The response from the agent came Saturday, via email. As soon as I saw the email in my inbox, I knew it was rejection. If she had wanted it, she would have called.
I have to admit this came as a shock. I really believed she was keen on this book. 
This is what she wrote to me: 

I’ve now read Safe at Home, and found much to admire in it. The writing is solid; the comparisions, juxtapositions, and use of irony are deft; and the emotions conveyed are brave and true. Nonetheless, the market is very tough, and I’m afraid that I don’t have the required conviction that I could bring this manuscript to the market successfully. This decision was difficult for me because I have the utmost respect for how you detailed your family’s journey with Alzheimer’s. I do hope another agent feels differently, and I wish you every success with your writing.

So I've had the "writing is solid but the market is tough" line before and that's what freaks me out. If good writing and a good story -- what agents claim they are looking for -- can't trump a tough market, what am I going to do?
All I can do is provide adjectives for how this makes me feel:
overwhelmed
nauseous
scared
I fear this is the "Alzheimer curse": agents see that word in my query and roll their eyes, hit delete because they are simply inundated with pitches about Alzheimer stories (it's those spouses who kept a journal and think typing it up makes a good book that are messing me up).

I can't not do anything, however, so I just emailed the editor who helped me with my manuscript last year. I'm going to get her to evaluate my query letter and book proposal and see if there is some way we can get around that curse. Having her do this evaluation will give me some time off, time away to do other things, not panicking being one of them.

I suppose this means I should write another book, write a work of fiction, use that to launch my writing career then publish the memoir. But you know, I thought I'd be able to relax and enjoy the new adventure of writing fiction, of discovering my voice there, not feeling forced to rush and complete something with the pressure of it having to be my big break.
That just makes my stomach ache.

So enjoy this quote from Junot Diaz, a Pulitzer Prize winning author:
"In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway."
It took him 10 years to write his second novel.

I'm immersed in the world of Alzheimer again and you know, I don't mind. I need to be here, I want to be here. Honestly, I wish I was doing more.
I NEED TO SPEAK OUT but I don't know how to get started. I'm not a natural joiner, not someone who easily gravitates to those kind of situations that would give me a platform (ah, that word again) to voice my ideas, to make my experience heard, to have an impact.
This is what I hope my book will be, that opening I can slip into, widen, blow wide open but I STILL H AVEN'T HEARD BACK.
(insert sound of my head exploding)
But that's okay. No news is good news, really.
I've been reading Oprah's interview with Caroline Myss in the January issue. In fact, I've read it three times because it's saying what I believe, what Oprah's been pounding into me for years.
Myss says, "Your spirit is the part of you that seeks meaning and purpose. It's the part drawn to hope, that will not give in to despair." This is how I feel, and what keeps me going.
(Otherwise, I would have thrown myself in the duck pond months ago.)
"You know we say things like 'I just have to be true to myself'?" Myss says. "What does that mean? Great people always say, 'There's something I was meant to do.' That knowingness is what the soul understands. You have fundamental agreements that you simply feel. You can't put your finger on them because they reveal themselves to you within the context of your life through coincidence, synchronicity and obligations you can't get out of."
Reading this interview, and needing to read it several times, tells me I'm getting there. Makes me feel like my egg is cracking and I'm ready to tumble out of it, all wet and slimy, those feathers matted, legs wobbly but beak open. Squawking.
(Must work on metaphors. Again.)
What am I trying to say? That this Alzheimer stuff isn't going away, is in fact growing at one diagnosis every five minutes, so my words need to be found, my story needs to be shared, my voice needs to be heard. There won't be one person out there who isn't touched by this, even if it's to understand what a friend is going through, that a friend needs that lasagna TODAY. (I will never forget the kindnesses of my friend Shelagh. They're in the book; Shelagh's good deeds deserve to inspire others.)
Those people who say, "Oh, god, she's going on about Alzheimer disease again," are simply those who have never taken care of someone with the disease. If you've seen what I've seen, you can't not care. Once normal cognitive function starts to go, it's a whole new ball game. If you don't know how to play the best game you can, you're screwed.

Rotten winter weather today. Really bad. Windy, too. No one should be on the roads today so of course, this is the day Dwayne sees a new surgeon in Halifax and I have a CAT scan on my back. Both appointments are later this afternoon so hopefully, the freezing will be either rain for him and snow for me.
However...until then, this is the perfect writing day. If only I could find my notes for that article pitch I'm supposed to be working on. Too many piles of paper around my desk. Such brilliance comes from all this chaos!

Here's the thing about my job: It's totally self-directed, which is what I love about it. That and working with Jane. I made her laugh so hard today, I think she peed a bit. See, that's the kind of person I like to hang out with...so I don't pee my pants alone.
So at work, I have my list of responsibilities and I do them at my own pace, knowing when the deadlines are. There is no one looking over my shoulder, no one reviewing my work (well, no one but the more than two thousand people who read the paper, including my aunt). Plus, I get to write whatever I want.
What makes this kind of freedom work is that I am a perfectionist and a pacifist; I want everything to be right and I don't want to create waves, at least not big ones, and preferably ones that don't roll over me.
Second after writing and publishing books, this is the very best job for me.
Can't even complain about the low wage today because I received a raise.

I need to embrace my Eunice because I'm starting to feel...a low level anxiety thrumming through the bottom of my belly.
I'm tired. Of poor sleeping and of waiting. Waiting for Dwayne to have his surgery before his right arm simply falls off. Waiting for the agent to phone with an offer of representation or send an email saying "I just don't love this book." Which might help you understand the anxiety because we know I only want Option 1 on that.
After a day like today at work -- the old print machines banging away all day and two people smoking out back without the courtesy of opening the door -- I come home feeling polluted. Headache from smoke, metallic taste in mouth from print. Should just start closing those big double doors. They wouldn't get it, though. Dirty work for a man with no leadership skills and no publishing sense.
So in response, I'm working on an extra-long column this week that will make people cry. Take that, you silly bugger. Take this award and -- Getting ahead of myself. But brought home a year's worth of columns because the call for submissions to three, 3!, newspaper writing competitions have come out. My favourite columns aren't necessarily my best and choosing is making me cranky.
Need sleep.
Need to walk. Doing laps around the yard in snowshoes is not the same thing. Snow is deep enough that Abby insists on walking right behind me which means she keeps stepping on the back edge of my shoes. Maybe a face plant into cold, light snow is just what I need to wake me up. Could shake this doldrum off like white flakes.
Eunice, Eunice, Eunice. Where are you, Eunice?
(Inside my new fleece pyjamas, I bet. I'm going to look for her there...)

Photos at Araminta and Jason's new house in Atlanta, from our family Christmas on December 28 (delayed by one day since our arrival was delayed by a day) through to Vinnie's dance show on January 1.

Today, I wanted to post photos from our trip to Atlanta, including some fab pics of the boys doing some Wii dancing, but there was a priority today: I had to write a church service.
One of my responsibilities at the newspaper are the church notices and I saw that the River Philip Pastoral Charge was struggling to keep the pulpit supplied, not simply by a minister but by anyone. So, because I wrote for the United Church Observer for ten years and am now a local columnist, I offered my services as a speaker.
What I forgot was that in rural areas, there isn't the crew to support a guest speaker; if you're providing the message, you're picking the hymns and writing all the prayers, too.
Yikes. But I took the challenge anyway because I know how to do this, as rusty as I am, and it's part of the plan. The platform plan. I have things to say, more than can be contained on a blog or on Facebook. It's a sense that's been gurgling around in me for the past few months, since "platform" became a necessity, an obsession, a frantic attempt to create a broader world for my writing and those things that want to be spoken out loud.
It's also a personal growth experience: Verily I say unto you, I suck at speaking extemporaneously. My mother nearly drove off the road from laughing so hard at my account of my last attempt to do so (ever supportive she is). I spent this morning writing my message then I practiced speaking it. I so badly wanted to ditch the notes, just use a guide so that I could be free to speak to the congregation, not read to them. My natural inclination is to walk, to gesture. But in public speaking, I'm not merely rusty, I'm seized up; getting a chance to speak at a small country church is my way of lubricating those hardened skills, of relearning something that I am not particularly good at to begin with.
(There is a great bit in Susan Cain's book on introverts about this, how some introverts simply don't have the ability to speak without notes, without reading. It was liberating; I'm not the only one.)
The good news (no pun intended) is that there is some genetic material to tap into here. As students, both of my parents won awards for their public speaking -- my mother for speaking extemporaneously about magazines; and I have my father's trophy, should take it with me for inspiration -- and three of my great-grandfathers were, according to my mother, great orators. One was a Baptist minister. They were dudes who knew who to talk.
Every great orator must start somewhere so on Sunday morning when I stand up in that small country church way the hell out in Millvale, I shall channel my inner Rev. Mode. With notes.