My Forks Appearance is Two Weeks From Yesterday

My  Forks Appearance 

 

Two weeks from this hour, my appearance in Forks WA at Raincon will be a one-day-and-four-hours’-old memory. I sure hope it’s a good one!  (June 15 at 1 PM at the Rainforest Arts Center.)

 

I’ve been “rehearsing” in my mind every night for the past few weeks as I fall asleep. I imagine interacting with the audience in a relaxed, relational manner, telling my story in a way that will feel fresh and immediate to them and to me, as if I’m experiencing it for the first time.

 

Instead of reading excerpts from my book DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal, A Harvest of Memories from the Fan Who Knew Him Best, I’m going to paraphrase them so I can look at the audience and take them right along with me on the adventure of a lifetime.

 

I’ll show how nervous I was feeling the first time I had an actual sit-down-and-visit dinner with the Kelleys in Denver, Colorado after a couple years of writing to them after we reconnected in 1988 at a Spokane Star Trek convention.

 

Being shy and wanting to make a good impression,  I was a nervous wreck! I’d only met them once before, very briefly, at a parade in Wenatchee, Washington twenty years earlier. I felt completely comfortable writing to them (“Writing is show business for shy people”), but I was afraid I’d come across as a very great disappointment after regaling them with chatty, fun letters for so long.

 

I was afraid I couldn’t possibly live up to the creativity I’d shared with them–certainly not in person!  I felt inadequate and tongue-tied. I was abjectly miserable, feeling certain I was bound to disappoint them!

 

As you know, that didn’t happen, but I didn’t know the end from the beginning, so I want to be able to share that with the audience. I know they’ll be able to relate to the fear of making a complete fool out of oneself. It happens to everyone who is faced with meeting and interacting with someone they greatly admire or respect.

 

In short, I was as nervous meeting the Kelleys up close and personal for an extended period of time as I will be (at least briefly) meeting up close and personal with the folks in Forks who will come to hear me talk about De!

 

I’m one of those people who freaks out over the possibility of wasting people’s time.  To me, time is a valuable commodity, so I hate it when people waste my time by taking the scenic route when they’re trying to tell me something. I don’t mind listening as long as they truly captivate me, but the minute they land on a topic that doesn’t require a long explanation and they give it to me anyway, I want to flee!

 

I was taught at a very young age not to waste people’s time. For that reason, I’m a quiet individual unless I believe I have something pretty darned important to say–and when I do, I do my best to keep it as short and sweet as I can.

 

Every time I give a talk, I multiply the time I speak by the number of people who are listening and realize I’m taking up a lot of precious time, so what I’m saying had better be worth the cumulative time they’re sacrificing to hear me out! (That’s a lot of pressure. I’m not sure other speakers feel the same way, but I sure do!)

 

The good news about a talk like the one in Forks is that only people who are interested in DeForest Kelley will bother to wander in and hear me, so I know they’re there to find out more about him.  That makes them my tribe, and they’ll be kindly disposed and patient as long as I don’t mutilate the message I want to share with them.

 

And I’ll be asking them to ask me questions when I’m through with what I plan to say, so we can tie up any loose ends that they want answers to. I want to be sure it feels like a visit, not a presentation. (That’s the way De’s appearances always came off–as a personal visit with friends.)

 

For that reason, I haven’t prepared a speech. I’ve listed anecdotes that I want to be sure and cover about turning points along the way in the evolution of my friendship with the Kelleys.  I want to cover funny things and poignant things. I want what I say to stick with the audience and resonate with them.

 

It isn’t rocket science.

 

I just have to regard my initial “stage fright” (the minutes before I go on, and the first few minutes I’m on) as racehorse nerves, the adrenaline that shoots through my body to power me through a well-run race and a photo finish.  I know as soon as I see faces in the audience lighting up, smiling and hanging with me, I’ll know  I’m with kindred spirits and I’ll lose my nervousness and be able to chat with them.

 

It’s going to be fun!

 

But first… I’m going to be nervous. It comes with the territory. And it’s okay!

 

I know De and Carolyn will be with me, and so will the audience and my friends.  With support like that, I simply can’t lose!

 

But I must say, I’m far more concerned about Forks than I am about having a tooth pulled on Wednesday morning!  (But that’s because I refuse to borrow trouble when it comes to physical discomfort like dentistry or surgery. Why sit around anticipating discomfort that will probably be far less than any I can imagine anyway; that just extends the misery! My mind is my servant, not my master!)

 

I’m anticipating that Forks will be a lot of fun!  That’s certainly my GOAL.  And I usually meet or exceed my goals when they’re as important to me as this one is!

 

My appearance will be videotaped, so I should be able to post it here afterward.