I say no at the drop of a hat. I couch it as knowing what is good for me. Then I have dinner with my friend Louisa, who works in publishing. Late one afternoon, her editor says: “Louisa, I’m the keynote speaker tonight and I’ve got a scheduling conflict. You have to help me out.”
“I found myself on a stage,” Louisa reports, “with no idea what I was going to say. Then it occurred to me: Louisa, you know more about this than they do. And I started talking. And it was fine.”
“I would have said no,” I say.
“And wound up at home in bed with a book.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“You’re not living,” Louisa says. “You’re in a cocoon. You’re not stretching.”
Stretching? I have to keep stretching? Haven’t I stretched enough? Didn’t I support a (now ex-) husband through medical school while finishing my degree and raising two kids? Haven’t I earned reading in bed with a bowl of Grape-Nuts for dinner? Peace, my new drug of choice.
Louisa and I kiss goodnight. Heading uptown, I argue with ME:
ME: “What’s so good about a book in bed? Since when don’t you take chances?”
I: “I’m relieved about what I’m missing.”
ME: “But what are you missing? How do you know?”
I like arguing with myself. Everyone’s a winner. By the time the bus drops me off, I’ve made a decision. Starting tomorrow, for one year, I’ll strike no from my vocabulary. Tomorrow morning begins the Year of Saying Yes.
Congratulations! It’s a Book!
Having a book published is like having a baby. No stretch marks, but it’s yours to nurture. So yes to the Spencertown book fair in upstate New York, even though it costs $210 to rent a car and I sell only one book. And yes to the Caltech Athenaeum High Tea, even though I spend more time flying to Pasadena than in Pasadena. And yes to talking to my friend Patti’s book club about my book. “I have a great idea,” Patti says. “Since your novel deals with the importance of secrets, let’s everybody tell a secret we’ve never told.” I go first, and tell a secret involving my ninth-grade boyfriend, Harry, that once seemed devastating. Tincture of time makes this secret hilarious. Or so I think. But the women sit there frozen. Nobody else will tell theirs. I sell eleven books.
Broadway Debut
My friend Martin coproduces a show at the Symphony Space uptown. “Would you write something for it?” he asks.
I write a little ditty, changing the words to “How About You.”
“Why don’t you sing it?” Martin asks.
The big night arrives! It’s time for my Broadway debut! So what if it’s Broadway and Ninety-Fifth Street! There are two shows, six thirty and eight thirty. I print the lyrics on a doily in case I forget them. During the second show, I’m so excited, I forget to look at the doily and flub my lines. It doesn’t matter. I read somewhere that when asked why he chose to spend his life on the stage, Sir Laurence Olivier replied by clapping. I get it.
A Blind Date
He picks me up in my lobby. We’re both wearing blue-and-white gingham shirts! He’s funny! Cute, too, even if I’m taller and outweigh him. At brunch he gets sad talking about his late wife. He won’t eat. Walking me home, he asks, “What are you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid I’ll never see a man in his underwear again,” I say.
Right there in the street, he yanks the tail of his belt and starts to unzip. I scream. He says, “Now, if you hadn’t yelled so loud, you would have seen a man in his underwear.”
We take the long way home, walking miles through Central Park. He raves about his new TV equipment, then offers to come check out mine. Examining the setup, he says: “Do you have some time?” We walk more miles to a Best Buy, where he discusses my case with a salesman. Then we walk more miles back and he writes it all down.
Three days later, Blind Date breaks up with me before we hold hands. If I ever upgrade my TV, I’ll know just what to get.
What Next?
The Year of Yes isn’t over. Looming is a boat trip down the Hudson, cooking for a fund-raiser, a hat-making class, an ashram with my sister, two speeches, and participation in New York City International Pickle Day. When Yes Year is up, will I go back to no and Grape-Nuts? Maybe, but perhaps less of both. There isn’t one thing I said yes to that I’m sorry I said yes to. And look what I would have missed. “No” means safety, and the numbing stasis that implies. I’m changed. The change has to do with the joy of being available to chance. There is a thrilling difference between being comfortable and being too comfortable. That difference makes you feel—there’s no better word for it—radiant.