It doesn’t happen very often and for those who have kept up with the Praying for Strangers book tour and travels, it hasn’t happend for a long, long time. But I finally did it. Having the opportunity to speak at Michael Lister’s book River Readings Conference I was able for Just a few, sweet hours of being a native Florida girl, hanging on the gulf coast, feet in the sand, make-up lost to the salty water, and

my broken down hat. Finishing up reading a gifted copy of The Red Tent and remembering how to breathe. Not many people can hang on the beach the way I can and I don’t mean the Atlantic or Pacific or shores otherwise – I mean being a Gulf Coast girl for all it’s worth. I can arrive at sunrise.

Chair. Umbrella (these days plus sunscreen 85) and books. One Diet coke and I’m good as gone. I can stay there till after sunset. Till long after the sunsets.I can sit and l

isten to those waves, my shoes stuck in the sand until work calls me home. Or the simple, shade of the Tennessee hills saying – you’ve got a new home now. And they are right. I pulled up under starlit heavens, the wind rustling through the dark green  a screaming cat, one big, tired dog, tired husband and me as the last of the night’s fireflies landing way up in the trees. But just a few hours of colormegone was so very, good for the soul.