I miss the wide-eyed innocence of my youth...of four years ago

I'm leaving on Thursday for Boston, to take part in a conference. It's a prestigious conference, and the first time I went it was as an attendee, not as a speaker. I was one of a thousand people who gathered in a hotel between Harvard and MIT, right on the Charles River, to listen to such luminaries as Malcolm Gladwell and Anne Fadiman and Molly Ivins.

There were a dozen or more other speakers, too--lesser-lights, but still impressive. Writers and editors from great newspapers around the country. I remember those three days as a blur of intensity and excitement. I didn't know anyone else at the conference, but that didn't matter; it was overwhelming, and every day I walked from my cheap hotel to the big glittering hotel where the conference was held, down Mass Ave, past the Necco Wafer Factory, the smell of those dusty odd candies hanging in the air, to listen to great people talk about great things.

During breaks I walked alone along the Charles River, or back up Mass Ave., thinking about everything I'd heard. It was beyond wonderful, and I wrote long, enthusiastic, star-struck emails to my friends back home. "Here I am at Harvard with Malcolm Gladwell," was the subject line of one.

A few months later, the conference director sent me an email and asked me if I would speak at the next conference.

I remember sitting and staring at that email and wondering how in the world it had arrived at my email box. I decided it was a mistake; surely he must have meant to send it to someone else but clicked on my name by mistake. Sure enough, about ten minutes later, another email showed up, this time with the subject line of "Ooops."

I opened it with confidence, chuckling, knowing that he was rescinding the invitation---except he wasn't. The "oops" was in reference to the fact that he had told me the wrong dates.

I wrote back, declining, insisting that he had invited me by accident, that I nowhere near qualified to be among those luminaries. A reporter stopped by my desk, and as we chatted, my phone rang. "That'll be Harvard calling," I joked, and I answered the phone, and it was Harvard. It was the conference director, trying to persuade me to come and speak.

This was in April of 2004, and the conference was that December. It would not be an exaggeration to tell you that for most of April, I had insomnia. I thought about it all the time. In nine months, I have to speak at Harvard! I would think, lying there in the dark, and I could feel the rush of adrenaline and agitation. What in the world will I talk about?

Time passed. I spoke that December. People came to my talks. All went well. There were parties for the speakers, and I forced myself to go. Doris Kearns Goodwin was there, in a glittery red shirt. I sat next to a famous writer on the shuttle bus and he did magic tricks, pulling a quarter out of my ear.

I was invited back in March, for a second conference. I spoke again the following December, and then again the following March. It grew routine. The last two years, I turned them down. Too busy. This year I figured it would be rude to say no again, and so I said yes. And so on Thursday off I go, to be in a hotel in Boston among, yawn, glittering luminaries like Gwen Ifell and Jon Lee Anderson. I speak on Friday, and again on Saturday. I will come home on Sunday.

I have barely prepared. Instead of lying awake for a year in nervousness, I have assumed that I will figure out on Wednesday what I will say.

I've been sleeping like a baby. I've barely given this any thought, and when I do, the whole thing feels sort of like an annoyance. I'd rather stay home. I have to get all of my work done in advance. Blah blah blah.

I miss, oh how I miss, the excited and thrilled me of that first conference, walking past the Necco Wafer Factory, delighted by all I heard, amazed to be there, eager not to miss a word.