Oprah's Universe Expands by One
The best thing to happen to a writer becomes the most terrifying, too.
A Behind the Scenes post on getting the call from Oprah, on inadequacy, on being a mom, and a prompt.
There are moments you will remember your entire life; The moment your beloved says, “I love you,” for the first time. The moment that man goes down on one knee and asks for your hand in marriage. The moment a pregnancy is confirmed. The moment your child is born and placed into your arms. There are other big landmark moments, too—happy and sad—that alter the way you see, feel, and think of yourself and the world you live in.
One such moment happened just before I left on the US tour for Blackbird. The plane tickets were bought, my bags nearly packed, and my itinerary set for a sweep from the West to the East coast.
I wasn’t gone yet, though, and until I left, I was still on wife/mother duty at the house while Steve traveled to his auctions.
Having put Spencer down for a nap, I did that laser-like-tidy-up thing where I gathered toys, dusted surfaces, ordered up the mail. Lunch dishes next. Dinner prep after that. Then the phone rang.
I grabbed the handset in my office and pressed the on button.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Kim yelled.
My chest seized—a bad review? Another delay?
“What?” I asked and hurried into the dining room, hoping to keep the sound down and Spencer asleep. “What happened?”
I stood before an enormous bouquet of antique roses and eucalyptus atop our round dining table. The smell was sweet and musty at the same time. The arrangement was a “congratulations” gift from the publisher and had arrived a few days after my box of hardcover books.
Kim gathered herself and in a lowered voice said: “You’re going to be on the Oprah Winfrey Show.”
The phone slipped out of my hand, hit the floor with a crack, and the door for the battery popped off and skittered into the corner. My knees buckled, and I was going down, too, but grabbed to the edge of the table to break my own fall.
“Are you there?” Kim said, voice tinny and far away. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,” I said, retrieving the disemboweled phone. “I’m here. I’m here.” I shoved the battery pack back into the slot and snapped the plastic door into place.
“You’re going to be on Rosie on Monday and Oprah on Friday,” Kim said.
“Holy sh&$,” I said, making my way into the living room and dropping onto the sofa. Before me, the gaping opening of the fireplace. The grate holding the remains of ashes and burned-down logs.
“The people in PR will call you with more details but here’s the deal. They want you to be part of a show they are doing on abused kids and how they survived. I mean, I wish it was the Book-of-the-Month Club, but I’m not going to complain, right? This is Oprah!”
Kim went on to explain how, while I was in New York, the Harpo producers would shoot a pre-show interview and then I would fly into Chicago for the taping of the actual show.
Listening to all this, I nodded stupidly but then shook my head because I had never imagined it possible, not in my wildest dreams. A few days earlier, the entire idea of Oprah had been wiped off the table.
You are the music, while the music lasts
Back to the opening of this post and those moments that change you forever. We all get a handful of years to take in air and exhale it again, and to have a beating heart. In those years, most of us can agree that most of life is a bafflement, a mystery, a confusion, and a miracle all at the same time.
What does it take to feel as if we are here and living fully?
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts
~ TS Eliot
The longer I live, the less I understand living, and pondering this truth brings me to tears because it’s heartbreaking when I allow myself to feel how lost we are on this wild ride. The whole thing can be so scary and overwhelming. For much of our time here, these few precious years, we feel so small.
At least I felt that way, back then and now, as I write these words.
But, when I was learning how to write my memoir, writing it, and then getting it out there in the world, I felt…what? I can’t even name it other than to say…I felt as if I were on the right path. I felt that what I was doing with this precious and confounding life had merit. It wasn’t one thing, either—the learning, the writing, the getting it out there—it was all of it fused together.
Being called up to bat by the Harpo producers and scheduled on the Oprah Show was a continuation then. It was another piece of the puzzle falling into place. A big piece, to be sure. The biggest to date.
After I hung up the phone, I sat in the living room for a long time. An hour passed, perhaps more. The voices of “you’re not enough” silent. The cleaning up, the planning, the dinner, the schedule: Gone. All gone. I was feeling what I would describe later as a soul quiet that would be more precious than money, fame, or anything else that would happen in the future. I was the music while the music lasted.
When I came back to myself, my first thought was about how it was time to go back to Church and to learn—more formally—how to pray because I had stepped off an edge where only faith and grace would be able to hold me now.
In many ways, I had known I was near that edge for a long time. I suppose it was when I sold the book, or maybe when it started to lift higher and higher and get more attention.
What was happening was now beyond my small self. Period. I was going to need some divine help.
Far off, Spencer called, “Mama.”
“Coming,” I called back to him and shoved myself to standing again. Back to being a mother and a wife, and soon, someone getting on a plane to promote a book.
(Go directly to the next post on the Blackbird journey now).
Your Turn
What is it to you…this life? Have you been able to nail down what it all means?
Why do you think you are here? What is the goal—your very personal goal—in this great adventure?
When have you stopped the forward trajectory…the busyness of the mind…to realize you are part of something far beyond yourself? Can you pinpoint an exact moment? Can you set the scene?
I know these are big questions. Too big, perhaps. But we are writers, and that’s what we do.
I’ll be interested in reading what you have to share.
~ Jennifer, ✍️
For me it happened in a public bathroom at a Busch Gardens amusement park in Virginia. I was 4 years out of the Marine Corps and newly divorced from my husband (who was also a Marine). I was in a stall lettin’ the water out when I heard two women speaking Arabic. My heart stopped and every muscle in my body went stiff. As I exited the stall my hand instinctively reached for my pistol to clear the next corner where they were standing by the mirror. My mind flashed suddenly to the combat training night drills we had with voices speaking Arabic emitting from hidden speakers behind people shaped targets with hijabs on them. The thing is, these women were speaking softly to one another. As I turned the corner, I froze at the sight of a mother and daughter freshening each other’s head dresses and makeup in the mirror lovingly. Something in me broke. Maybe it was the damn to my conscious and the water fell from my eyes as I washed my hands next to them. They are people. Not targets. They are souls with bodies, just like me. They are a mother and a daughter who love each other. People. Not enemy combatants or monsters. Not inhuman objects in a game of war. In that moment I realized I had been the target all along. I was the one who’s fear was weaponized. I was trained to kill other humans, and for what? We’re all human beings here on earth just trying to figure out the same damned thing: why and for what purpose? My mind, heart, and soul shifted that day for good. I began my spiritual journey in healing and opening my consciousness. A bathroom in Busch Gardens. Who’d of thought?
Those are loaded questions!! I know I'm here for a reason but haven't quite figured it out yet. Maybe because I lost my mother so young, I needed to be here for her; for my family. I don't know. Lots to think about.