Slaving Over Something You Love Makes It Taste Better

 I absolutely LOVE homemade sugar cookies with almond-flavored glazed icing.  I wouldn't spend two days preparing the dough to make them and one hour working them off on the treadmill otherwise.  The store-bought, break-n-bake sugar cookies, although significantly easier to make, are simply not worth the calories. I would just as soon go without. 

I can't help that I love the homemade sugar cookies better. I just do. Period. I don't love them because I slave over them. I slave other them because I love them, and because no other kind will satisfy l'envie (the urge/craving) for sugar cookies. Slaving over something you love makes it taste better.  

In August 2005, my family was displaced by Hurricane Katrina. My husband and I and our four children sought refuge in the most sensible of places, the place one expects to find solace in their time of need: Home. But for me going home had quite the opposite effect. I found myself driving through Coonville, the neighborhood I'd grown up in, despite my better judgement. It was even more unsafe than when I'd lived there all those years ago, and being there conjured daunting, and unescapable memories.

Four months after the hurricane, my family and I were able to return to New Orleans. I was eager to bury the uninvited, most unwelcome memories of the darkest time of my life. But this was not to be. Words I could never seem to find but always knew needed to be written pulsed through my fingertips and onto the keys of my computer. I could no more stop them than I could prefer store-bought sugar cookies to my homemade. L'envie to transform my thorns were irrepressible.  Finally, I understood why I'd made it out. 

Thorns of Inspiration is my story of redemption, and Liberation through Education my way of inspiring the redemption of other children. I can't help that I was dealt a bad hand. I just was. 

I didn't slave over Thorns of Inspiration because I loved writing about my memories. I wrote about my memories because I was a slave to them, and because doing so would liberate me, dispel preconceptions and inspire others. 

I slave over Liberation through Education because it is my passion and because it inspires others. I love every minute of it. And slaving over something you love makes it taste so much better.

MEDIA LINKS:

A little 411 about Liberation through Education: http://www.nola38.com/pages/video/?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=3771300

Juvenile Violence Spawns Interest in Liberation through Education's Programs: http://www.abc26.com/video/?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=3782095