Tuesday, June 16, 2009.  Well, it’s life back to normal after the Universal Lightworkers’ Conference. Back to  final layout on the July Horizons Magazine, and back to my flat hair now that I’m home in muggy central Florida.   Spending the weekend inside the hotel (no humidity!) for the conference, my hair was big, California hair.  Then one trip out to my mailbox yesterday and drooooop go my golden locks…..  ah, back to normal.  I don’t know why it’s so much more humid just 2 hours north of Fort Lauderdale.  At the hotel, I was in room 1123 and had a balcony.  I kept the sliding glass door open much of the time since I am used to the fresh air.  Even though the sound of the a/c was very loud on the balcony, I liked the fresh air.  It was  warm, but not very humid.  Not on the 11th floor anyway, and there was a breeze.  After dark, I could look out the open window and see the city lights lining the horizon, like a jeweled necklace.  When I see night scenes like that, I can see why someone would want to live in a highrise in the city.  But I’d rather live where I have some land and some trails and woods to walk in, even if it’s just on my little acre.

The last several years I have taken off from attending all conferences.  There were just too many of them and they were getting too similar and becoming old hat. It was material I’d studied for 20+ years and I was starting to feel like I knew it all anyway.  I was tired of being solicited at every step of every gathering.  I never really went to “work” any of the events, just to attend.  I usually never do business at these conferences, just connect in person and later email or call.  But seeing Horizons Magazine on my name badge gave everyone license to promote themselves to me.  With that lousy attitude, I knew it was time to take a break.

It took me a couple of years to gain my perspective back and look forward to doing the conferences again.  A couple of years of not feeling pressured to be somewhere. A couple of years to remember that I do not, in fact, know everything.  A couple of years of not feeling like I needed to be a journalist doing a review of every event I attended; feeling guilty and selfish if I wanted to just attend and soak it up for my own sake, rather than write about it.  I am a writer.  I am not a journalist.  I do not write a good review.  I seldom interview authors or celebrities.  Especially not at an event when their time is limited.  The same with asking to have a photo taken with them.  I just don’t do it.  I keep their time available for the fans, the people who are buying their products, which is why they are there.  I can always talk and email with them later, and we both will know who the other is in person.  It’s one of those unwritten rules.

Then again, I think well, if I am going to be there, everyone really wants to hear all about what happened and who did what.  Then I wonder if I have a duty to report back to the Horizons readers?  If I had scads of free time, I’d love to do nothing but go to conferences and report back about them.  But my time is filled with other priorities, not the least of which is doing Horizons on my own.  Which is just as well since I’d have to learn how to write a review or do an interview anyway.

For now, I’m just looking forward to scheduling some interesting conferences.

I’m ready for something new.

Bring it on.