How do we best maneuver life’s roads, paths or journeys; so often paved with the travails and triumphs of a barrage of daily evolving circumstances? Do we always know the directions or map to our true north? Is there an IPS (Internal Positioning System) to guide us? In Navigating Life’s Roadways, Deborah L. Parker takes you on a very personal voyage while engaging you with creatively written metaphors of her life’s map of twisting roads, paths, and journeys. Ride along as Parker insightfully and inspirationally navigates the elements of family, relationships, career, faith, health or fun. Learn, cry and laugh with her, as you find yourself exploring the lessons of your own destinations while identifying with her heartfelt narratives. Meet the core people who’ve journeyed with Parker or put up roadblocks. Transit her phases of humbly growing up in a Civil Rights era rural Virginia town, then launching out on pursuits as an army officer, corporate manager and entrepreneur in the story Belief Boulevard, while you experience her setbacks and eventual arrival back to her true north spirit in Valley View. Sharing the warmth and variety of stories found in the renowned Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Parker’s artful accounts of her treks through mountains and pits feeds the reader’s spirit (even throwing in the chicken). This book will guide and encourage you on your smooth or rough roadways ahead. Parker’s chronicles begin when she was born to a teenage unwed mother (who later married and was then abandoned with her three other children, going on to raise them in an extended family environment), sharing their push through adversity on Determination Drive. Gracefully she stays true to the old school direction of African American traditions, gleaned from her grandparents, uncles and aunts-also pivotal role models for her. Framed with other memories from her childhood that she finds in scenes from Homer’s Odyssey, The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland or the Lion King, Parker wonderfully connects these to take-a-ways for the reader. Candidly expressing the flaws but focus of herself and those who ordered or halted her steps, Parker beautifully covers the heart and healing nature of family or friendships in Love Loop. Infusing the wisdom of scripture, spiritual quotes and cultural proverbs into her IPS (Internal Positioning System), Parker grounds her stories. You read the sage advice from her Baptist upbringing along with her respect for the spiritual lessons of Buddha as well as the growth language of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Sprinkling humor and the rhythms of R&B throughout this anthology, she uses this inspirational blend as rest stops from life’s turmoils. Facing the unsettling of her health’s foundation, Parker has wandered on Pity Party Path. Breaking down on the road from her exposed faults, Parker heeds this mayday message and gets back on track as she relates in Vision Venue. From the wooded back-road home of her youth, which had no indoor plumbing, Parker cements life survival tips from the disciplined chores she performed there in Commitment Court. Writing the primary parts of this work during the year of grieving the loss of her mother, Parker gathers strength from their joint sojourns and the guiding spirit of this bond of life in Farewell and Forward Foothills. The devastating emotions so many go through from this type of loss are warmly and vividly portrayed in her stories. In Parker’s ‘helluva travels’ from America to Europe, Asia, the Caribbean and Africa, she invites you on an educational route of self-discovery in search of more rooting along with meaning for her odyssey’s realities. Parker explores the importance of pausing to reflect at Pondering Pond then going full throttle at Goal Gateway. The varied metaphors found in the relatable stories of this book will center and inspire you for your sojourns ahead, in finding your true north.
