Tembi Locke's Blog, page 4

CARE. GIVE. LOVE

November brings Thanksgiving and the start of the holiday season. It’s a month that touches all my heart spots. It encourages me to reflect on the close of another year, the things that have come to pass, big and small. We are all encouraged to aid others when and where we can, and to pay attention to gratitude in the smallest of moments. Honestly, I look forward to this month because of all the ways it reminds us of what matters in life: food, family, care, community and gratitude.

 To celebrate this community focused and heart-filled month, I’ve decided to highlight National Caregivers Month in a special way. Having been a caregiver who was aided by so many generous people who lent a helping hand, I’d like to extend a little love and lift to someone else. 

 This year, I have created a one-of-a-kind From Scratch Gift Box for Caregivers and I’ll be giving it away to one lucky caregiver in the United States! It includes a signed copy of From Scratch with a personalized message; a William and Sonoma gift card; spa products from Lola’s Apothecary compliments of the Montage Hotels; my favorite Italian espresso; and a handmade journal designed with a touch of Sicily. 

Please nominate your favorite caregiver and tell us why you want to honor them. Details for how to enter are on Instagram . A lucky winner will be announced on November 30th. 

I can’t wait to read all your messages about the people who matter most to you. I can’t wait to show a little love to a very deserving heart-filled caregiver.  

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Zoe Saldana and Reese Witherspoon team up to adapt “From Scratch” for Netflix

The screen adaptation of From Scratch is happening! My immense thanks to Netflix, Hello Sunshine and Reese Witherspoon for believing in this story. My heart soars knowing that none other than the effervescent and brilliantly talented Zoe Saldana will bring this story to life on screen. AND, I am teaming up with my sister Attica Locke who will executive produce it all.

Thank you to every reader who has read, celebrated, shared and gifted my heart-filled book. Thank you to talented women bringing diverse and global stories to screen.

You can find all of the details here.

“This is a profound true story of love and family, deprivation and nourishment, that needs to be brought to life on the screen as Tembi Locke brought it vividly to life for me on the page. We are grateful to Netflix and thrilled to be working with Reese, Lauren, Attica and 3 Arts on this wonderful project.” – Zoe Saldana

“Tembi’s memoir is a raw and tender exhibition of life in all its pieces. She brings you into her love, her loss and her resilience with such vulnerability and strength. We immediately fell for Attica and Tembi’s vision and feel honored to have the opportunity to help bring it to life on-screen. We could not imagine more perfect partners for this than Zoe and her sisters and 3 Arts Entertainment, along with the incredible team at Netflix.” – Reese Witherspoon

“Attica and I are honored to be adapting ‘From Scratch’ with the visionary Reese Witherspoon, Lauren Neustadter, Richard Abate and the incredibly gifted Zoe Saldana. We have a shared interest in championing stories that bring a rich tapestry of experiences to the screen. I am thrilled that this global love story has found a perfect home at Netflix.” – Tembi Locke

“Between the Locke sisters and the Saldana sisters, I’ve never seen a show that’s more of a family affair. Reese Witherspoon and Hello Sunshine have been producing really exciting content and we’re thrilled to make this powerful and emotional series with them.” – Channing Dungey, vice president of original series at Netflix

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The Season of Letting Go

With the radiant expanse of summer behind us and shorter days and falling leaves, we enter the season of letting go—the time of year when we experience the “end” of the life cycle. The fallen leaves are nature’s reminder that everything has its time. The darker skies and cooler nights draw us inward and invite reflection. For me, fall is about slowing down, taking inventory, dreaming and gratitude. But it is also about moments, memories and rituals that trigger grief. 

This was one of the hardest times of year during the first few years after Saro passed. The change in weather followed by the beginning of the holiday season served as a double whammy – an external and internal awareness of what had been lost. Halloween, Day of the Dead, All Saints Day were additional cultural triggers that wouldn’t let me run from my grief. I’ve met many people who have similar sentiments. Fall can be hard for different reasons and in different ways. 

However, in recent years, this season has become more about reflecting on my living and my vitality in the face of a season all about death.

Now, I consider fall my super-season because of what it sparks in me. I am more keenly aware of life’s brevity. That awareness spurs me to search inside for what matters to me, what I want from my own life and for those nearest and dearest to me. It’s the time of year I sift through the bits of my life for what no longer serves me and for what aspects of my past and present I can compost into something new and sustaining. 

In that way, fall is now like that dear friend I haven’t seen all year and for whom I am so grateful. She makes me slow down, she has so much to teach me. And I love curling up on a favorite couch with a cup of tea and letting her remind me of just how precious life is.

The post The Season of Letting Go appeared first on Tembi Locke: Official Website.

Telling the Story of Loss

Exciting news! I’ve teamed up with Claire Bidwell Smith to offer an inspiring and transformative six-week online memoir writing class beginning October 5th. Claire is not only a bestselling author, but she is a licensed therapist specializing in grief. If you don’t know her books or her work, this class is a great way to learn more and jump start your own writing. We wanted to bring what we know about writing personal stories to anyone who may want to share their own story for publication or who just want to capture memories for family and friends.

The process of writing From Scratch has been one of the most healing aspects of my grief journey. So many of you have shared with me similar stories of loss, and how reading my story has helped you to better understand your own experiences. Below I answer a few frequent questions about how writing has helped me navigate through my grief, and I hope will help you as well.

Spots are filling quickly – We hope you’ll join us.

How did the process of writing From Scratch impact your journey with grief? 
Writing a memoir required that I look back at the totality of my experiences, both harrowing and joyful, and make sense of my lived experiences. Since the book is very much about my early journey of grief, I had to investigate what had inspired me and what had challenged me in the first three years of loss. Writing the book made me have to stand in the truth of my deep vulnerability and my surprising resilience. It made me respect my grief process even more.
Did you journal before you started writing your memoir? How did that serve you early in your loss?
I have always journaled. Case in point, I still have a journal from the summer when I was fourteen and living in Washington, D.C. Writing was my way to explore, then and now. And while I have never been a daily journal-writer, I did turn to daily journaling in the early months of my life after loss. Writing was my way to stay connected and in conversation with someone I loved. Plus, having a bedside ritual and a place to capture and contain all the unexpressed feelings I was having proved comforting. Later, those journals were instrumental when I started to write From Scratch. 
Do you continue to write about grief and does it continue to be a healing tool for you? How so years later?
I still write about loss – in all its forms. I think, consciously or unconsciously, it is infused in each experience I bring to the page. Whether that grief be my own or the grief of another or even a society. Because grief is, at its core, an expression of love. And I think we are all writing about love in some way or another.

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September Book Club Giveaway!

Hello! 

September is almost here, which means book clubs around the country are choosing their next read. Although I don’t have a local or online book club group at the moment, reading in community with others is something I hold close to my heart. 

In the past few months, I’ve been a guest at many wonderful book clubs. What I have enjoyed most is being in rooms of open-hearted people who are connected by shared stories, both literary and personal. Many long-running book clubs have been together for decades! How wonderful is that? They have supported, encouraged, championed, consoled and laughed with each other over all that life brings. Hearing how the books they have read became like “story companions” along the path of their friendships has been so inspiring.

Are you still deciding on your book club pick? Or have you been itching to ask a few friends to join you for a read? It’s a great way to keep in touch with people locally or connect online with those who are miles away!

If you haven’t chosen your September pick, KEEP READING for my exciting From Scratch Book Club Giveaway details!

Here’s what you’ll need to do to enter…


Choose From Scratch as your September Book Club Pick


Follow @tembilocke on Instagram


Tag me in a picture with your Book Club reading From Scratch and use #FromScratchBookClub (there is no limit to the amount of times a book club can enter!)


The Giveaway will start on Friday, August 23rd and a winner will be announced on Saturday, September 21st! 
So what’s up for grabs?!
The winning book club will be able to email in 3 Questions that Tembi Locke will respond to in a personal video, as well as a From Scratch Gift Box! (including a Signed copy of From Scratch, Sicily Spatulas, Sicily Dish towel and a Recipe Card)

Good luck, and happy reading! (Ps. Don’t forget to print out my From Scratch Reader’s Guide for discussion questions and more!)

The post September Book Club Giveaway! appeared first on Tembi Locke: Official Website.

HERE and HOME

The writer and ever poetic Pico Iyer has said home can be thought of as “the places deepest inside you.” He calls it the places where “you want to spend most of your time.”  In another part of the world, the poet David Wagoner invites us to think about our locations differently. He writes “Wherever you are is called Here, / And you must treat it as a powerful stranger.”  Together these ideas have cracked open my mind in a powerful way. 

In these first months since From Scratch came into the world, I’ve been thinking about the two twin takes on being here and finding home. And I find myself with a definition of home that is expanding once again.

I have met so many people who have shared their stories and their hearts with me. They have gently and quietly confided what matters most to them, what ignites their hearts, the profound challenges they have seen, the searing losses and, yes, the love that has lifted them. In all these rich personal stories is the shared core truth of what it means to be human, in troubled times and when we are transported with unfettered joy. Life. Being human means reckoning with that duality that is ever present. And being “home,” as I now see it, is when I can stand in the “Here” of both those states and feel safe and loved. Even for a moment. Wherever we are.

Life doesn’t always come with warnings. Things happen out of the blue. They may be joyous, but they may also be fundamentally life-altering, filled to the brim with pain. Without preparation, we find ourselves in the middle of something we didn’t wish to happen. We are in a “Here” that is a “powerful stranger.” It is not gentle. And, in those times we long for home because we feel so incredibly destabilized and dislocated. We want safe harbor. 

Meeting readers and receiving messages from Italy to Nairobi to Montana to Australia, I have learned that the way to “home” often begins with telling our truth, to someone, anyone. When we stand smack in the middle of a changed situation, and we’re able to have a difficult conversation that honors our “Here,” that is an act of homecoming. Being witnessed and heard can be the first healing step toward feeling safe at home, feeling safe harbor inside of the great connection that is universal home. 

So perhaps “finding home” may mean reconciling a relationship with our “Here” – be it grief or joy. The reconciling can come from time, connection, the comfort of another or a combination thereof. For me finding home has been the many journeys to Sicily and the connection I find there. But it has also been any connection to another human heart. I now believe that generosity is a form of home.

As we round out the second half of summer, I wish you all many generous connected moments, healthy doses of sunsets and abundant breathtaking sunrises. Find your home wherever you are, with whomever you are. Ignite your brave hearts.

And please keep sharing your messages, letters and photos of From Scratch. I love seeing all the places we get to meet across time and space.

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Father’s Day Letter

This year marked the eighth Father’s Day without Saro. This year also marked the release of our story into the world. Our journey together as lovers, partners, and a family lives on in many forms today. It is expressed in our lives as they unfold each day and it is always present in our hearts. And now the legacy of our love, loss, and healing are captured in my memoir. Knowing that readers and listeners are walking alongside us through the pages of From Scratch, made Father’s Day incredibly special this past weekend. 

In remembrance of Saro, and his infinite love for Zoela, I wanted to share a letter that I wrote to Zoela years ago on Father’s Day.  

My Dearest Daughter,

As you know, there are some things I cannot spin. Your father’s death being chief among them. Three years of grief has made your threshold for platitudes low. You like our conversations honest and direct. So it didn’t surprise me when last night, you said what had been brewing for some days. “I wish it wasn’t Father’s Day.”  You laid your cards on the table and awaited my response. But I was tired. I couldn’t put my best mind forward. It was a moment where widowhood took a front seat, motherhood sat unbuckled in the back. The best I could do was say, “I feel the same” and then I stayed beside you until you fell asleep.

Now, in the light of a new day, I want to write this letter to say the four words you can never hear enough, Your dad loves you.  His love is eternal, constant. You, my love, are the narrative of his heart still being written.

When he died, you were seven. Your world was a compact trio. You crawled in bed between us each morning. There were three places at the dinner table. You had two people to fill your mind with ideas, dreams, possibilities. The three of us moved with deliberate and intentional love. We held nothing back. Your father gave love openly, without limit. He wanted his love to extend past him because he knew his time was limited. So he poured unending love into the heart of his child that it would continue to grow beyond his lifetime.

Three days after he died, as our third day turned into a third night, you asked me a sincere, direct question. “How can we bring him back?” In your mind, it had to be so. The possibility of such finality was unbearable. It kept you awake past the point where fatigue and grief dovetail into bottomless longing. It brought to your mind big, unanswerable questions. You would spend a year of bedtimes turning the finality of death over in your mind, looking for a loophole.

Soon we took to looking out into the late-night, city sky from my bedroom window in an attempt to soothe you. You decided your dad had gone among the stars. Their presence in the sky was proof that he was somewhere. You insisted we open the windows of my bedroom to bring him closer. You wanted him to fill the room. I obliged. You sat arms folded at the sill each night and called out to him. Often, you worried that your voice could not carry past the trees and power lines. I held you, I told it could. I assured it would.

When, after that first year, he didn’t come back, you switched tactics. You told me it was up to us to get him back, as if the thought had just occurred to you. You repeated this almost weekly for the next six months. You made up incredible scenarios for his return.  This imagining became a ritual. It seemed to ease your way toward submitting to the finality of his death. Each night, I heard your pleas. Each night I reassured. Reassuring you gave me something to do. And you will understand this later, but reassuring you gave me a way not to lose myself in the deep end of our colliding griefs. I encouraged you to yell out the window because it reminded me that I, too, needed a sill from which to lament, cry, yell. Thank you for your bravery.

Today, at ten, you don’t ask me how we can bring your dad back any more. The incredible permanence of death is a truth you know too well now. Instead, you ask different questions.

You: “Why is everyone born if we just die? What is the purpose of it?”

I kneel on your polka dot rug. Before I open my mouth, I pray that the correct words will fall into my mouth in just the right order, in just a right configuration.

Me : You’re asking a philosophical and spiritual question that humans have been asking for a very, very long time. I ask that question, too. Philosophers ask the question. Books are written on it. I don’t always know why we are here. But I do feel we are meant to live our best lives with the time we have. To give love. 
You: What would Babbo say?

You are impatient, with me, with your own hurt. Ten is your year of literal thinking.

Me: He’d probably have some great Sicilian proverb to tell you. Or he’d tell you about his favorite philosopher. But in the end, I think, probably, he’d start to tell you the story of “The Odyssey.”
You: What’s that?
Me: It’s the ancient story of a sailor on a journey.
You: Why?
Me: Why is the sailor on the journey? Or why would Babbo tell you that?
You: Why would Babbo tell me that story? 

You look at me as if suddenly I hold the key to a new part of your father you are ready to discover. Again, I want to the words to line up and connect.

Me: Because whenever he had to talk about LIFE it usually involved a story of the sea.
You: Why?
Me: Because he grew up on an island and in a culture for whom the sea held the essence of the mysteries of life. And there is no greater story of the sea and life than “The Odyssey.”

Many moons have come since you last called to your dad from the window sill into the night sky. You no longer try to make your voice carry past the trees. But I know you still need to. So let this letter be a stand-in for those late-night talks. Let it be a chance to remember. I write it for all the ways I know you’ll need to remember his love, even as specific memories may fade. I write so that in all your life you have a witness. Because I have learned that loss has a way of making the real stories of our lives feel like a dream, something spun into vibrant cloth and then taken from view before we could linger over its beauty.

 I love you and I want you to linger.

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My Sicilian Pesto Recipe (Hello Sunshine Video)

It was such a joy sharing this Sicilian Pesto recipe through the Hello Sunshine Book Club!

You’ll find this Sicilian Pesto recipe and many more in From Scratch.

I hope that you’ll watch and get inspired to cook up some homemade food in your kitchen!

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Today

How author Tembi Locke used cooking to overcome grief.

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Refinery 29

The Compelling Memoirs You Have To Read
By Erin Donnelly

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