Don’t it always seem to go

By Susan February 8, 2024

Don’t it always seem to go

I arrived on the Cape in a very small plane. I was wearing, rust-colored cords, brown tweed blazer, and a self-fashioned bandana crop top. Sounds like a Joni Mitchell song. *

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
Ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop, ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop

I was meeting up with Gavin and his 8-year-old son, Daniel for a week I Wellfleet, a village at the ‘nook of Cape Cod’s crook’. Always feeling a bit inferior to Gavin—he was a brilliant criminal attorney—I was determined to make a notable entrance, but . . . exiting the plane to the tarmac on rickety aluminum stairs, my bandana came untied.

Not the entrance to impress.

I hugged the cloth to my bosom.

Gavin’s welcoming hug was less than enthusiastic.

Not saying it was because of my transgression, but we broke up soon after we returned home.

Last updated on February 8, 2024

In 2006, researching for my last literature paper at Oxford, I stumbled onto the late 17th-century court of Queen Mary of Modena, consort to James II. I was intrigued because she had so many female writers in her court—rare for the 17th century. Before heading back to the states, I met with my professor, Peter McCullough, to discuss a book idea stemming from that research. Peter had stunned me with his compliment of my paper—“One of the most beautiful Bread Loaf papers I’ve read . . . The work of an artist by an artist.” He was encouraging about my book idea and later agreed to be one of my Beta readers. Rain Dodging follows my quest for a sense of Mary’s spaces, to breathe the same air, to imagine their lives, visiting palaces and manor houses in England and Scotland and exploring their sublime back roads. Rain Dodging is a kaleidoscope of memoir and mystery, a collage of images and events. As I travel through Britain, I take you on a journey through my life and into a 17th-century royal court. You'll watch the connections unfold, from tales of a troubled childhood to wild days of college and young adulthood, the music scenes in Los Angeles & Nashville, and to my growth as mother, teacher, writer, lover, and solo traveler.