Vacationing in My Driveway

We can’t set out to find the vacation-like moments in life. Instead, we must let these moments find us…

Vacationing in My Driveway offers 52 sweet, true-life tales, one for each week of the year. As Terry explains, the title comes from that moment when, exhausted after the day’s work, we pull up at last in your driveway, turn off the car and think “Maybe I’ll just sit here a minute. Maybe I don’t have to dash right inside and start on dinner.” Because it is then that we sense the great truth: We can’t set out to find the vacation-like moments in life. Instead, we must let these moments find us, as they will surely do if we can but recognize them when they arrive, catching us as likely in the busy press of Obligation as in the easy peace of Leisure.

As readers move through it, they soon realize that this is also a book about the year’s slow turnings. Thus, its winter-month stories treat winter tribulations (“Twenty-Two Degrees and Lightly Snowing) , while the spring ones are filled with moments of seasonal longing (“Let It Melt, Let It Melt, Le It Melt.”)  The summer chapters have tales both funny and tender (“Camp Grownup”) and the autumn ones brim with that great Back-to-School feeling when life just seems ready to start over. (“Off to Work and Well Enough Contented.”)

Not everything starts over, as we know, so there are pieces too on loss and sorrow. There are stories of death and mourning, but also stories of renewal and resurrection. Thus, the October and November chapters have both funny tales about Halloween and more serious pieces on the slow stealing-away of warmth and light (“Though a Clashing Din of Oak Leaves”) while December's range in tone too, from the hilarious piece about some real-life kids’ Christmas wish-lists (“Dear Santa: I Want My Own Movie Theatre”) to a very reverent one about maintaining hope in bleak and barren moments. (“Angels There to Meet Us.”)

The book is joyful, funny and comforting, in sum, and may make readers laugh, or cry – but will surely send them out into the world with a freshened awareness of each day’s particular blessings.

Praise for Vacationing In My Driveway:

After reading this book of selected weekly newspaper columns spanning the seasons of a year in New England, you'll wish the author's columns were more widely distributed. These are intimate stories, mostly sweet and funny, expressing a sense of celebration for the seemingly everyday small stuff. Even loss and death are dealt with an elegant simplicity that brings them into context. This is a splendid little book which may find you if you have enough good karma.

- The Tampa Tribune

Here is someone who makes story-telling seem accessible, something any of us might do well were we to pay a bit more attention. Marotta may just be the best unfamous writer in the United States.

- The Palm Beach Post

I love the brief essays in Terry's book. I use them to help me get a quick good therapy, perspective, attitude of gratitude, smiles, laughs, warm fuzzies, -- its a lot better than watching the news w/ my morning coffee! Terry is magic, good hearted, and a great writer. She describes her experiences without self-centeredness and makes the reader feel good about themselves and their time spent w/ the book, vacationing!

- K. Williamson, Ph.D.