When the Present and Future Unite

It's an incredible thing, being here at the Barnes & Noble in Rivertown Crossings mall, writing. Writing has always been as easy to me as breathing. In childhood, in adolescence, all through my twenties, up to present day—writing was my second skin. The world is going on around me; the cappuccino machine is grinding away, old-time Lionel Richie is piping through the speakers, and the usual bibliophiles' chatter joins it, but writing blocks it all out. It's the one and only constant delight I have enjoyed my entire life, giving me an escape from chaos and routine.

Weirdly, this joins the new joy of writing on my own new laptop, purchased with my future husband, a million miles from the New Jersey mountain town I grew up in. This brings to life the saying that “life begins outside your comfort zone”; my comfort zone as I knew it nearly a year ago has been completely replaced; childhood and youth—even unto almost my thirties, was wonderful. I've had the most exceptional experiences I have ever heard of!

Still, they don't compare to this fantasy. Every day I wake up next to a person whose hazel eyes shine like jewels (especially when they look into my eyes:*)), then all day I get to watch a house transformed for us, and dream of a future in a fairy tale. How ridiculously corny and sentimental that Richie's been singing “Endless Love” with Shanaya Twain as I wrote this, crooning about the very things I was writing about. Well, love—particularly the eternal kind—is a universal theme. And the dream of immortal devotion is something every creative heart from a songwriter to an aspiring writer can't help but express.

In fact, as I write this, beside me is my most recent indulgence—a novel called The Lantern about a woman who finds herself in a romantic, fantastic, impressionist-painting type love affair with a French man in Provence.

The thing that got me--besides associations to the famous painting in the Chicago Art Institute entitled "The Lanterns" -- was a wonderfully enticing review on the front of the book from "O" the Oprah Magaizine--"a luscious mix of romance and gothic ghost story." Aside from the fact that books endorsed by Oprah Magazine have often led me to my all-time favorites, I adore gothic literature. It's the passion, romance and mystery of the genre that have always enticed me. Considering that Oprah would be well-versed in the Gothic genre, and know it blind-folded,. I'm excited about encountering a love story encompassing the very thing I've been writing about.

Not to mention how exciting it is to be part of the collective creativity that has been writing about eternal love since time began. Maybe even more than love, that's real immortality.