Life & Death

Today,
to mark the third anniversary
of my dad's passing,
I held a
four-day-old baby
against my chest
for an hour,
his tiny heart beating
against mine.
It gave me
hope.

> ding <

Fresh Water from Old Wells. The title of my book-to-be. I've been thinking a lot about that title lately, bustin' it wi-i-i-ide open. I thought I knew what the fresh water and the old wells were, so I set out to figure out how I could fit them together. As I started trying to fit them, I realized that I actually didn't know exactly what they were. Time to back up.

I was pretty sure I knew what the old wells were. My roots. Where I came from. My parents and grandparents. Where our family lived. All that stuff. So I needed to figure out about the fresh water.

Fresh water, fresh water. I've been going on the assumption that it's me--me in the present, what I'm learning, the now. But as I explored this over the last few days, it became clear that fresh water is, to me, something much more specific. I came across a quote from my blog last April, and realized I'd known what fresh water was all along:

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.

For me, fresh water is and has always been forgiveness. Ahh--that quiet ping of recognizing something that I've known all along. That's when I know it's real. I printed it out and stuck it on the wall above my new fountain.

Okay, so fresh water is understanding and forgiveness. Then what are the old wells? Time to rethink that, too. This morning I got up and knew I needed to go for a walk. In fact, I knew exactly where I needed to go, through a nearby neighborhood to a high hill overlooking my little valley. It's rare that my walks have that clear a destination, so I figured I'd better head that way.

Along the way there were several points when I nearly veered off in a different direction.

It's cold. I could go up that way, and be home for breakfast sooner.
Nope--gotta go where I'm headed.
I could head straight down that way, and see cows and fields.
Nope--gotta go where I'm headed.

Here's the amazing part: when I got to the top of that neighborhood, set my foot at the top of the hill, an idea popped into my head, lightbulb-style.

The old wells are the stories.

There it was. Not the past, not the people, not the places. The stories. I sat down to think. If the old wells are the stories that I've been collecting from all these amazing people across the South, then the fresh water truly is my new perspective on all of it. Forgiveness. Cool water running lightly across my fingers.

As the pieces settled into place, a gentle breeze stirred the windchimes to life on a porch nearby.

Ding, ding. Right answer.

Somebody's got a sense of humor.

WATERMELON!

At the end of my recent crisis, I recognized that I would truly be heartbroken if I give up on my dream now. So I built a little fountain for my study, with special lake rocks and a slender candle, and recommitted myself to the effort.

Yesterday I opened myself up to the whatever’s next that’s out there, brainstormed a little, watched my burbling fountain. Eventually it became clear that the only thing to do was get out in the woods with the dog. So I did.

I drove on the parkway for a little bit and found a pull-off where I could get on a familiar trail. Zip up the coat, dog out of the car . . . I was only about ten steps into the woods when I heard my dad’s voice in my head as clearly as if he were on the path right behind me.

I hope you’re ready, ‘cause this thing’s fixing to BUST WI-I-I-I-DE OPEN. Like a big ole ripe watermelon on the concrete. There’s gon’ be seeds and juice EVERYWHERE!

I wasn’t afraid—his voice sounded like he’s as excited about it as I am. And he’s rooting for me.

I’m not sure what it means yet, but I’ve got my pen out. I’m ready.

And I do love watermelon.

Taking it all for granite

My daughter Katie loves rocks. Always has. Show her a gravel driveway and she’s happy for hours—discovering, examining, imagining. To me, an expanse of gravel. To Katie, ROCKS!

One of her favorite Christmas presents was a collection of rocks from all over the world. It’s a clear plastic box with fifteen little compartments, each holding two versions of the same rock—one polished, one not. A nascar driver and an opera singer in each little pocket. What a concept.

Given Katie’s geologic tendencies, when our family went to Atlanta for a January getaway last weekend, it made sense for our first stop to be Stone Mountain. I was the only one of us who had ever been there, and hadn’t been back since our family moved to North Carolina when I was ten. I had blurry memories of Stone Mountain—family picnics by the lake, almost-ripe persimmons (yuck!), swimming in the mill pond, resting at the halfway house on the way up the trail, watching a blimp flying overhead on a gray winter’s day, so close I thought I could almost touch it. Happy memories. It’s good to remember that I have them.

When we got there this time it only seemed vaguely familiar. The big carving on the side of the mountain is unforgettable, of course: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis, all on horseback, as tall as a five-story building. An imposing trio. But the amusement park-style development around the base of the mountain is new. None of that was there thirty years ago, and John and I were just as glad that part was closed for the winter. We decided to splurge on tickets to ride the skyway to the top, and then hike the trail down.

After a quick ride up, I emerged from the shiny building to find that the mountain top was just as I remembered it. A huge expanse of curved granite with all the busy-ness of metropolitan Atlanta spread on all sides below. It took my breath.

As I stood taking it all in, my eye wandered to three men dressed in burgundy robes and sneakers. The older of the three was engaged in a halting conversation with a young woman wearing a sari with a baby in her arms—they clearly didn’t know each other. I drew closer and they welcomed me with smiles, so I perched on a ledge and listened. He was a Tibetan monk, an abbot, in fact, and she was asking about his religion, why he seemed so happy, his opinion about why most people are angry (“including me!” she said. “Especially in the morning,” her husband chimed in), and how she could be more like him, more serene in the midst of the ups and downs of her chaotic family.

As I sat and listened, looking out from that amazing mountaintop, I thought, no matter how humans may deface mountainsides and build tacky things, there will always be sacred places in the world that transcend all of it. If you pay attention, in the midst of the metropolis, the sacred places are still there. Thirty years later. Thousands of years later. Still there.

My life has felt out of whack lately. I nearly gave up on my dream of writing a book. I’ve been trying to think about priorities and the now clichéd concept of the “big rocks” in my life, the things that matter most.

Maybe I need to focus on the sacred spaces instead. When I stop and listen to the wind, I realize that the big rocks, the things that matter, are the sacred spaces in my life. It’s the sacred spaces that matter most.

But I have to see them as amazing rocks, not just gravel, to realize how sacred they are.

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.