Hi there,
I felt raw and emotional, in a good way, after last night’s event. ‘Book launch’ doesn’t feel like the right word for it.
Before it started, I felt like many grooms feel before their wedding. It was like a rite of passage. There was before, during and after the event.
I felt the love in the zoom room. I felt privileged that friends and relatives joined me to celebrate me and my work.
To have so many significant people from different times and places in my life gather at the same time to be with me is a rare and priceless treasure. Thank you.
Highlights of the Evening
There was banter and laughter, there were songs, an interview by the exceptional compère and Humanist Celebrant Eamon Murphy and there was brilliant participation from guests, asking great questions and making astute and thought-provoking observations.
Emotional Connections Through Music
Andrea Patron was there with his trumpet and we played two songs, including Every Moment, an engagement song, written by The Rayne, Andrea Patron and myself, and begun 10 days after I proposed to Ruth in 1992. It was the first time our new song, So Glad I Married You, which will be released in August, was aired in public.
I find So Glad I Married You an emotional song, the lyrics saying so much in so few words, the melody, originated by Andrea Patron, and developed along with the lyrics, by all three of us, and the sweet and gorgeous voice of The Rayne. It gets me every time I hear it.
Click here to listen to a short clip from So Glad I Married You.
Thoughtful Reflections and Insights
When I can, I’ll upload a recording of last night’s launch. (You can watch the launch of the first memoir on the Losing My Religion Podcast and YouTube.)
Meanwhile, I’d like to share with you one especially brilliant contribution last night from a wonderful lifelong friend whom I’m lucky to have in my life, John O’Sullivan.
Click here to listen to an extract from John’s contribution. The transcript of the snippet is below:
John's Insightful Reflection
John said: ‘So what I want to say to you is that I think the part that struck me the most, in a strange way, I suppose, ’cause I know the religious part and you know, like I’ve lived it, was your whole exploration of your sexuality and that whole idea of the continuum of heterosexual, homosexual, sort of, ‘where am I?’ ‘how do I fit in?’, and how it’s not that clear.
‘And just to praise you, I suppose, but also your wife in terms of having to read that and not be threatened by it. That’s what struck me a lot about that. That could apply to a lot of young people today, as well as the people of our age, who know about the churchy stuff and all that, that life is, like, sexuality is a very strange thing and very unclear.
‘And then we eventually go for something, you know, that’s it. But so I really applaud you on that level that I found that very interesting, revealing, vulnerable and all that.’
Insights on Sexuality and Acceptance
As John pointed out in that clip, there is a continuum of sexuality and relatively few people are 100 per cent heterosexual or 100 per cent homosexual.
Since writing both memoirs, men have confided in me about experiences that they have had of sexual abuse as children that they had never told anyone before. Other men have told me about homosexual experiences that they have had at some point in their lives; experiences that, in some cases, their wives didn’t know about.
Accepting ourselves as we are in all our complexity is one of our major life tasks as adults. And the best relationships, in my view, are those in which each partner trusts, shares and accepts every part of themselves and of their partner.
Happy days,
Joe
Saved by a Woman is now available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, and Hardback editions.
In My Gut, I Don’t Believe is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, Hardback and Audible editions.
Please note that if the Amazon link to either memoir says that any edition isn’t available, simply change the .co.uk or .com or .de in the Amazon domain name or territory in the URL or address bar to Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.com etc. depending on the territory you’re based in.
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