Book Signings: What does an author do before the event?

I used to imagine what an author got up to before a book signing.

The night before there would be a gala. Photos. Nylons. Shiny faces. Polite nods from the author while people gush. In the hours before, they'd have press junkets and events. They'd take interviews and meetings in a quiet corner of the Ritz. They would meet with the publisher to run the numbers. All good, obviously.

The BBC would show up to pitch the miniseries. The author would nod. Considering.

The author's people would talk later to the BBC's people. Handshakes. So-pleasing-to-meet-each-others would flutter by in the thick air of the hotel lobby.

This Mother's Day weekend I had a book signing. In the hour before, I was cleaning my wedding ring. Some people like to see it since I wrote about it in Paris Letters. During this, Amélie had spilled my huge water bottle all over the kitchen floor, then ran through it, leaving little footprint tracks through the house.

Christophe was wiping, she was running, I was trying to fluff up my weird hair. It came in curly after the chemo and I don't know what to do with it. I was hoping for a Shakepeare & Company's Sylvia Beach Whitman look...

But I felt I was closer to...

What I have learned in these situations, when one isn't feeling great appearance-wise, is to wear a happy dress, lots of makeup and a big smile.

So that's what I did. Then I kissed them goodbye, walked around the puddle and said, "Mommy has to go be famous for the afternoon," which even made Christophe laugh as he was mopping up the spill.

The book signing was great. I'm always amazed at how people will show up for these things. My niece Grace was my assistant and I'm even amazed that I actually required an assistant but I did. That's how many people were buzzing about buying books and showing up with their well-loved copies.

Oh how I love to see a beat up old copy of Paris Letters. Oh how I love to discover how it got someone through a tough time or inspired them to action.

Oh how I love to learn that A Paris Year became a guidebook for a trip to Paris. I find guidebooks generally boring, so I take this as a high compliment.Here I am with... the hair.

Oh dear.

Dori of Cottage North Soapworks was so kind to create the event, take this photo above, and generally push me to get back out there and be authorly after my year of being sickly.

Will my hair ever relax? You know, you survive cancer and you're grateful and happy you get to raise your kid and hang out with your husband without dying on them early in the game. And yet, there is still this stupid hangup about hair and weight and age.

Oh to return to how I looked before... when I was actively judging myself with all the same things.

I guess that's life. A deeper understanding when going through big life events. To feel all the things.

Astonishment that people drive so far to get your signature.

Astonishment that you're still hung up on your looks.

Astonishment that part of the dream includes spills.

I was on a city bus in Paris a few years ago. I was going with a friend to the hospital where she was to undergo surgery the next day. We were nervous. The bus drove by the Eiffel Tower and we remarked that we never thought the dream of living in Paris would include driving by the Eiffel Tower on the way to the hospital for surgery. But there it is. Both glee and stress in the same breath.

Maybe one of these days, I'll be having quiet talks with press people in the lobby of a fancy hotel in Paris before being whisked off to a book signing. I wonder what will be on the margins of that event. How old will Amélie be? Will she be heading off to the park with daddy for the afternoon while I sign books? Or will she be off with friends for the day, too old for the park.

If so, I'd like to think Christophe is in the hotel lobby, too, but sitting at the bar watching the scene. Smiling over and blowing me a kiss, both of us remembering the spill in the kitchen and Amélie's little footprints all over the house.