My aunt, an American, warned me to never ask anyone his or her weight. "People will really take offense," she said. But her close friend, Elizabeth, whose body was twice wider than her height, never did. She had a great sense of self-deprecating humor and often laughed about her weight.
“Oh, Gracie,” she would coo, “you are sooo tiny. Me? Ooooh, I weigh five pounds less than a cow!”
That’s why when I am poised to take myself too seriously, I would think of Elizabeth and attempt to see her humor above it all. Laughing at oneself is liberating.
Yet there was one time I simply could not summon Elizabeth, even if I chanted, whistled and yodeled in my mind.
I had just launched my first “Gifts of Grace” book, which was attended by over 200 guests; many books were sold, and I signed them all. I was enjoying my new title: Author. It had a nice ring and nobility to it. To my mind, it ranked among the most respected careers in the world.
When I attended my husband’s Rotary meeting, where the Anns (wives) were invited, I put a box of my books (24 in all) in the trunk of the car. It was two weeks before Christmas and I was sure my fellow Anns would be looking for great gifts for friends and family. The Anns occupied one table and the pleasantries were like a good game of ping-pong, exciting and unending.
Between one very short pause, I chimed in, “Hey, I just launched my first inspirational gift book. If you’re looking for gift items, this would be perfect. On cue, I took out a copy from my bag.
“How much?” one of them asked.
I was expecting questions like, “What’s it about?” “Oh, you’re an author?” Not, “How much?”??!!
"P195,” I replied.
“Hey, I am making fruitcakes for Christmas!” one other Ann said. “For you around this table, I am selling them at a very special price.”
“How much?” all of them asked, sight unseen.
“Hey, that’s very reasonable,” I heard a duet, a trio, a quartet.
“Yeah, put my order at five!” another added.
“Ten for me, please!” one other Ann said.
“Three!”
“Six!”
Elizabeth’s image suddenly became vaguely familiar, quickly fading from my range of vision. I dug into my bag for my cell phone and texted my husband who was in another table: "They like fruitcakes more than my book!"
His text reply: "Sharon Cuneta is more popular than Shakespeare." (Sharon is a famous actress/singer in our country.) Why, my husband knows his alliteration!
I still think that “Author” has a nice ring and nobility to it. And I feel blessed that I have been given this role after a totally different career. It is precisely because I am an author that I get invited to many places to talk about creative writing—meeting new friends along the way.
Only a handful of the Anns are book lovers, a fact in our country that I must accept.
Each time I am asked how I feel about being a book author, my hear sings: No other job has made me more aware that everything stands in relation to my Creator; it makes me acutely sensitive to the joyful moments of daily living; it’s a reflective life that gives me flashes of awe and wonder, through the old friends I have and the new friends I meet; now I am keenly aware that every little or big thing I can do is a gift of grace; and I am puzzled why it took me so long to take writing on . . .
But my voice pipe does an Elizabeth and says, “Feel? Like a fruitcake!”
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