As I eat my breakfast in bed, made by my wonderful husband, Chad, I’m grateful for him, but also for the men who came before because each one had a part to play in the person I became. Every person in my life helped to shape me, even, and maybe especially the villains, the heroes and everyone in between.
This morning, the morning after my book release, brings such joy, but also reflection. When you arrive at a goal, especially something you’ve dreamed of your whole life, it can feel anticlimactic. I’ve had that happen, but this one didn’t fall into that category. I’m overjoyed and filled with gratitude.
Around the time I started Mugwort & Meadow, I wrote a piece called Fat Cats Fighting Over Scraps. Ostensibly, it was a piece about the village cats fighting for survival. Really, it was a metaphor for all of us online netizens fighting for our tiny scrap of the attention of the online world.
Back then, I decided I didn’t want to go the conventional route. Not that I ever have in my life, but it was a scary choice. Everyone told me I needed a huge social media following for clout. This would have required many hours in the day creating content, but those hours were needed for making money for us to live. Social media couldn’t provide those much-needed funds.
But it wasn’t just that I didn’t want to become a content mill. It was that it didn’t feel authentic to me. Authenticity has always been important to me, both in myself and in the people I get close to. How authentic can I be if I’m posting “Instagram-perfect” photos all the time and never showing the tough things in life? I write because truth is everything to me.
So I took the organic route. It’s not popular, nor is it a speedy way to the finish line, whatever that looks like. I suppose it fits me better than I even knew then. It meant slow growth, natural and personal. It meant I had to keep writing for other people to pay the bills. I was okay with that. Incidentally, writing for others has given me a whole new successful business I never planned to have. But it also happened organically. And that’s the point.
Yesterday, I announced the release of my book, The Mediterranean Herbalist, published by Book Shelter GmbH out of Germany. Yes, I’ve published four novels myself, but there’s something validating about being chosen by a publisher. It was a dream for me, now realized. The point is, despite my quite minimal following on most of the major platforms, my book has gotten a lot of attention. I watched my website stats blow up yesterday and saw the messages pour in from people wanting a copy of my book.
My little book, in my little corner of the internet, isn’t so little. It both surprised and validated the Brenda of two years ago who made the decision to remain authentic to herself. I kept writing and posting occasionally, and people took note. I helped a few clients change their health and they gave me such lovely testimonials that will remain with me forever. It’s those people: the ones I come into contact with here in the Mani, and the ones I miss back home. They are the ones I wrote my book for. I’m grateful for the people who don’t know me yet, who chose to take a chance on my book, and I hope one day to get to know them, too. But it’s those who are in my life that make what I do worth it.
My book went out without an acknowledgments page, so consider this it. Thank you to all the people who have left a piece of themselves in my life and thank you to those who contribute to my life daily. I am grateful for all the lessons learned, both joyful and tough, that brought me here and brought my book into the world. This book is one of many to come, but like your first child, it will always be a tiny bit more special simply because it was the first, and through it, you learned the most.
My tea has gone cold and Chad has come to collect the breakfast plate. Every one of those people, the villains and the heroes, is somewhere in the pages of this book, even if their names aren’t. Welcome to the world, beautiful book. I wish all the love in my heart to go out and touch the people who read it.
