Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.
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Imagine a tiny car in a circus where clown after clown after clown climbs out, a veritable boxcar’s worth of clowns emerging in all, and you get an idea of what happened when I carelessly knocked over a tall drinking glass while reaching for the breakfast menu and a tsunami of iced tea, a gallon wave impossibly squeezed inside a 16-ounce plastic tumbler, washed over the entire tabletop before cascading onto my lap and vinyl booth seats and tile floor.
And yet—here is the surprise twist—the blunder actually enhanced a most wonderful morning of a day that was a masterpiece by noon.
Already, you see, I had been to the dermatologist because my pale and troublesome Irish complexion requires frequent precautionary screenings.
“Nothing in life is so exhilarating,” Winston Churchill quipped, “as to be shot at without result.” Personally, I think the man nicknamed “The British Bulldog” was barking up the wrong tree—nothing in my life is so exhilarating as to have a history of various skin cancers and then get a checkup without result.
This examination worthy of celebration was capped off when, as I was leaving the office building, a teenage boy a few strides ahead of me went out the glass front doors, suddenly stopped and spun 180-degrees like a basketball star making a swift and graceful pivot move, and came back to hold the door open for me—a small nicety, to be sure, but also a welcome one that is too rare.
Onward next to brunch at a gem of a café I had never before been to, to meet a dear friend who was in town briefly from across the country. Arriving early because my dermatology appointment went so well, and so quickly, I had time to cause the ice-tea waterfall. In two ways this mishap added to, not subtracted from, the goodness of my morning.
First, this mishap sent my thoughts back in a flash to a lunch when my daughter was 5 years old, possibly 6, and for the second “Daddy Daughter Date” in a row she toppled a towering glass of lemonade while coloring the kids’ menu. Sensing her rising chagrin and embarrassment, I reactively—and purposely—knocked over my own drink and fairly sang, “Oh, silly me! I made a bigger mess than you did!”
The only tears over our spilled milk, so to speak, were from us both laughing so fully.
I did not spill a second glass at Café 126, I am happy to share. I am happy to share, too, that my server could not have been kinder in downplaying the extra work my clumsiness created for him. Instead, he promised it would not be the last such accident of the day while cheerfully mopping up the mess.
Enter my friend to a welcoming hug and a clean and dry booth, never the wiser of my goof; followed by good food and a gooder (not a word, but should be) visit that flew by much too quickly; and, goodest (again, should be standard usage) of all, was when her eyes misted up while telling me how deeply she enjoyed my novel “The Butterfly Tree.” She being an author of acclaim, her praise was birdsong to my soul.
As I finish writing this I will soon be heading off to a happy hour with my goodest friend, by coincidence he is also a gifted writer, and it seems like the perfect bookend to a masterpiece day would be if I accidentally—or accidentally with a wink—spilled my first pint.
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.
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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.