Puzzle Pieces

I have a new post called “Puzzle Pieces” up on my group blog with other Texas women writers. Check it out!

www.whatwomenwritetx.blogspot.com/2010/01/puzzle-pieces.html

Photos from Ghana

Martha and me with the Paramount Chief

On the island of LaLa on Lake Volta, with some locals

Shopping for recycled beads for fundraisers

The Touch A Life team with our kids in Tema, Ghana

Village of Life in Kete Krachi. Happy kids!

This boy's name is Bright. I can't think of a better description for his sweet personality.

 Most of these shots came from Martha’s camera, but a few are from my iphone. I’m still rolling the trip around in my mind- dreaming of Africa. I can’t believe we will be back in just a few short weeks. There is a lot to do between now and then! Keep these beautiful kids in your thoughts and prayers. They are pretty fantastic!

~ Suze

Something Beautiful

The cabana where I took my morning instant coffee and my evening Star Beer

“If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?”
— Isak Dinesen  

Africa has been on my to-do list since I first read Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa when I was a teenager. I have carried this quote with me for years and tried to understand the romantic beauty of it. I have thought of the song of Africa, I have thought of the song of me. But I didn’t see how such a place could capture your heart. I didn’t really understand the song of me, left there in the African breezes over the plain, quivering with a color I have had on.  

I took this shot with my iphone- these boys, named John and Michael, are still slaves on Lake Volta.

I just returned from 2 weeks in Ghana,  in the dry season during the Harmattan, where red sunrises greeted my mornings and the sands of the Sahara settled in my lungs. My days were spent with children- the formerly trafficked boys of Lake Volta. My evenings were spent on a cabana with a lukewarm Star Beer that I would split with my good friend and coworker Pam, the sounds of drums in the distance.  

My work is hopeful – raising awareness and money to eradicate child trafficking in Ghana in my lifetime. My spirit is open – loving children tell me their dreams for the future but do not explain their scars and wounds from the mistreatment of their former masters. My body is tired – the heat, the sweat, the physical exertion of the trip all took their toll. But my heart is full. I can hear the song of Africa.  

Africa strips you down to your marrow. If you are a kind person, you will be kinder in Africa. If you are spiteful and bitter at heart, it is a place you will detest. Your traits are magnified here. First you shed your clothing in order to bear the oppressive heat. You toss your makeup and become content with bad hair. I went days without looking in the mirror- and found I didn’t miss it that much. It’s not, after all, all about me now, is it?  

Secondly, your emotions come to the surface as Africa continues its distillation of the things you thought you were. Everything is an exposed nerve- a sunset could make me cry. A child’s forgiveness and tenderness made my heart swell up with gratitude. The mean-spiritedness of people in the world broke my heart. The dancing and celebration of children gave me a happiness I cannot put into words. Everything was amplified.  

Freeman is the one holding my hand.

The third layer of Africa was spiritual. I was surrounded by children with some kind of direct plug-in to God, children with a peace in their souls and an assurance that they were loved. I woke one night in a dream state and asked Pam for a Bible so that I could look up Psalm 27. (“The 23rd Psalm?” she asked. “No, no, I know that one. I need to read Psalm 27!” I promptly fell back asleep). My heart was stolen by a six-year-old formerly trafficked child named Freeman, and I asked God daily for guidance- for this boy’s future, for my own. I felt as though somehow, we humans actually have a chance at doing something right, something for a higher reason and purpose. And it felt good.  

I am shocked now to be back in the suburbs. Thrilled to see my daughters and spouse, thrilled to drink a cup of brewed coffee and to sleep in a cool room under a warm blanket. But my heart hears the song of Africa, calling me back in drum beats and chanting. I now understand the Isak Dinesen quote: I too, hope to hear the song of me, sung in the voices and rhythm of a children’s game, seen in the shadow of the moon. I left a part of myself there, there with Freeman, there on the waters of Lake Volta.   In a way we leave bits of ourselves everywhere, bits of soul left behind, making a change from how things were before. How else, I think, is it that we can truly make a difference?

Kentucky Christmas

Christmas in Kentucky is always special to me. My family is large, extended, and loud. Both sides of the family come together with very different traditions, and it gives my daughters a whirlwind of activities and Kentucky culture to soak up in a few short days. Here are the top 10 Kentucky things that you just can’t get anywhere else:

1. Cream Candy. The homemade kind from somebody’s Granny out in the county is better than from Ruth Hunt, but much harder to get.

2. 5th Generation Egg Nog. The recipe from my GGG Grandmother Katie Poynter Park is the best recipe you’ll find anywhere. It’s been handed down through the Park side of the family since the 1800’s.

3. Ale-8. This soft drink  is only available in Central Kentucky. I bring home as much as I can carry, and it never lasts long.

4. Bourbon Balls. Enough said.

5. Woodford Reserve, Maker’s Mark, etc. OK, you can get Kentucky Bourbon everywhere, but isn’t it a little better when you can pick it up at the Distillery yourself?

6. Blue Monday’s. This is a Ruth Hunt specialty, a cream candy dipped in dark chocolate.  They go great with an Ale-8 for an instant sugar overload.

7. Hall’s On The River. This great little restaurant was where my husband and I had our rehearsal dinner almost 15 years ago, and is located right on the banks of the Kentucky River.

8. Beer Cheese, Hot Brown’s, Lamb Fries, Frog Legs, Old Ham. Need I say more?

9. Bluegrass Music. I hear Bluegrass wherever I go here, and I even ran into Sam Bush pumping gas at a Shell Station two days ago (OK, that was in Nashville, but pretty close). Outside of the state I seem to never hear it, but when in Kentucky it’s as normal as breathing to hear a fiddle or a mandolin in the background.

10. UK Basketball. OK, you can watch this anywhere, but while I was home they won their 2000th basketball game. My father, who played basketball for Adolph Rupp in the 1960’s, took all the grandchildren to Rupp Arena and they sat on the 15th row behind the team. I watched it from Malone’s at the bar with a dear friend and a crowd of rowdy UK fans. You really can’t get that experience anywhere but Lexington.

Perhaps I see these things because I’m only there once or twice a year. Perhaps my nostalgia and perspective give me rose-colored glasses about home.  I’m not sure if I would appreciate these things if I saw them everyday, but I appreciate them now. And I’m thankful that I see things through these eyes. Who knows what I would miss if I lived there and took it all for granted?

Notes to Self

When I started this blog in April, I had plans to post several times a week. If you look back at my archives, I started out strong. Then life got in the way.

This year, I have changed careers, spent more time with my daughters than ever before, travelled plenty, and spent all my extra time writing. Somehow, that hasn’t translated to blogging, even though the blog seems to carry on its own life without much attention from me. I just realized that since starting this blog on April 3rd and completing 29 posts (this is my 30th) I am only 25 visitors away from hitting the 6,000 mark. Considering my infrequency of posts, that’s not too bad.

Yet coming up on the end of the year, I look at what I have done versus what I have blogged about. So I thought I would recap my year in one post to make up for all I haven’t written about:

1) In February, I took a job I wasn’t passionate about so that I could work from home. I was successful without a lot of effort, but felt unfulfilled. Note to self: It’s critical that I love my work.

2) I spent three weeks alone in my house this summer while my husband worked out of town and the children visited their grandparents and went to camp. As much as I love solitude, this was a little over the top. Note to self: Be careful what I wish for.

My dear friend Melissa and me at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, KY

3)In July, I read a book that changed my life, Jantsen’s Gift: A True Story of Grief, Rescue and Grace (Grand Central Publishing, 2009) by Pam Cope and Aimee Molloy. In August I interviewed Aimee for my other blog, www.whatwomenwritetx.blogspot.com. In September, I met Pam Cope for fajitas and margaritas and talked about her life, my novel, and shared interests. In October, I started volunteering my time assisting with the marketing for Pam’s foundation, Touch A Life. As of November 2, I became the full-time Director of Marketing and Fundraising for this wonderful grassroots organization. Hopefully, my efforts stateside to spread the word about eradicating child slavery can make a difference in the lives of even more children around the world. Note to self: Bingo! If I’m helping others, I’m helping myself.

A Birthday Present- bottle of Maker's Mark with a personalized inscription

4) I’ve completed a total of more than 50,000 words towards my novel, The Angel’s Share, this year, joined two writer’s groups, been to my first writer’s conference, and gone on two writing retreats. I toured the Bourbon Trail and visited the Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky, as research (to figure out what booze and monks have to do with each other, I guess you’ll have to wait). Note to self: Critique is good. Without stepping out of my comfort zone and allowing others to read my writing, my writing won’t get any better.

This post is really for me, not for you. It’s nice to take a year full of seasons and package them into a  box that becomes part of my life. 2009 has been interesting for me- full of change, conflict, and reflection. But I can’t imagine having it any other way.

What I Worry About

Here is a post that went up today on What Women Write titled “Joy and Worry”, and I really like it. Also you can see some cute pics of my youngest daughter, from when she was 2 years old, 5 years old, and the present.

Life has been full lately, and I’ll have a post soon here on SouthPaw about what’s been going on. Life is good!

A New Post on WhatWomenWrite

Here’s a post I wrote on the What Women Write blog. Thanks to my friend Martha for recommending the Donald Miller book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Here’s my take on Miller’s view that your own life is your story:

http://whatwomenwritetx.blogspot.com/2009/10/story-of-your-life.html

On another note, we really enjoyed our weekend at Mom & Dad’s house on Lake Granbury and the friends that were able to join us. We had a great time with everyone!

-Susan

The Great Flood of Last Night

We have spent the last few days digging up the front yard- out with the old, in with the new, I suppose. The weeds, clover and dandelions I’ve fought for the past year are gone, and yesterday, nice new winter rye grass seed went down on the fluffy black dirt we had trucked in and dumped. It’s our spring project finally coming to an end here in the first week of October. I know. Don’t ask.

When the rain started yesterday as we were finishing up the top yard, we couldn’t believe the luck of it. Yet by this morning, when the creek was high up to the asphalt at the end of the cul-de-sac and the water had cut rivers through my newly tilled expanse, I felt like crying at the curse of it all. Too much rain. It’s still raining now. I don’t think there is any seed out the germinating, I think it’s all washed away, down to the swift creek that is taking it somewhere else to grow. This morning, I stood and stared at it for a long time. My oldest daughter snuck up behind me and rubbed the small of my back. “Sorry, Mommy. That stinks.”

Yup, it stinks all right. In a way, it’s like a lot of things- we just keep on doing them hoping that a big storm doesn’t come wash it all away before it has a chance to grow into something. Like our children- we don’t want any “bad kids” to screw them up before they have a chance to be smart enough to know better. Like our jobs- project after project, month after month, we keep doing the same things, hoping for a better result (remember that old monster.com ad, where the child says “I wanna climb my way up to middle management”?). That’s my yard- a constant state of doing, redoing, undoing- and hoping for a better result. My yard has never been promoted above middle management.

Now, rain is good. In Texas, rain is great. I still have soil under my nails from yesterday’s work, but I’m not sure that anything is going to come of it. And as much as it’s like jobs and children, it’s like my novel too. I’m pushing forward, not sure if the seeds are going to germinate or be washed away. Some days, I feel like I rewrite more than I wrote to begin with. I printed the whole thing last week and sat down to read it, and couldn’t get past the first chapter because it sounded so terrible to my ears. I read real authors to take my mind off of my own work. (Right now, I just finished Clay’s Quilt and A Parchment of Leaves by Silas House.)

When I read really good writers, I go through all the emotions. For moments, I felt elated (“I can do this! I’m a writer too!”) and other times deflated (“Silas House is a genius! I’m worthless!”).  I go from feeling puffed up and competent (“I’m a writer, I’ve been published since I was 15 years old!”) to flat and depressed (“I never got my MFA. Who do I think I am?”) I wonder if I have the tools and skills and work ethic to be the novelist I dream of being.

Like my yard. I have the right seed, the right dirt, the right shovel. I have the rain, and I’ll have drought. When this storm passes, I know I’ll just be right back out there, filling the trenches created by this rain, spreading new seed, and once again, hoping for a smile from God. The yard will look great one day, and so will my novel. It’s just a matter of doing, redoing, and undoing. Over and over.

The Decline of Civilization as We Know It

Y’all know how I feel about handwriting and handwritten letters. This article today on msn.com stressed me out…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32925695/ns/us_news-education/?GT1=43001

I have to agree with the author. I’ve noticed that my daughter’s cursive handwriting is atrocious. I didn’t realize that the emphasis was fading from our school systems at the same rate that it is fading from the remainder of society … what is the world coming to, people?

Here is a page in Gandhi’s hand. Gotta admit that I absolutely love it.

Check out What Women Write

New post on www.whatwomenwritetx.blogspot.com  on the following poem. Please link over and enjoy!

The God Who Loves You

BY CARL DENNIS

It must be troubling for the god who loves you

To ponder how much happier you’d be today

Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.

It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings

Driving home from the office, content with your week—

Three fine houses sold to deserving families—

Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened

Had you gone to your second choice for college,

Knowing the roommate you’d have been allotted

Whose ardent opinions on painting and music

Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.

A life thirty points above the life you’re living

On any scale of satisfaction. And every point

A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.

You don’t want that, a large-souled man like you

Who tries to withhold from your wife the day’s disappointments

So she can save her empathy for the children.

And would you want this god to compare your wife

With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?

It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation

You’d have enjoyed over there higher in insight

Than the conversation you’re used to.

And think how this loving god would feel

Knowing that the man next in line for your wife

Would have pleased her more than you ever will

Even on your best days, when you really try.

Can you sleep at night believing a god like that

Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives

You’re spared by ignorance? The difference between what is

And what could have been will remain alive for him

Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill

Running out in the snow for the morning paper,

Losing eleven years that the god who loves you

Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene

Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him

No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend

No closer than the actual friend you made at college,

The one you haven’t written in months. Sit down tonight

And write him about the life you can talk about

With a claim to authority, the life you’ve witnessed,

Which for all you know is the life you’ve chosen.