I am a proud northern California native, who, as a child, was encouraged by my mother to write letters—newsy letters to Grandma, thank you letters to aunts and uncles.

Those same relatives complimented my parents on their young daughter’s ability to write well.

In junior high, teachers requested that I read out loud, to the whole class, my essays.

Friends in high school begged me to create a book report or write a poem for them. “Hurry!” they would say. “I need it by next period.”

Everyone told me I was a great writer, but no one ever told me I could grow up to be an author.

So, I didn’t.

Instead, I picked prunes, babysat, worked as a telephone operator, a receptionist, a preschool teacher, a social worker and have been successful as a retiree. I have had two biological children, two stepchildren, two marriages, fifteen grandchildren, anal cancer, fantastic friends, one unsuccessful year of piano lessons, several dogs and at least one cat.

Around age fifty I was attending a party and a friend who had suddenly become interested in astrology, begged me to let him do my chart.  “Sure, I said. Why not.”