Alison Caiola Writes: Please Stop And Smell The Daisies

Saturday mornings I traveled the world. I was privileged. I knew it then, I know it now. With nary a passport in my purse or even a purse to my name, I circled the globe. I knew but one language, yet I understood every word that was uttered, in every country that I passed through. Without warning I was catapulted back in time and within a blink of an eye, transported into the future. All this took place on the top floor of a lakefront home on the south shore of Long Island, within the confines of my single bed. I had no need for sustenance, except perhaps a Wonder Bread mayonnaise sandwich, once in a while, when the growling got so loud and strong that it actually lifted the book, that was resting on my stomach, a good couple of inches.

When I was a kid, I was a reader. Yep, a voracious one. I inhaled books, plain and simple. I woke before the crack of dawn and would lay quietly at first and listen to the music of the early morning. The walls seemed to slowly breathe in and out in perfect rhythm with the deep snores that spilled out from the master bedroom and filled every quiet corner of the house. I would crack open the nearest book and it was at that time, before the sun and the moon inhabited the same sky,that I would quietly set sail on my journey d'jour.

I was eight years old when one morning, I finished reading my first book of the day almost at the same time as I finished my first mayonnaise sandwich, that I had my very first AHA moment. I absolutely knew, without a shadow of a shadow of a doubt that I was going to become an author! My name would be written in huge letters across the front cover of so many books it would be hard for one person to carry them all home from the library. When the reader turned to the back cover, it would be my face they'd see happily smiling up at them. And thousands upon thousands of words would travel with lightening speed from my brain down to my fingers, and gracefully end up living side by side on hundreds of crisp white pages.

As our good friend John so eloquently sang "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." My plans to become an author didn't happen the way my eight year old self confidently declared that it would. And while I ended up writing professionally off and on throughout my life, I never had a novel proudly sitting on any library shelf.

Fast forward many, many, too many years and here we are. My first novel, The Seeds of a Daisy is finally published and patiently sitting and waiting to be plucked off the shelf. When this event, this monumental event finally happened in my life, I was too busy with my TV show, The Tyme Chronicles, to stop and realize when the UPS driver unloaded the fist box of books, I had finally fulfilled a childhood dream!

So today, January 5, 2013 I stopped what I was doing, put everything aside and breathed in the moment. I became overwhelmed with gratitude and love for that little girl who was certain so many years ago, that this day would indeed arrive. I wish I could sit with her now and tell her everything, the good the bad and the ugly that transpired on the long journey that lead to this day. But I imagine she wouldn't listen, since she hardly listened to anyone back then. But if I could talk to her, and she would listen for just a brief minute, I would hold her close and tell her everything turned out like we planned. Sorta.