Tuesday, May 30, 2006

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.

Monday, May 29, 2006

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.

Monday, May 22, 2006

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.

Friday, May 19, 2006

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.


Wednesday, May 17, 2006

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.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

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.

Friday, May 05, 2006

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.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

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.