Follow Your Bliss

Blessed is he who takes comfort in seed time and harvest, setting the warfare of life to the hymn of the seasons. -- Julia Ward Howe

A bit of politics this morning, a bit of process, I hope you will indulge me. I'm going to be a proud mama for a moment (proud book mama, too).

Daughter Hannah (who was an Obama Fellow in Georgia all summer and has been working for Obama in Bowling Green, OH since September) called several times last night from Ohio, as the election results came in.

We could hardly hear her over the cacophony in the background as Ohio went blue, as Hannah's Ohio county went blue (it had been predicted to stay red), and as the country voted for Barack Obama as its 44th president.

Hannah shouted, over and over again, her ragged voice shot through with joy and relief after relentless months of campaigning in two states, canvassing, calling, trying, believing, hoping:

"I brought you a president! I brought you a president!"

Yes, you did, you 22-year-old compassionate, passionate activist, you.

Yes we did.

It amazes me what people can do when they follow their bliss. (Thank you, Joseph Campbell.) I am following my bliss with this novel. I wonder if finishing it will feel anything close to the sweet victory I heard in Hannah's voice last night. I'm banking on it.

This afternoon I talk with my editor and get my hair cut (not at the same time) so I can look halfway presentable on the road this month. I leave Saturday for Boston, then shoot across the country to Seattle, and finish off November in Tennessee and Georgia, just in time for Thanksgiving.

Taking October off to write -- the first October I have been home in seven years -- was a gift and a challenge I gave myself. I am almost there, almost finished, I can brush the ending of this novel with the tips of my fingers. Now to grab it and hold it in both hands. What a victory that will be.