Searching for Identity

My name is Claudia Baker. I am eight years old. I live here. I am hiding this note for someone to find it and know that I lived.

Thirty-five years, six name changes later, the woman now known as Samara C. Kezele Fritchman found her own note, tightly curled inside a glass Coke bottle. The bottle was behind an air vent in her mother’s house. Her mother had just passed away. Fritchman had completely forgotten about the note, written on lined school paper, and the small black and white picture she had put with it. But, even before she read it, all the memories of that time came flooding back. She sat down on the stairs and cried deeply. "It’s like I came full circle," Fritchman said. "I was talking to myself. It was one of the most important events of my life. But what does it say about my life that an eight year old wrote this?"

There’s much more to the story. Fritchman, a Gig Harbor resident for many years, proves this with the release of her two new fiction books she wrote, The Tale of Three Minds, and Joshua Worthington Eagle.

Both books are about the search for worth. And identity. Particularly Joshua, which has one main message; "Don’t spend your life in a barnyard as a chicken when you are an eagle and meant to soar."

Childhood

Fritchman today stands at over six feet, two inches tall. As a child she usually stood taller than the rest, physically anyway. Not so emotionally. She said her childhood at home was "difficult." At fourteen and six feet, one inch she was taller than anyone else at her Middle School in Tacoma, boys included. At the time, it was a problem. But it was the least of the difficulties in what has been euphemistically speaking, a colorful life. "It’s said, people who get into psychology go for counseling and stay for the duration." Fritchman said, "How much confidence to people have when they hear that? Well I’ve been there."

Her first name occurred soon after she was adopted. First know only as Baby Bubnich, she became Claudia Baker. Fritchman has not spent the majority of her life under the name Baker. Claudia Kezele is the name she has held longest. It stuck. She received many of her qualifications under this name and her life experiences. For the last nine years she has been married to George Fritchman. They now have a four year old son, Kyle, who, Samara said, has brought another transformation to her life.

Career Mirrors Life

Today, Fritchman is an employee assistance professional and a mental health counselor. Her dress is bright colors, her hair long and blonde. She’s slim. The only outward sign of the kind of trials she’s been through in life are the ever present light shadows under eyes. As well as seeing individual clients, she leads seminars and discussions for companies with titles like: Working with Jerks, Communication Skills, and Motivational Topics. In her thirst for knowledge through the years she has added business, psychology and law degrees to the alphabet bisque after her name further confusing the issue of identity. In the mid 1970s, the found a great advantage to her height. And was given another persona, "Foxy Lady." Fritchman became the spokeswoman for the Bruce Cannon morning radio show on KTAC in then Tacoma-based KTAC radio. She went to events, handed out free stickers, T-shirts and baseball caps. And dressed skimpily. Her big, easy smile, and loud laughter now may be a throwback to that high-flying time in her life. Her first taste of writing came as a columnist for the Pierce County Business Journal, now the Business Examiner. People wrote to "Dear Claudia, " with their own concerns about life and business relationships. Fritchman, 45, has worked on her books for over 10 years. "But it’s not like I really sat down and said, ‘my gosh, I am going to write this book.’ It’s a collection of thoughts and ideas I’ve been using in my work," she said. Once she had them written the process of getting them edited, designed and bound was relatively simple. Seminar participants suggested she try publishing her ideas.  She saw some design work in the Peninsula Gateway real estate section, that showed different elements merged together. She called the paper and got Sean Bonsell, who agreed to do the book covers. She said she was "very fortunate."

Last Monday she showed her two slim novels to Borders and Barnes & Noble but she wants to stay local for the debut and will soon have a book signing at Mostly Books in Gig Harbor.

The Books

Fritchman says the title of Joshua Worthington Eagle was not intentionally similar to the more well-known book Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. The golden eagle of the book is on a journey of discovery. Don’t spend your life in the barnyard as a chicken when you are an eagle and meant to soar. It’s a story of worth, transformation and balance in his realizing his potential. The Tale of Three Minds-The Chronicles of Will, Soul and Heart is her second book. Both have been released at the same time. "It’s unusual to do it that way, but it’s exciting," she said. "I want people to enjoy these books, and learn something too." Her words, and Joshua’s story are meant to be inspiring. As well as the journeys of Will, Soul and Heart. Although she didn’t know it when she started them, both books are about her. "Joshua was almost prophetic," she said. "Soon after I wrote most of it, I had a great downfall. It was hard," she said. "Now I feel better about myself and what’s happening in my life." The Tale of Three Minds is even more of a self-help book, but presented through the lives of living, breathing characters called Will, Soul and Heart. "Though it has universal appeal," she said, "the book was specifically aimed at Christians who try to live up to the quality they perceive in Jesus’ life. It is the divine reality applied to the human psyche," she said. She said people come to her in her role as a mental health counselor, but sometimes they feel guilty about needing help.

One book is about flying high towards potential and the other book is about staying grounded.

What About Those Names

Fritchman met her birth mother a couple of years ago. She stays in touch with her and occasionally sees a sibling or two. From Baby Bubnich she became Claudia Baker. Then "Foxy Lady." Over the years she’s changed to Claudia Lee Kezele, Claudia Samara Kezele, Samara Claudia Kezele, then Samara C. Kezele Fritchman. And now author.

Story by Tempel A. Stark, Living Section Editor. The Peninsula Gateway.

One of the most popular features with the Business Examiner readers in our early years was "Dear Claudia," a regular column on career communications that we first published in April 1987. This was an advice type series dealing with workplace interpersonal relationships and was written by Claudia Kezele, an employee-training professional.

Accepting her invitation to ask about problems on the job, more than forty readers wrote to "Dear Claudia" in the week after it’s first appearance. Advertisers quickly became aware of the column’s high readership and asked to appear on the same page.It was, in short, a publisher’s prize—then Claudia took some time off to regroup in her own life.

Now some ten years later, she reappears as the author of the soon-to-be-published Joshua Worthington Eagle, the story of a journey reflecting poetically the human struggle for worth,

transformation and balance—to alter misguided thinking and to see things differently. The author hopes it will be a baby-boomer best seller.

Samara C. Kezele Fritchman has continued work in employee assistance programs as she created this new tome and another, The Tale of Three Minds—The Chronicles of Will, Soul and Heart. Also available soon.

She reports enduring a tumultuous, yet wonderful decade, which included divorce, remarriage, and the birth of a child as well as relocation to a little part of Nirvana on Gig Harbor’s Key Peninsula.

Holder of a BA in business, MA in psychology and Jurist Doctorate in Law, Samara is a Certified Employee Assistance Professional who still enjoys working with all levels of human relation’s challenges. You can catch up with her on her web site: www.balancinglife.com.