How to vacation charitably

Once upon a time taking a "vacation" meant complete abandonment from life's routine.  No schedule,  no agenda and certainly no expectations or planning. The act of going on vacation meant a time to rest and relax by putting away the world that engulfed my existence in any other given moment.

There were the teenage years of inviting friends to accompany our family on the annual summer excursion to Surfside Beach. Those years were memory makers.  However, as family members passed away the location grew to become a stark reminder of absence. Family vacations then became a means to keep grief at bay. There were destination shifts to Ocracoke, North Carolina, Destin, Florida and Tybee Island, Georgia. Each location with undeniably beautiful attributes never really kept those feelings of loss from surfacing, they simply didn't reinforce it.  Looking back, my relocation to South Carolina in later life was driven by a desire to reside in the landscape where those warm family memories were made.

The young adult years entailed being invited to join others in their adventures near and far.  This period spans both coasts of the United States. Road trips with sorority sisters, conferences for professional development, packing and moving to accept a new job, and attending weddings (there were a lot of these). These years are memorable. However, notably missing in these jaunts are many of the in-between states that we either flew over or slept through.

Decades after graduating from college vacation travel became fodder for exploration both of self and places outside the United States. Cruises, canal tours, sandy beaches, mountain top retreats and a myriad of food and music festivals.  These years created a presence of just being. Several earlier blog posts allude to destination travel and while it's habit to denote these experiences via FaceBook, Instagram and Twitter there's a notable shift in my thoughts on how vacation time should be spent in present day tense.

I'm definitely late to the notion of vacation as a philanthropic opportunity. Congregations of people and civic groups have dedicated themselves to mission work, student exchanges, and immersion programs for far longer than I've been alive.  A recent visit to Eleuthera, Bahamas was a catalyst in viewing time away in a different light.  I met a librarian at a bar. Truly, a serendipitous  meeting, while picking up a pizza at the Rainbow Inn in Rainbow Bay.  Turns out the individual, Susy Siel, is the executive director of Freedom to Read, Inc and she endeavors to build settlement libraries in Eleuthera every summer.  Outside summer months, she's a media specialist at a high school in Wisconsin. It was not so much meeting her, but the post conversation exploration of the organization's website and FaceBook page that it dawned on me, someone who believes that reading is fundamental and who has even tutored reading in her local community, that here's an individual that gets it right. Susy through community development and a league of committed volunteers is making an investment in young people, creating a legacy that reaps benefits beyond the books that stock the libraries shelves.

While it's still important to escape the daily routine either in union or isolation there's a host of opportunities to do good work, make a difference and give back.  Perhaps embracing this concept gives rise to the desire to step back from life and incorporate charitable endeavors into a ritual once reserved for self indulgence.  I don't doubt that there was purpose in the universe placing Susy and I in the same location for that brief period of time.  It was my aha moment.

Day 1: Crossing Paths with "The Other Mother"

And so it begins...the "10 Days with The Other Mother" blog tour.  Starting today and continuing through December 10th this blog will host a public conversation with author Teresa Bruce that provides readers with an opportunity to gain insight and reflect on Bruce's recently published rememoir "The Other Mother." 

There are several ways you can participate in the conversation:

1. Join the conversation! Enter comments and/or respond to entries in the comments section at the end of each blog entry. The author and blogger will actively monitor and engage in a virtual dialogue during the ten day tour.

2. Share a link! Copy and paste a link to each blog entry on your FaceBook page, your Google+ account, your Twitter feed or cite an entry on Pinterest, Tumblr or your own blog...wherever you find yourself socially networking.

3. Buy the book! The author and blogger will provide a great many reference points over the next ten days but to fully appreciate the beauty of the book one must really dive into the text. Available on Amazon at: The Other Mother

Blog Tour Day 1: Crossing Paths

Ann-Marie: 

I have always marveled at how our lives interweave with the people, places and experiences necessary to propel us in one direction or another. Chance meetings. Serendipity. Work assignments. Blind dates. Coffee shops. Network referrals and the like. Each built around a stated opportunity whose purpose we may or may not be fully aware of in the immediate.

In fact Teresa, our becoming acquainted two years ago at the Beaufort International Film Festival was very much like that. I have always relished "table readings" so when the festival schedule included the opportunity to hear some of Beaufort's local thespians reading the screenplays entered for competition, I was quick to secure a ticket for the occasion. And with that attendance I became acquainted with you. That first encounter, listening to your screen play being read, set in motion an appreciation for your brand of storytelling. Most especially for your knack in bringing to the page the good, bad and sometimes comical way life has a tendency to flow and unfold.

Chapter 8 of "The Other Mother" presents readers with your first encounter with Byrne and Duncan Miller while on assignment with a local public television affiliate. Initially you take a journalistic approach upon meeting the Millers, to design a story of "worthiness and drawing out empathy" for a man with Alzheimers and a wife eager to bring public attention to their plight, by the conclusion of that chapter your approach quickly shifts to an admiration for the reflected love you witnessed in meeting them.

Thus, my volley to you, Teresa on Day 1 in our "10 Days with The Other Mother" conversation starts with our crossing paths at the film festival and you crossing paths with Byrne Miller....

Teresa:

I remember it well...Our paths crossed on the auspicious occasion of the first ever screenplay table read in Beaufort, South Carolina! That was two years before MovieMaker Magazine would name the Beaufort International Film Festival one of the coolest 25 film fests in the country ~ I guess we were BIFF before it was the film world's BFF! I was so nervous and it was great to look out into the audience and see your smiling, exuberant face in the audience. I didn't even know you but I could feel your encouragement and support for the creative process. 

I love it when that happens ~ paths crossling like two dancers on stage at the same time, hooking arms and spinning off in new directions.

I was like that meeting Bryne Miller, the Other Mother in the title of my memoir. I was 22 at the time, a rookie TV reporter at WJWJ-TV in Beaufort, SC and she was an 82 force of nature. I never set out to find an Other Mother but she folded me into her world before I knew what was happening. 

She always said "The family you're born with is not the one you're stuck with" and that was the genesis of a word I invented to describe her pearls of wisdom: womenisms. And now, years later, our dance together has spun off into so many directions. I have a blog called "womenismsm" on wordpress and a whole book worth of chapter headings in "The Other Mother: a rememoir."

What a great position to open the tour with Ann-Marie!

The Other Mother: A Rememoir by Teresa Bruce

Tell us about your experience in crossing paths with people who made an impact on your life...