Bringing in the mail each day always gives me a thrill. Sure, there are the usual bills and the copious assortment of junk, but every day I always reach into the mailbox expecting the envelope to be there. It's the envelope I've been waiting for my entire life, and I don't know what it will look like nor when it will arrive.
And I'm not exactly certain what the envelope will contain. It could be a small handwritten note from an editor at The New Yorker, informing me that, after thirty years of submissions to the magazine, I will at long-last grace the pages. Or it could be a sheaf of papers written by some legal-eagle informing me that Mr. Publisher is finally giving me a contract to write a massive book about the dead U.S. Presidents, or a novel, or even a screenplay for Miramax pictures. Or the envelope could contain a check, preferably a large one containing at least six figures, along with an invitation to write more books because "they just gotta have 'em."
I'm still waiting on this envelope, of course. So far, all of the envelopes I've received have been empty, or they contain messages like, "Get lost", "You suck", or "You've got a lot of nerve, brother." And other envelopes have arrived bearing checks so small that the publisher could hardly justify sending these checks inside an envelope posted with a forty-four cent stamp.
Yes, I'm still waiting for the envelope. Thirty-six years now, and counting, since I first began the journey of submission and hope, and reaching into the mailbox every day to embrace my future.
No comments:
Post a Comment