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Well, that was your mother
And that was your father
Before you was born dude
When life was great
You are the burden of my generation
I sure do love you
But let’s get that straight
~ Paul Simon, “That Was Your Mother�� from the album, “Graceland��.

On a Friday in late March, I fly to Atlanta to see my marketing manager Heather Ludviksson. On Monday, writer Jesse James Freeman and I head south to Sarasota to stay with writer Marni Mann, and then further south to witness the wedding of writer T.M. Frazier.

The week is part vacation, part work, part attending what promises to be the wedding of the century.

At her home in Atlanta, Heather and I talk marketing strategy over coffee and walks with her puppy, Allie. Despite our goal to speak of personal things, more often than not our discussion turns to books, both the writing of them and the ugly and mysterious business of selling them. We’re partners with big plans, big dreams; when the other is discouraged, we fill in the doubts with hope. Neither of us could make it without the other, like the symbiotic relationship of the oxpecker and the rhinoceros I learned about in school. Being together in person is lovely and makes me wish our office environment wasn’t quite so virtual.

Monday, Jesse James and I arrive, after a nine-hour drive in his big Texas truck to Sarasota, Florida. Marni Mann, her husband Brian, and their two dogs greet us at the door of their beautiful home. We instantly bond with Brian. He loves dogs and laughing too. Brian insists we are not to ask for anything, merely to help ourselves to whatever’s in the refrigerator or freezer or closet. Southern hospitality.

The air is thick in Sarasota. The flowers smell of something unfamiliar, sweet and strong. Birds sing in the mornings, loud, calling out to the one another. The sun shines. I’m warm for the first time since last September. My fingers, normally like ice as I work in my home office, thaw. One night I stand on Marni’s screened lanai. She points to the tropical forest just outside their yard. There are critters out there, she tells me: alligators and snakes and insects. I shiver thinking of it, awed by the mysterious nature of America, how vast and varied it is. On the other side of the country is the view of the Cascades from my living room. We have creatures too, lurking beyond our vision: bears and cougars and coyotes.

One morning, Marni and I talk of our latest projects sitting at her kitchen counter on tall stools, sipping coffee and nibbling on bagels. Without planning to, we brainstorm for hours, asking one another questions until we have entire plots to our new books. It’s deeply satisfying to collaborate with someone I respect and adore. It’s a luxury to have the conversation in person, as opposed to the virtual friendship afforded to us on a normal day. This is the experience every artist longs for.

Like at home, I have trouble sleeping. Thursday morning I wake at 5 a.m. to thunder and lightening and pounding rain. I stand at the window watching the sky flame and boom. I’ve never seen a storm like this one. And I think �� I wish my girls could see this.

But they’re at home in Seattle with my ex-husband. It’s spring break �� his week. At the moment I watch the lightening flame above me, they’re in bed sleeping. Each afternoon on the phone they’ve told me of big triumphs in their small worlds, spelling tests, a 4th grade concert, an invitation to the end of the year library party for being a conscientious reader. Their small world is my world too.�� At the end of each phone call, my heart twists, knowing I’ve missed a week of their life, hundreds of moments I’ll never get back.

And there are a hundred moments in my week away they’ll never know. Just as they’ll fill me in upon my return, I’ll tell them my stories, probably while they’re eating dinner at our kitchen island. Moving about, I’ll glance occasionally into their sets of blue eyes, one the color of an alpine lake, the other like a tropical sea, as I pour their juice and dish up plates of pasta.

I might describe part of the day I had in Sarasota with my friend of twenty years, writer and actress, Natalie Sorensen. My girls know her and admire her �� they see she is glamorous and beautiful and exciting. I’ll show them photos of Natalie’s six-month-old niece, Amanda. I’ll tell them how Amanda’s smile reminded me of their own. I’ll explain to them about the baby smell, which is sweeter than any flower or perfume.

But I won’t tell them every moment of that day because they’re too young to understand. I won’t tell them of my lunch with Natalie in downtown Sarasota where we dug down deep. No, those moments can only be understood with the passage of time, when they are adults and mothers and perhaps artists. Only then will they understand how my soul was fed as we talked of our deep longings and worries, of the darkness we both struggle against, of the aching need we have to create, and all the joys and disappointments between a moment under the Florida sun and the last time we talked in a rainy Seattle café.

They won’t understand until later how my relationships with other artists sustain and inspire me, during moments of triumph and defeat. They’re part of this creative life I yearned for and finally have. These are my people: creative and curious, sensitive and knowing. But my daughters know only this now �� I am their mother. My life revolves around them and only them. I am not a person. I am their mother.

But I am a person. That person sat next to Jesse James in his big Texas truck barreling down I -75 to Florida and laughed. Hard. And we listened to my all time favorite album, Graceland, and sang along. Then he popped in a John Conlee CD from the 80’s. It was a CD I loved when I was Ella’s age �� a time when I knew the lyrics to every song on the radio, just as she does now �� a time before my mind was cluttered with deadlines and commitments and money worries and them. Yes, mostly them. My daughters. They consume so much of my thoughts and so much of my time there is no longer the luxury for that kind of indulgence. Instead there is laundry and homework and dinner and remembering to put the trash out on Tuesdays. And between all of that is my work �� word counts and edits and marketing strategy. I’m a single mother now.��I do not have a minute for myself because my back’s against the proverbial wall to provide for them. And I’m terrified. But I won’t tell them of that either.

But for a week in time all this dims. At the wedding I am more than just a mother. I dance with Brian. I drink too much wine. I laugh. A lot. I’m more than all my worries. I am more than a mother. I’m a writer blessed enough to read an original piece for the bride and groom. I’m a seeker. A traveler. A friend. A dancer.

I’m a woman, hoping for the kind of love I witness between Logan and Tracey as they exchanged their vows.

I let my daughters go a little more each day, as I prepare them for their lives without me. Regardless of my feelings or the opinions of others, I have to have more than them to hold onto, because if I do my job and release them ready for their own lives, I must still have one of my own.

But for now I am their mother. And when I return home from my travels, it all rushes back at me, drowning me in the reality of responsibility. My fingers are cold again. The tightness in my chest returns. But it matters not. Because they’re my loves, my heart, my reason, my purpose.

I am their mother.

Tracey Hansen, my friend and fellow writer (we co-wrote Write for the Fight) is marrying the love of her life, Logan Frazier, on April 6. Six months ago, I was honored and humbled when she asked if I might write something to read during the ceremony.

I accepted without question, although, I will admit, I was worried. To write something worthy of one of the most important days of her life was daunting.

But I did it, because this is what you do when you love someone like I do Tracey. After it was finished, I sent it to a half -dozen trusted friends ��and colleagues before I passed it forward to the beautiful bride.

Katherine Sears, my dear friend and CEO of Booktrope, referring to my recent divorce, said this, “How did you write this after what you’ve been through?��

The answer is simple. I believe in love. I celebrate each time one of my friends finds their love. And I know someday it will happen for me. My person will come. Until then, my heart is full knowing that on April 6 Tracey will marry her person. No one will cheer louder than I when the handsome groom kisses his favorite girl.

I just hope I can read my piece without crying. But I doubt it.

Tracey and Logan.

It began with a spark, just a look between us, merely a hint that said, I know you. I want to know you like no one else. Tell me your secrets, your longings, your dreams, your shame. I can bear it. I will bear it.

And later, I knew because my heart thumped and grew larger and I felt it down deep where my soul dwells, this is my love, my person.

Now it is your eyes I search for in every crowded room. You’re my sacred space between the silences, the laughter between every difficult moment. The draping flowers in our garden are brighter, the dappled light at twilight obvious, the scent of the ocean spray wafting in the afternoon breeze suddenly sweeter, the brilliant stars closer.

Now we’re us.

And I’ve got you no matter the madding crowds or the rushing sea or the tides that threaten to overwhelm us. My hand reaches for you in the dark. I choose you.

I promise in the bright light of this spring afternoon for all to see and hear �� I’ll take your beating, tender, passionate heart and hold it in my hands, draw it close, shelter it no matter the storms to come, no matter how the years unfold.

Our love is a violet mist that entangles and entwines, that stretches in an invisible thread despite distance and years, always bringing us back to this. Us. Just us.

I give it all to you.

Forever. For as long as I breathe. I choose you.

��

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Maya Angelou

We’ve all been there �� that moment when someone we love and trust betrays us on such a level that it brings us to our knees. We sob on the bathroom floor with that ache in the middle of our chests that can hurt worse than any physical pain.

This happened to me recently.

It’s happened before.

It will happen again.

Leaving me with the inevitable question �� why did I trust someone who did not deserve to be in the inner circle of my life? How and why did I ignore the two times previously when they betrayed me? Why did I make excuses? Why did I let my heart remain soft? Why did I not protect myself from the inevitable duplicity that comes with certain people? Why did I not see the ways they’d done it to others in their life? I am not stupid. As a matter of fact, discernment about other people is my gift. It’s what makes me a good writer. But, sometimes, no matter your radar, we allow and ignore and rationalize. Why?

I don’t know the answers. I suppose it has something to do with who I am and where I am in my life right now; my vulnerability after ending a 12-year marriage is like walking around with my soft underbelly exposed to the world. And some people, like the vampires we’re all so fond of reading about in fiction, can smell that vulnerability and move in for the kill with their sharp and crooked teeth.

And at the end of the dark night, when we search for answers or plead for acknowledgement and apology for their careless and selfish behavior and we get nothing back but shame and accusations, we have to let go. We have to lean into the voices of our real friends, the ones who answer their phone no matter the hour of the day, the ones who let you cry and vent and never say, I told you so. Even though they did. Even though they worried over your soft underbelly with a silent wrinkling of their brows.

But I won’t forget now. I won’t forget who was there and who wasn’t.

And I will close my eyes tonight, my heart full with the love of my real friends. Each night as I sleep and days that I love with my soft and vulnerable underbelly is a��triumph over betrayal. A victory over the vampires that try and steal our souls.

What do I leave for you? Just this. Open your eyes. Tell yourself the truth. See a vampire for what they are: their lies, their narcissism, their selfishness. And let go. Pick up the phone and call the one who always answers.

And then close your eyes and dream of the beautiful life awaiting.

“Yet little by little

I learned to love my life.

Though sometimes I had to run hard-

especially from melancholy ��

not to be held back.�� Mary Oliver, from HUM HUM

Sunlight is bright on my front window, the one in need of replacement. Not properly sealed, the window washer says last spring.

Not properly sealed.

I think of this phrase now as I sip my coffee on the couch the color of faded jeans, with my Kindle and my coffee and Mary Oliver. She writes of nature and creatures of the grasses and of her soft and longing heart.

Sunlight is a long rectangle on the brown carpet. The girls, my girls, with their yellow hair shining, leap and run there in the geometric shape they know by name.

Sunlight illuminates the dust particles on my black coffee table and the smudges on the hardwood floors from spilled juice, a dropped pancake, little girls�� bare feet.

And my soft and longing heart?

On this morning of light, it is dark. Melancholy like a dormant illness has come to me despite the brilliance of the world outside my window and the beauty of my daughters�� faces. Despite this, I’m hurting. Despite this, I’m lonely.

The inevitable question always comes during and after grief. Why?

I wonder of my soft and longing heart. Am I improperly sealed? Unlovable? Like the particles of dust on my coffee table and the lines around my eyes, none of it visible until the sun illuminates the improper seals.

Why write? Writers ask this every now and then. And this is what I know to be true �� because on a cold day in March when the sun finds the dust on the coffee table and clouds in the glass and the lines on my face �� a poet’s words comfort my lonely, melancholy heart when I come close to despair. There can be no finer work than this. Art. In whatever form, created from one’s soft and longing heart.

Why love? We ask this too, all of us, regardless of our work or the shape of our lives. Why love when the chance at grief is so near?

In the evening, after the sun disappears behind the mountains, my friends come. They bring creamy cheeses and soft greens and sweet potato wedges. They bring their soft and longing hearts. They bring their beautiful daughters. On the couch the color of faded jeans, they listen as I expose my vulnerable underbelly �� the real fear �� the real reason for the melancholy. What if I’m unlovable? What if I’m not properly sealed? And when I’m done, they insist my heart is big and pure and lovable. They say it like shouting from the rooftops loud. They say it in ways that reach that place of knowing.

I read to them from my latest work. They cry at what I write of love. They insist on the validity of my talent. They insist that love will come my way again.

And the melancholy eases. I remember then �� I am not alone. Love is all around me. Friendship, like poetry, eases our pain, teaches us the truth of our soft and longing hearts. You are enough. Your seal is perfect.

��

In the evening Ella performs the monologue for me. It’s from Alice in Wonderland, she tells me, her ten-year-old face alight with passion that burns from that place inside we cannot name or explain or touch- our intangible soul. I watch, standing at the kitchen island where I do so much of my mommy work. And in an ordinary moment this extraordinary girl transforms in front of my eyes. She is Alice.

But my little actress has to continue her ordinary life for now. Teeth brushed, jammies adorned, books read, lights out.

And for me the night comes early, heavy and pressing, willing my tired eyes to shut until my exhausted body relaxes into grateful slumber. But then, as it does sometimes, too often lately, I wake in the early hours of the morning, my mind alive with yearnings and disappointments and failures.

So this new day I begin afraid and scattered and weary. There are the words to chase, always those. Will this be the day nothing comes? There are my girls. Am I enough for them? What will I not deliver today they need? And there’s this matter of starting over, beginning again. Today it’s in the form of a coffee date with a man. After fourteen years, a date. How is this my life, I wonder, as I make waffles and pour milk and pack lunches while absently listening to the chatter between the two loves of my life.

Somewhere between bites of waffle, Ella asks me about acting lessons. Again. I feel the ever-constant twinge of guilt. I must get her signed up, I think. To her I say, Yes, I’ll call today. The corner of my right eye twitches, thinking of the money and the already packed schedule.

Then, something akin to sun suddenly breaking during the darkest of storms. I’m at the refrigerator, putting away the milk when she says it.

Ella, never ever give up on your dreams, says Emerson.

Startled, I peer around the refrigerator door to look at her. Did she say what I thought she said?

Where did you hear that, Emerson? I ask.

I made it up just now, she answers.

She repeats it again to her older sister. Don’t ever give up on your dreams.

Right, says Ella. Mom didn’t and they finally came true.

They know this?

They actually know this.

This I’ve done, I think. At least this, despite all my failings.

And knowing this sustains me on a fearful morning as I drink coffee with a man I do not know, and now, chasing words at my desk. I will remember it later when I pick my loves up from school and begin the routine of another gray evening with all its arduous trials and simple joys.

Dream the dreams of your soul. Do not give up. Ever. I’ve given them this. It is enough for today. Perhaps, it is enough.

My publisher, Booktrope, suggests a book signing party for Caramel and Magnolias, similar to what we did for Riversong. I agree, of course. But I don’t want to do it. I was hoping to avoid it with my second book. However, the clever and hardworking team at Booktrope wanted me to do it, and as is my policy, I say yes, no matter what they ask of me. I’m not the smartest person in the room, but the secret to my success is that I surround myself with people who are, and get out of their way.

And Booktrope has given me the opportunity to write fulltime. This was my dream. This is a great gift. One I do not take for granted.

So I agree to a party. I buy a new dress �� a task that sacrifices a whole afternoon of writing �� anyone who knows me understands how much I hate shopping and how much I love writing.

Katherine Sears and Heather Ludviksson of Booktrope.

And secretly, I dread the party.

But my Bestie plans the whole thing. She texts me one day about flowers �� purple flowers to match the book cover.

There are flowers, I ask, from my desk, where I’m pounding out words.

Oh, yes, we have to have flowers, she replies.

When I was a child I was painfully shy, hating it when strangers gazed at me, hiding behind my father in the grocery store, as if that kept people from seeing me.

Now I’m a writer. I reveal my deepest longings and observations in the pages of my fiction and my essays here on this blog. But in person I am still that little girl, hating it when people look at me.

My little girl, Emerson, is six. When our church asked her if she wanted to be in the Christmas Pageant, she immediately said, no. “I don’t want people looking at me.��

I know the feeling. I have a whole weekend where people are going to look at me. But I have my new dress, I tell myself. That will help.

My two writer friends, Jesse James Freeman and Janelle Jensen, arrive on Thursday to stay with me. We stay up late into the night talking and laughing. In the morning, I make waffles for them and my little girls. As hot syrup melts butter on perfect, fluffy waffles, they eat, and we laugh. Later, when my girls come home from school, Emerson practices her spelling words with Janelle. At the table, Jesse and Ella agree that her latest drawing could go in one of his books.

My two worlds merge �� mommy and writer.

Friday afternoon we take our guests to the Mongolian Grill across the street from our house. We laugh some more, especially because Jesse goes on a bit about how he would eat there every day if he lived here. Then we take them out to see the Cascade Mountains and Snoqualmie Falls. Jesse takes video of the Falls. I’m happy because he gets it �� I live in a special place. Janelle is so sweet to my girls it makes my throat ache.

Then my girls have to go to their dad’s for the weekend. Despite the way my house is unusually full, I feel that now familiar sadness when they leave.

The day of the party comes. Despite my new dress, I’m jittery. I wish my hair looked better. My feet hurt in the high heel shoes I never wear. My stomach is doing flip-flops.

Jesse vacuums my rug. People are coming back to the house after the party and there’s lint on my brown carpets. Get upstairs and get pretty, he says. Bestselling authors shouldn’t have to vacuum. (Imagine this said from a very tall man with a Texas accent). I laugh again and do as he says.

The party is packed, friends a steady stream to my signing table. I forget my nervousness. I look around the room. All these people are here to support me. I don’t know why or how I’m so lucky, but I don’t question it, I am merely grateful. Three hours escape and it’s already time to go home.

My house is full of love. We eat tacos. We laugh some more.

I drop Jesse and Janelle at the airport on Sunday. Driving home, my heart aching slightly from the sweetness of these friendships, I think of this life I’ve made for myself. I’m a writer. A working writer. It was my dream and it’s unfolding before me, not as I thought it would, but perhaps better, surely the way it’s supposed to. It’s brought me new friends and new experiences I never thought possible.

My house feels empty upon my return; my daughters won’t be home until the evening and I miss my friends. I can smell Janelle’s perfume and Jesse’s cologne, still lingering like the memories of the weekend. Emerson’s favorite stuffed animal is on the kitchen table, her gaze directed towards the door �� both of us waiting for our girl to come home. Ella’s picture is on the refrigerator, waiting for Jesse’s story. My books are stacked in boxes at the top of the stairs. All of this is my life. My perfect, flawed, beautiful life.

That afternoon, I try to write but I’m exhausted. Instead I curl up on my couch and watch the clouds move across the sky. My memories of the weekend will not be the number of books sold or what number we were on the bestseller list that day.

No, it will be love that I remember: Jesse making my daughters laugh, my Bestie arranging the flowers at the party just so, Janelle snapping photos, people I love devouring my waffles at my kitchen table, our house full of people eating tacos, Katherine and Heather’s arms around me at the party.

At the end of that Sunday, my girls come home, filling my house with their energy and needs and wants and soft arms around my neck and I missed you so much, Mommy. And, I remember why I work so hard, why I dream so big. It is for them. It is for love. Always.

��

��

Three years ago I tried to find a traditional publisher for Riversong but was unsuccessful. Through a series of serendipitous events, Riversong landed at Booktrope Editions. I’ve talked about this a lot over the last two years, so I’ll spare you the details today, but suffice it to say it was nothing short of magical �� a perfect, beautiful storm. Fate.

I grew up in a small town in Oregon. We weren’t a perfect community; there were the normal number of proverbial skeletons and such, and don’t get me started on the trucks of confiscated marijuana plants making their way through main street on more than one sunny afternoon in our supposed sleepy town. Regardless, there was a feeling of community. If someone became homeless, they weren’t for long �� someone knew someone who had an extra room over their garage or a camper they could use until they got back on their feet. If any of our young people did something remarkable, whether it was sports or art or academic, there was a cheering squad lined up out the door and around the corner. I think it’s because we thought of ourselves as the underdog. We were small but mighty in our grit and loyalty.

I live in another small town now. I was a stranger here when Riversong was released. Now I cannot go to the store without seeing someone I know and they usually they ask me when my next book is coming out. Why? Because a band of Zumba dancing warrior mommies were behind me, spreading the word about Riversong as only women can, one coffee or glass of wine at a time.

They were not the only ones who read and talked and spread the word.

There were my childhood friends, brothers and sisters of the same small town where the river shaped us under the expansive star-scattered sky.

There were my college friends spread out across the country, loyal USC Trojans, all zealots for their former classmate �� actress turned writer in the twenty years from then to now.

There were my soul sisters, some friends for almost twenty years now from my time as an actress and director in Seattle who used their trained theatre voices to tell everyone they knew and some newer friends found at swimming lessons and the gym and the neighborhood.

Then, I found this virtual writer community online. Kindred spirits, all of us with the same dream: to write for our supper. Like the band of misfits in Riversong, we’re bound by our lofty and ambitious dreams. There is nothing we will not do to encourage or market for one another. No one understands what it means to say at the end of the day, “I hit my word count goal,�� like another writer.

And thus, like a spider web, word spread. My team at Booktrope helped me to reach out to readers.�� Then, it was featured on Barnes and Noble’s “Best Reads Under $5.00�� and the next thing I knew we were watching it rise to the Number 1 Nook Book in less than five hours. Months later, through more clever marketing by Booktrope, we broke through to the bestseller list on Amazon.

This does not usually happen to first novels by an unknown writer. But it did. Because of your whispers and battle cries and cheers. Every note I’ve received from you about Riversong, every comment on one of my blog posts, every Facebook share, every tweet, every time you’ve recommended it to a friend, I hold in my heart. I am grateful. I am humbled. I will not forget.

It’s no surprise that Riversong is about community and friendship. It’s no surprise that Caramel and Magnolias is about the redemptive and restorative power of love. I write what I know.

And the gratitude continues…I’m�� grateful today to��,��,����and the many other readers and sites out there that have helped to spread the word about the �龱��������DzԲ�’s free promotion.

So, to say thank you for your support, Caramel and Magnolias will be available on ebook for a limited time at only $0.99. We wanted to make sure all our friends and family had an opportunity to get it at this price.

On the cusp of Caramel and Magnolias official release, not knowing the fate of this offering from my heart, I leave you with this.

Everything good comes from doing what you love without apology or meekness but with a bold desire to make something from your essence, from your soul, that is truly your own. Do not do it for money or fame or all the material trappings that still leave us empty at the end of life’s journey. Do it because you love it. Do it even though the outcome is unsure. Do it even though conventional wisdom says it’s too risky, too bold, or asking for too much. Because it will brings forth all other love: relationships, friendships, experiences beyond what you can possibly hold in your imagination, a life so brilliant others will turn away because your light shines so brightly it hurts their eyes.

Once you take that first step into the light of your own dreams, the strings will begin to loosen, the winds will shift, and the energies of the universe will align in a grand conspiracy to bring forth the life you deserve. You will know then like no other time before, oh, this is who I am. This is what I love. This is who I love. You’ll be emboldened. You’ll no longer shirk away or make excuses or listen to the voices of the demons lurking in the dark night that shout so loudly one cannot hear the whisper of the angels begging you to hear this:

Fear is the opposite of love. Do what you love. It will teach you your life again. It will show you who your friends are. It will make you alive. It will bring forth a life unimaginable.

It’s not only children who grow.��Parents do too.��As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours.��I can’t tell my children to reach for the sun.�� All I can do is reach for it, myself.�� ~Joyce Maynard

I first learn of my fate on a Sunday morning at church. There is to be a roller skating party, our pastor tells us, on Tuesday night. Everyone’s invited. And wear your best 70’s or 80’s costume. There will be a prize for best costume. I cringe, looking over at my daughters�� excited faces sitting next to me in the pew.

Oh, please Mom. You’ll take us, won’t you?

I do not want to. It’s a school night for one thing. The skating rink is thirty minutes from our house and the roads have been icy. And I haven’t skated since I was eleven. Images of falling and breaking something play before my mind. But of course I will. I cannot say no. Especially not now, five months into the divorce process from their father. Five months of transition, of tears, of questions, of adjusting to a new normal.

The night of the skating party, they spend an hour getting ready. Ella, my nine-year-old, figures out how to transform six-year-old Emerson’s jeans into bell-bottoms. Ella makes me show her photos of Madonna, circa 1986, before coming downstairs transformed by a poofy skirt and big hair into the era I remember so well. I was young then and hopeful.

The roads are icy. I miss the turnoff, uncertain where it is in the dark. I’m hungry, realizing I should have eaten something before we left. But the girls are chattering animatedly in the backseat. They’re happy in this moment. And it’s all that matters to me.

The skating rink, practically a Seattle landmark, has the same carpet it did when it opened years ago, primary colors dimmed with dirt and dust and traffic of thirty years. We’re given skates. I wonder how many feet have been in them as I pad across the dirty floor in my socks.

I hold onto Emerson’s hand as we skate. She refuses to let go even for a moment. We trudge along, near the wall. Half way around the rink, she slips, but continues to hang onto hand, dragging us both down to the hard floor. I cannot protect her from the fall, no matter how hard I hold onto her. But I move my skate just before it runs over her small fingers. We get back up. We try again. With each lap she improves.

All around us are family units. Units with fathers. They hold hands as they pass us. My right hand is empty. But my left hand holds the greatest love of my life. The other greatest love speeds by in her 80’s skirt, waving to me, her face joyous. Yet, I feel the pang, so familiar now. I’ve failed them in this way. They will never know the security of a family unit with both parents intact ever again. They’re children of divorce. I wonder, as I so often do, how will I manage? And will they be all right? What scars will I not see?

After a time, Emerson grows tired. I leave her on a bench to rest. I skate by myself. The freedom is almost heady. I remember how to shift weight from one foot to the other. I gather speed. The air blows through my hair. The song YMCA comes on over the loud speakers. I remember being eight-years-old at our school skating party. YMCA played then too. And the lights were the same. Everything white shows purple. My schoolgirl crush asked me to skate. He held my hand. I was young��then��and hopeful.

I think of the word freedom as I take another lap. The chance to start again. The chance to re-learn something I once knew. The chance to be happy. The chance to be hopeful.

Ella wins the costume contest. She’s giddy with delight. I know the votes for her were rigged. There were better costumes. But our church family knows without words that this meant something to Ella, that this small thing would make her feel happy and loved. They know what we’ve gone through. And they are here.

Their��love��is someone holding my right hand.

As we drive home, I think of what it is to be a child. Something so small as winning a costume contest can still make them so happy. I was young once. I still remember. She will remember someday too, on the other side of some big mistake or hardship, this night when everything was right.

I think this also. All these small moments must outweigh this big hardship I’ve made for them with my mistakes. It is all I can hope for. It is all I will ever want.

I’m excited to share with you the cover of my latest novel,��Caramel and Magnolias. It was designed by the same talented artist who designed���龱��������DzԲ�’s��cover, Greg Simanson. I was beyond thrilled he was able to do this one too. If you look closely, you can see it’s the��Riversong��sky outside the window.

Available (ebook and paperback) on February 1, 2013

Caramel and Magnolias is about four people living on the edges of their own lives, choosing the safe route instead of living fully.

Like my characters, many of us have areas in our lives where we make safe choices instead of the ones that will bring true fulfillment. Whether it’s in love or work sometimes we have to do that which frightens us the most so the life we’re meant to have might gloriously unfold.

My greatest wish is this work of fiction will encourage readers to get off the proverbial sidelines and jump into the game.

I’m hosting a contest��giving away loads of prizes, including a Kindle Fire HD,��to inspire readers to “jump into the game��. ��Have your moment with Adele, some caramel, wine or a Tess Thompson autographed Kleenex box. ��Then, let go of your fear and jump with both feet into the game.

Details on the contest and how to enter are below.

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