I am a celebrationist

I am a celebrationist.

I celebrate big things and small things, all the things, really—kids getting their final molars, the anniversary of my fella and I meeting, the first day of summer (and fall and winter and spring), the day before school, the last day of day camp, the first day of snow. In the early days of the pandemic, my kids and I even celebrated every Raptors’ birthday with cake and balloons and streamers (though that was perhaps more about my desperate need to escape the deep panic and all-consuming fear than celebrating Pascal Siakam turning 26).

I make cakes to commemorate just about everything, and always have a spare bottle of prosecco at the ready.

And I celebrate things in my writing life too. Writing novels (for me) takes SO LONG and if I only celebrated a published book, there’d be years and years between cakes. And so, I celebrate all the small wins—finishing first drafts, and getting a new agent, and sending out pitches, and receiving glowing blurbs, generous press, all the things!

Long before I’d even signed a publishing contract for Letters to Amelia, I had a fantasy I’d return to again and again when I couldn’t sleep: I’d imagine the book’s launch party. It involved plane-shaped cookies, and cake and a toast, and a fabulous flight suit and pair of heels. I’d stand on a stage, or in a bookstore, and hold up my book and thank people into a microphone and then we’d eat cake and clink glasses, and dance. This daydream buoyed me when the writing was hard, when the book was on submission, and during especially hard rewrites. It was the light at the end of a very long tunnel. 

But when my book came out, the pandemic was still raging and it didn’t feel safe to gather. I couldn’t fill a room with my favourite people and eat cake and thank people in a microphone. I couldn’t. I knew it was the right choice, but it was hard not to celebrate, and I mourned letting go of my years-long launch party daydream.

I then started planning a park party with mason jars filled with paper plane cocktails, and cupcakes, and my flight suit, but after schools reopened (and then, in our case, closed with the highest number of COVID cases in the city), it didn’t feel safe.

I was all set to not celebrate at all, except my dearests would not allow that. One friend (who is also a celebrationist) drove in from Ottawa for the weekend and brought champagne and prosecco and made an enormous poster of my book cover and insisted on a back yard reading.

My beloved book club turned our monthly backyard meet-up into a Letters to Amelia party complete with oysters and bubbles and a flight-inspired playlist, and my writing group, who were so instrumental in every word in the novel, also threw me a Letters to Amelia party that ended up in my garage when the rain started falling. On my publication day, I ate cake, and the following week, I launched my book on Zoom, wearing my fabulous flight suit, with my favourite people, and a pitcher of paper plane cocktails.

Yes, I’m looking for silver linings—launching a debut novel in a pandemic is far from ideal—but instead of a single day, I got to celebrate for weeks, and all of these smaller celebrations ended up being so much better than my daydream ever could’ve been.

Today, I’m celebrating my final day here as the Open Book writer-in-residence. It’s been a wonderful month and I’m so grateful for everyone who took time to read my words. And now it’s time for cake.