SUSAN COLE

My dad died when I was ten. I adored him. He made me feel like the smartest, sassiest kid in the world. In the photo above, I believe we're heading home from a summer drive to the country, perhaps stopping for hot dogs or ice cream. Dad is spiffy in a shirt and tie, jacketless casual, and the three children, scruffier. My sister, nine years older than me, peeks out from the backseat, while my brother, eleven years older, is on the ground with Dad and me. My mother is behind the camera insisting on a picture that none of us want. We look hot, irritated, ready to get this over with. I imagine my sister yelling, "Let's go already!"

In the Cleveland suburbs of the 1950s, the country was just around the corner. We'd roll down the windows and drive until the houses petered out, and we came to country roads with few street signs, other than occasional billboards for Camels or Black Label beer. It was quiet on Sundays, except for cows mooing, horses neighing, and now and then, a tractor rumbling. Every so often, Dad would stop the car, wait for an expressive moo, and yell "Moooo!" back, chuckling. Heavy, sweet scents of mown grass and hay tinged with manure wafted in through the windows and made us children drowsy in the back seat. Sometimes, a wayward bee buzzed into the car, and my mother would scream and swiftly shoo it out. Dad loved finding new roads to explore, and family restaurants to try, especially if they offered homemade peach pie. 

After Dad died, everything changed. My life went from technicolor to gray. It took me a lifetime to understand what happened. Two years ago, I returned to Cleveland after fifty years away, to try to find out more about Dad and his family. All my life, I yearned for the nurturing that my mother wasn't able to give, and the vanished, unwavering love and support of my father. I hoped Cleveland might hold some answers.

I'm nearly finished with a first draft of my new book about that journey, and I'm thrilled. I still have revision and editing ahead, and I very much hope that when I'm done, you'll be interested in reading it!

If you'd like to learn more about my sailing adventures with my late husband and young daughter when we left everything behind and followed his lifelong dream to sail away, go here.

I recently visited a good friend in New York. Her apartment overlooks the East River, and soon after I arrived, I strolled down to the promenade where joggers, bikers, and dog-walkers share the sidewalk. I leaned against the rail staring at the blue water sparkling in the sun and imagined my late husband John, my nephew Marc, and Phil, a delivery captain we hired, sailing towards the fierce currents of Hell's Gate. They were bringing Laughing Goat down to Annapolis, Maryland, where our young daughter Kate and I would join the boat. I was home frantically packing up and selling our furniture.

John and I had never sailed further south than City Island in the Bronx, nor out in the open ocean. We were terrified to sail in the dark. Our sailing grounds were in Long Island Sound, where on weekends, we anchored in charming town harbors and enjoyed coastal New England delights like clam chowder and steamers. 

Yet, we were setting out on a long voyage south, the destination yet to be determined, following John's long-held dream of leaving everything behind and sailing away. I think back to all the work it took to get the boat, and ourselves, ready. I was so busy ordering books for Kate's home schooling, deciding which furniture to store or to sell, taking CPR courses, fitting out our medical supplies, and provisioning the boat that I had little time to address my feelings about leaving a home that I loved in Connecticut, where we had deep roots, good friends and family. 

I remember the exhilaration of sailing Laughing Goat out of Annapolis into Chesapeake Bay. We did it! The years of preparation were over and we were on our way. At nights, though, I cried myself to sleep, missing our cozy red house on the Mill River, my garden, Kate's sweet elementary school, and our family and friends. Each day brought new adventure and as time went on, I adapted to the cruising life but there was always the tension, the pull of what I left behind.

Hope y'all are settling in for fall and winter. After a few glorious, sunny months, the rains have begun here in Washington, and I've gotten out my flannels and am warming up by my fireplace. If you'd like to learn more about our sailing adventure, go here.

I returned recently from the trip of a lifetime to Kenya and Tanzania. I rode in bumpy jeeps across the Serengeti, Amboseli, Ngorogoro Crater, and the Maasai Mara, dust flying as we careened over vast, acacia-dotted landscapes that held lions, elephants, giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, rhinos, baboons, hippos, ostriches, cheetahs, leopards, Cape buffalos, and so many more. They were only yards away from us, yet acted as if we weren't there. It was like traveling through a dream.

I saw a dozen lions sunbathing on boulders, elephant families in slow, dignified processions, a mama and baby cheetah sleeping under a tree, baboons scampering alongside our jeep with mamas carrying babies on their backs, ostriches protecting a giant egg, hippos soaking in a crowded lagoon while snorting, belching, and shoving each other out of the way. In Nanyuki, Kenya, our group visited a school where kindergartners sang an adorable welcome song, middle-schoolers showed off awesome moves from a dance competition, and when we left, bombarded us with hugs and kisses, which melted our hearts. 

In Amboseli, we visited a Maasai village, where warriors greeted us with a spirited welcome song involving high jumps and spears, and shared their way of life, even showing us into their homes, huts that the women built out of cow dung, which amazingly didn't smell and were water-tight. For hundreds of years, this land has been their home.

My late husband John grew up in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, and his stories inspired my trip. Stories of playing on giant anthills, and roaming through the bush with his spear. Tales of freedom, of endless plains and deserts. Though there's a much darker side to Africa, where people were betrayed, stolen and enslaved, and wars and famine are currently taking place, I'm grateful to have experienced such beauty and magic.

When he lived in Africa, John sailed in Lake Victoria, which fed his love of sailing. If you'd like to learn about about my sailing adventure with my late husband and young daughter when we followed his lifelong dream and left everything behind to sail away, go here.

I discovered Peninsula Park in Portland a couple of weeks ago. A dear friend had just passed away and I brought a book in with me, thinking I'd visit a park after an Alanon meeting. I had the wrong address for the meeting and missed it, but I googled parks near the water. The first one Google sent me to was in a gritty industrial area, water barely visible over cranes and forklifts. I dispensed with the water requirement and found Peninsula Park, the first rose garden in Portland, an exquisite, compact version of Portland's famous International Rose Garden.

On a quiet bench, I opened my book as trees rustled in the breeze and a sweet, delicate scent washed over me. Taking in the wide vista of roses, I glanced beside me on the bench, where I nearly expected my friend to nod back. She was gone now, but she was with me. It was the kind of place where we would have chatted for hours.

In a few weeks, I'm embarking on a great adventure to Kenya and Tanzania. A safari, a dream trip. It's daunting traveling so far away—22 hours to Nairobi, then overnight, and another short flight to Mount Kilamanjaro Airport in Tanzania. Just saying "I'm going to Africa" sounds like I'm dropping off the edge of the earth. I'll meet the tour in Tanzania but up to that point, I'm on my own. When I experience doubt, I remember the lions, giraffes, and elephants I'm going to see. I remember my reluctance to set out on the voyage with John and Kate and leave everything behind. I remember how nervous I was before my book launch party. 

I think it will be amazing.

After several months of being longlisted, shortlisted, and making the finals, Holding Fast took first place in the Hearten Awards for Uplifting and Inspiring Non-Fiction! I'm thrilled that three years after publication, readers are still excited about the story of my sailing adventures with my late husband, John. Holding Fast shares first place with several other memoirs, and I'm thrilled for them, too!

I've been working away on my new book about my life growing up in Cleveland, which changed drastically after my dad died when I was ten. What had been a relatively normal and calm household changed into a chaotic, drama-filled mess, headed by my mentally unstable mother and much-older, violent brother. When I fled at eighteen, I vowed never to return.

Yet, two years ago, I went back. While there, I researched Dad's childhood in an orphanage, and the early years of my parents' marriage when they honeymooned in Bermuda, and hosted intellectual events at our house. I visited the house in which I was born, and the one where I grew up. I met cousins whom I hadn't known existed who shared juicy tidbits about my dad's and mother's families. I found Dad's grave, and spent time with him there. I discovered both of my grandmothers' graves. All touched me deeply.

Cleveland surprised me. I'd forgotten the fresh Lake Erie breezes that probably led me to my late sailor husband who wanted to sail around the world. Despite working in New York for many years, I'm still a polite Midwesterner and like a slow pace. Having railed against the horrors of Cleveland for many years now, I've become open to the notion that my childhood trauma might not have been caused by Cleveland.

If  you'd like to learn about how my late husband and I took our seven-year-old daughter, left everything behind and sailed away, go here to find Holding Fast: A Memoir of Sailing, Love, and Loss.

A year ago, I bought a cute yellow birdfeeder for my porch at a local garden store. Knowing little about birds, I ordered bird seed on Amazon and waited for the birds to show up. A couple of birds scouted it out from a nearby tree, but I had no takers. After a few weeks, I tried bird food for finches, which apparently this feeder was designed for, a fact I gleaned from Google. Still, neither finches nor any other birds were interested. Every time I went out to the porch, I was irritated with the feeder, the birds, and myself, for not knowing how to attract birds.

Last weekend, I went to Backyard Bird Shop where someone who actually knew about birds pointed me to the right food for my finch feeder, to a new feeder that would attract a wider variety of birds, and the food for that. I rushed home with my new purchases, and set it all up on Sunday night. The photo above was what greeted me on Monday morning. They came, they ate, they told their friends about it. I was no longer the proprietor of the worst bird restaurant in the area.

I've had birds chattering away at both feeders all week, which has really lifted me up in the waning gray days of winter. Amazing what asking for help from the right person can do.

I remember when I was writing Holding Fast, the story of following my late husband's dream, and with our young daughter, leaving everything behind to sail away. At  different points when I was struggling, help arrived to nudge me onward, whether from an instructor, encouragement from a friend, or a line from a book or article I was reading. As I move further along on my new book, the same process is unfolding. 

It's rainy and cold where I live in Vancouver, Washington, but the cherry trees, daffodils and crocuses are starting to bloom, and the birds are twittering away at my feeders.

Hope you all are enjoying the coming of spring!

A couple weeks ago, I was working on a scene in my new book where I contrasted Mr. Seidman, my tenth grade English teacher at Shaker Heights High, to my brother Stan, eleven years older than me. Both Stan and Mr. Seidman were in their mid-twenties, but where Mr. Seidman was kind, amused by our teenaged antics, full of life, and introduced us to Shakespeare, Stan had an inner darkness that would have been as off-putting to Mr. Seidman as it was to me. 

To my great embarrassment, starting from sixth grade, the year after Dad died and Stan moved back home, he'd play the piano for me and my pre-teen friends—gazing into their eyes as he sang love songs, putting his arms around them, making them intensely uncomfortable. On weekends, he assaulted his dates in our basement and elsewhere, to the point where when I was fifteen, he landed in jail.

It was not an era when seeing a psychologist was readily accepted. Both my older sister and I told my mother that Stan needed help, but she didn't see it that way. Dad would not have let things get to the point they did with Stan, and certainly not in our house. Mostly, though, I kept my distance from him. In my teens, living with Mother and Stan, I was miserable, hopeless, and couldn't wait to escape. With my dad gone, I felt completely alone. 

After working on the scene, I looked up Mr. Seidman, and discovered that he'd written a book about his family emigrating to Cleveland from Eastern Europe to escape the pogroms against Jews in the early 1900s, just as my family had. I ordered the book and asked the publisher how to get hold of him. Two days later, I heard from him!

It was thrilling to reconnect with my favorite high school teacher who, when I really needed it, had provided a model of how to be that I didn't have at home. 

Now I see that all along the way, there were bright lights like Mr. Seidman, or my guidance counselor who worried about my grades, or my best friend Ellen at whose house I lounged about, that showed a way forward. A constellation of hope. It was not until writing this book that I truly understood that.

If you have a story you'd like to share about someone unexpected who helped you through a dark time, I'd love to hear.

I'm thrilled with this painting of Laughing Goat at sunset in Isla Mujeres, an island off of the northern tip of the Yucatan peninsula, during the voyage with my late husband John and young daughter Kate. We were in Isla Mujeres for about three months as northers pummeled us, delaying our departure for points south; and we stayed around four months on our way north at the end of the voyage while we figured out where we would live in the States. Isla Mujeres was the first harbor where we met sailors from all over the world, California, New Zealand, France, and many other ports. I was floored to meet a female singlehander, sailing alone around the world. In the early part of our voyage, I was still hoping John would do most of the work of sailing and maintaining the boat, since it was his dream and I had given up so much—our home in Connecticut, longtime friends and family, a stable life. I had an attitude. In Isla Mujeres, I began to realize that it was my voyage, too.

The wonderful artist is Inna Nagaytseva.

I'm also delighted that Holding Fast was shortlisted for the Hearten Award for Uplifting and Inspiring Non-Fiction.

Wishing you all a joyful holiday season and very happy New Year!

For the past three months, I've been training for the Columbia River Gorge Half Marathon. I participated for the first time last year and it was such a great experience hiking in the mountains among the tall trees, the river sparkling below, with people enjoying themselves and encouraging each other, that I wanted to do it again. 

Last year, my goal was simply to finish in the allotted time before they closed the race. My walking buddy and I just made it, and we couldn't have been prouder of ourselves.

This year, I wanted to improve my time. Over the weeks of training, I learned about checking my heart rate and getting in the zone so when I went faster, I was still comfortable. I learned about leaning in to the hills so the elevation didn't take all my energy. One of the high points for me this year was at the beginning, which was quite steep. With all the adrenaline flowing, many people rushed upward, passing me. When we got to the top, though, I began passing them.

I finished the race 53 minutes ahead of my time last year. No longer last, I beat 31 people. Most of the racers were in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Another woman and I were the oldest racers. A bonus: my daughter Kate and a couple of her friends were in the race, too. They ran, I walked. They passed me on their way down and we high-fived.

It had rained all week, but the day of the race, the sun shone. It was a blast.

I don't know what my late husband John would make of my new hobby. I know he would approve of working hard to reach a goal, like we did when we followed his lifelong dream and with our young daughter, left everything behind and sailed away for three years. If you want to learn more about our sailing adventure, go here to find Holding Fast: A Memoir of Sailing, Love, and Loss.  

When John and I left with our seven-year-old daughter Kate on Laughing Goat on what would become a three-year sailing adventure, Elmo, a Portuguese water dog puppy, came with us. Chocolate-colored, curly haired, long-legged, dignified Elmo whom my brother-in-law named "the man in the brown suit." Though we hoped he'd become a playmate for Kate, he was John's dog, trailing him everywhere. His serious demeanor made him a comforting watchmate at nights. Elmo could be goofy, though, like when violets randomly appeared in his hair, or he rolled ecstatically on a stinky dead fish on the beach. On Staniel Cay in the Bahamas, painful burrs stuck to his hair, paws, and tail, and in Belize, ticks found him. I believe we extracted forty one time. When John was away on business towards the end of the voyage, Hurricane Mitch hit Guatemala, and Elmo was my companion in misery, taking care of the boat. 

After we returned from our journey, we bought a house in Florida and told Kate that she could get a dog of her own. She chose a sweet, jolly, handsome golden retriever puppy, whom she named after Chubby Checkers. Always ready to swim or chase frisbees at the beach, Checkers was a menace to unuspecting swimmers as he headed resolutely into the ocean on self-imposed rescue missions. After Kate went off to college, John and I sold the house and moved aboard a 40' catamaran, Smooch, with the two boys. From our base in Fort Lauderdale, our crew of four sailed often to the Bahamas, which we  had come to love on the earlier voyage. 

In the picture above, Elmo and Checkers are getting ready for an outing in our Jeep in Fort Lauderdale, probably to the bakery on Las Olas Avenue, a charming Italian shop with fresh ciabbata, pastries and coffee. The boys would sit politely, emitting occasional moans of pleasure and longing, as John fed them chunks of blueberry muffin. 

They both lived to age fourteen and have been gone awhile. I'm so glad they were a part of our lives.

If you want to learn more about our sailing adventure on Laughing Goat when we left everything behind and sailed away, you can find my book here. Holding Fast.