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Dear Reader,
Suzanne will return next Monday, today's column is written by Blaize Clement.
I have a big bulletin board on the wall behind my computer. It's covered with things that have special meaning to me: photos of family and friends, the first check I ever got for writing a short story (it was only for five dollars, so I didn't cash it), some quotations that inspire me, a cartoon that makes me laugh every time I look at it, some poems I've written that define me, and a magazine picture of a little Incan boy from Peru. The little boy looks about three years old, and has a face that seems to contain all the humor and confidence and wisdom in the world. He's wearing a gray and blue striped sweater that's probably made of alpaca, and a little gray fedora tilted at a jaunty angle. The picture only shows his narrow little shoulders and chest, with that wonderful face and the hat against a gray stone wall. I fell in love with the kid when I first saw the photo, and I've had it so long he's probably a teenager by now.
The picture always makes me think of how small children present themselves to the world without any pretense. As we grow up, we begin to put on masks to cover our pure selves. We wear parent masks, teacher masks, soldier masks, lawyer masks, doctor masks, lover masks, and countless other masks. In time we wear so many masks that most of us have a hard time remembering who we really are. It's easy to forget we're wearing masks and believe the masks are us. But when we look into a baby's face, or into the face of a child like my little Incan boy, we are nudged to remember that we came just like they did, pure and real.
If we're very lucky, we drop our masks when we no longer need them. If we're very, very lucky, we find a vocation or hobby that allows us to drop all our masks while we're writing or painting or tying fishing flies or whatever it is that takes us back to whatever we were when we came. People call that "being in the zone." I call it returning to one's true self.
Blaize Clement
*To enter Suzanne's Bubble Machine Giveaway, go to: http://www.emailbookclub.com/photo/bubble051309.html
* Blaize is the author of the Dixie Hemingway mystery series. The latest book, Cat Sitter On A Hot Tin Roof, was a December mystery book club feature. You can email her at: Blaize@BlaizeClement.com
SEARCHING FOR YOUR NEXT BIG THRILL? Read the "Between the Lines" feature interview with Steve Martini then read about great thrillers from: Matt Hilton, James Rollins, Julie Korzenko, Karna Small Bodman, Christy Reece, John A. Elefteriades, Lis Wiehl and April Henry. Go to: http://www.thrillerwriters.org
* This month's Penguin Classics book is The House Behind The Cedars by Charles W. Chesnutt. To comment on the book and enter the Penguin Classics Drawing, go to: http://tinyurl.com/MayClassics
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