little cat feet

Every day this week I’ve woken up and thought, “this day is significant.” Like it’s an anniversary of something, or somebody’s birthday. But I rack my brain, and I can’t think of anything at all associated with this date. Maybe every day is significant.

Today is significant simply because it’s the day I write about fog. And here I am. It’s foggy this morning, so it’s an appropriate time to write about it. That quiet, dark feeling.

But it’s not any old fog I want to write about—it’s specifically fog on the parkway. And not just any old parkway. The Blue Ridge Parkway.

Usually, when we talk about “being in a fog,” it’s a stagnant place. Lack of forward motion, lack of vision, no clarity, bordering on despair. But fog on the parkway is a very different thing. Hard to see through at times, but exciting.

Here’s how it happens. I start out on a sunny morning, a little ambivalent about my destination, but enjoying the clear fall views out across the layers and layers of ridges. After about 35 minutes, just as I’m beginning to forget to drink it all in—whump—I’m in the fog. It’s not gradual. I don’t see it coming.

Can’t go over it, can’t go under it, can’t go around it. Gotta go through the door.

And then it’s magical in a whole new way. Mysterious. I downshift and take tentative steps forward.

I’m still moving, though, and so is the fog. It slides down the escarpment above me, and caresses the car with its long fingers. It rolls and plays, an otter in the shallows. It kisses the trees and then moves on, while they stretch out in longing, waving it toward the valleys below.

The fog delights in playing with my perspective. It blots out my vision, so that I can only see a few feet of the yellow line, emerging snake-like in front of me, just barely keeping me on the road. A car emerges abruptly, the headlights two blind saucers, and it’s gone.

Then a bubble in the mist—still foggy above me and all around, but the road itself is a tunnel to follow. I can see what lies ahead and behind, but with no periphery whatsoever. Only my imagination and memory let me know what surrounds . . . if I trust them. After all, it could all be different now, couldn’t it?

Abruptly, I’m whisked out of the fog. Azure above, miles of mountains spreading out, my way is clear. It looks like elation.

Fog on the parkway is an apt metaphor for the last two years of my life, as well as my process of writing creatively.

Especially before I decided to write, I said more than once that I felt like I was on the parkway in the fog. Just able to see what was directly in front of me, driving carefully, only able to focus on the immediate present because I had no idea where I was supposed to be going. Some part of me believed that the road kept going up there, and that it was winding around to someplace good, but I had no idea of the destination. Not even enough of an idea to be ambivalent. All I could do was drive, be curious, and try to be patient. The patience thing was tough—it was more like driving through the fog when you have to go to the bathroom really bad, but you don’t want to stop to do it.

And even now that my general way is clear to me (I’m committed to seeing this book through to the end, and I know I’ve got three days a week to do it, more or less) the fog continues to tickle my ear lobes and curl my hair. It’s been clear which story I wanted to start with, but I have no idea what’s beyond it. I need to remember that the mist will reveal it to me when I get there.

The writing process is the same. Keep moving, if blindly. Trust the path. Let the mist play around me, and enjoy it on the days I can. Notice the differences in texture, thickness, awareness. When clarity comes, celebrate! And write it all down before I’m back in the fog.

Fog is water in the air—two elements in one. Transformative. It gets on your skin, and droplets rest lightly in your hair. You breathe it in instead of drinking. It becomes a part of you.

In the fog, scenic overlooks are a joke, an exercise in futility. Fog forces me to follow my wise African friend’s advice—I can only be present in the here and now. The rest is gone. Evaporated in the mist.

Fog is dynamic and alive. To enjoy the fog, rather than just enduring it, you must have comfort with ambiguity. You’ve got to relish the mysteries of life, rather than denying them. You’ve got to be willing to sit down and have a cup of tea with paradox. Pandora’s Box.

You also have to be relaxed in the midst of complete silence (unusual in this noisy world). You’ve got to be an explorer. You must find excitement, rather than simply fear, in the unknown. You’ve got to be willing to learn, especially about yourself, since that’s just about all you can see when you’re in the fog.

Amazing Grace

Great news! In the last throes of packing for the big trip to my brother Josh's wedding on the other coast, my digital camera appeared--and of course it appeared in a place I was certain I had checked several times already. At any rate, there it was. Once lost, now found. I never was blind, but now you can see . . . our trip anyway.

I never have been too certain about what grace is, exactly. I know grace when I see it in movement, but people talk about God's grace, and I feel a little befuddled. But I think maybe I experienced some of it on this trip.

All weddings are historic events in the lives of their main characters, but this one especially. I've told you already the story of Josh, my half-brother, how I met him a few years ago, and fell in love immediately. But the part I didn't really explain was that he has a whole 'nother family on the other coast--parents, brothers, the whole shebang. But never have the two sides come together. Until now. For a brief moment, in the length of time that it takes to say "cheese," there was tuxed-up Josh with all his siblings: his four sisters from the east coast, and his three brothers from the west. All of us. For the first and perhaps the onliest time. What a moment. Josh was clearly delighted, and not a little in awe.

But it might be that grace is sometimes experienced in darker moments as well. An unexpected wedding guest for me was an old, familiar surge of anger, one that I've not felt in quite some time. It came during the reception, after a series of toasts recounting various moments in Josh's life, including some references to his origins and my own dad. Even after all this time, all this work, all this "understanding" that I've been able to gain about my father by traveling through time, it turns out that I'm still mad. People start saying nice things about him, and I just want to get up and set them straight. It's an old, old knee-jerk response, and I wasn't happy to see that it's still in there.

But here's the grace in it (if grace is what you call it): I felt those old feelings, succumbed for a little bit, and then caught myself. "Oh," I said, "I see what's happening here. It's you, my old friend Mr. Anger. Nice of you to stop by, but the truth is, you're not really needed now. Things are fine here." We shook hands, and off he went. I breathed, and it was over. He was gone.

And so is Dad.

But the rest of us are still here, on this coast and that one, getting through our days, doing our best, raising our kids, still learning how to love.

I can't define grace in words, but I think I have a sense of it anyway.

And I'm glad to have my camera back.

Loss

Have I lost it? It's a petite silver digital wonder. To me, at least. In actuality, it was the cheapest digital camera with the features I needed. But it does the trick. When it's not lost. I've been wracking my brain since the weekend, when I noticed it was missing. I wanted to pack it for our trip to the lake in Georgia, our second lake trip this summer, our last hurrah before beginning the school year. We went to the lake without it.

We had a glorious time anyway--full of cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles and innertubes and games and watermelon and fish on the line. Everything the lake has always been, is supposed to be.





(These pictures are from our June trip, but they give you the idea.)



It wasn't all fun, though. There was childhood terror in the midst of a crashing thunderstorm. And tears all around the dock as we shared our memories of Aunt Martha, sent our songs soaring across the lake, and took turns letting handfuls of her ashes sift through our fingers into the deep, green water.

Though Mom came to the lake, she couldn't make it to the evening ceremony on the dock. Once she's had her supper, her lids begin the inevitable downward drift, and there's just no stopping the bedtime train.

Yesterday morning it was time to say goodbye. We skipped the age-old rituals of pre-departure picture-taking (my camera was missing, after all), but swept it all clean before waving our way down the winding gravel. Away.

Our family's car was full of children and dog, so Mom rode with my sister Nancy. When we got home, I called to make sure Mom had gotten home safely, but she was already out in the living room, getting reacquainted with her rest home neighbors. When she called back, she reported to my voice mail that they had gotten back about 3:30 and had a lovely time at the lake--swimming, boating, playing games. She couldn't wait to tell me all about it.

Couldn't wait to tell me all about it. She had already forgotten I was there. I was there.

I've decided not to get too bent out of shape about the camera. I'm guessing it'll turn up. Or, worst case scenario, I'll save my pennies and buy another. Cameras can be replaced.

Mamas, not so much.

Like a weed

My long and lean daughter must be heading into another growth spurt. She's been ravenous lately.

This time of year--getting on towards late summer, school starting in a couple of weeks--gets me thinking about growth. Weeds are beginning to win the battle in my garden. My more green-thumbed friends and family are starting to overflow with produce. The trees are as dark green as they'll get. Undergrowth is lush.

Plant growth is relatively gradual. I can watch my weeds go from pinch-sized to grab-it-and-yank, and it all seems pretty steady. But we humans seems to do it in fits and starts.

I think I've been going through a growth spurt myself lately, although fortunately it's been the visible-only-to-me variety. "Personal growth," as the self-help industry calls it, I suppose. I noticed myself noticing today, caught myself in the act of recognizing my typical reaction to an emotional event, giving that reaction a nod of greeting, and letting it pass on by.

I'm quite sure I won't be able to maintain this zen feeling indefinitely, but I'm appreciating it while it's here. And maybe, just maybe, it'll be a tiny bit easier to get to this place next time around.

Growth. Fits and spurts. And mighty cyclical. Being alive is a fascinating proposition. Especially when you can pay attention.

What's Left

Yesterday we moved Mom to the rest home. It felt more like an installation to me than anything else. So many people to move a small roomful of stuff, sisters cloaking feelings behind masks of efficiency. But the feelings sure leaked out around the edges. My own mask is a lot more transparent than it used to be. Supposedly that's healthy.

At one point I looked at my little stooped mama, never wavering in her decision, resolutely helping to carry way-too-big boxes. I said aloud, "she's so brave," and burst into tears. As I hurried across the porch to recompose my mask, I came to a windchime, hanging limply in the still morning air. No more chimes left--just the gonger in the middle, and wispy strings all around it. Nothing left to make music.

It's time.

The Calendar

The other day, my sister Janet found an old briefcase in the back of her closet. In it was another gold mine: Dad's week-at-a-glance calendars from 1964 to 1972. Tonight I dove in, and saw up close and personal his path from frenetic pastor of a Birmingham Congregational church split down the middle, to Koinonia radical farmer, to Atlanta civil rights worker, to Cabbagetown ambulance attendant, to new age hippy.

In the Birmingham years I found the Selma march, and countless meetings with the minister and members of First Congregational, the black church in Birmingham. I found the frenetic pencilled scribbles of a manic mind trying desperately to hold all the details together in an impossible situation.

And looking through the Koinonia years, I figured this one out: my parents' anniversary is, almost to the day, nine months before the day of my birth. Oh, I got a good chuckle out of that one!

As Dad would say, "Don't that beat all?!"

Generation

My mom made a lot of my clothes, growing up. I remember going with her to the fabric store, running my fingers along the different-textured bolts on the shelf. They were as tall as I was. Flipping through the big pattern books, dragging my mom by the hand to see the bolt of lavender checkered cloth--I couldn't wait for it to take shape into my very own mama-made dress. Made on her slender black Singer sewing machine.

We just don't do that anymore. Moms like me are too busy checking our email, writing our blogs (!), and answering our cell phones. And knitting--after all, we can take that with us. It doesn't tie us down like sewing machines, pin cushions, bobbins, and patterns. With knitting, you can grab it and go. Off and away.

Beside her slender black sewing machine (the one she still uses), Mom had a pink plastic ferris wheel to hold her thread. It had different compartments for the different size spools. Some would stand up straight on posts; others would recline in little spool-shaped beds. I loved to play with that ferris wheel, spinning it as hard as I could, many colors of thread first making a blur, then flying out in all directions. Or sometimes I'd move it slowly, each row of colors making its dignified way to the top, then relinquishing, cycling down, giving up its topmost spot to the next ascending row.

Mom's moving to a rest home in two weeks, and she gave that little ferris wheel to my sister Janet. Janet doesn't sew any more than I do, but that pink plastic gizmo means just as much to her as it does to me, and she'll make sure it doesn't get lost in the shuffle.

One row slowly descends, as the others rise up.

Down, and up. Down, and up.

And my heart cries out.

I'm not ready!

Side Effects

One bummer of aging, according to Mom, is the raft-full of medicines she has to take daily. Of course, compared to most people her age, Mom’s got it easy, but she still hates it. The side effect she hates most is the cost. But though she tries to buck it sometimes (“I don’t have asthma anymore!” “That’s because of the medicine, Mom.” “Well, I don’t believe you, but I’ll take it if it makes you happy.”), the benefits for her far outweigh the costs, including the financial ones.

My book journey has had some side effects as well, mostly positive ones. Getting to know fascinating, legendary people. Unexpected, delightful gifts. The occasional flow of inspiration. So many things. Really, this journey has been almost universally positive and gratifying.

Almost.

Lately I’ve been wrestling with an unintended consequence that’s affecting my entire family.

You see, on my Atlanta foray in May, I found yet another old friend of the family, and reconnected the ribbon of friendship. Long ago, when I was just a saucy toddler with golden curls, this friend of my parents was one I really latched onto. And seeing her again brought it all back—in my childhood mind, she was one I could count on. I think, somewhere deep down there, I’d decided that if it ever got so bad that, well—she’s the one I’d go to. And seeing her again, 35 years later, brought back all those feelings of love and vulnerability. We sat in my cousin’s living room, shared our stories, and cried together. Though she was my mother’s closest friend and confidante when things in our family were at their worst, she never knew the truth. A hard thing to hear from the grown-up toddler, all those years later.

But the fact is, Mom survived it. We all did. And now here we are, with a new challenge to face.

Mom’s dementia is far enough along now that it’s time for a new plan. She’s lived on her own long enough—she’s ready for someone else to do the cooking and cleaning, ready to have people around to visit with, ready to be taken care of. Ready enough to move from her home into an assisted living facility. And hard though it is to accept (after all, she’s had the same phone number since I was 10 years old—funny what becomes important), we’re ready, too. It’s happening in two weeks.

The only person who’s not ready is this long-lost friend in Atlanta. After my visit with her, she came up and visited Mom, and decided she just doesn’t feel right about Mom moving to this place. Not right enough, in fact, that she’s tried to redirect the whole thing. She’s called my sisters and me, trying to talk us out of it. Then she even called Mom, inviting Mom to come to Atlanta and move into her condo.

At that point, it was too much. I was getting frantic—what if she changed Mom’s mind? This is hard enough as it is!

So this morning I called Mom and asked her about it straight-up. “Yeah, she called me,” Mom said, “but I got away from Atlanta 30 years ago—why in the world would I want to go back now?”

She’s clear. She’s ready. And once again, I just need to take a big breath, and let myself have faith in the process. All will be well. Sometimes side effects are just side effects, and they don’t even matter. The key thing is to focus on what does.

High Definition

I went to Birmingham and watched HGTV on HDTV. I had never seen HDTV before, and this was a big ole wiiiide screen. I liked it--the wide screen skews the dimensions a little, especially right in the middle. So all the women choosing their dream homes are shaped kind of like me in the hip department. Every detail crisp and sharp.


The next day we went to Kelly Ingram Park, where the black city kids who believed in freedom faced water cannons, sharp-fanged German shepherds, and a racist police force.

That was the summer my family moved to Birmingham, 43 years ago.




The statues in the park were sharp, real, compelling.






When did we start needing TV to tell us what reality is?

More Ducks

I'm off on another research trip tomorrow, and this time my ducks woke me up. Hopping on my chest--"Cindy," >quack< "get up!" A little beak tickling my ear, whispering, "We've got bushels of stuff to get done!" >quack< "Get moving!" Little webbed feet up and down my arms and legs. After all, this is the fourth research trip in three months. They know the drill.

We'll be heading to Birmingham at 6 a.m. tomorrow, so we can get there in time to visit Dad's former church and see what old records still exist. Hopefully we'll find some insight into his leadership, and what he was up to while he was there. We'll visit with older church members who remember my family, and put up a wind sock and see where the winds blow us.

When I got my eyes open enough to get a good look at my ducks this morning, I noticed that they're looking a little bedraggled. After all, the trip to Cincinnati last weekend was a bit of a strain on them, bless their little hearts. Their wings are drooping a little, feathers not quite as well groomed as usual. Their beady eyes have lost a bit of their dark sparkle. They're tired.

I think they need to just float. Dive and splash. Use that oil at the base of their tails to protect all those beautiful feathers. Let the water roll off. Enjoy the sunshine. Take a break and just be ducks.

This may be the last trip for a while.

My Friend Sam

I've been actively dreading this weekend, the trip to Cincinnati for my aunt Martha's funeral. But this morning, my friend Sam gave me a gift that will help ease the way. I can keep it in my pocket like a cool, smooth stone. It will give me comfort.

Sam Oni is a famous name in our family--he's the man who came from Ghana to attend Mercer University. His was the first dark face to be anything other than hired help on that campus, when he came as a student in September of 1963. He was also the first black person to join a white Baptist church in the state of Georgia, when he stood before my grandfather's congregation a few days later, and was voted in by a slim majority. It was, as he said to me when we sat together in his living room, a "faith-shattering experience."

I never knew Sam until I went to Georgia last month. None of us did. He continued going to Vineville Baptist Church for a year or more when he was in college, but never felt accepted. After the racial epithets were hurled towards where he stood at the front of the church the day he joined, he always felt self-conscious, looked-at. As he said, "the climate was not exactly conducive for reflection, for meditation, for just being in the presence of God." If he happened to arrive at church early and sit in an empty pew, no one else would sit there. No one in the church reached out to him, invited him for Sunday dinner, asked him about his family or his studies at school. He never experienced the legendary "southern hospitality" that he felt he so richly deserved. Where was the warm welcome for this young man who had traveled across the world, the fruit of the Baptists' own labor in the missions field? He never felt it, so he got out of Georgia as soon as he could. He landed in Berkeley, California in the late 60's. Graduate school, flower children, the Black Panthers, accepted at last. It was the beginning of a love affair with a city as far from Georgia as Sam could get.

I did finally get to meet Sam, though. I spent two amazing hours hearing his stories. What a gift!

The thing that first struck me when I walked into Sam's apartment was the picture directly across from the door. It was a picture of a stained glass window in Tattnall Square Church, the Baptist church on the edge of the Mercer Campus. I recognized the picture because it hangs on my mother's wall as well. I remembered hearing that Sam had been thrown out of that church or something, and it struck me as ironic to see it as I walked in the door. While I was there, he told me the whole story: the visit from the Tattnall Square minister the first week, who made a personal visit to Sam's dorm room to let him know that he would not be welcome at Tattnall Square. Three years later, when Sam decided to visit Tattnall Square and the ushers physically blocked him from entering the sanctuary. His visit the following week, when they actually closed and locked the front doors so that he couldn't get in. Why would this, of all things, be the picture to greet me as I entered his home?

This morning, when I finally finished transcribing the tape of our time together, I got to hear the answer in Sam's beautiful, lilting voice all over again:

Now, for me, Cindy, I don’t know about you, but forgiveness is so therapeutic. It heals the forgiver as well as the forgiven. Let me labor the obvious. Whether you realize it or not, the only time that we live is really and truly the here and now. So people can latch onto incidents of the past, and let that affect them whichever way, and in fact maybe even retard their growth and progress. Or be obsessed with the future, and be made insecure by it. But really and truly, the time one lives, is here and now.

And that is my gift from Sam, the one that will soothe my heart and spirits as I drive in a family-filled car to Cincinnati, as we sort through Martha's belongings, as we grieve together.

Really and truly, the time one lives, is here and now. That I can do.

Slides

I spent the past long weekend at The Lake, a tiny place in north Georgia that has meant the world to our family for over 60 years.

We still stay in my grandparents' cabin when we go, though now it belongs to my Uncle Buddy and has had several improvements since its days as a one-room cabin. It was mighty sweet back then, though, and full to bursting with love and my grandmama's spunk.

The cabin wasn't quite so full of family this trip--just the four of us for a good chunk of the time. And I had some time to go through the keepsakes still in Grandmama's chest of drawers. Her college scrapbook from the twenties is there, along with her wedding dress, her oldest daughter Sunny's baby books, and a picture of the flower-piled cemetery the day after little Sunny died. I've been to that cemetery now, so I recognize it when I see it.

It's different being there now--I have a new lens for looking closely. I know more, understand more, ask different questions, feel through it in a different way.

This time, I even went through the drawer of Granddaddy's slides. The phrase "gold mine" is trite and over-used, but it fits. When you first open the drawer, you notice that it's tumbled-up and disorganized, though most all the slides are in boxes. Some are labeled correctly, some are mislabeled, and many have no notations at all. So when you pull out a box and start popping slides in the viewer, there's no telling what you'll find.

But, oh, goodness, once you really dig in, the life that streams out of that drawer!

Granddaddy loved photography--he had lots of equipment, and even developed his own pictures (though not the slides, of course). And looking at the slides, just me and that lit-up 2x2 square of color, is about the closest I can come to being inside his head, seeing what he saw. Loving what he loved.

There are photos from their travels all around the world: Cuba, Panama, Chile, Ecuador, Rome, France, Luxembourg, Scotland, England, California, New York City, Mt. Ranier, The Lake. And there are pictures of people, mostly family. Us. Some posed, some not. Pictures of us swimming, playing, concentrating, eating, talking, smiling at him. Loving him back.

And he's in a lot of the pictures, too. I have lots of memories of waiting, posing while he got it all set up, then all of us counting together, eager with anticipation as he ran around and joined us just in time for the shutter to capture the moment with him in it.

But there's one roll of pictures that's completely different. No people, no exotic places. Just the lake, the changing fall trees, their house in Macon. A few simple images. It's from October of 1977, just three months before Granddaddy died of cancer. He knew he was going, and through the lens of his camera, he said goodbye.

Goodbye again, my granddaddy.

A POSTSCRIPT . . .
After writing this piece this morning at the lake, I came home and learned that my Aunt Martha, my mom's younger sister, had drifted peacefully away in her sleep in the wee hours at the hospice facility in Cincinnati.

Safe travels, Martha. We all love you dearly.

two part harmony

My little outdoor adventure this morning was carefully planned, my weekly ritual to keep the tanks full for my journey. I had already decided what I wanted to do. I got some work done before I headed out so that I could let go and enjoy it. I carefully chose the right clothes to wear, and set out.

I didn't exactly know where I was going, though--I had heard there was a labyrinth nearby, and I had a general sense of its location. I took the scenic route getting there, and then wandered around until I found it. I walked the labyrinth's circular path, one bare foot in front of the other, slowly along the hot, edgy gravel. I felt the sun on one side, the breeze on the other. Smelled the honeysuckle. Enjoyed the sparkly mica in the stones along the path. Paused. Took my time.

After my second time through, I felt finished, but not.

So I set out on the spontaneous, entirely unplanned part of my morning's adventure. With my shoes back on, I strode along a linear, well-worn, familiar path along the river. I knew exactly where I was going, and what I would do when I got there. I arrived, did it, turned around, and walked purposefully back to the car. Completely satisfied.

Not entirely sure of the lesson in it, but I think there was one.

Sure was a nice morning.

Fair to Middlin'

My mom was 35 when I was born. And up until just a few years ago, I always thought of her as "middle-aged." What did that mean? Hell, I don't know. I never really defined it for myself. I guess it meant she had wrinkled hands with lots of strength still in them, along with the faint scent of whatever fresh vegetables she had just chopped for supper. It meant she had dark curls with just a subtle touch of gray. It meant she had a depth of wisdom with a youthful twinkle. It was just who she was. My mama. Solid. Middle-aged.

Today I turned 40 and my oh-so-darling son informed me that I'm middle-aged. What?! ME?! I've been happily telling everyone that I've decided to opt out of the mid-life crisis, preferring instead the notion of the "mid-life renaissance." That feels fine. But middle-aged? That's a whole 'nother kettle of fish! Hold on! I'm not ready!

But here I am, 40 years old, with my 75-year-old mother fading away. Not dying, but decidedly fading. As I do the math, that puts me pretty squarely in the middle.

Half over? Half to go? Half empty? Half full? Here's what I know: no visible gray in these curls. Only the faint beginnings of wrinkles on my busy hands. Still celebrate summer by jumping off a high rock into the take-your-breath icy creek. Head over heels in love, quick on the uptake, and eager for adventure.

Aaah--math is over-rated. Life is good.

A Place

The scary times didn't really take hold until we left Cabbagetown to move to Cambridge Square, our apartments on the outskirts of Atlanta (did I tell you we moved 6 times in my first 6 years?). By that time, Linda was pretty well grown and gone, and Nancy was hard on her heels.

They experienced mostly just the beginnings of Dad's craziness, but in some ways more directly than Janet and I did. His charisma captivated them at times--they flirted with following in his footsteps, dropping out, hitchhiking with him across the country and out into the ether. They each had their backpacks ready to go a time or two, I think, but somehow they managed to hear the voice of their own good sense and head back in the door just in time. Me, I was too young, and then I'd seen too much. There was no way. And he knew it.

Even though we shared walls with our neighbors, Cambridge Square is where the raging reached full pitch. Cursing, busted lips, broken furniture. We lived there, off and on, from the time I was 4 until I was 10. Not a place I've every really wanted to revisit.

But I did. It was the first stop on my trip back in time a couple of weeks ago, my Georgia Tour 2006.

As I pulled into the parking space in front of our first apartment there, I noticed flowers ebulliently blooming across the street. Things grow here. Someone opened an upstairs window, and I could hear the sound of vacuuming. People do normal household chores here. A man in a suit walked up the sidewalk and let himself into our apartment--his apartment--with a key. People go out and come back home again. They have jobs. I smelled the savory smells of Asian food cooking. People cook, and eat. They enjoy the flavors. I saw a bird's nest tucked under a balcony. New life.

And as I walked around the to the back, down the street, and in and around our second apartment, one phrase kept repeating itself in my head.

It's just a place. It's just a place. It can't hurt me. It's just a place.

And THAT--that simple, commonsense notion--was a huge revelation. It's really just a place.

thoughts while transcribing

Many of Dad's closest friends heard his intense ideas as rarified idealism. Especially his younger friends listened raptly, so admiring his strong beliefs and his fervent need to do the right thing in the world. Our family friend Betty described for me what it was like when we lived in Cabbagetown, when Dad would ride all day on the Atlanta ambulance with Betty's then-husband Dave, and then come home at night to go to organizing meetings or take all of us to parties 'round the campfire, where his four daughters would shine like jewels, and he could go on for hours about all the wrongs in the world and how we might right them.

Here's how Betty describes him:

Your dad wanted things to be squared and right in the world. And I think it was always on his mind, whether it was people who were poor, or the racial thing, or whatever. And I think it was hard—it was hard to find a place to plant your feet and take hold because things were never as good as they should have been, no matter what, or who was trying to do it. You would’ve had to pick something and stay in for the long haul. ["Not Dad's forte," I interject.] It was a search for something that would finally meet the requirements. I always saw him as being very idealistic and not wanting to hurt the earth, not wanting to hurt anyone, not wanting to . . . it was almost like he had to disappear or evaporate so that his own presence wouldn’t take up too much space.

Starting out on this journey--talking to old friends, diving into the past--I've been in the habit of still seeing Dad through an old lens: he was selfish, thinking only of himself, exposing us to his rage, and then leaving us behind to pick up the pieces. But he always saw himself as truly trying to do the right thing in the world, in a way that no one else had the guts to do. And other people believed it.

I've always known he had followers, people who swallowed the whole thing, hook, line, and sinker. And that's how I've thought about those people. Couldn't they see through him?

But now I'm beginning to see glimpses of what they saw, in those places, in that turbulent time. They saw a man who had ideals and wanted to see them become real. They saw a man who had great energy and potential. And then somehow it all just went too far.

It's amazing how much space you can still take up when you just evaporate.

Especially if you're somebody's daddy.

True Grits

I had another bad dream in the early light of this morning.

In my dream, the love of my life had betrayed me. But that wasn't the nightmare part. It was the rage. My rage. When I figured out that he'd lied, and other close friends had been in on the deceit, it was like I was possessed. I screamed, I threw things, I broke dishes. People around me tried everything to calm me down, with no results. I was beyond reason, far away from the here and now. I was my father. And it completely freaked me out.

The dream was so vivid that when I woke up, I didn't get that blessed relief feeling--I couldn't shake it. My worst nightmare, so real. So I did what you're supposed to do in times like these: I went outside, with my dog, and watched her be a dog. A dawg. I threw, she retrieved. In the pond, over and over and over. A dog doing what she was put here to do, what she loves more than anything, what she truly can't resist. Throw it, jump in, swim, bring it back. Throw it, jump in, swim, bring it back. A cycle of instincts. A cycle of doing what feels right. Letting it flow. Letting it go. Eagerness, excitement, joy. Water droplets everywhere.

I've been so bound-up lately. Trying ineffectively to keep up with all the end-of-the-schoolyear details, help support my mom, manage the still-overwhelming crush of feelings from my trip back in time. I just get tighter, tighter, tighter. What I need to do is remember what I was put on this earth to do: sit on the porch, drink a tall glass of iced tea, and tell a darned good story. I'm a southerner. It's what we do.

I always swore I'd never own a dog. Now I truly don't know what I'd do without her.

Crock Pot

I so want to write about all my adventures, but the time just isn't right.

Somehow, when I have such intense experiences, they have to stew a good long while before they organize themselves into stories. I have images and STRONG feelings, but the rush of the good story hasn't come yet.

Stick around. If all goes well, it should be worth the wait.

Unpacking

It's been three days since I got home, and I'm still unpacking. No, I don't mean my suitcase--it's still sitting in the corner, basically untouched. It's the experiences I'm still sorting through, holding each one up to the light, and looking at it from every side: Wow. What really happened here? Did I really do all this in 3½ days?

Looking at the pictures over and over again. Talking through the stories. Remembering. Refeeling. Wow.

I went to places I had sworn I'd never go back to, places I couldn't find, and places that have mostly existed only in our family legends. I followed maps. I followed directions we had pieced together based on looking at Google Earth--a combination of decades-old memories and photos from space. And occasionally, I even followed my instincts. I'm learning to feel the pull, let myself be led by the flow. Not bad for an old control freak like myself.

I drove a lot. And cried a lot.

So many stories to tell.

Solo Flight

Tomorrow morning I set out on my next Big Adventure. I'm going to Atlanta to visit old friends, old haunts. The car is packed, the route is planned, I'm ready to go. My ducks are much more cooperative these days. More sure of their places, perhaps.

I haven't been back to visit since we left, though I've passed the exits and felt a sense of "no way would I go THERE again." But now I feel a protective cloak of detachment, thanks to my book. I'm sure there will be something unexpected, something difficult. But I have a sense of Boldly Going, and it excites me.

This is the trip I've been putting off--the others were more about Research, places I'd never been or didn't remember. This time I'm travelling back into the recesses of my own mind. Ever since I knew this would be coming, I've imagined that my sister Janet would be with me, being my bird dog, sharing my re-experiences as we shared the ones so long ago. But today she called to say that she wouldn't be able to come after all.

I think there's a reason
I'm supposed to do this
alone.

The Name Game

So I'm taking this Sunday School class on Acts. ("Oh, I get it!" I said, "'Acts of the Apostles'--it's just stuff they did!" When you're moving on from illiteracy, the first step is to be unashamed, and celebrate every tidbit of new learning.) And there was this Levite named Joseph, who got renamed Barnabas, which means Son of Encouragement. Why are people always getting new names in the Bible?

With my hippy upbringing, I've known a long string of people who have clothed themselves in new monikers, and it's always irked me. Mike, who became Uthman, then Uthmichael, then Michael, and finally Dirtyrottenskunk (my mother's name for him) when he broke my sister's heart. David Sunfellow, Yanna, Gita . . . the list goes on. But the best one comes from the time when the bridge was out.

Mom and I came home one afternoon, to find the boat on the other side of the river. We were stranded away from home instead of at home. What to do? We called and called until we were practically hoarse, and finally a strange figure came hurrying down the hill from the house. Who was this guy, who had just helped himself, first to our boat, and then to our home? From across the river, he raised his hand in greeting and yelled, "Giturinon." After exchanging a confused glance, Mom and I both decided that this must be "hello" in his language. Cupping our hands around our mouths, we shouted back: "Giturinon to you, too!"

At that point, he hopped lightly in the boat, and paddled frenetically in our direction. The man didn't even know how to hold a paddle, adding to our impression that he must be from some faraway land.

But no, as it turned out when he finally got across to us, he was merely a friend of Dad's from Virginia Beach. Dad had sent Giturinon our way, assuring him that he'd get a friendly welcome. And good ole Giturinon probably thought he did. But in our private Mama-and-Cindy place, we were happy to send him on his way when the time came. Giturinon, really.

And that's been my take on the whole renaming thing. If I could raise one eyebrow, I would.

Until the day before yesterday, when I had occasion to sign my name in an unusually complete way: Cindy Henry McMahon. The fact is, I was happy to change my own name 14 years ago, when I shucked Cindy Henry to become Cindy McMahon. A chance to leave that old baggage behind at last. Leave all!

But at the end of this journey, when I have an honest-to-goodness book to send out into the world, I've decided that the cover will carry a new name--my whole name. Cindy Henry McMahon. All of me.

Please pass the crow.

Cold Calling II

Tonight I finally got an answer at the number I had been calling to try and reach Collins McGee. He was a friend of our family way back, the black man who got seized by the collar that evening in December of '65 while the congregation at First Baptist of Americus sang "angels we have heard on high." I remember him visiting us in Cabbagetown and calling me The Graham Cracker Kid. My sisters remember him as always fun, a breath of life. We loved him.

I learned tonight, from his wife, that he died ten years ago. A heart attack, and he was only in his 50's.

Goodbye, Collins. We're all sad that we didn't have the chance to get to know you all over again.

Flood

In December of 1976, our family moved from an apartment in Atlanta to an old house across a footbridge in the mountains of NC. The next November, the footbridge washed away.

The morning after the storm, the air was charged with excitement. Mom and I (it was just the two of us then) hurried down the hill to see the river. The river was still roaring, though down from its nighttime peak, and the swinging bridge was swinging indeed, boards and cables hanging loosely. It looked like a teenager with braces who's just been punched in the mouth.

The logical thing for us to do, really, was to lose it. Panic. Here we were, basically stranded. But that's the cool thing about living through all we had. To us, this was pure adventure. After all, Dad had left, so we felt safe for a while. We had wood for the wood stove, we had food in the cupboards, and we could walk to a bridge. In fact, we even had choices--the upstream bridge and the downstream bridge were each just a mile away, so every day we could decide on our route: does today feel like an upriver or downriver kind of day? And then it just got more exciting when some friends loaned us a boat, and we no longer had to carry the groceries and laundry in on our backs. It was like we had our own security system--when the boat was on our side, no one could get to us (good thing, since we never locked our doors, and didn't even have a key).

Truth to tell, I was a little disappointed when the state finally came to fix the bridge. I liked it when it was just Mom and me, two survivors, living on our own little island.

Boy, do I miss her.

Cold Calling

I come from a long line of salesmen. My dad's father was a Dunlop tire salesman. My dad sold Tide detergent before he went to seminary, and won all kinds of top sales awards. Even my Granddaddy Moore majored and worked in business before he entered the ministry. And then, well, there are all those Baptist preachers in my family tree. Some might say that every sermon is a big sales pitch leading up to the "call" at the end. Closing the deal for Jesus.

But me, the most I ever sold was a few candy bars on the bus, raising money for the high school band. They don't call my professional experience "nonprofit management" for nothing. And here I am on my firstever major creative endeavor, faced with the challenge of cold-calling. Hardly what you think of when you picture the Bohemian artist lifestyle.

Big breath, here I go.

The first one on my list is Sam Oni. He's the one from Ghana who joined my grandfather's Macon, Georgia church in 1963 (more of the story). I know he lives in Atlanta and I'm going there next week. Think he'll talk to me?

Fingers on the keypad. I can do this. One ring, two, three--oh good, I'll get the answering machine. Quick, think of what to say. His beautiful, lilting accent the on the answering machine--yes, this must be the right number! "Hi, my name is Cindy McMahon, and my grandfather was Walter Moore, the pastor at Vineville Baptist Church in Macon, and--" >click< a person! "Ohhhhh," he says, after a pause, "you are an answer to prayer."

His response takes my breath away and with it, all of my words.

He was meditating, he explains to me, but when he heard my voice and message, he had to come to the phone. I'm coming to Atlanta? Of course he'd love to talk to me. Just phone again when I get to town, and we'll set it up. "You can't imagine," he tells me, "the joy I am feeling now."

And I'm sure he can't imagine the warmth that spreads all the way down to my fingertips. Funny when a call to a complete stranger provides an immediate reminder of the closely woven strands of humanity.

We are inexplicably inextricable.

The Visitor

Unlike my parents, who gave up everything they owned to belong to Koinonia, I went there to be an observer. A sponge.

I dropped my stuff off at the cheerful yellow house where I'd be spending the night, and hung onto my sense of detachment as Button, my spry and cheerful host, explained that she keeps a gallon of water sitting on the bathtub drain to keep the critters out at night. "Usually just ants," she said, "and a couple of frogs, which is great. I really love the frogs. And then there were the two pit vipers. Don't you worry, though--we disposed of them without killing them." What a relief.

From there, I started my exploration.

I crawled into the archives and mined out all the relevant ore I could find. I stood in the door of Clarence's writing shack--aside from the coat of garish green paint on the outside, it seems relatively untouched since his heart stopped beating there 37 years ago. I breathed in the air off the crop fields--deep south Georgia springtime breaths--as sunset pink faded from the clouds. I stood in the center of the little Koinonia library, imagining Dad poring over the sections that would draw him in: new age stuff, alternative medicine, Hebrew and Greek. I followed a map of the farm, winding my way through the pecan groves to Picnic Hill, where the Jordans' graves are marked by a big sandy stone uncomfortably bearing a formal-looking plaque (at that point I did step out of my observer shoes momentarily, building a small cairn of rock shards on top of the big one. After all, I'm family--you don't visit a grave without leaving a little something behind).

And then, after my early morning walk on Sunday, I stepped into Button's kitchen, and everything changed.

Button was there with two friends, Emory and Nashua, having a cheerful breakfast and discussing an article in the paper about the "new" gospel of Judas. It was obvious that I had stepped into an oft-rehearsed scene. They all had their roles--Button spiritual and optimistic, Nashua dark and brooding, Emory challenging. I brought my simple bread, cheese, and tea, and sat down at the table, intending to listen and enjoy.

And then, from what seemed like out of the blue, Nashua said, "well, the Bible says we're supposed to leave all and follow Jesus." My head whipped around, there was an orange-yellow flash of light behind my eyes, and I snapped into engagement: "What is this, a KOINONIA THING???" Observer no longer.

At that, the words tumbled out of my mouth, and I told my whole story--being born at Koinonia, Dad's activism, his mental illness, my journey. What it feels like to be six years old, and on the other side of "leave all." They listened with wide eyes, and welcomed me to their breakfast table. I had come to the true Koinonia at last.




After my outburst, Nashua expressed his relief to find out who I really was. Before that, he said, I was the "Mystery Woman Who Came to Walk the Land." I liked that image. I thought that's who I was, too. But I guess not.

As I follow my serpentine path, I never seem to know what's around the next curve. But I'm always happy when it's not a pit viper.

LEAVE ALL

It's time to tell the story of LEAVE ALL.

When I went to Greenville a month or so ago to have lunch with my parents' good friend Dave, he told me about one thing in particular that really stuck with me. Stuck with me in the way of sticking in my throat, feeling physically there, like that lump that comes up when I can no longer hide how I really feel.

You see, Dave met our family when I was still a blonde cherub in diapers, and he spent more intense time with Dad than anyone else during that period. He was the driver and Dad was the attendant on an ambulance in downtown Atlanta at the end of the 60's. Lots to see, lots to experience, lots to share with each other.

So what did they talk about, riding around in that ambulance? Here are Dave's words:

Dave: A lot of the theme of what he was talking about, that he kept coming back to, was the notion of leaving all, as a concept, to follow Jesus. We had a lot of serious set-tos about that.
Me: Leaving ALL?
Dave: I think that's what he was trying to thrash out. He was very interested in not being materialistic, and he didn't want to own any more than he had to, to get by with. I can remember saying, "but Al, you've got a family to take care of," and he'd say, "but the Bible says, 'leave all, and follow me.'"
Me: Leave all, including your family, apparently.
Dave: Well, that's where his mind was going, and I couldn't understand that. I never could quite get an emotional understanding of his urge to shuck everything and leave. It seems to me that was an urge from when I first met him--that concept was something he was mulling in his mind.

I came home from Greenville and sat with it. Here was proof that from when I was in diapers, my dad was trying to figure out a way to leave me behind. And then, when I turned 6, he did. For the first time, anyway.

My head knows that it's not about me--he was mentally ill, and desperately seeking to justify his urge to escape the pressures of his life. But my heart just doesn't get it.

Yesterday's Aha

I've been reading through all kinds of old papers, looking for new insights about my dad and grandfather. Buddha said that carrying one's anger is like holding a burning-hot stone in your hand--I'm hoping that new understanding will help me finally trade the hot weight of resentment for the cool water of forgiveness, running lightly across my fingers.

I recently got another gift--letters from me to a friend, who had carefully saved them over the years. When I read through them, I felt the old familiar flush of embarrassment creeping up my neck. This always happens when I read back over things I've written long ago. I begin to judge myself: how could I have been so superficial, or pitiful, or naive, or [fill in the blank with whatever other critical adjective you can come up with]?

It may be that Dad's not the only one I need to forgive. Forgiving myself may be the hardest task of all. And the most important.

Family Tree

Today I walked on a path through the swamp, and found myself thinking of my dad. He lived in the swamp for a little while--'til the rangers found out about it and impounded his tent. I found a note about it that recent rainy day in the shed. The note said he could go get his stuff and wouldn't be in trouble, but I'm pretty sure he never did. Then he'd have to make nice.

There were great trees in the swamp today. Dad often said that some of his best friends were trees. They may have understood him better than the rest of us were able to.

As I walked along the nature trail, admiring the new life of the April trees, I came to this sign:

A Fallen Log
When a tree dies, its role in the forest does
not end. A fallen log is really the forerunner
of future forests. Its rotting wood, through
the work of plants, bacteria, and insects,
enriches the soil so that other plants
may grow.

We do carry on.

Being There

Coming home was delicious, just as I knew it would be. The familiar routines, my own bed, the arms of my beloved family wrapped all around me. Ahhhh.

But you know, it's good to go, too. And not only because then you get to appreciate coming home. I gain new perspectives when I go away. And being there, in the new place, never fails to bring me new insights about whatever's on my mind.

In this case, it was Koinonia. When our family moved away from there I was 9 months old, so I had no memories of it. I needed some, and now I have them. Now I have driven by the Sumter County Hospital and thought, "there's where I drew my first breath." Now I have walked the sand road where my sisters used to walk me, round and round, in the fussy time of day for babies. Now I have explored the pecan groves, and appreciated their special geometry--I love the way the trees are planted, so that you're always looking straight down a row, no matter which way you're heading. Now I've been there.

I went to Koinonia with a certain story in my mind--I've heard different versions of this story, and I wanted to see if I could get more evidence about how it really happened. Here's the short version:

Somewhere around Christmastime in 1965, my granddaddy, Dr. Walter L. Moore, was scheduled to preach to an association of churches in Americus, GA. My parents went to hear him, along with Clarence Jordan, Millard Fuller, and Collins McGee, an African American friend of theirs. Needless to say, this motley crew did not get a friendly welcome, and they ended up leaving the church before Granddaddy even came out on the platform. It was a memorable evening for all of them, and a told-and-retold part of my family's history.

Now the way my mama tells this story, it is both personal and painful. She and her daddy were extremely close, and when she found out (in the newspaper) that he would be preaching, she was excited about the opportunity to go. She was less than thrilled when it turned into a group excursion, because she really didn't want to cause a scene. He was her daddy, and he had been invited as a guest preacher.

Millard, who has told this story in books and countless lectures, tells it a different way. To hear him tell it, Granddaddy came out to Koinonia for lunch that day, and as he was leaving, gave a typical southern "y'all come" invitation to come hear him preach that night. To hear Millard tell it, Mom was out in front of the group, pushing her way in, saying "he's my daddy, and he invited us!"

To hear Millard tell it, it was a Civil Rights Event. To hear Mom, it's the story of a breaking heart, caught in between the father she had admired forever, and the husband to whom she had pledged her life. I went to Koinonia, determined to find out how it actually happened.

I did find out how it happened--Mom's story is borne out by all the different versions of it that appear in the Koinonia archives. But I also learned something much more interesting, and it didn't come from Koinonia at all. It came from inside me. When I was in the space. Just being there.

You see, I went to that church in Americus. I went there for Sunday morning service on Palm Sunday. Arriving by myself, appropriately dressed, I was barely even noticed. I fit right in. I passed. I sat in approximately the same pew were they sat, that Advent evening in 1965. I looked around the big neoclassical sanctuary and thought about what it must've felt like to sit down and have the pews around me empty out simultaneously. When the usher handed me a visitor card with a big smile, I imagined what it would feel like if, instead, he had reached over and grabbed the collar of my friend, threatening to drag him out of the church. I slipped inside my mother's body, 4 months pregnant with little me, and felt her feelings of fear, disappointment, sadness, and humiliation. I understood her turmoil in a whole new way.

I understood it because when I walked into that church, I felt a feeling that I never expected to feel. Comfort. Now that I'm a regular church-goer myself, I understand the comfort of all of the familiar rituals: reading the bulletin, holding the hymnal, sitting in the pew, listening to the choir. My voice blending with all the others in the old familiar hymns. It feels a little like coming home. And how much more so if you know your daddy's going to preach.

Until my family left Birmingham, my mother had gone to church every Sunday of her life, most of them with her daddy in the pulpit. But when they moved to Koinonia, that familiar comfort was jerked roughly away from her. This was her first chance to go to church since then, and she must have leapt at the chance. How much more painful, then, to have it all dissolve before her eyes. I finally understood that it wasn't just embarassment, and worrying about making a scene. It was grief.

I liked being at Koinonia--the people were warm and welcoming, the culture was familiar for a grown-up hippy child like myself, and there was lots for me to soak up. But I was happy to see it recede in the rear view mirror. Happy to come back to the present.

On the Road

My ducks are getting antsy again. It's about time to hit the road. And the day after tomorrow, I will. I'm going to Koinonia Farm to see what I find there, and then to visit my Uncle Buddy (of the high dive fame) in Florida. Southland in the springtime. Open road. I'm looking forward to it.

My dad felt the call of the open road on a regular basis. He hitchhiked from one end of the country to the other, and had plenty of interesting stories to tell, most of them too interesting to be true. Canada, Key West, California, and everyplace in between. We often had no idea where he was.

Our family traveled a lot when he was with us, too, usually camping or visiting friends along the way. We never had any money, but that didn't keep us at home.

Dad was always the one to pack the car. When we lived in an apartment on the edge of Atlanta, he'd spread all our stuff out in the parking lot before a trip--all of it out there for the world to see--and then pack it meticulously away in the back of the station wagon, leaving only a little squirrel hole in the very-back for my sleeping bag, a good book, and me. If only he could have organized his own mind so efficiently, with a comfortable place for me there, too.

I remember heading out on a trip in the still-dark wee hours. Very exciting. I loved it.

And then off we'd go, hours and hours in the car to wherever. No DVD's or seatbelts then. Instead, we counted squiggly line signs, climbed over the seats, followed the alphabet on the billboards, and sang our hearts out. Go to sleep, you weary hobo . . . I ain't gonna study war no more, ain't gonna study war no more, ain't gonna study war no more, no more, no more . . .

and the one that always made me think of Dad:

If you see me passin' by,
And you sit and you wonder why,
And you wish that you were a rambler too,
Nail your shoes to the kitchen floor,
Lace them up and bar the door,
Thank your stars for the roof that's over you.

It made me want to climb in his lap while he drove and watch the line in the middle of the road disappear under the car. So I did. There were good moments, and I relished them.

Now that I'm grown with my own family, we've brought some of those good moments into our family travels as well. Not the part about sitting on Dad's lap in the driver's seat, mind you. But we still play the alphabet game, and we still sing our hearts out. Now I'm the one who takes pride in packing the back of the van like a ship. And the redheads love the excitement of setting out on an adventure in the still-dark wee hours. Buckle up!

I used to be afraid that I would become the main character in the film Chocolat. The wind would shift and I would feel an irresistable urge to leave it all behind. Fly like a bird to the mountain.

But as much as I love these solo adventures to immerse myself in this exciting project, coming home is the best part.

What the Ogre Knows

As I do this research, learning more and more about my loved ones and myself, I do continue to feel like I'm peeling back the layers of an onion. What really happened, and why. The different selves that each of us showed to ourselves, each other, our closest friends, the outside world.

On Sunday I interviewed my best girlfriend from high school, who happened to be a grown, married man with children, even back then. But he knew me like a best girlfriend. I recently recognized that I'd been asking all these questions about my dad and my grandfather, but this book is supposed to be about me, too, so maybe it was time to get another perspective on the third character as well. Me.

Before we got to me, my friend told me about the day he met my mother. He prefaced the story by telling me what a poor first impression judge he is, and how he always has to go back and reexamine his first impressions. In this case, he said, he couldn't have been further from the truth. And then he told me,

When I met your mother, I thought it was all an act--the whole sweet Georgia girl thing--the accent, the unbelievable cheerfulness, the incredible optimism about absolutely everything, it was really . . . don’t ask me why, I’m just telling you I’m very bad at first impressions.

It was 1977. My parents were still married. I'm wondering if he's as bad at first impressions as he thinks he is.

Layers of the onion.

And then he went on to tell me about me. He talked about the me that he saw, and how different it was from the me that other people complained about. He saw me as funny, analytical, confident. He says my family worried about my "self-esteem problem," and others talked about the "hot-headed redhead," describing me as caustic and angry. One friend confessed to him that she had the most cynical person in Celo looking after her kids. Meaning me.

Layers of the onion.

And what was my perspective? I think I mostly agreed with the majority. I openly said I didn't like myself, and I generally thought of myself as prickly and angry. I did have plenty to be angry about, after all, whether other people knew it or not. And I saw my hard sarcastic shell as my only protection.

So why did my friend see something that no one else saw, not even me? Had I convinced myself that this protective persona was the real me, when my friend saw something else entirely? And had Mom done the same thing, but with a sunny persona instead? What were our real selves? Or are we all just made up of layers? Does the combination of layers, all together, make up the truth?

This I know: when you start peeling the onion, be prepared for the tears.