Meeting Susannah
By Gary Davis
Today I went with Diane to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis as she visited her doctor. The waiting room was very full and a middle aged man, wheeling an older woman (his mother?) in a wheelchair, struggled to find space. A woman much younger than me, to my right, remarked to me that the waiting room was very full. I agreed, and seeing her brilliant array of very colorfull tattoos I remarked how much I liked them. She thanked me, and I mentioned her very bright and colorful leggings were also very noticeable, in a positive way. She laughed and said she tried to adopt a positive approach to life.
To cut to the end of my story (so I can show a picture of her just below) her name is Susannah Fulcher, and with her carpenter husband Russell she runs a B&B, Sunshine House, in Wellfleet, Cape Cod. Susannah is in the process of building a website for their B&B.
Susannah & Russell
As we chatted, Susannah revealed many interesting things about her life: her slightly European accent is a result of her being born in Austria, she attend several years of school in St Andrews, Scotland, she has travelled extensively in Europe, she has an MFA in Fiction Writing from Brown University and is currently writing a novel about her family’s history on Cape Cod. She is also a journalist, writing on the arts for a local newspaper, The Provincetown Independent. And, of course, she told me about her past marriages and her current husband, Russell, a carpenter, with whom she runs the B&B, Sunshine House, in Wellfleet, Cape Cod.
I told her about Diane’s Anger book – just sent off to a publisher – and our Find Fabuluous Friends site. Susannah seemed very interested and, in relation to Diane’s Anger book, told me about a recent Australian TV series on domestic violence she watched.
Quite possibly – very likely, in fact – we will not see Susannah any time again soon – perhaps never. Yet Susannah and I agreed the 20 minutes or so we spent chatting about, life, our past, and the future was both invigorating and exhilarating. An outstanding example of the wonderful benefits of talking with strangers, and the surprising and interesting things they have to share with us. I would never have known about Susannah and her husband Russell’s B&B in Wellfleet, nor Susannah’s interesting history and writing background, nor she aspects of my life story, if she had not commented to me on the doctor’s waiting room being full, and my responding how much I liked her colorful tattoos. Sometimes, all it takes is a willingness to reach out, to discover a brand new world known to an otherwise perfect stranger. Such encounters generate deep happiness.
Sunshine House, Wellfleet, Cape Cod
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