Suzanne rhapsodizes about: Places in the Heart

We all have places that touch our hearts and "speak" to us in a very special way. I've always been enthralled by Tuscany, Scotland, England, the desert of the American Southwest, the Himalayas, Bhutan, Ayers Rock, Angkor Wat, and the Great Pyramid at Giza. Some of these places I've been lucky enough to visit in person and some only in my imagination, fueled by books and documentaries.

I'm convinced that my own list of special places is one of the reasons I choose to write, or perhaps one of the reasons I must write. Somehow by putting it down on paper I relive the experience and the emotion of visiting that place over and over again.

When my husband and I travel we rarely take photographs, but we do carry a small leather-bound diary with us. At the end of each day we take a few minutes and jot down what we did, where we went, how we felt about it, and what was most memorable. It may be something as simple as a bread pudding we enjoyed in a restaurant in London (we're still talking about it eleven years later so you can imagine how delicious that bread pudding was!) or as awe-inspiring as the first time we saw the treasures in the Louvre.


Okay, it's time for the TRUTH: I jot down where we went, how we felt, and what was memorable about the day. My husband may dictate his impressions, but I do the actual writing. (You may recall a recent blog in which a fellow Quill — okay, it was Elizabeth — mentioned my handwriting. Yes, I was once an English teacher, and, yes, like so many of the Quills, my husband's scribble is illegible.:-)

But I digress.

Then, especially on a cold winter's night, we'll take a glass of wine and one of our travel diaries and settle in front of a cozy fire and read aloud about one of our trips, reliving it day by day, memory by memory.

So how does this relate to the writing life? Well, in LADY'S MAN (St. Martin's Press, 1999) I wrote about a very special place called the Room of Light. In the back of that contemporary romance I included an author's note about my feelings for special places, places in the heart.

Here's what I wrote:

I believe there are special places for each of us in this world. I can recall a hundred. I will name only a few.

A harsh, craggy jut of rock on the coast of Massachusetts where I stood alone and looked out at the cold winter Atlantic: I was sixteen at the time.

The shadow and mystery of the Catskill Mountains. Surely, as a child, I had heard the quavering voice of Rip Van Winkle and the rumblings of the legendary game of ninepins.

A warm, cozy corner tucked away on the third floor of the old library (it had once been a mansion; libraries often were in those days), sunlight streaming in through the stained glass windows, the air filled with the smell of leather and books and dust.

And, of course, that first night in Arizona -- there have been so very many nights since -- when I walked beneath the palm trees and inhaled the wondrous scent of the orange blossoms.

The Room of Light is real, but I am not going to tell you where it is. It is enough to know that such a place exists. Besides, I believe that each of us must discover the special places for ourselves.

So, sometimes, when the memory starts to fade a little for me. I sit quietly, close my eyes and remember. That is when the sight, the smell, the feelings come flooding back into me and I am, once again, filled with light.

You know I still get tears in my eyes when I read that because I'm reliving some very poignant and happy memories.

So, my questions for you today are: What are your "places in the heart?" Is there any relationship between your special places and the places you enjoy reading about? Is this one reason you may pick up a book set, say, in Scotland, but not one set in Timbuktu?

Here's to Spring!
Suzanne