Hi everyone. We hope you had a great day yesterday. The Wickeds are in full recovery mode. Plus 2/3 of us are on the road at some point or other over this long holiday, visiting family up and down the entirety of the east coast.
So today, we’re rerunning a favorite post from the past. In this one, from just about a year ago, Jessie Crockett ruminates on why it is so meaningful to her that a special relation is contemplating murder.
Blessed
In this most magical of seasons, I feel truly blessed. I am warm and dry and over-fed. There are people who love me and people who need me. I have energy for my work and time for my play. All of these things are worth celebrating. But today I am feeling most grateful for understanding.
Last night one of my beloved sisters phoned. She called to let me know that a friend of hers had inter-library loaned my latest book, Drizzled with Death, and to tell me which city had it in their collection. I was grateful that she thought of me and is helping to spread the word about my work. But the appreciation went deeper.
We chatted about other things and then she told me a about a walk she had taken at a nearby land trust. She told me that while she was there she had noticed how easy it would be to hit someone over the head and to hide the body without a trace. And that, of course, she had thought of me.
A couple of weeks ago the same sister called me to say she had been driving behind a cement truck and had thought what an ideal place that would be to hide a body and that, of course, she had thought of me.
When money goes missing from a trust fund, when men leave their families for parts unknown, when buildings burn mysteriously to the ground, my sister, of course, thinks of me. And I feel grateful. And I feel loved.
My sister doesn’t even like mysteries. She doesn’t read any except mine. Even so, her perspective on life has been altered by her desire to help me to live my dream. My highly moral, optimistic, glass is three quarters full sister, now finds crimes lurking behind every tree on a pleasant walk through the woods. She no longer thinks of how beautiful an uninterrupted expanse of unbroken snow appears to be. She thinks about how hard it would be to commit a crime in winter and to not leave a trace. Truly, I am blessed.
What makes you feel grateful, understood and loved this holiday season?
Jessie, I wish my blessings were as funny as yours! Mine would be the friendship my assistance dog Kendall has developed with our rescued feral kitty She-She Marie-Rie. They have taken over my bed. To be sure that I don’t gain control of bed space Kendall, who covers most of the bed anyway, spreads out as much as he can. This leaves one small area uncovered behind his bum. She-She waits until he is settled, then carefully crawls in behind his bum to fill up the last remaining space. This gives me many hours of chuckling and general amusement—a great blessing. It’s also why I am still up at 4:30 in the morning.
Reine, you are certainly blessed by your perspective! I’m not sure I’d chuckle at having no room in my own bed. I might be quite surly about it all! On the plus side, at least in my opinion, 4:30 is a great time to write!
Yes, Jesse—my poor babies—getting blamed for my staying up all hours and knowing that “4:30 is a great time to write!” Yes, They humbled me when I went to bed finally, as they made sure I knew they had been keeping the bed warm for me.
And I thought my little Westie could be a bed hug! Amazing how our animals take over our lives!
What a great way to be blessed, Jessie! And Reine, yours, too. One particular way I feel blessed is to have a second family in my Quaker congregation. These loving pacifists know me well enough not to get alarmed when I announce with excitement that I’ve signed up for a gun workshop or that I’ve attended our local Citizen’s Police Academy. They applaud when my short crime story that involves our own John Greenleaf Whittier is published. And I know that however I look or whatever I wear to Friends Meeting, I will always be embraced.
Edith, you are lucky indeed in your faith family. Blessings come in so many ways!
Edith, it sounds like you have a wonderful faith community and one that I would be happy being a part of.
I was recently thinking back to the books I’d read as a child and the ones I remembered most fondly. I loved biographies and poetry. I discovered both when I was eight years old. The Woburn, Massachusetts library’s bookmobile came by our little four-room school, and the librarian suggested a biography of John Greenleaf Whittier and a book of his poems. That was an early-on blessing of my life. I took both to a secluded bank of Horn Pond to read them. My next biography was Emerson’s. Our bookmobile librarian was a great teacher.
Edith, I think your crime books and research are peace-driven. What better way for a Quaker to light the dark areas?
That’s a lovely thing to say, Reine, thank you! And your librarian does sound like a great teacher.
I kept wondering as I read–what other profession could one have where having your sister think of murder and think of you could be a good thing?
None that I can think of!
I feel blessed to have so many people who are willing to help me along on the path to publication — from family to friends to professionals in the business.
I am blessed to be a part of this group of women. And I am also blessed by my friends/family who call me with a “I just saw this and thought of you” for really twisted things. Love this post Jessie. You are a (blessed) riot.
Isn’t she!
LOL. Love it!
I am blessed with family and friends who tolerate if not embrace my many sides. My Disney/Kid’s Books/Mystery/Mud Runs/Ultimate Frisbee interests are certainly diverse, right? Not to mention the time I devote to reviewing.
I love your wide and varied interests, Mark! We should all be so blessed!
You are lucky, indeed, Mark to have such a family! Reading this I am imagining a Disney movie that is a mystery set in the world of competitive mud running involving a sleuth that is an ultimate frisbee champion.
I’m in! When can I watch this. (And review it, of course.)
Love it!