Satisfied

I’ve gone home from the Florida Writer Association’s Royal Palm Literary Award banquets with an armful of trophies and I’ve gone home empty-handed. Both euphoria at winning and a tinge of disappointment over not are valid emotions. But there is another set of powerful feelings that I have discovered that transcends my own personal outcomes in the contests. These I would describe under the banner of  “satisfaction.”

When I look around the room I see hope in the eyes of all the finalists. I believe in taking certain risks in life. When well-meaning friends caution me, I always reply,  “Disappointment is not fatal.” I feel honored to be to be in a roomful of people who are brave enough to submit their precious work to the claws of strangers. They take the risk, the personal and public risk. They know they will go home delighted or disappointed. I feel a satisfying sense of pride to be in the company of the valiant and the vulnerable.

I’m also a fanatical lover of words. I watch the titles of the finalists’ entries scrolled on the screen. Wow! I want to read her memoir. I want to read his novel. Every line or two on the screen is but a scant sampling of the volumes of words written by people in this room. Writers at my table, at tables behind me, beside me, across the room, have collectively authored thousands of words. I feel a sense of magical delight akin to the joy of seeing the snow falling softly on Christmas Eve. Perhaps that’s not a good image for Floridians, (You’ll excuse me, eh? I’m Canadian!) But in my mind I am seeing a flurry of words, each one as intricately unique as a snowflake. If all the words written by the guests at this banquet were piled up they would form drifts large enough to keep us storm-stayed all night. That, to me, is perfectly satisfying.