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How would you paint regret? I asked, most recently, and I have been moved beyond words by the responses, not just on this blog proper, but also on Facebook, and also late two nights ago, while talking with my son, who said: "Regret is a path directed by a one-way sign; just beyond the sign is a storm."

This morning I embrace the collective wisdom and generosity of all of you. Why blog? This is why blog. Because you get so much more than you give.

Speaking of giving: Several weeks ago, I sold an historical novel, Dangerous Neighbors, to Laura Geringer, now collaborating with the extraordinarily exciting new USA presence, Egmont. Those who have known me for a long time know just what that sale meant to me: that I would live to see a very different kind of Kephart novel in the world, that I had been buoyed by the faith of an editor whose mind I wholly value, that perhaps I, more literary, always, than commercial, would still have a future with books in a world in which commercial is the gauge by which authors are most measured.

It meant, in other words, everything, and Jane Satterfield, whose brilliant memoir, Daughters of Empire, launched a few weeks ago, celebrated the news with me by sending along a book of which she had lately been speaking: The Importance of Music to Girls, by Lavinia Greenlaw.

A few days ago, in the midst of frustration over the novel for adults that I'm now writing, I took Jane's gift outside and started to read. Utter endorphin release. Near immediate calm. The sensation that passes through me when I am confident that I am reading a good book. Over the course of fifty-six taut, quirky, magical-because-they-are-quirky essays The Importance of Music traces Greenlaw's awareness of/fascination with/life-bending relationship to music. From dancing, Roethke like, on her father's shoes, to learning to dance, to studying Bowie's attitude on the Ziggy Stardust LAp cover, to playing the piano too fast or too slow, these exquisite star bursts tremble with the true stuff of life.

Or, at least, with a life I understand. For, like Greenlaw, music has always been the charge within. I, too, was a girl dancing in the basement to music turned up loud. I was the girl singing, untamed, in the car. I was the girl dancing on ice and on a stage. I was a girl because of music. Here is Greenlaw:

If we sung out of trepidation or the need for release, the experience was nonetheless one of joy, as was dancing. I danced in line with my friends and alone in front of the mirror, as a rehearsal of love. It was preparation for saying "Look at me" and "Yes, I will" and "I know how."

I am the recipient of gifts: too many, none of them earned.

Yesterday, for example, in the airport: a young girl from Penn State who, like me, waited for that ersatz plane to San Antonio. She was beautiful—dark haired, a diamond chip on the left flare of her nose, a tender kind of edgy. Studying Spanish, dreams of becoming a translator, a good sort. I liked talking with her. We made a pact. We said, If we hear again that the plane that is about to take us high in the blue cold sky (the plane that was so tiny that it had no overhead luggage compartments) needs "more" maintenance (after already waiting a long time for maintenance) then we will be officially spooked. We got word. We were, together, spooked. She went her way and I went mine, but I felt as if, during all that waiting, I had made a friend.

Another gift: Dina Sherman of HarperCollins was kind beyond description about my airport dilemma. She understood. I am an uber responsible, don't let people down if I can possibly help it sort, and I never not show up for things; it's against my annoyingly obsessive nature. Dina made it okay for me to go home during the swamp of airline confusion.

Another gift: A few days ago, Vivian of Hip Writer Mama took the time to lay out, step by step, just how one embeds links in a blog. I had no idea previously how this got done. I don't know how anyone learns this stuff in the first place. But I know that it took Vivian a long time to teach me, and this was after she had already gone the distance, interviewing me and three others for last week's Winter Blog Tour. She's something else.

Another gift: Jane Satterfield, whose beautiful, searing memoir, Daughters of Empire: A Memoir of a Year in Britain and Beyond, is due out next year, sent, arriving just today, a book of poems by Elizabeth Spires. It's called The Wave-Maker and Jane's generosity is inexplicable (except that Jane, whom I profiled not long ago on this blog, has always been enormously generous). Jane's taste is immaculate. I've been sitting with this book for the past half hour and I think I'm in love with every page. I wonder if Ms. Spires would mind me quoting a stretch from a single poem called "Translation of My Life":

Imagine: a town
in the same universe as this one,
with the same physical laws,
but no poets, no poetry.
No scribbling hands up late
at night writing words
they believed would save them.
No noisy fluttering pages
to disturb the peace
of a dreaming populace.

I hope not.