Synchronicity, Judy Collins and Donna Milner

I’d been having a bad day. Sore neck, problems at work, problems with my latest plot, dog crapped on the carpet, and it’s raining AGAIN. But I tried to set it all aside last night, when my sweetheart and I went to the Orpheum to see the incredible Judy Collins in concert with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. (Romance is alive and well in this marriage!)

In a fortuitous bit of synchronicity, as we’re climbing over the people in the seats next to ours, I suddenly recognize the person whose lap I’m about to fall into: Donna Milner, a writer friend of mine. She shrieks, I shriek, we hug, it’s a beautiful moment. But the concert was about to start, so we saved it for intermission.

The music was amazing. The VSO, well, what a treat. And Judy? For a 70-year old gal, she’s still got it. Wow.

At the break, we caught up on each other’s lives in the bathroom line-up. Donna happened to be in Vancouver visiting family, so she and her husband got tickets to the concert. She and I met at a writers’ conference many years ago. Since then, we’ve kept in sporadic touch, but only see each other every few years. Of course, we follow each other’s careers with sympathy and interest. She asked about me, I shrugged and said, nothing new to tell. (I didn’t mention the sore neck or dog crap.) Just said I’m still writing of course, but no one’s buying at the moment.

She looked shocked. Horrified, actually. Why hasn’t the publishing industry recognized my genius? Why hasn’t my brilliant writing launched me to heights of stardom? She was quite wonderfully put-out on my behalf.

I changed the subject.

Donna’s story is more interesting, anyway. She hit it out of the park, first time out, with her book After River, which I’m proud to say I own both in hardcover and in Advance Reader’s Copy. I’m talking a two-book contract, major publisher, hard-cover and paperback, with rights sold in numerous countries in a variety of languages. Donna deserves the success; it’s a wonderful book. She told me, with bewildered pride, that the Germans in particular love her. My high-school German is pretty much gone, but here’s the backcover blurb that’ll give you the idea:

“There was something different about my mother that day. On wash days she usually wore a kerchief tied in a rolled knot in the middle of her forehead. That afternoon, bobby pins and combs held up her hair. Wayward blond locks and wispy tendrils escaped around her face and at the nape of her neck. But it was more than that. She was distracted, flushed even. I was certain she had applied a touch of Avon rouge to her cheeks. Earlier she had caught me studying her face as she fed my brothers’ jeans through the wringer… She was expecting him. She wasn’t expecting the heartache that would follow like a cold wind.”

Isn’t that beautiful?

So, surrounded by wonderful music flavored with nostalgia, I was reminded that I have good friends out there, who are rooting for me as much as I’m rooting for them.

And that my dear husband, who occasionally buys tickets to great concerts totally spontaneously – just because – is my biggest fan.

And I’m his.

PS: My neck feels better today, and I’ve figured out one of my plot problems. Coincidence? I think not.