Louisville, Part II

This photograph of my mother and me was taken in 1982.  I was thirty years old and she was fifty-five.  I was pregnant with my second child.  A few months later, she died one morning of a heart attack.

It has taken the death of my father for the fact that I didn't really know my mom to slap me in the face.

My youngest sister and I took the trip to Louisville to see what we could find out about her.  I can't say it better than I said it to her friend, Lucy, in my thank you note to her:

August 28, 2012

Dearest Lucy,

When I talked to Nan [another sister] the Wednesday before we left for Louisville, she said, “Ask Lucy what Mom was like.”  I laughed—it seemed so vague—but that was really what we all wanted to know.  What was our mother like?

You told us this weekend.  She was kind and fun and everyone loved her.  She and my dad had their problems, but she never wanted to hurt him.  She looked after you when you moved to Carolina Beach and needed a friend. And you returned the favor when she needed a friend:  you checked on her often and finally paved the way for her to go to Fellowship Hall.  She suffered when her sister and mother died. She thought my dad was a good catch. She was vibrant and had a great personality.  She was there when people needed her.

I feel as though I am mourning her loss a second time.  I didn’t understand her at all, and wasn’t always very kind to her.  Kids act like that, I know, but it must have been very painful for her.  I wish I had known her as you knew her, had had more time with her, had seen her as I see you with your grandchildren, spending time at the holidays and in the summers. 

I wish I could tell her I’m sorry, that now I understand.  I understand not just because I’m a mother too, a wife with an imperfect marriage, a person who has suffered loss and knows that grief lasts a long time.  I wish I could say I understand the kind of pain that drives a person to the bottom of a liquor bottle, and the same pain that you can’t avoid once you give up the booze.  I would love to say I’m sorry I ganged up on her with my siblings and with my dad and regret that we teased her, that I could tell her that I loved her laugh and her ready smile.  I wish I could say “thank you” like I mean it.

I know that had she lived to be eighty-something, she would have been an elegant woman, just like you are, that she would still welcome Melissa [Lucy's daughter] to her home as you welcomed us into yours, that she would have lived every day of her life just as you do.  She would have been a doting grandmother.

Thank you for your graciousness, your honesty, your friendship with my mom through all those years, for sharing your knowledge of Louisville with us. I know we will see each other again before thirty years have passed!  I’m so glad we made the trip.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Love,

Mamie

We asked Lucy some hard questions and she honestly answered them. It was nice to look at the answers with adult eyes; we felt totally non-judgmental.  We learned a lot about her relationship with my dad--not from his perspective, which was rose-colored to say the least--but from someone in whom my mom confided her deepest secrets.

I know my mother better today than I did the day she died.  And as I said, along with understanding comes regret. But it also comes with a whole lot of gratitude. 

Louisville, Part I

This past weekend, my sister and I went to Louisville KY to see one of my mother's childhood friends, Lucy, and her daughter, Melissa.  I had no idea that Louisville was such a wonderful place to visit:  Churchill Downs, Cave Hill Cemetery, sheikhs' palaces and horse country, some of the best food I've eaten in a long time (something about more restaurants per capita than...).  Louisville is an architectural heaven; almost every street has interesting buildings and houses.  Even the shotgun houses were worth cruising by.

We met Larry, Melissa's husband.  Larry was a wonderful host too and took us on a couple of driving tours of the city.  He works with the governor of Kentucky, and I can say that they are lucky to have such a friendly and gracious guy working for them.  Among other things, Larry is a Vietnam vet. I was interested to hear about his experience there and to talk about books we've read like Matterhorn and The Things They Carried and how truthfully they depict the war.

 At Churchill Downs, we saw the amazing hat exhibit, watched one of the family's horses come from behind to win the Derby in 2009 on the screen that had replays of past races.  We sat in a surround sound theater and I cried when the horses pounded around our heads for the two minute race.  I asked Melissa if the races are that intense in person and she said, "More than that."  Wow!

We stayed at the historic Brown Hotel.  Somehow we got put on the club floor and in the mornings there was breakfast and coffee and in the afternoons wonderful appetizers two doors down from our room.  Not that we wasted any time hanging around in the Club Room; we had places to go and good food to eat!

The real purpose of our visit, though, didn't have anything to do with the city of Louisville.  It had to do with our mother and this friend of hers.  And that is the post for next week.  Stay tuned.  In the meantime, here's a photo of the very beautiful friend and her very beautiful daughter, the best finest people in the best finest most famous, wonderful place in the world! :)  It was a terrific trip.

Whose Bravery?

I'm struck every day by how we judge others by our personal standards.  Oh.  You've noticed too?

This past weekend, my husband and I were staying at a place where they furnish bikes.  There were two of them and both of them felt uncomfortable for me.  The seats were too high and I didn't feel like I could stop with any stability.  My husband called me a wimp for not agreeing to get on one even though I didn't want to.  The discussion moved forward in that way of discussions and soon I was being accused of not ever wanting to take chances or push my physical limits.

In the old days this type of 'discussion' would have deteriorated rapidly.  But on that day I took a minute to think about what he was saying.  He was saying that he liked to take chances and push himself physically and that if I didn't there was something wrong with me.

"Okay. I get what you're saying," I said.  "So, I tell you what.  I'm going to give you a piece of paper and in five minutes I want you to write the beginning of a story.  Then I want you to read it to a group of people, some of whom you barely know."  He looked at me like I was crazy.  "Then," I went on, "I want you to spend hours expanding it and revising it and after you feel like you have something worthwhile, I want you to send it to a dozen literary magazines and wait for them to reject it. And if you don't do this, I"ll tell you I think you're a wimp.  Or stupid."

Hmmm.  Something started to sink in maybe?

"In the past seven years, I've been brave in ways I never thought possible," I told him beginning to get emotional.  "They aren't your ways of being brave, but they were acts of courage nonetheless.  For you to hold me to your standards of bravery is patently unfair."

He got it. And I appreciate it. 

What I took away from the discussion is that he would like for me to do more things with him that are physically challenging.  He has certainly put himself in situations at my urging where he wasn't all that comfortable.  So I'm going to work on it.

Is there a place where you're holding people to your standards without respect for their strengths?  Where are some places where you might stretch yourself, be courageous where you haven't been?

Dreams Are the Food the Soul Must Have to Survive

I'm trying to lighten my load a little every day in a lot of different ways.  I'm making lists of things that I need to do and marking them "DONE!"  I'm cleaning out my home work space (again - an on-going job), and making some organizational changes to my office space.

I'm working on changing my way of thinking about things too.  When I need something, I ask myself if I already have it, or is there something that I might use instead of what I have in mind.

I'm cleaning out my books, too, a little every few days.  It's hard to part with them; I know I'll read them some day, right?

Today I came across a book of pithy sayings that I accumulated in a journal in college. One of the pieces has held me like no other and today I want to share it with you.  I've tried over the years to find the original source of the piece but can't. I do know that it was written by Brad Nilles and came from a book called Dreams From the Road. I hope you enjoy it.

Dreams are the food the soul must have to survive.  We all have our dreams; some of them shared, some of them secret, and some of them unbelievable.  Part of growing up is getting ready to share the responsibility of the world.  And to accomplish this, we must have hope based on a clear idea of what the world and life have to offer.  Probably the most difficult lesson the road teaches us is that life is often less, sometimes more, but almost always different from what you thought it was before you took a first-hand look.  You see beauty and sadness and insanity that were in front of you all along, but you never got around to noticing them. And in those new realizations, new pains, and new joys, you see yourself--differently, but in a way that you must accept, because you find that you are the center of it all.  You and everything you see in the world blend together into a dream that is yourself.

Heart Song

Something's afoot in my life that is bringing me great joy!

It involves the Universe and the way it works in mysterious ways.  It has to do with this box of found photographs. I think of the person who is going to be a part of this project for a minute or so, and have one of the photographs choose that person to write the story that the picture tells.

It involves giving wrapped gifts and sending mail, the delicious anticipation that I feel as I drop the photograph in the mail and think about the recipient opening it, seeing the photograph, beginning to sense the story.

It involves the challenge of writing short fiction--three hundred words or less--making every word count.  One page.  One powerful page.

It involves black and white photography, the way we interact with the photographer's eye, read expressions, and become compassionate, empathetic observers.

It involves the beautiful 1880 Gallery at the Long View Center where the photographs and stories will come together to become exponentially effective in bringing new life to forgotten people.

It involves this room, writers sitting together with the most amazing Randall Kenan, and choosing photographs, working up stories, sharing our writing while our adrenaline hums, eating good food prepared by my friend, Mark Hardy.

The thought of this project makes me want to cry.  It makes me want to dance around the room.  I want to do it over and over, bringing life to forgotten people, writing with other writers, letting the cosmos rule my choices.

Hurray for things that make our hearts sing!

To CMC: A Life Lived

I went to a funeral yesterday of yet another person whose life has been cut short.

It was on property that she had lived on all her life and everything she did to it expanded and beautified it.  It was a place where young people had their lives changed forever, where teenagers found love, where family returned again and again.  I heard stories from those family members about the adventures they had there when they were young; they had glowing faces as they remembered.

This land embraced her even as we were celebrating her life.  Twice a flock of geese flew by behind the podium.  A hawk circled for several minutes, its cry a cross between protest and mourning.  A dog wandered down the center aisle; her horses and those of others grazed beside the road we took to get there.  What had been a gray day turned sunny.  The most beautiful flower arrangements I've ever seen graced signs and altars and tables.

The minister had ministered her through her illness, the musician had been her friend since childhood.  Her sister and twin brother told stories and read letters and poems.  One of her dear friends took several deep breaths and smiled nervously as she paid her homage; a state politician spoke of her personal and professional greatness.

But the most astounding thing that I heard yesterday was this: "She accomplished everything she wanted to in this lifetime."  At fifty-eight years old, five months from being diagnosed with cancer, living on a piece of paradise doing what she loved, she died, and yet she felt she had accomplished everything she wanted in this lifetime.

My god.  To be able to say that at the end of my life, whenever it may be, is enough.  Let it be.

A Parent Grows Up

This month all three of my daughters came for a visit.  I loved having them here one at a time.

I'm walking a fine balance with them though, between treating them like children and treating them like adults.  And that creates tension.  Over and over I heard versions of "I'm a grown-up now; you don't have to worry about that."

We talked some about this during our time together, and it made me start thinking about how things were with my own parents.  My mother died when I was thirty.  I had a baby, and she wanted to help me while I didn't think she (who had had five children!) knew a damn thing about how people took care of babies now.  We weren't friends or equals at all.  And that's how it ended:  she was my mother and I was her child.

With my father, things were different.  Over the years we developed a relationship of a more equal nature.  We talked about books and music, he gave advice when asked but never at any other time. I felt he respected me as an adult and approved of me.  He provided space where I could go for comfort.

I want to "help" my kids in the same way my mother helped me. I want to give them things, especially advice, that will keep them from making mistakes or getting hurt.  I want them to have everything they need and some things they want.  I want to suggest good books and music.  I want their boyfriends to treat them right. And of course I want that nebulous thing: for them to be happy.

Now that I've started thinking about it and talking about it, I can see that the relationship I had with my dad would be best.  I can give up the idea that I have any control over their lives, that for the most part my job now is to be there when they call or visit, to listen and not advise unless asked.  And finally, to provide for them what my dad provided for me, a place--whether physical or emotional--where they can come and recharge their batteries, be respected as an adult, and feel loved.

I've liked being needed in the old ways, but it's time to put that aside now.  There are new ways to relate to my adult children and I'm going to learn those new ways with their help.

Power of Words

You've heard this all before on this blog, but I've been typing up some essays from Nancy Peacock's writing class at Meredith.  This was written from a prompt, "I believe in the power of words...."  How would you finish that sentence?

I believe in the power of words to heal.  When I write notes to people, I often sit and meditate for a few minutes about their illness, their dying loved one, their love for each other, the day they were born.  I put my pen to the paper as soon as I’m finished with the meditation; I want my words to matter.

            I choose a card carefully. Sometimes it is one of my photo cards. A photograph of a place we’ve been together, one of the sky or water for a somber message.  A photograph of a billboard with a funny saying for someone who needs cheering up.  A shop window with funky wigs for a friend undergoing chemo for cancer. 

            I might buy a card at the book store or a craft fair—one that is a collage with a meaningful quote.  Sometimes I go to my workroom and make a card using beautiful paper or stamps my daughter has carved.

            I know the power of words to heal because of the ones that come to my own mailbox when I need them.  Words from friends who let me know that they are thinking of me, that they remember my birthday or my anniversary.  I save the good ones and the ones from my children with their love scribbled across the page of a card they chose just for me.

            Yesterday I sent a card to a friend whose sister died last year.  Her sister’s birthday is the same day as my father’s.  “I will take a few minutes on Friday to think of you and your family.  I hope you will be remembering the happy times with your sister, and that those memories will comfort you.” 

            I wonder as I write this if anyone made a note when they read his obituary that Friday would be my father’s ninetieth birthday.  Are they right now thinking of me as they sort through their card collection or bend the corners of those at the store, looking for one that says just the right words, words that will bring a smile to my face or a tear to my eye?

            Will a card come tomorrow as I remember his last birthday, how I went to the grocery store and ordered a cake—white with red roses—and had the woman write, “Happy 88^th Birthday, Dad;” how my dad was in a coma from which he never woke up; how the five of us, his children, waited, watching his labored breath, tense, irritable, unbearably sad, trying to figure out if staying or leaving or whispering the right words in his ear would give him permission to die; how two days later he breathed a ragged breath and died with a tiny smile on his face?

            How comforting it would be to be remembered with words thoughtfully penned on a carefully chosen card.

            

Photo surprises

Last week we put up a new exhibit at the 1880 Gallery.  The theme was "Visions of Freedom" and for the first time I planned a couple of photographs.  

I am not an expert on cameras.  When instructors start talking about F-stops and shutter speed, my head starts swimming.  It all seems backwards and upside down to me.  Mostly I put my camera on the Program setting and shoot away.  The setting is forgiving in low light and I am usually very happy with my photographs.

Two of the shots for this exhibit had surprises in them.  The first, my daughter noticed.  Here's the photograph:

I got my neighbor's son to play around in his father's old (but very red and shiny) convertible.  He and his sister were the perfect subjects, fun and accommodating.  I chose this shot because he looks like he is on the road to somewhere and getting away with it.  My daughter though noticed a small detail that I had missed:  he has on what looks like a hospital bracelet!  He's not just driving; he's escaping!

The second planned shot was of my mother-in-law.  She is amazingly beautiful and very photogenic.  I handed her a book I had brought her and told her I wanted to take her picture looking at the book.  I chose this particular image because of the angle and background details:

 

But when I blew the photograph up to 11x14 for the exhibit, I noticed two details that I had missed.  First, the page she is looking at says, "Monet in Normandy."  Normandy, of course, being a decisive arena of World War II.  Then I noticed that the focus of the picture is on her hand, every detail of it crystal clear.

I love the way a photograph taken one way with one objective can have things that were unintended but add spice to the story it tells.  And there can be depth and art to a photograph taken without regard to the intricacies of the camera, only listening for the beep that signals the camera is ready to speak.

god bless america

This Friday night we are changing out the 1880 Gallery at the Long View Center with a new exhibit, Visions of Freedom.  The group made a collective decision not to use this as our official poster because some felt the 'made in China' was too politically charged, but I'm posting it here because I think it says a lot of what I'm feeling about our country right now.

Don't misunderstand me.  I am grateful beyond measure that I live in the United States.  But I'm pretty darn disgusted with what promises to be a long and acrimonious political campaign.  I am disappointed in my state and my country for some poor decision-making that has taken place lately.  I want to see some politicians who are honest, dependable, and not in the pockets of big money.

I want to believe that we are a nation of people who care about all nations but that we aren't bossy or dogmatic about it, that we aren't selfish and greedy and smug in our comfort, that we take care of our own - our own for god sakes - and then take care of others in the same enveloping way.

I'm tired of everything I pick up in a store being made in China and seeing empty brick buildings in every small town I pass through.  I'm tired of sacrificing good men and women to useless wars.  I'm tired of politicians sticking their noses where they have no business being.  I'm tired of divisiveness and name-calling and finger-pointing.

We're the luckiest people in the world, in some ways, but we've forgotten our manners.  It's time to start using them again.

The First Half of the Week

This week I'm taking a creative non-fiction class with author Nancy Peacock at Meredith College.  I've learned so much, beginning with the fact that I totally misunderstood what creative non-fiction was.  I thought that it meant taking liberties with the truth to write a story.  Being creative with the facts.  Not so.  As one participant in the class said, "It's writing the truth creatively."  (I paraphrase.) I've learned that the essay, or memoir, has to have the same elements as a good story.  

Okay.  Some of you seasoned writers may be saying, "DUH!" but I'm a relative newbie to the art of writing!

I've almost always written fiction.  Many of my stories have lots of truth embedded in the story, but I guess I thought that by fictionalizing the characters, changing a few names, etc., I would be freer to explore my (or others') stories.

But today, I took the idea of a story that I wrote a few years back and used it in response to a prompt to write about something we carried.  Nancy read from one of my favorite books, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien to get us thinking.  She and I had, coincidentally, both given the book out for World Book Night!

So I wrote this story as honestly as I could.  I believe the essay that emerged has it all over the short story that preceded it, and I intend to move forward with it and put the old story in a file drawer.

For an hour after lunch, we do what Nancy calls "independent study."  Writing on demand and reading it out to people you've only known a short while is demanding and somewhat exhausting.  Add that to the fact that on Friday, my father would have turned ninety, should have turned ninety except for that day when he fell down the stairs (you can read my fictionalized version of that day here.)  So yesterday my brain was very tired and instead of writing during that hour, I took my camera around the beautiful Meredith campus.  I was walking down the sidewalk and looked over and saw the origami crane in a leaf, pictured above.  It seemed to represent the workshop and the cosmic discoveries I've been making there.

PS:  There are still a couple of spaces in the Bookbinding class.  Let me know if you're interested.

Bookbinding Class

Over the years, I have collected many books by this fine artist who also happens to be my daughter.  I have journals, datebooks, photo albums, book art.  They are carefully wrapped in tissue and stored on my bookshelf.

"Use them!" she says each time she sees them.  But I can't bear to.

When my youngest sister turned a certain milestone age, all the women in my family gathered at my house for a spa weekend.  We pampered ourselves, laughed, enjoyed each others' company.  As part of the activities of the weekend, my daughter led us all in a bookbinding class and everyone took home a beautiful little masterpiece!  She was a patient and knowledgeable teacher.

On July 21, she will lead a beginning bookbinding class for six lucky people.  If you're interested, please email me.

If you want to see more of her books and get an idea of what you'll take away from the class, please visit her website Rockpile Bindery.

Grist for the Mill

This past weekend I went to New York to visit family.  We had tickets to go to the 9/11 Memorial site.  There are two pools there where the two towers stood.

When I first started writing a few years ago, I took a class at Meredith College with Angela Davis-Gardner.  My initial attempt at a story was based on a PostSecret postcard.  It read:  "All those who knew me before 9/11 believe I'm dead."  I could not stop thinking about what that person's story was, and began to write my ideas.

The story has some strong sections, but this weekend I realized that it captures none of the real terror of that day.  I had just finished reading Don Delillo's book, Falling Man, which did a beautiful job of getting inside the head of two people who escaped from the towers that day.  The image of the Falling Man, a stunt person who reinacted someone falling from the towers, especially sticks with me.  I looked at the Brooklyn Bridge and thought of all those people running horrified away from the island.  Women must have been in heels; people were covered in dust; hearts must have been racing, loved ones in their thoughts.

I know that 9/11 is the defining event of my lifetime.  I hope we never see anything as horrifying as that on our soil, and that we are more compassionate and sensitive to those who live with terror and fear every day for having witnessed the day.

The atmosphere around the reflecting pools is still electric with what happened.  I saw people crying and I know that the emotions were not just felt by those who found names engraved on the stone around the pools.

As a writer, I will draw on my emotions from my visit this weekend and go back to my story and revise.  My character, Annalyn, hasn't been sent to the depths of disappearing yet, and I'm more prepared now to take her there.

The Word of the Month is...

It all started when I picked up the latest issue of  The Sun Magazine.  The Readers Write section was called "Good Advice."  It was a longer than usual section; everyone wanted to tell their experience with following or rejecting advice.

Then a family member called.  "I need to talk about something.  I don't want any advice.  I just want you to listen."

Day before yesterday I met with some people about how to raise funds for an organization.  "Ask for (and listen to) advice from people who raise and dispense money."

Last night I had dinner with a writer friend.  We both needed advice and took turns asking and giving..

Advice is a tricky thing.  We all want to give it.  A few of us want to get it.  Some of us don't want to get it but do anyway.  And a very few of us, like my family member, know how to let you know they don't want it.

In a very short while I've been told how to listen to advice and use it to my advantage.  I've asked outright for it, been asked to refrain from giving it, refrained from giving it.

Tomorrow I'm going to ask a friend for some more advice, and if anybody asks me for some, I'll be only too happy to give it.  But I'm also going to be more aware that it's not always what someone wants when he or she comes to me with a problem, and I'll try to listen with my heart open, keeping my good advice to myself!

Remember

In so many ways, this past weekend was about remembering.

 On Friday, we went down to Father and Son, a wonderful, dusty and musty second-hand store on Hargett Street. They had a basket of old black and white photographs and I went through and picked out a few. I have an idea about what to do with them; it has to do with the fact that nobody remembers the people in the pictures. Roaming around in the back, I put these two things together and made a photograph that cracks me up.

On Friday night and Saturday, we attended wedding festivities for a family who lived next door to us. The bride was born after we had been neighbors for a few years, and I remember the Christmas that she came. She married a boy from my home town, a really fine family. I remember when we were all in high school together, younger than the bride and groom.

On Monday we went downtown to the Memorial Day services at the Capitol. There were many Korean War and Vietnam War vets, and some who looked young enough to have served in the current conflicts. I didn't see anyone I thought to be in their late eighties or nineties from World War II. I walked up to many of them and asked about their service to our country. Every one of them got teary. We owe these men so much and understand so little about what they endured. A replica section of the Vietnam Memorial was there, the names tiny and way too numerous.  After the downtown service, we rode over to Oakwood Cemetery where there was to be a Vietnam War memorial service. I took this photograph there.

It was a varied and important weekend, shaped by things that happened in the past and made the present richer and more meaningful.

Standing Still

I'm not a regular meditator, but I've done it quite a bit. And I've blogged before about how holding my body still for a short period of time is helpful for me. I find now that I call on that stillness more often.

I'll walk into my work space, a thousand things on my mind--stories, cards, photographs, laundry, phone calls. I have music playing in that room all the time, and I'll stop and listen to a song. I'll feel the emotions that the song evokes--nostalgia, joy, longing, loneliness, contentment.

When I have something to write, a story or an essay, I pause for a few minutes and I find I write much clearer and quickly.

 In the middle of an argument, I stop talking and steady my thoughts.  Things don't escalate as often.

I'm a fidget by nature, a brain-racing multi-tasker,a cooker-upper of ideas and plans. This new ability, to pause my physical actions, rest and listen, to cool down on short notice, is a habit I'm glad to have developed.

Do you meditate? If so, how has it changed you?

What really happened

“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” ~ John Lennon

We have spent the last two months burning up the highway to a place called Vandemere. We have been inside and out of a house there. We've been thinking about buying the house and moving there permanently. The property is beautiful. The house was built by the present owner - "Two nails in the whole house," he said - and is welcoming and perfectly sited on the eleven acres. A photographer's dream, his creek a portal to the inner banks.

My mind churned non-stop with the possibilities: writing workshops, photography classes, music festivals, weekends with the house full of friends and family and fellow learners. Gardening, exploring the waterways, pets and chickens. Self-sufficiency with a little belt-tightening. Family holidays with grandkids running the property and swimming from the pier. A legacy home place for our children.

I began organizing and cleaning out my house. Not packing exactly, but thinking in terms of what we would need if we moved there. Games, books, videos. The furniture that would look good in this room or that. I put all my photographs and the children's papers and family memorabilia in containers for storage (the area is prone to flooding). I dreamed some more.

And then, and then, we decided the time wasn't right for this kind of bold move. We need to stay where we are for a while longer.

I won't say I haven't mourned the decision. But a strange thing happened in the midst of the mourning: I realized that all the things I thought of doing there I can do right where I am. Although I won't wake up and walk out the pier with my coffee, I can sit on my deck, private with lush greenery, and listen to the morning chatter of the birds. I can open my windows at night and hear the toads' chorus. I can have workshops and house concerts, rooms full of friends and family. Our garden is in and coming up beautifully.

I realize that my dreams cannot be contained by a place. I still might want to move to Vandemere some day, or some place like it, but I'm going to keep on living right where I am for now. Stay tuned...you know you'll be a part of my next adventures!

Home

The church service this week brought me back to my first visit. The music, the talk about forgiveness, the way I teared up, the feeling of being surrounded by love. I thought, "I am at home." I started thinking about home, all the homes I've lived in. Now we live in a house that has grown with us. It started out as a three-bedroom house, our first purchase. We've added on a couple of times as needed, and it has morphed into a sprawling house with a modern feel. We raised our three daughters here, and it is full of their notes and pictures, artwork, old clothes. It holds all the memories of their childhood.

When I was a freshman in college, my family left my childhood home and moved to another neighborhood. Although I never actually lived in this house, for years it held the promise of "home" in the sense that it was where we gathered on special occasions and holidays. My father lived there for over forty years. Although it no longer holds any remnants of our time there, I can still picture each room: the wall of books, the kitchen with my mother's needlepoint, my father's room with the stacks of CDs and his reading pile, the bedrooms my children piled into with their cousins, the dining room table filled with relatives always welcome to our large gatherings.

Most of my childhood was spent in this house, this split level that was the epitome of the post-war housing boom. Our basement with its fireplace where we huddled when the power went out and where I got my first kiss. The cramped bedrooms where we waited for our "roommate" to spend the night out so we could have a friend in. The back yard where we staged plays and played canasta and ball. This house was only part of the setting for those years though. The woods, the streets, the creek, the shopping center and schools within walking distance, our church at the end of the street. The place of tragedy: a neighbor's child run over by a truck, a mother with breast cancer, divorces. Home was chaotic with five children, but it represented a place to come to at the end of the day.

I couldn't find a picture of the house I lived in until I was seven, but I remember the porch where we drew with crayons, the black and white television, the pony that came around the neighborhood, first homework, learning to ride my bike and coming home with my face skinned up from falling. I remember Eddie, a boy I had a crush on. This photograph was taken after my next-to-the-last sister was born. Soon my mother was pregnant again and we moved to the split level.

I was born in a house on Shady Lawn Drive, pre-war construction. I found this photograph of me and my father, taken at that house. It speaks of love.

During the time I was day-dreaming of home, the choir sang a song entitled, "Grace," a contemporary version of the song "Amazing Grace." I was amazed to hear the words, "I shall go home" in their four-part harmony. I carried the thought of going home out the door, driving toward my house where I store all the memories of my past.

Greensboro NC to Greensboro GA

This weekend I went to Greensboro GA with four of my friends from Greensboro NC.  To look at the picture of the five of us, taken by a kind boater, you would probably see five sixty-year-old women.  But when I see the picture, I picture us when we were younger, forming ourselves, being formed by our parents and our experiences.

Out of ten parents, only one of us has a parent left.  One girl is divorced.  One girl is divorced and remarried.  We have children and grandchildren.  None of us has settled far from home; all live in the southeast.  Some have been hit by tragedy.  In short, a typical group of women.

We have so many memories of our time together.  I've known one of the girls since the fourth grade, the others since junior high.  When we gather for these brief weekends, there doesn't seem to be enough time to remember it all; we skim the surface of some of our past while digging deeply into other parts.  We feel free to reveal the truths of our home lives now that our parents are gone.  We don't have to keep secrets any more.  It's freeing!  It's healing.  It is safe and enveloping.

It's morbid, I know, but I've lost a couple of friends in the past year or so, and I can't help thinking that one year we'll get together and one of us will be missing.  I stare into each face on the porch in Greensboro GA, seeing the girl I knew in Greensboro NC, and can't bear to think of it.  Before we say good night on our last night together, we talk about next year, where we'll go, who to invite into our circle of friends from the past, making a future with all of us in it so we don't say 'good-bye,' just 'see you next year.'

Poem for a Cloudy Day

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips,
and the nodding morning glories,
















and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety



















best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness.

--Mary Oliver

(Thanks to Caroline, for sharing this beautiful poem.)