Dave and I took a rare break together the other day and did a little inventory of our domicile. The results were scary.
For the past six months or so, both of us have been busy all the time. Weekends, holidays, vacation days—you name it, we’ve got deadlines or projects to fill it right up. Our schedules have turned our home (house, yard, carport, Story Shack, Dave’s shop) into one big storage unit.
There is not a stuff-free square inch in all of Luesseville:
Last Year’s Garden Containers: Full of weeds and whatever managed to survive the winter and pop up without any encouragement.
Dining Room: Current home of the ironing board, to-be-ironed clothes, and TotalGym.
Bedrooms: Don’t get me started on those closets.
Carport: How many empty glass florist vases does one family really need?
Deck: No, those cushions won’t make it through another year and need to be thrown away.
Kitchen: It’s time to clean out the refrigerator AGAIN??
Story Shack: Cat hair, cat hair, here, there, and everywhere.
What we realized is that we’ve been so focused on the future that we were ignoring the here and now.
Yes, we need more storage space, but if we got rid of everything we don’t like, need, use, or even remember buying . . . we wouldn’t need as much.
Sure, the deck needs a new roof, but cushions would be a start. We might actually sit out there again.
As for the Story Shack? It’s called a hand-vac. Look into it.
I’m bad about getting so focused on tomorrow that I don’t see all the clutter creeping into today. It’s not so much a can’t-see-the-forest-for-the-trees situation. It’s more like, “Trees? When did I plant all these trees?”
Dave and decided that, while we’re improving what we have, we also need to enjoy it. And be thankful for it.
The same rule applies to ourselves. All of us are trying to get better in one way or another (hence the Total Gym in the dining room). But while we’re working on everything from our waistlines to our reading lists, let’s remember to accept and appreciate who we are and what we have right now. And then breathe.
I complain a lot about being tired. (Sorry, Dave!!) Part of it is just the combination of working full-time, trying to write a book, and carving out time to at least wave at Dave and my parents once in a while. But it also has to do with being completely out of shape—carrying around a lot more of me than I should—so I reintroduced my overweight self to the gym yesterday. Moving for just 30 minutes made me feel so much better. Then I took 10 to pull the weeds out of three or four patio containers and discovered that some of the perennials we planted last year really did survive the winter and were peeking out of the dirt. They just couldn’t find the sun because of all the weeds.
Neither my rendezvous with the treadmill nor my spot gardening took much time or effort, but both made a big difference in my outlook. Lesson learned: Less whining, more doing. Or to quote the verse of the day on biblegateway.com . . .
. . . those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:31
Early this morning, I was channel surfing and landed on a documentary about Mavis Staples, who sang with her family for decades and is still singing at 80. The filmmakers interviewed Bob Dylan, who talked about one of the Staple Singers’ songs called “Sit Down, Servant,” written by Roebuck “Pops” Staples. The narrator of the song has just arrived in heaven and is so excited that she just can’t sit down.
Instead of complaining about being tired, I need to find that kind of excitement for the opportunities that I have and the stories I get to tell and the friends and family who lift me up daily.
Sit down! (oh, please don't make me) Sit down! ('Cause I just got to heaven. I'm gonna walk around) Sit down, servant, and rest a while, sit down.
Oh, I can't sit down, Oh, I can't sit down, I can't sit down, I just got to heaven and I can't sit down.
As I write this little Father’s Day note for Daddy, I’m listening to Louis Armstrong sing “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” Daddy loves Satch. He even got Dave hooked on that New Orleans sound. Satch just now got to his trumpet solo, and I’m picturing Daddy patting his foot and playing his trumpet, with me on keyboard:) I got my appreciation for jazz and blues and big band music from June Bug.
Washing dishes is his appointed job now, and he does it with music blaring from a CD player in the kitchen. He taught me to do the camel walk on the yellow-and-white Linoleum that covered the kitchen floor before he and Mama graduated to tile.
All my life, I think, Daddy has been saying, in one way or another, “Hey, give this a try—you might like it.” He said it about cheeseburgers. And later steak. He said it about Satch, Ray Charles, Harry James, Ella Fitzgerald, Patsy Cline, Charlie Pride, Dinah Washington, and Hank Williams. He said it about the state fair. He said it about taking my shoes off and wading in the fountain at Eastwood Mall while Mama shopped.
In a connect-the-dots world, Daddy has always colored outside the lines—and tried his level best to give me the courage to. And he has always been big on making dreams come true. He sure worked hard to make mine happen.
I love you, June Bug. Happy Father’s Day!
P.S. It's okay that I didn't get that chimpanzee I wanted when I was a kid. I know Mama intervened. Thanks for trying.
Welcome to the D-Day 75thAnniversary Blog Tour! Seven novelists are commemorating the brave men who stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Thank you for joining us as we remember their heroism and sacrifice.
Our novels illuminate different aspects of the war—from the landing beaches of Normandy to Nazi-occupied Europe to the US Home Front. Each day, visit with a new author as we share about our stories, our research, and our unique settings. With each blog post, you’ll have the opportunity to win that author’s novel–plus a chance to win a packet of ALL NINE featured novels and a gorgeous signed hardback copy of Everything We Have: D-Day 6.6.44, the new commemorative book from the National World War II Museum!
GIVEAWAY DETAILS
For a chance to win ALL TEN books, please visit each blog, collect the answers to ALL SEVEN questions, and enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below or on the BLOG TOUR PAGE.The contest opened June 3, 2019 at 1 am PST and closes June 16, 2019 at 11 pm PST. The winner will be announced on Monday, June 17, 2019. *Note* Several of the titles will not be released until later—these will be mailed after the release dates.
To win the prize of ALL TEN books, you must have collected ALL SEVEN answers.The winner must be prepared to send ALL SEVEN answers within 48 hours of notification by email, or a new winner will be selected.
VALERIE FRASER LUESSE, ALMOST HOME
With America's entrance into World War II, the town of Blackberry Springs, Alabama, has exploded virtually overnight. Workers from all over are coming south for jobs in Uncle Sam's munition's plants—and they're bringing their pasts with them, right into Dolly Chandler's grand but fading family home turned boardinghouse. A struggling young couple from the Midwest, unemployed professors from Chicago, a widower from Mississippi, and a shattered young veteran struggling to heal from the war are all hoping Dolly's house will help them find their way back to the lives they left behind. But the house has a past of its own. When tragedy strikes, Dolly's only hope will be the circle of friends under her roof and their ability to discover the truth about what happened to a young bride who lived here a century before.
You had to be careful waking him up. That’s what my mother’s older sisters always said about the brother who served on Okinawa. He left Alabama a mischievous farm boy and came home a serious body builder who knew how to handle bombs and clear airstrips. And you had to be careful waking him up.
I always found it strange that, in a storytelling family like ours, Uncle Ferrell never told my cousins and me anything about his war experience. But he did tell his younger brother that there were nights when so many bombs fell on Okinawa that he thought the whole island would surely sink into the Pacific.
Many years after he died, I started researching World War II, not because I had plans for a novel but because I felt I owed it to Uncle Ferrell to try and understand what he went through. Not that I ever could. (That's him, in uniform, posing with his father shortly before he left for the Pacific.)
Eventually, I stumbled onto the writings of a fellow Alabamian, the late Eugene B. Sledge. His book With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa—written from notes he scribbled in the margins of a small New Testament he carried throughout the war—got me as close as I’ll ever come to the horrors of combat.
My book Almost Home—like much of my writing—began with my own family, with childhood afternoons spent listening to the adults tell stories of way-back-when. Storytelling was our entertainment of choice in a time and place without cell phones, cable TV, or Wifi.
Central to Almost Home is Dolly and Si Chandler’s family manse-turned boarding house, which was inspired by my maternal grandmother’s homeplace in rural Alabama. Her brother and his wife really did turn it into a boarding house during the war, as people from all over the country moved South to find work in the munitions plants and shipyards springing up down here. And my great-uncle really did build a skating rink and manmade lake right across from the grand old house. (That's the house pictured below. My grandmother is the dark-haired girl in the back.)
I’ve grown up hearing so many stories about the war years. My aunt showed me some old ration coupons she had held onto. My dad told me about collecting scraps of aluminum foil because if you collected enough to make a sizable ball, the movie theaters in Birmingham would let you in without a ticket.
While I’m intrigued with the great battles of the war, I’m equally fascinated with the small ones—the personal ones—as ordinary people grappled with the daily challenges of just making it through. I wanted to explore whether you really can come back home when life has taken you so far afield that you feel alienated from those you love—maybe even from yourself, maybe even from your faith. And I wanted to discover whether two wounded people like veteran Reed Ingram and young war widow Daisy Dupree might find the courage and the love to heal each other—whether they might, in the end, show each other the way home.
• GIVEAWAY QUESTION •
What two things did Si Chandler build across from the grand old house where he and Dolly live? (Jot down the question or enter your answers in Rafflecopter right away.)
• RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY •
To enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway below, enter your name and email address (we need these to notify the winner). Then select an author’s name and enter the answer to that author’s question. You only need to enter the Rafflecopter once to be entered in the giveaway, but you can earn up to seven entries by answering all seven questions in the Rafflecopter. But don’t forget…to win, you must have collected ALL SEVEN answers. You can enter the Rafflecopter each day, or you can enter all your answers at once any time before June 16, 2019 at 11 pm PST. US mailing addresses only, please.
June 11: MELANIE DOBSON [URL], author of Memories of Glass
Valerie Fraser Luesseis the bestselling author of Missing Isaac, winner of a 2018 Christy Award for first novel. A career magazine writer, she is best known for her feature stories and essays in Southern Living magazine, where she is senior travel editor. Luesse is a graduate of Auburn University and Baylor University. She and her husband, Dave, live in Birmingham, Alabama, where she writes in her beloved Story Shack. (Author portrait by Mark Sandlin.)
There’s an adorable, viral video making the rounds, of a young dad having a conversation with his baby son, who can’t actually talk yet but is trying mighty hard. You can see the delight on both their faces as the father pretends to understand his child completely, and the child feels completely understood.
Sometimes, when I’m having early morning prayer in the Story Shack, I don’t bow my head and close my eyes as directed in Sunday School. I open the front door so I can hear the birds waking up, and I look up to the sky. When I did just that this morning, I realized Cheeto the Cat was looking up at the sky and then back at me, as if to say, “Who on earth are you talking to?”
I was talking to God, who makes me feel understood even when I’m babbling nonsense, even when I think I understand much more than I do, even when I’m as focused on my own needs as a baby looking for that next bottle.
It’s one of the best gifts we can give each other—listening and making another person feel that they’ve been truly heard, understood, and appreciated.
Committing to getting much better at it this Sunday morning.
Years ago, I saw a movie about a group of medical students, and one of their professors said something like, “we have doctors—we need healers.” She was explaining the difference between someone who possesses the knowledge and technical skills to treat physical injury and disease versus someone who has that same ability plus the heart of a healer—the compassion and empathy to recognize that it’s not just the visible wounds that need binding.
Mama and Daddy have both needed healing this spring, and we’ve been blessed with doctors who also have that healing heart. (Unending gratitude to Dr. Jeff Davis and Dr. Kathleen McKeon at Andrews.)
As I’ve watched both of my parents go through hospital stays and recovery, what I never realized in the moment and was always surprised to discover, after the fact, is that I’ve needed healing, too. And friends and family have been right there with just the right treatment—encouragement, advice shared from their own journeys, a reminder to laugh even in the hard times, offers of help and assistance—and prayer—constant prayer.
They made me realize that we’re all healers. We have opportunities every day to help, encourage, console—in short, to love each other. Unending gratitude for that gift.
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
John 13:34
Come On In And Meet Everybody I come from a long line of feisty Southern women—women with wit and wisdom, faith and strength.