Stories and Second Acts

I’m not sure if you’re truly bored of hearing it yet, but it’s only one week until The Hellebore Society comes out! It’s been a weird few weeks of Christmas festivities interspersed with last minute tasks and then the occasional eye popping remembering of how close that date is! I’ve written a bit about it, but since the release date is soon, I’ve been musing on how this book came to be.

I woke up one night two years ago with a book title in my head. “The Middle-Aged Heroes of the Magpie Society.” It came to nothing, as so many late-night thoughts do, but it niggled at me. In stories, heroes are at their most mighty when they’re young and energetic. But, as important as they were, my twenties were anything but mighty. They were marked by nose to the grindstone work, figuring out a million life skills (like how to get insurance and how to fix a toilet), and then, at the end, the exhaustion of early parenting. I did not feel like a hero. I felt like a sponge, absorbing a lifetime’s worth of skills in between trying to save up for a house and learning how to cook.

It’s only now that I believe I have the resilience to manage most situations with competence. This is a small example, but just last night, I was fixing dinner for the family. Forrest walked in to find me cooking, measuring food, doing calculations (for my kids’ insulin dosing), setting the table and also holding a conversation with my teenager. He remarked that he was both impressed and a bit scared to get in my way (as well he should have been - our kitchen is not large).

Over the past few years, I have watched my friends start new businesses, take up new hobbies, get degrees, rebuild after divorce, and navigate health diagnoses. They’ve all come out stronger, if a bit battle scarred. I’ve been constantly impressed by their strength. More than that though, I’ve been impressed by their tenderness. They’re not brittle or resentful. They are able to bring a lifetime’s worth of compassion and kindness to their new endeavors.

That’s not to say that I don’t know people who took a more linear trajectory. Who had a dream and set their minds to it and moved forward, step by step, until they reached it. That type of determination is admirable. I know many of those people too. Heck, I’m married to one. Forrest seems to have been born with the ability to figure out most situations. More importantly, he’s pretty sure if he doesn’t know how to figure it out immediately, he can try a few things and the solution will appear. Most of the time, he’s right.

But for the rest of us, those of us who spent a decade blindly building skills for a life we would one day have. Who collected knowledge and experiences as though they were spare napkins, not sure when or how they’d come in useful. Who found, one day, that they had become - that the mishmash of life had coalesced and the wondering and worry had melted away.

This book is for us. The flowers that bloom in December. The Hellebores.