Lucky Day

Mah Jongg Joker Tiles - It’s a lucky day when I pull jokers!

At the Oakland Public Library, and perhaps at all libraries, they have created “Lucky Day” shelves containing recent popular books that normally you would have to put on reserve, and wait for in the queue for many months in order to check them out. I have been quite lucky lately. I found “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sonny” by Kiran Desai and “A Marriage At Sea” by Sophie Elmhirst, both books I recommend.

This week I picked up the memoir “Joyride” by Susan Orlean. She writes about how lucky she has been in her career matched with drive, hard-work, curiosity, and a love of writing. After college she moved to Portland, OR and soon got a job as a journalist at Willamette Week.

“I wrote about the wave of new Hmong immigrants in Portland, and the boom in sales of amyl nitrate at grocery stores and gas stations.   These stories just dawned on me. They were everywhere I looked. Portland felt so ripe. I was always being surprised by something I came across, so I would take note of the surprise, and it would roll around in my head until it started to jag gently at me, demanding to be explored and then written.” (page 45)

This passage struck me and reminded me of the first few years of living in Lafayette, LA. I too would be struck by lots of places, people, events, items I would read in the newspaper, and they would rattle around in my brain until I felt compelled to write about them. I met with the editors at The Independent Weekly, the free weekly Lafayette paper, and pitched several story ideas. And they said, Yes! I was a freelance writer with them for about a year until I moved on to writing my first play. Below is one of the stories I wrote for the “Cool Town” issue of The Independent Weekly.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Coming Home: Lafayette is unique in the way natives want to stay, strays want to return and newcomers feel like family.  By Sue Schleifer

This may come as a surprise to folks born and raised in Acadiana, but when I told my friends and family on the West Coast that my husband had accepted a job in Lafayette, La., they didn't quite know what to say. They were happy for Mark, but for me they wondered: What would it be like to live in the South? Where is Lafayette anyway? Won't you miss the San Francisco Bay Area?

I was asking these questions, too.

I was born and grew up in Santa Barbara, Calif., one of the most beautiful places in the world, yet I have no desire to move back there. Why is it then that the people I meet who grew up in Acadiana desire to stay here or move back home?

Herman Fuselier - writer, radio host and community relations manager at Barnes & Noble Booksellers - left his home in Opelousas in 1993. As a sports reporter at the time, he always wanted to cover a major college team. He jumped at the opportunity to work for The Tuscaloosa News and cover the University of Alabama football and basketball teams. He got to travel all over the country with the teams and enjoyed seeing new places. But he had an ache, a homesickness that never went away.

"At first I came back every two weeks, then less frequently," Fuselier recalls. "I missed the food, family and music. I took the music for granted. It was just always on the radio at home. In Alabama there was no zydeco on the radio."

It was while living in Alabama that Fuselier started to play the accordion. The same was true for Lisa Bourque, contemporary architectural and residential designer, who moved to Los Angeles after completing a degree in architecture from UL Lafayette. Both missed the music and took up instruments once they left Louisiana.

"It was a way to connect back with the culture and fill the hole, the absence," says Bourque, who found Los Angeles "exciting, scary and fascinating."   "Los Angeles was full of people not from there," she says. "Anyone I met could tell me about other parts of the country I hadn't been to. I got to know a broad range of people and could live vicariously through them."

At the 10-year mark she and her husband decided they either needed to commit to staying in Los Angeles, which meant going to work for larger architectural firms where they would make higher salaries, or move back to Acadiana. They never considered living anywhere else.   "I missed the joie de vivre lifestyle of Louisiana," Bourque admits. "We work hard Monday to Friday and play hard Saturday and Sunday. Life is meant to be lived and enjoyed. We have our ups and downs; in Louisiana someone will help you out in the down times and help you celebrate in the up times."

Chef Maureen Little spent 17 years in New Orleans, going to culinary arts school (and architecture school) and working as a chef, and another four years in Midland, N.C. When she returned to Lawtell in 2005 she felt she could exhale. "I'm home. I know everything is going to be okay."

For Little, the differences between Lawtell and Midland are big: "food, people, family and music."

"I couldn't get Kelly's sausages," she notes. While it has been challenging to start her catering business again from scratch, Little asks herself, "What's best for my family, me and my company (VirtualBistroCatering.com)?" Like an emphatic Dorothy Gale, Little repeats to me again, "Really, truly, there is no place like home."

What is special about Acadiana for me personally is not family - I am only here with my husband - but the friendly people who live here. One Friday afternoon in December, we were taking a walk in our neighborhood and struck up a conversation with someone in front of her home. Even though we had just met her, she invited us to her holiday party that night. When we went out to breakfast at Edie's Express, we told the owner that it was our first time eating there and asked him what he recommended. He took us back to the kitchen to show us the variety of biscuits and kolaches.

I am struck by the French, Cajun and Creole cultures and love learning about the traditions, the ways of life and musical heritages of this unique part of the country. There is always more to do and experience than we have time for.

I am constantly amazed by how many talented musicians live and perform here and the abundance of creativity of all kinds. Chef Little mentioned to me that she also writes and illustrates children's books.

Everyone I interviewed called Louisiana home. Where is my home? I feel like my home is in Louisiana now. Will I live here the rest of my life? I have no idea.

Sue Schleifer is a life and career coach and freelance writer.

It’s July 5, 2026 and we’ve been back in our house in Oakland, CA for four years. You could say I am back home. I love being back in the Bay Area. I love the weather. I love our house on a cul de sac with wonderful neighbors. I love my playwriting class, though since it’s on Zoom I could participate from anywhere. I love my exercise classes and hiking options all over the bay, but especially just up the hill from our house. I love our garden and the fresh vegetables and fruit I am growing and the abundant farmer’s markets. I love all the options to hear live music, see live theater, visit an array of museums, and witness spectacular views of the Bay and the City. I truly feel lucky!