Who We Are

As the ice still hasn’t melted on my road I had a little more time to go through things and discard what is outdated before venturing into town. I ran across a copy of the last “Who We Are” column I wrote for the Cibola County Beacon, published November 26, 2004. After reading it I decided it might be fun to share it with my new reading audience.

A Special Person Walks on Unfamiliar Ground
The first six decades of her life were spent raising her three children. It wasn’t that she was slow; they were born over a 20 year span of time. When she reached the point of needing to focus on her self she was walking on unfamiliar ground. It was not easy to start a new life at her age.

For the first time in her life she made herself the center of her world. Until then she had literally hid behind other people and their priorities. She had always been afraid that she was not good enough to face life on her own.

Renovation of her life caused her to believe she had found the special person she had searched for all her life. Today she finds it hard to believe that she had lived for 60 years without a clue about who she really was.

This new relationship not only gave her a new attitude; it gave her material for her first published book, Wake up! It was written from her heart to help others and herself grow in love.

She obtained a publisher without the help of an agent. Many query letters had been rejected before she found Publish America, a slightly non-traditional publishing house that focuses on new writers. Unfortunately they offered little promotional help to authors who were not already celebrities.

Promoting her book became her new challenge. Knowing it was spiritually guided led her to believe that it would be an instant success. It seems she was overly optimistic! It did not fit the old fashioned cowboy and Indian mindset of her little town of Grants, New Mexico.

Part one of Wake Up! is an inspirational journey offering spiritual awareness from a lay person’s experiences. Part two contains 30 true stories featuring Cibola County residents and their life challenges. Those who have read her unique book have been moved by its down-to-earth messages.

The book has a partner of equal importance, spirit photographs taken in Cibola County while writing the contents. Like any good partnership, each has its own merit, while complimenting the other.

Book signings, creative advertising and letters to friends, groups and organizations she has donated time to have been unsuccessful. Her writing has been exposed to her community since 2000 through two newspaper columns that she has written and she has been assured that readers love her work.

One would think that she is doing everything right. Her supporters are asking, “When are you going to write another book?” Thus far her answer has been, “First I have to sell this one.”

A new question has recently occurred to her. What if Wake Up! was primarily written to help her move on with her life and readers are simply witnesses on her journey? This concept diminishes the importance of selling the book. It allows her freedom to move on.

She has learned from experience to take every opportunity that comes along to grow. Nothing in her life is the same at it was when she began walking on unfamiliar ground.

This story chronicles the recent life of Barbara Gunn. It is also my last submission to “Who We Are”. This decision is mine. I truly thank my many readers and friends who have encouraged my journey.

(author’s note: Today I am laughing at how far I have come and how much I got by with as a columnist for the Cibola County Beacon!)