License

the long version

"Everyone is born with a license - To live, To love, To dream. Told from different points of view, License is a story about living and breathing, dancing and singing, laughing and crying, and, sometimes, about dying. It's the emotions and the moments that make up a life - the temper in an argument, the excitement of a new beginning, the loss in an emptying nest, the magic in moonlight, the thrill of a kiss, the anger in a fist, the coldness of a blade. It's about twenty-year-old Dixie Andrews - high on life, flying down the road towards change, adventure and independence. It's about her estranged boyfriend, Greg, trying to rebuild his life after everything that matters the most to him crumbles and falls. It's about thirty-something waitress, Pam, and her husband, Boyd, and family ties; both the sturdy, safe, and securing kind and the kind that cuts off your circulation in a strangling knot. It's about Dixie's parents, Lainey and Joe, and the ups and downs of twenty-five years of marriage and three kids. It's about Dixie's co-worker Mike, compassionate, perceptive, strong, yet vulnerable at the same time, and the power of love. Scattered throughout the book's sixty chapters are twenty-one poems, adding further depth and dimension to the joys and sorrows of life and the lessons it tries to teach us. Life - The blood running through your veins, the heart pounding in your chest. Hearts pound for many different reasons. There's a license for them all"--