At 9:14 a.m., one blizzardly weekend last spring, I picked up my home office telephone and dialed long-distance. Someone picked up. "You're on, Kathleen."
"Good morning, fellow scribes! I never thought we'd be meeting like this!" For the next forty-five minutes, I delivered the most awkward keynote address I've ever given. Those at the other end - watching a telephone talk into a mic - likely felt the same.
I'd been booked for months to speak and present a workshop at that writer's conference, four hours from home.
Hoping for good travelling weather the Preacher and I had set out in plenty of time to make my first session. But an hour into our trip, we met a colossal snowstorm, so bad even semis had pulled over.
The evening before, the event's co-ordinators and I had discussed a contingency plan - just in case. "Hon," I said now, "turn around." For once, he didn't argue.
We beat the storm home, despite a long detour around a washed out road. CAUTION, read a small diamond-shaped sign perched a few feet before the raging creek.
Back home, I called Saskatoon. "You know that plan...?"
That's why I spoke at that conference while sitting in my own office, while watching the blizzard and a shocked flock of purple finches. No doubt expecting spring, they'd just arrived, and seemed grateful for the feeder on our deck.
My workshop went only marginally better - thanks to Skype, a computer program which allows two parties to see and hear each other - sort of. My workshop attendants appeared as indecipherable blobs on chairs, stuttering words I couldn't properly hear, answering questions I couldn't properly ask. But we were all very gracious.
I attended the rest of the conference by Skype too; a silent, smiling, blurry face on a computer in the corner, watching the passing scenery: mostly people's middle thirds, and a few bobbing purses.
Twice, the room housed other workshops. Because the computer that contained me was facing the room, and not the platform, I couldn't see the speakers. Finally, "Please turn me!" I scrawled on a sheet of paper, holding it in front of my computer's camera. I heard laughter, then a body got up and walked toward me. When all I could see was a stomach, the room revolved, and the platform appeared.
During a coffee break, a woman walked over, sat down, and looked directly into the camera at her end.
For the first time all day, I looked someone in the eye.
"I was at a workshop you spoke at in Calgary about ten years ago," she said. "Just thought I'd come over and thank you. You're the reason I'm writing today."
God gives us all gifts to share. Some days we do that better than others. But every opportunity to do so - even awkwardly - is also a gift. And sometimes an even greater gift returns.
What are you sharing?
