BACK TO SYNCHRONICITY

Just for fun, here is an example of one string (out of many) of "meaningful coincidences" that occurred, once I set out on the path to good-lifeitude:

• DH started pestering me to transfer my Hill Country journal ramblings to a blog
• Surfed the net to see if anyone else was blogging about the HC
• Stumbled upon a neat blog called Lifescapes
• Turned out it was written by none other than Susan Wittig Albert, author of my favorite China Bayles mysteries, which are set in the HC
• Got the nerve up to send Susan an email (expecting no response whatsoever, from one who was juggling 3 book series and a magazine column at once) just to say I was happy to have found her blog, that her books had inspired me for years, and that we hoped to be living in the HC ourselves before too long.
• She responded, personally, within minutes!
• Later, after I had actually moved here and was wanting to take a writing class, I remembered that Susan was once a VP at a near-by university. I sent her an email asking if she could recommend any good classes (very presumptuous of me, and completely out of character)
• Again she responded, personally, and within minutes. Not only did she answer my question, she also invited me to attend the Story Circle Network conference that was to be held in Austin the following month - an organization that had been started by Susan herself some years before, just for women memoirists like me, because she believes every woman has a story to tell, and she is passionate about helping them to find their voices.
• While there, I attended a workshop on blogging, hosted by Susan herself
• Also while there, I did something I have never done before - went into the hotel restaurant alone, waltzed up to a table of two other conference attendees, and brazenly invited myself to join them. One of them, as it turned out, also lived in Wimberley. She later invited me to hang out with her and a couple of her other wonderfully creative friends. I now refer to them as The Muses...