Rebecca Dwight Bruff's Blog, page 3
March 2, 2019
Soundtrack
Music. So powerful.
“Where did the title Trouble the Water come from?” some have asked.
Well, the story itself will tell you, but here’s a short response: “Wade in the Water” was one of many songs sung by enslaved Africans. The song was a coded signal to slaves seeking freedom: Use the waterways and the rivers so the dogs can’t follow your scent and track you. The time is now, tonight, the moment of opportunity. The chorus sings: Wade in the water, wade in the water, children. Wade in the water, God’s gonna trouble the water.
You can listen to it here:
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I listened to Wade in the Water, over and over, hours and hours, as I thought about the courage of Robert Smalls. I wonder if music inpsired him, if perhaps this very song inspired him.
I know this: He inspires me.
And I suspect, God is still troubling the waters, as there’s still so much to be done.
February 27, 2019
Everyone has a story.
“Maybe it’s true that everyone has a story, everyone. Maybe everyone needs a word on a page somewhere that says, I was here. I was.”
Some days are harder than others, for various reasons, and today is one of those hard days. It’s my sister’s birthday. She would have reminded me, when I called, that she’s younger. She loved teasing about me being the elder one. And honestly, I loved it too, because I loved being her big sister. I loved that I knew her from the very first day of her life.
But today is her birthday, and she’s not here to celebrate, or to tease. I’ve spent the day remembering. I remember the times we rode our bikes way further than we were allowed to when we were in elementary school. And I remember the times we took the car way further than we were allowed to in high school. She was always braver than me, and being with her helped me feel brave.
My sister didn’t worry much what other people thought, but she had a way of sensing what other people felt. She had a big tender heart. It got her into some interesting situations sometimes, and it endeared her to everyone. She noticed the wounded, the lonely, the underdog. I’ve always wanted to be more like her that way.
Everyone has a story, and most of the time we only know a little bit of another person’s experience. Most of us keep our deepest longings and fears and hurts and hopes hidden; most of us don’t want anyone to know our shadows, our demons, our battles. There are so many things that I never really knew about my sister’s journey.
But I know this: She was, and always will be part of my life. She inspired and challenged and adored me, and it was mutual. She was couragous and fierce with love. Her irreverent humor and creative mind and enormous heart brought so much goodness to so many. Her story was and is beautiful, sometimes hard, and too brief. She loved Jimmy Buffett and would be the first to say that “Some of it’s magic and some of it’s tragic.”
Everyone has a story. Today, I give thanks for my sister’s life, and the love that makes her story precious and beautiful and sacred.
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Happy birthday, Wink.
February 14, 2019
The Hero
Meet the courageous man who changed countless lives. Including mine.
February 4, 2019
To Honor the Story
When we began sending the manuscript for Trouble the Water to big publishers, we got rejections – based on my skin color and not on my writing. I was hurt and confused.
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But it made me think hard about history, cultural appropriation, and the way we do or don’t honor stories.
Whose story is it, and who gets to tell it?
I’m fully aware that I’m a “mature” Caucasian American woman, privileged, literate, and free. It’s not lost on me that I‘ve not experienced all the feelings, motivations, challenges, hopes and fears of a 20 year-old enslaved African American male in South Carolina in 1860.
But I can wonder. I can care. I can inquire. I can read and listen and explore and imagine, and practice empathy and curiosity and gratitude and humility, and in that way do what human beings do at our best – acknowledge and honor one another, and cherish one another’s stories.
I believe that fiction is essential – not helpful, ESSENTIAL! – for this very reason.
Trouble the Water is historical fiction, inspired by a real person, a true hero named Robert Smalls.
His story made me wonder, ask questions, imagine.
I wanted to know– What was it like to grow up enslaved? To be prohibited from learning to read? What were his hopes, the struggles, the loves, the heartaches? How did he learn to pilot a boat? And how did he decide to risk his life for freedom? And where did that kind of courage come from?
Fiction, by definition, is imaginative invention. If I only write about people like me, people with my characteristics and experiences, then it’s neither imaginative nor inventive, and also not very interesting.
When we imagine the hopes and hurts of another, we learn empathy. When we allow our minds and hearts to feel, to wonder, to ache, to delight, to care, we learn empathy. And empathy makes us better people, more whole, more human; empathy increases our capacity to love. Is there anything our world needs more right now?
Stories teach us, shape us, inspire us, warn us, and stretch us. Literature give us empathy.
So can a novelist legitimately tell the story of a person from another place, time, culture, nationality, religion, ethos, sexual orientation? Of course. Is the telling of another person’s story (imagined or factual) the same as “appropriating” the story of the other? Of course not.
Some may ask, “Who do you think you are to tell this story?”
Others may ask, “Who do you think you are to withhold it?”
And here is the distinction: I choose to tell another person’s story to acknowledge it and respect it, not to claim it. I hope to celebrate it, even though it is not my own. I hope to expose it, to make it known, to honor it.
Stories have tremendous power – but not if they go untold or undertold.
If, as an author, I fail to explore the depths of human nature – motivations and emotions, desires and dark secrets, hurts and hopes, fears, loves, lusts, etc, then I’ve not given my best; I’ve failed to honor the story.
I choose to honor the story.
January 14, 2019
Between the Covers…
Choosing, I mean….
So, last week the publisher emailed several cover options for the new book, Trouble the Water. (Read more about that here: https://rebeccabruff.com/2018/11/25/backstory/
Each design stunned me. I mean, their graphics people are some kind of brilliant.
“Rank them,” they said. “Tell us which you like most, and which you like least. Put them all in order, favorite to least favorite.”
It reminded me of trying to choose the cutest puppy out of a big wiggly litter. Impossible. But so much fun!
So, now you get to help! We narrowed it down to two, and you can go to this page and vote! http://www.koehlerbooks.com/cover-polls/trouble-the-water/
Tell us what you think! Vote this week – they’ll decide soon! http://www.koehlerbooks.com/cover-polls/trouble-the-water/
January 9, 2019
Feed your good heart
“She spoke of the great powers of courage and love and forgiveness. “You can choose how you think,” she said, “and you can choose how you speak, and how you treat people. All of us have a good heart, and all of us have an evil heart, and you must choose which heart you will feed.”
“If you feed your good heart with love and forgiveness, with song and laughter, with suffering and hope,” she said, “it will be enough, and will grow larger and stronger than your evil heart, and it will stay peaceful within you.”
She was born just before 1800, when the United States was still very young. Her second son, born behind the house where his mother was enslaved, came to adulthood as the Civil War erupted.
Civil War. Civil. War. It wasn’t civil, of course, but it was war – over 620,000 Americans died.
Americans fought and killed each other. Divisions ran deep, emotions ran high, politics ran at least a few of the newspapers, and religion ran both ways.
That’s the world that Robert Smalls was born into.
And it looks familiar.
We don’t know very much about his mother, Lydia. But I know enough about the kind of man he became, and the kind of life he lived, to know that somewhere along the way he learned that he had to make choices about the sort of person he wanted to be.
Maybe Lydia taught him how to hang on to goodness and hope in those dark days. Maybe she said something to him about choosing words and actions with care. Maybe she taught him how to feed his good heart, even in bad times.
I don’t know. But I do know that now, in 2018, divisions run deep and emotions run high, and what we say and what we do matters. We can’t know how far the ripples will run, or what their impact may be. But our words and our actions matter. Because people matter. All people.
We get to choose. Today, I want to choose courage and hope and forgiveness and song and laughter. And love. Lots of love.
People, feed your good heart.
December 28, 2018
Dream Big
Two years ago yesterday, I walked through the empty rooms of our little house in Dallas and said goodbye. I’d been there for 10 years – the longest I’d lived anywhere in my adult life. The perfect house (for me) in the perfect neighborhood (for me), the little craftsman in walking distance (walking! in Dallas!?) to great little restaurants had been a long labor of love.
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I wondered if I was crazy to leave.
We drove east through blinding rain. (May I suggest that the day after Christmas is possibly not the best time to begin your cross-country move?) We spent the night somewhere in Mississippi, I think, and continued east on I-10, white-knuckled, keeping up with a bazillion trucks racing along at 85 mph. (My Dad used to tell us to drive real fast so that we wouldn’t be on the road so long, because that’s where the accidents happen!)
Two years ago today, we arrived in Beaufort, and drove to the address of the house we’d rented, sight unseen.
Had we lost our minds? Who sells the great house in the great neighborhood, and wanders into the great unknown to live in a house they’ve never even seen?
This is how disasters begin! This is how relationships unravel! This is how perfectly stable adults become scraggly lost souls!
I was 99% sure we’d made a terrible mistake.
But I was 1% jazzed about the adventure. We were chasing a big dream. Who gets to do that??
So we focused on the 1% of possibility and imagination and Big Dream.
We met neighbors and made friends and asked questions and explored new place, new ideas, new everything. I spent hours at the library, and more hours at the keyboard.
The big dream became a big reality, y’all.
[image error]My sweet mother gave me this. We all need the people who will dream with us and for us!
I wrote the book I dreamed of writing.
We live in a place more beautiful than we could’ve dreamed.
As my wonderful agent says, “Writing is a terrible way to make a living, but it’s a wonderful way to make a life!”
So. If you’ve got a Big Dream, chase it. Who knows, you might catch it!
December 17, 2018
Is it really the thought that counts?
Yesterday was the third Sunday in Advent. Christmas Eve is one week from today.
I hate to sound cynical but I’m guessing that a lot more time, energy, and money goes toward shopping these next few days than preparation of hearts for the arrival of baby born to impoverished wandering teenage parents.
To be clear: I know lots of people who love God and follow the way of Jesus who are, people who are deeply and beautifully focused on the poignant power of this holy celebration, people who completely honor the arrival of divine Light in a dark world, people who embrace and cherish Love made flesh, people who weep and rejoice at the reality of “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.” I know many of these people. I worship among them. At my best, I’m one of them.
I’m just saying that maybe that group is outnumbered by lots more people who like the ideas of family celebrating together and exchanging gifts. And there’s nothing wrong with loving family and friends, nothing wrong with giving and receiving.
All this energy around giving and receiving has got me thinking – again – about the old saying, “It’s the thought that counts.”
Is it, really?
My friend Steven, a wise pastor and mentor from way back, challenged this idea a long time ago, and it’s never let me go.
Maybe thoughts aren’t enough.
Maybe, in a world where some families are living in shelters after fires and hurricanes, a gift to Habitat for Humanity would be even better than thoughts and prayers.
Maybe in a world where some individuals are alone and lonely, giving time and presence would be more comforting than thoughts and prayers.
Maybe, in a world where illiteracy still keeps some people from a full life, reading with a child at a school would be better.
Maybe in a city where thousands of women and men and kids are hungry every day, serving a meal and a listening ear would make a difference.
Maybe, in a world where little children still die from malaria, a generous gift to a relief agency would be better.
Maybe, in a world coming undone environmentally, a gift of time or muscle or money to clean up our water and air would be better.
Maybe in a culture divided by… kinda everything, the gift of listening, speaking with respect, and behaving with compassion rather than judgment would foster a bit of healing.
I know, I know – I’m getting all preachy.
Many years ago now, when my parents and sister and I realized we all had more than we needed of everything, we experimented with a different approach to giving. That year, my folks gave a scholarship, in my “honor”, for a 16 year old girl to participate in a mission week in Mexico. That young woman spent spring break helping to build a house for a desperately poor family – and she realized she had the power to make a concrete difference in someone’s life. She helped change their lives. They helped change her life. And witnessing all that changed my life.
It was a gift that still counts.
The song says “Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine; Love was born at Christmas; star and angels gave the sign.”
Maybe it still can. Something to think about.
Love will be our token,
Love be yours, and love be mine
Love to God and all men –
Love for plea and gift and sign.
Christina Rosetti
December 9, 2018
Heart
What is it with me and horse movies? Seriously.
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Last night, we watched Secretariat, the 2010 movie.
In the spring of 1973, I was in a full leg cast, having busted up my right leg in a weird accident on my own horse, a stubborn little mare called Poco. Watching Secretariat run the Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont to win the Triple Crown that spring was a delight. The memory still evokes tears of wonder and joy.
Awhile back, we watched Seabiscuit. Seabiscuit was Horse of the Year in 1938.
Both horses were undeniably great.
Unlike Seabiscuit (“the horse is too small, the jockey’s too big, the trainer’s too old”) Secretariat had it all: size, strength, the right trainer (Lucien Laurens), the right jockey (Ron Turcott), a groom that loved him (Eddie Sweat) and an owner who believed in him completely (Penny Chenery).
But – most of all, like Seabiscuit, Secretariat had heart. Literally and figuratively. Heart.
Dr. Thomas Swerczek, then head pathologist at the University of Kentucky, estimated Secretariat’s heart probably weighed 22 pounds. That’s more than twice the average size of a horse’s heart.
So what is it about watching a great horse run? Or a great athlete in any arena? Or a great artist, a great musician, a great parent or friend or teacher?
What makes greatness?
Obviously, a gazillion factors come together in the right place and the right time – things we can control and things we can’t.
The one thing all the greats have in common: heart.
An old story (there are many variations on this) says that a famous trapeze artist was instructing one of his students on how to perform an especially daunting move on a high bar. The young student stood on the precarious perch, frozen, paralyzed by fear.
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The great instructor put his hand on the young man’s shoulder.
“Throw your heart at it. The rest will follow.”
Seems like a pretty good plan to me.
Throw your heart at it, y’all.
November 27, 2018
Better Together
Sometimes my inner toddler shows up, and I want to do it (whatever it is!) all by myself.
Sometimes I’m way too stubborn/shy/clueless to acknowledge that I need a little help, and sometimes I’m too much of a fraidy cat to ask for help.
Sometimes I’m hesitant to ask because I don’t want to trouble anyone. Sometimes I think I should be able to navigate all of life’s challenges all by myself. Sometimes I really don’t want to expose my weakness/ inexperience/ confusion/ fear/ vulnerability.
But we’re better together, my friends in Dallas taught me when we built houses in Mexico together.
We’re better together, my friends in New Mexico taught me when I followed them down a steep and bumpy ski run.
We’re better together, my sons taught me in a million large and small heart-stretching ways.
We’re better together, my husband shows me daily.
And now a new community is showing me again: we’re better together. (At least, they’re making me better!)
The staff and volunteers at the Pat Conroy Literary Center http://patconroyliterarycenter.org are amazing: welcoming, gracious, wise, and oh-so-generous with encouragement and resources and inspiration. And workshops. And readings. And retreats. And did I mention great people? Really, this organization is a treasure, y’all.
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So, who are your better-together people?
Who’s your team, your tribe?
Who walks with you, encourages you, inspires you?
Who makes you braver, stronger, gentler, more compassionate, more creative?
Find those people.
Love them. Listen to life with them. Learn from them. Recieve their good gifts, and offer yours to them.
Because, if you want to go fast, you can go alone. But doesn’t life go fast enough anyway? If you want to go far, go together.
Who knows where you may find yourself!?
