Dear Monica,

On Friday, you will travel by car, ferry and foot to attend the first Book Blogger Convention in the great City. The renowned Book Expo America will also be in the building; not sure you will have time to walk the floor there with all the other crazed book fans. I suspect you are going to have to chose between book blogging workshops and free books.

You better bring a tote bag.

I know you are nervous about going into the City. You are not a city person, as much as you would like to easily move between the two worlds of city and country. The crowds, the traffic, the amount of man-made material under your feet is not part of your daily life. You can count the number of cars that pass your house daily.

And I sense the heart of your apprehension, the “What if?” lurking in the back of your mind. This will be your first time in the City since that day when the towers came down and the City proved vulnerable to evil and the innocent fell from the sky.

You were a mom of only two then – a toddler girl, a baby boy. Today, you have four young ones at home and that toddler girl is now what they call a tween.

You’ve seen the City from a distance, from the safety of New Jersey soil, driven past the Manhattan skyline several times to visit the Statue of Liberty, a museum or to vacation further north. This time you will be walking the City streets, in a convention hall with scores of people. Your children will be with your mom and dad, enjoying time with Grandma and Poppy, happy to jump on the trampoline and eat numerous ice cream cones. Your mom is generous with the treats, isn’t she?

They won’t be anywhere near the City.

Your brother told you how he walked past that car bomb earlier this month. The bomb that didn’t work right, only filling the car with smoke to alert a pedestrian of the danger smoldering inside. He and and his friends left Yankee Stadium to go to dinner – his May Day birthday dinner – that night in Times Square.

We had to have walked past that car, he told you the next day. He told you the story and you immediately thought of the Book Bloggers Convention.

Don’t think so much, Monica.

Who would want to harm a bunch of book nerds? This is the world of publishing and book blogging, we are not sitting at the popular kids table in the high school cafeteria. Nobody is paying attention to the book geeks, right?

Right?

Friday is going to be a bright, bookish day. You are going to meet friends you have only talked with online for the first time, make new acquaintances, dwell in the world of book blogging all day. Maybe you can steal a few moments at the BEA convention floor.

I’m sure you’ll have a great time. Don’t forgot Who goes before you, surrounding you with His love.

Sincerely,

Me (or You, if you want to be more accurate)