I was right about here on the Okanagan Connector this morning, listening to the news and thinking, “Wow, I’m getting radio reception a lot further than usual,” when they announced Alice Munro had won the Nobel Prize. Glee suffused me. Delight and a sense of rightness. I laughed out loud. I grinned. I chortled. “We reached Alice Munro in Victoria, just after 4 a.m.,” the newscast went on, and then reception cut out. But I did not mind. I replayed Alice Munro stories in my head. I wanted, in one of those thousandth-of-a-second blips in which I forget my mother is dead, to call her. She’d be gleeful, too. She’d be laughing the same delighted laugh, replaying the stories in her head. We could do it together.
Now I am going to glory awhile in Alice Munro. I’m going to re-read stories. I’m going to listen to the Peter Gzoswki interview Cindy told me they played on the Current. I’m going to remember my mother.