I spent my 30th birthday with my mom. As I was gearing up for the big 3-0 I debated doing a bash with friends or taking a trip somewhere; instead I decided to embrace who I am and booked a B&B with my mom. But not just any B&B, the Nora Roberts' B&B in Boonsboro, Maryland.
For those of you that do not share my passion for trashy romances, Nora Roberts is a New York Times bestselling author with over 225 novels to her credit. Her husband owns a bookstore in Boonsboro and in 2007 they bought the Inn and remodeled it as a B&B. In 2011, Nora released a trilogy based on the Inn and by the time my birthday rolled around in 2014, I knew how I wanted to spend my big day. As I considered who to go with I realized that I wanted someone who would completely embrace this with me and who would indulge my total fandom...so I called my mom and asked her to be my plus one.
As background and in case in case you aren't catching on, I am a huge Nora Roberts fan. It all started at 15 with the Three Sisters Island trilogy, picked up from the used bookstore around the corner from my house. I tore through the trilogy in a week and by the end of the summer I had bought all the Nora Roberts books in the store and was quickly working my way through Books-A-Million's supply. Before the year was out I had finished off her readily available backlog and was stuck waiting for the new releases. Fast forward 20 years, and I have an entire bookshelf in my room that only sports Nora Roberts books. I do a mix of hard and electronic copies these days as I fear going beyond one dedicated bookshelf may put me on some sort of watch list.
With that in mind, you can imagine what sort of excitement and ridiculousness that needed to be embraced on the first visit and can probably see why mom was my only option as a guest. I chose Elizabeth and Darcy (each room is themed after a famous couple in literature) for our stay as it is haunted and plays a big role in the trilogy. I won't give you a play-by-play of the full two days, but I will tell you that it was everything I hoped for and more. They have a nightly happy hour with the guests and with only eight rooms it is a perfect size crowd to sit and debate favorite Nora books, compare rooms, and see who has the most stays under their belt. There is a library chock full of Nora's books as well as a diverse collection of favorites from her bookshelf and a decanter full of Jameson. There is also a solid movie collection that leans towards the romances and black and whites and is perfect for curling up in your robe and noshing on the homemade cookies that are waiting for the guests. Breakfast is a 2-course feast that inspired a cookbook last year (and that I will probably end up with this year). Those first two days at the Inn were the most relaxing vacation I had ever had and before we left we agreed that a tradition was born.
As we gear up for visit number five, I can honestly say that each year is somehow better than the last. We've stayed in the penthouse (Mom's 60th), discovered a fabulous massage parlor, spent a small fortune in the shops, found the local winery that does the Inn Boonsboro wines, and stumbled into an art show with Nora's husband. Although we have yet to meet Nora, I'm convinced it will happen by the time we hit year eight and until then, I get to anticipate what new wonder we are going to find this year, because I swear this place has some sort of magic and I cannot wait to step into the honeysuckle entrance this Friday and embrace it.
We were sitting in the hotel bar in Philadelphia. We'd long since checked out but still had hours until our trains back to our respective cities and realities. We had ventured out earlier for one last round of playing tourist but finally gave in to the winding down clock and settled in with cocktails and conversation. Although neither of us said it, we both knew that this would be it. There would be no going back and trying to make long distance work. We would have a perfect weekend to remember, but this wasn't going to be our reality. And yet as we sat there, neither willing to say the words, we kept sharing our stories and our secrets. Maybe it was knowing that everything we said would stay suspended in the air of the bar, our words clinging to the smoke like the heat that had stuck around late into September. The hours ticked by, the ice cubes melted in our drinks, and yet the words continued to flow. We talked about broken dreams, disappointing realities, about getting up and trying again and again. He talked about immigrating to the US, of college at 14, of starting businesses and failing. He talked of life and love, of that desperate and ongoing search to find passion and then the disappointment when that passion changes. I talked of family, of getting sick, of giving up dreams, of starting over, of writing. We circled on delicate subjects, refilled our drinks, and then dove in again. Time continued to tick on, and the words got more rushed. The need to say it all, to purge ourselves of the stories we wouldn't get to share over the course of a normal courtship, forced us to pack them into this finite moment of time. Our voices would get hoarse and we'd interrupt the flood of conversation to order another drink, everything would get hushed as we waited. Each time this happened I would stare at the pineapple on the shelf of the bar. I had spotted it as soon as we came in and joked that it belonged in my apartment. It was copper and stood guard on the shelf above the liquor. It looked like a relic from the 50s. Copper wasn't in fashion yet, nor were pineapples, so this lone statute looked fanciful and out of place above the bottles standing at attention. During these quiet moments, I'd look at that thing and wish it were some sort of magical beacon that could freeze time and let us just stay here forever and make our own reality. As the last hour started winding down, our conversation began to meander toward reality and the logistics of saying goodbye and suddenly he called the bartender over. I thought he was going to have him take one last picture of us and instead he asked how much for the pineapple. The bartender was confused and said she'd have to check with the manager as it wasn't for sale - he simply replied, everything has a price, find out what it is for the pineapple. As the bartender went off to make the call, I asked what he was doing and he said that this was for me to remember the feeling of not doing the expected and of just letting go and enjoying the ride we are given. Pictures fade, but this would be a tangible reminder that I don't have to stay the course. The negotiations took longer than expected, but finally he was handed the pineapple - turns out it was no relic from the 50s, but instead a promo item from Absolut (apparently they knew that copper and pineapples were about to be the new thing). As he handed me my prize, he said that this was just for me and wasn't something I could share on the blog. I asked why not, and he responded in very much his fashion: tell me why you write your blog. I paused and knew that these words mattered, perhaps more than anything I had said all afternoon, and so I bared the last piece of my soul: Because it is how I am the whole me. I have written for as long as I can remember, even if I wasn't putting pen to paper or words to type, I was writing a story in my head. Years ago I accepted that I won't be a writer, not in the traditional novelist sense, I simply do not have the patience to tell that tale. But I still need to write. When I got sick, the storyteller voice quieted and for a long time I let it go and just focused on the next thing that needed to be done. But the stories started to come back and I began to get my voice back. It started slow, a whisper here, a phrase there, and before I knew it, it was flood of words that could not be ignored. And this time, I knew I needed to share those stories. That is why I write, because to not do so is to not be whole, and I won't do that again. And with that, he handed me the pineapple and told me this was my story to tell when the time was right; and as I look at that pineapple and contemplate another year about to be complete on this earth, I think that this is the perfect time to tell you why I write this blog and about how I ended up with that damn pineapple.
