I am such a fortunate bunny.
In my life, I’ve had the chance to meet several of what I would call “Kindred Spirits” – the old Anne of Green Gables kind, those folks who get you and support you without question but also with wisdom, who dare to tell you they think you are on a wrong path but are willing to support your choice to follow it anyway.
It’s highly splendiferous.
I’ve chatted with a few of them over the past days and I am endlessly grateful for them.

And then there are those friends you meet through writing and reading.
I’ve spent the last few days immersed in Louise Penny‘s wonderful “A Trick of the Light”. I adore her mysteries, set in Three Pines. The characters are all so human, the stories gripping, yes, but it’s the development of the characters in them that makes for the type of book that you sigh at when you reach the end.
Louise Penny has a blog, too, where she talks about her challenges and triumphs as a writer, and in there, her humanity and humility shines as well. I haven’t ever had a chance to chat with Louise, but it remains one of my fondest hopes to do so one day. Poor lass. There are probably hundreds more like me. (Oh my gosh, she’s the very same age as me! Now I feel like I had better get busy!)

What was interesting was that this book was about infighting in the art world, about dirty tricks played by artist and critic and gallery owner.

I have to say, in my sojourns in the writing world, I haven’t found this sort of enmity. Writers that I meet are surprisingly supportive and charming and willing to help and gosh darn it, just nice people. I feel like I’ve joined some cozy fraternity where we all wish for one another’s success.

Well, mostly. I do hear mumblings against Dan Brown and 50 Shades, and there is envy and Schadenfreude and all that stuff, but it seems far less than I’ve experienced almost anywhere else and mostly in me when I can’t get my muse to get off her lounging bottom and help.

Given that we spend so much time alone, maybe it’s simply that we crave company when we get it? Or maybe we truly wish for success for everyone, in the hopes that more books and good books raises the level for all of us.

In any case, this week I’ve had cause to feel grateful for friends near and far, close and more distant, new and old.

I humbly thank you all.