Most of the time, I try to be happy. I think everybody does. Either we find that’s a good way to deal with the world or we think that’s what the world wants from us. But sometimes, happiness isn’t an appropriate choice for what’s going on in our lives. Now a motivational speaker might say the thing to do when you’re sad is paste a smile on your face anyway. Fake being happy until you cheer up again. While there’s something in the “fake it till you make it” idea, I don’t believe in divorcing yourself from your real feelings. Sometimes, the only way to deal with grief is to feel the grief. When that happens, I reach for Low Country by Anne Rivers Siddons. It’s a guidebook for the broken heart. At first glance Caro Venable wouldn’t seem like the right kind of guide to learn about grief. For one thing, she’s got a life most of us would kill for. She’s got some talent, a loving spouse, a son that’s doing well and two houses, one on her very own island. Sounds perfect right? But Caro’s still tortured by the memory of her daughter’s death five years ago and there’s…
Vacation Season is coming to an end again, leaving us poorer, happier and (hopefully) a bit less stressed. It’s amazing how much of the rest of our lives are spent preparing for or dwelling on those limited interludes of time. And during each holiday, whether it’s in the mountains, at an amusement park or on the beach, someone always muses, “I wonder what it’s like living here.” Of course, the speaker is shouted down by a chorus of “If you lived here, it wouldn’t be special” and “money flows through this place, it doesn’t stay here” (both of which are true) but what the speaker means is, “What would life be like if you were permanently on vacation?” That is something we all wonder about. What would it be like to live in a beautiful place with enough money to pay for your needs? According to Anne Rivers Siddons (one of my favorite novelists) a vacation lifestyle will still cost too much in the end. In Low Country, Caro Venable seems to have hit vacation life nirvana. As the heiress of Peacock island ( a sunchaser’s paradise with an army of flora and fauna) off the Carolina coast and the wife…