Change partners and dance

I had an insight this morning.

Now we’re in trouble.

Let me explain.

April is here, and that means that I change my closet over from winter clothes to spring. Actually I don’t mind doing this, because it’s fun to replace the dark heavy wools with lighter, sunnier, happier colors and clothes. This year in lockdown was different, because I didn’t wear any of my winter clothes, but changing the closet felt even better. I felt as if I was putting the pandemic behind me, in favor of something called hope.

It didn’t hurt that I just got the first dose of vaccine and am looking forward to the second. And New York is opening up with more vaccine, so younger people like Francesca will be able to start hitting refresh three million times a day.

Bottom line is, things are changing for the better.

And I’m starting to like change.

It turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks.

I say this because I lived a lot of my life avoiding, and even fearing, change.

I used to say reflexively, “I don’t like change.”

I don’t know when I started not minding change, and now I may have turned into a bona fide person who likes change.

In other words, I changed.

It might’ve been the pandemic, in which change was forced upon us. Look at all the new things we all learned. How to teach geometry to kids. How to work around cats. How to operate Zoom, Crowdsite, and Zencastr.

Hint: It’s not Zen.

All of us have changed the way we do absolutely everything.

And emotionally, there’s been change. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve all learned to live with disease.

Literally.

We have changed the way we mourn, and the way we celebrate.

Everything is different all the time, and we’re hoping it will change back, but I wonder. To be sure, there will be a new normal, and we will have to figure that out as we go.

I also noticed it with my new book, just published. I don’t know if the book was a catalyst for my change, but I suspect it was. I’ve been a novelist for over 30 years, writing 33 novels considered domestic or legal thrillers. And I’ve been lucky enough to have garnered a loyal following of readers, for which I’m grateful every day.

But a few years ago, I decided I was going to write a book that was in me since my college days, and it had to come out. In other words, I’ve been waiting 40 years to write a certain novel.

Why did I wait?

Because I was a person who didn’t like change.

But then one day I realized it was eating me alive that I didn’t do something that I really wanted to do, in my heart. So I sat down to write my first historical novel, the story of a love triangle set in Fascist Italy involving a real-life event that deserved more attention. It was a story that needed to be told, bigger in scope than anything I had written before.

Instead of one family, it concerned three.

Instead of the present day, it was in the past.

Instead of one layer, it had several.

It was epic, and it could have been an epic fail.

Finally, I said to myself, you need to do this, even if it is a risk. I didn’t know if my thriller readership would follow me. I don’t know if it was a career killer.

The book is entitled Eternal, and among the reasons for the title is that change is eternal.

So far, fingers crossed, it’s turned out pretty great. I feel so happy that the story is out in the world and that I actually did something I had never done before. The early reviews on Goodreads are the best I’ve gotten in my life. Most of them begin “this isn’t what I expected from her” and end “but I love it!”

And I couldn’t be happier or more grateful.

I am eternally grateful.

Eternally grateful that I realized that change isn’t the worst thing in the world. It might even lead to something better, so it isn’t something to be afraid of.

After all, we change our closets, and it could be something as mundane as that.

That is my insight.

It came from my closet.

And I’ll return to thriller writing, but I want to keep writing historical fiction, too.

Change is an addition, not a subtraction.

Just like seasons.

So maybe Mother Nature really does know best.

Look for Lisa’s first historical novel, “Eternal,” in stores now. Also look for Francesca’s debut novel, “Ghosts of Harvard,” on sale now.