It was a resounding success. I know it because I've been here all week and watched every piece of it come together. I know it because Holly has been running on four hours of sleep and pure vision since Wednesday and it shows in the way the whole thing is exactly right. I know it because I'm a travel writer and I know what a thing being good feels like from the inside.
I also know it because Justin cries during his speech, and the whole crowd gives him a standing ovation in response, and Holly is already crying and Anthony beside me hands me a folded handkerchief without looking and I take it without looking and later I realize that is one of my favorite moments of the week.
I'm keeping the handkerchief. I'll figure out the etiquette later.
The piece I wrote goes live at noon.
I post it from a table in the resort bar with Anthony beside me and Holly refreshing her email with the frequency of someone who has been told good things are coming and isn't sure she believes it yet. She’s checking for reservations and responses from the other influencer who’d been here all week. Meanwhile, I hold my breath until my post goes live.
The title is: What It Feels Like to Be Somewhere.
The lead is: There is a handsome wildlife veterinarian in the Colorado mountains who designs walking routes around where the wind drops. He told me this on a Tuesday night in December at the most beautiful resort I’ve ever been to, and it is the best travel writing advice I've ever received from someone who has never written a word about travel.
I watch Anthony read it over my shoulder. His expression is still.
"You put me in the lead."
"You gave me the angle."
"We're going to have a conversation about you calling me a handsome wildlife veterinarian," he says.
"I know," I say, very pleasantly.
Holly, across the table, has given up pretending not to listen. "Is this going to be a whole thing?"
"Briefly," Anthony says.
"She's going to love it," Holly says to him.
"I know she is," he says. And looks at me. "And she's still going to hear about it."
I'm already smiling. I can't stop. I don't particularly want to.
By three o'clock, the piece has done something I haven't had happen in two years.
It's moving. Not just performing but actually moving, the way things move when they touch something real in people. My inbox starts filling. Comments compound. Three travel accounts with larger followings than mine share it. A magazine editor I've been trying to get a response from for eight months emails to say she'd love to talk about a column.
And then the client inquiries start.
Not for the Evergreen specifically, for what I do. People who read the piece and want the person who wrote it to help them find something that feels like that. Real travel. Specific travel. The travel that's designed around what you feel and not just what you see.
Four of them by four o'clock. Seven by six.
I'm sitting in the corner of the bar with my laptop and my phone and the very specific overwhelmed expression of someone whose plan is working, when Anthony sets a coffee and a turkey croissant in front of me and pulls up a chair.
"Put the phone down for five minutes," he says.
"I have seven inquiries."
"They'll keep for five minutes."
He's right. They'll keep. And I've been staring at the screen for two hours and I haven't eaten since breakfast, and I can feel the specific frayed quality of running on adrenaline without any of the things that actually sustain you.
He can see it too. That's why he brought the coffee. That's why he's here.
I put the phone down.
"Thank you," I say.
