I Found My People. Also I am keeping a secret and it is extremely difficult.

Written By Jessica Gabrielzyk

The “coffee” happened. I mentioned it here a while back — Rhoda Bangerter, author of Holding the Fort Abroad, had reached out and suggested we meet. Author to author. I wrote about how excited I was. I was trying to act cool about it. I was not cool about it.

We met. I had a tea. She had a salad that, according to the menu, contained super seeds. I do not know what super seeds are exactly but I can tell you that this woman does not need more power. She is already operating at a level that suggests the super seeds are purely recreational at this point.

The conversation was wonderful. And then she said something about my books and my ego has not fully recovered.

She said beautiful things about Parenting Unpacked, which is not out yet, and about My First American Coloring Book, which I launched the day before. From an author who writes in the same space, who understands this world from the inside, who has built her own readership and knows what good work looks like — hearing that felt significant. I am not going to pretend it did not stroke my ego because it absolutely did and I am choosing to enjoy that fully.

Coffee with a smile

Now. I am someone who can talk. This is not a secret. I have mentioned my energy levels, my toddler, my habit of being ten cups of dark coffee in a human shape. I can hold a conversation for a very long time and have strong opinions about most things and genuinely want to hear about your life and then tell you about mine and then ask a follow up question.

But you need synergy for that to work. You need the other person to match the energy. To be just as interested, just as curious, just as willing to follow a thought wherever it goes and arrive somewhere neither of you planned to be and find it more interesting than the destination you had in mind.

There are people you meet and you think: oh. Another one. Someone else who loves the same things. Another crazy one. You recognize each other immediately and the conversation just goes.

Rhoda is one of those people. We talked about writing, about the expat experience, about what it means to put something into the world and watch it find people you never expected. We talked about her schedule, which is busy in the way that only happens when someone has a lot going on and is genuinely energized by all of it rather than flattened by it.

And she told me something. About what might be coming next. A book. Maybe books. I cannot tell you more than that because it is not mine to share yet and also because I am enjoying being the person who knows something exciting before anyone else does. I feel like I am holding a very good secret with both hands and I cannot wait for the moment I get to put it down and show everyone what was in it.

WHAT I KNOW AND CANNOT TELL YOU

There is a book coming. Maybe books. It is going to be good.

That is all I am saying. Watch Rhoda's space. And in the meantime go read Holding the Fort Abroad if you haven't already — it is the book for every family where someone is always somewhere else.

Is there something genuinely lovely about meeting someone who loves the same things you do? Who gets it without you having to explain the whole thing first? Who you could have talked to for twice as long and still have things left to say?

Yes. The answer is yes. And it does not happen often enough. So when it does you write a blog post about it and you feel grateful for the tea and you look forward to whatever comes next.

Rhoda: thank you for the tea and the conversation and the secret I am doing an excellent job of keeping. Cannot wait to see what you bring into the world next.

Energized, grateful, and saying nothing,

Jessica Gabrielzyk

✦ AUTHOR LIFE · GOOD COFFEE · BETTER CONVERSATIONS · WATCH THIS SPACE ✦

Jessica Gabrielzyk

Jessica Gabrielzyk is a Brazilian writer living in Switzerland. She moved there with her husband and daughter, who was three months old at the time and had strong opinions about the whole thing even then.

She writes about change.

The visible kind and the kind that happens inside a person, while everything on the outside looks fine.

Her first book, Maternity Abroad, explored what it means to become a mother far from the system you trusted. It has reached readers in more than fifteen countries across five continents. Parenting Unpacked, her second book, follows the experience of parenting through major life disruption, whether that's an international move, a career loss, a new baby, or a life that simply stops responding the way it used to. My First American Coloring Book was created to help toddlers engage with daily life in the United States through play and familiar imagery.

She is a member of SIETAR, the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research, and the International Academy of Brazilian Literature.

She writes for the parent who is still inside it, getting through the day, and wondering somewhere underneath all of it who they are becoming.

When she is not writing, she is walking forty minutes uphill with a stroller, telling herself the exercise is the point.

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