Small Town Life in the Middle of America

We have started a long-anticipated journey: a book tour across the country for Autumn Romance: Stories and Portraits of Love after 50, the book I began almost three years ago and published this past January.

The plan was to head west. For five months, my husband Warren and I had been living with his sister Nadyne in St. Louis. There were several couples in the book I’d never met in person and they all lived in stepping-stone states west of St. Louis—so the path seemed clear. We would visit Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Los Angeles and end up in San Francisco for my older daughter’s 40th birthday!

I had never seen much of the U.S. and certainly never done a book tour — so I was filled with trepidations as I cold-called bookstores in the targeted cities. But many were receptive and now very excited, we were off...(stopping one last time at White Castle for burgers and onion rings)...

My great luck: Warren PREFERS to drive. (Did my being a distracted driver influence him? Um, I don't think so...) I sit and dreamily take in the amazing sights. I keep hearing my voice say, “What an incredible country!” Yesterday, I burst out with: “Now I know what “Purple Mountain majesty” MEANS!”

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Driving through Kansas is all flat plains and farmlands (and beautiful). In Kansas City, we stopped in the Rainy Day Bookstore (one of the fabulous independent bookstores scattered like stars across the country) plus I did a reading at a very welcoming Borders. Then we drove to the tiny town of Lincoln (smack in the lower middle of Kansas), where Marguerite and George Miller live. Their story is on page 57 of Autumn Romance.

I met the Millers through a fellow newspaper editor, Jyll Phillips. Two and a half years ago, Jyll picked up an online feeler for more couples and with typical warm generosity, made sure I got in touch with Marguerite and George. When we came to town, she welcomed us into her home.

Lincoln is a fascinating place. It’s so small that volunteers fulfill many jobs that other municipalities would pay. So small that many citizens hold two or three positions. “One gal is the Human Resources Director for the county,” explains Jyll, “and also works part time at the grocery and also cleans a couple of office a week. Another woman works full time at the prison in Ellsworth, manages the VFW Bar and does the books for the Lincoln lumberyard!”

Is it the hard economic times or just contributing to the town’s running well?

Both, says Jyll. “Everybody is connected here, everybody counts.”

“Everybody” is pretty interesting, too. We got to know a bunch of Lincoln’s citizens when the Millers threw a book party in their old-fashioned-on-the-outside, House-Beautiful-on-the-inside home. Definitely magical: seeing George and Marguerite stand with their arms around each other as I read a story from the book aloud to their gathered friends, then talking to those friends in the Sunday late afternoon light. Meeting Joyce Harlow, the talented woman who photographed George and Marguerite for the book (and who also runs the town's Art Center)...

Afterwards, I sat around Marguerite’s kitchen table with a group of women. Life in Lincoln, they agreed, was special. The next morning, we walked the few blocks to Jyll’s office--the Lincoln Sentinel newspaper, on Lincoln’s Main Street. While she held leisurely conversations with each person we ran into, I thrilled to life in this town: almost Twilight Zone back to the 50s,so quiet and unhurried…

And then we were off, headed for Denver, CO.

p.s. You can see lots of photos of this visit on the the Autumn Romance Facebook Fan page!

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When I was younger, I always dreamed of writing a book. Books were everything to me. They introduced me to words in graceful sentences that slowly became a part of me. They showed me how people could be loving and generous to each other, something I did not know.

The places where books were found--libraries and bookstores--were my favorite places to be. What would it be like, I wondered, to put my own thoughts into a book? A creative idea would sometimes come to me. But growing up, I took a wrong turn, and came to follow a path increasingly distant from my true self. Reading became an escape and writing a distant luxury.

I was 55 years old when a friend interrupted my usual complaints--life was awful, I needed a job--and said, not unkindly, “You’re such a good writer. Why don’t you just get a job as a writer?”

Two days later, I saw an ad, Writer Wanted, in the weekly newspaper that hit the door each Wednesday. I am not the sort who believes that everything happens for a reason, but whenever I recall that morning, I believe. A door opened, I walked through--into a dusty, old-fashioned newsroom--and the sun came out.

For the first time in my life I was joyfully in love with my work and this connected me to the world. Each story I covered connected me more strongly and I became free. Soon I was editor of that little paper, and when it got sold, I helped to found another, The Spirit, and ran it as editor-in-chief for three years. Ideas for books came into my head more frequently.

One day I had an idea that wouldn’t go away.

I was sitting at my desk at The Spirit when this thought flew into my mind: You never ever see photographs of older couples in love! All we ever see are young, perfect and famous people in love.

Wow, wouldn’t that make an interesting book, I thought: photographs of couples, each one 50 or over, and their love stories. Little did I know that the stories I would discover would be so amazing. Little did I know that I would fall in love myself one year later—at 62 years old—and that my story would be the last one in my book.

Because I decided to write that book come hell or high water. I adored the couples I was interviewing. I fervently believed that the world needed to hear their stories and see their photographs. And I was passionately in love with the idea...

My new husband got caught up in the whirlwind. Together, we traveled far and wide; together, we sat in strangers' living rooms and laughed and cried as we listened to their stories. And together we swooped up and down a roller coaster of learning curves.

When publishers said they thought it was a great idea but couldn't pick it up because there were no celebrities--I decided to self-publish. Of course, I had no idea how hard it would be. Sometimes I wondered, “What have I gotten us into?" But mostly, I was too happy to wonder. All the energy and skills and creativity I'd previously used for other things, now went into this book. I crafted each story more carefully than anything I'd ever done...

On January 12, 2010, I held my breath and opened the first box of books. Thank you Four Colour Printing! Thank you Sierra for designing it so beautifully!

We planned a book launch party for February in Philly but it was snowed out. And so it happened that on April 14, 2010, the publication of Autumn Romance was celebrated at The Free Library of Philadelphia--my beloved library, where I spent so much time. Old friends, new friends, people who helped create the book, couples who were in the book, all singing, all happily together, in my favorite place. It was magical, like the end of a movie!

I savored that once-in-a-lifetime feeling...and knew it was a beginning. The message of my book--that there are second chances, that love can be healing and transformative and glorious when it comes later--is a message I am eager to share. And that's what I'm about these days. We're on the first leg of a book tour, visiting the couples from the book who live in the western U.S. I will be doing book signings, reading aloud the incredibly hopeful stories from my book, and sharing all the adventures in this blog.