jump up to scream finally at the universe.

I didn’t.

Instead, I remained in a state of stunned reflective silence afterwards, before taking my next tentative steps forward, testing the new ground I stood on in becoming a “soon to be” published author. Oddly, I calmly waited for that ground to crack underneath my feet with regret, along with this nagging feeling of doubt.

It would ultimately be my husband who convinced me to sign on that dotted line. He questioned my hesitation as we collected our sleeping bees nestled in their heavy nests from each hut in a field filled with alfalfa seed.

“This is what you worked so hard for! Why wouldn’t you sign?!” He asked, baffled by my stubborn resistance.

Why the hell wouldn’t I?

Because it’s hard to put your trust—the rights to your book—into the hands of a total stranger.

So, I did end up signing away the rights to The Deafening Sound of Sorrow. To then forge ahead, stifling any doubt by focusing solely on publishing my book, which I was bound and determined to serve up like a perfectly prepared supper. To prove to myself, if anything, that I had become a published author. Maybe not in the traditional way—the way I had always dreamed of—but the only way the universe had offered up to me.

I signed because of all the lessons I learned that I now saw in my reflection in that mirror. I signed because I didn’t give up while living my dream as I justified my writing reasons, then having to back up to start all over again—God willing. I signed because I took those writing courses, joined that writing circle and met all those weirdly special people. Then I mentally prepared myself for what was going to happen next…

knowing that every rose has its thorns.

Coming up next: A Jungle is a jungle is a jungle… (spoiler alert: …hypothetically speaking, of course.)