I had a grand pity party all by myself when I went out to tidy up the RV. I had put it off as long as possible; it had needed doing since January, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. My magic carpet, that had kept me and my Richard safe for all those months after the hurricane wiped our neighborhood off the earth, needed cleaning. I could put it off no longer even though I knew it would spark a storm of emotion in me.
I had purposely peopled our home on wheels with pictures of our life on the lake. As the nieces, nephews and grandchildren, glistening with wet from sweat and swimming, smiled back at me, all I could do was sit and cry. This was the life I had dreamed of; this was my grandma house where we had legions of lizards, spiders, and all manner of squirmy thing carried through and simply laughed about our good luck.
We celebrated everything imaginable in this house on these waters; we also mourned everything imaginable.
These were the deck boards that grandchildren’s little baby feet had blessed as we watched our two naked one year olds in a baby pool full of birdseed. Our first visit from our youngest grandchild happened here, and I‘ve been told that it was also where she was conceived. We lived here when the pregnancy was announced.
This was the flower garden where we practiced my son’s second wedding with our oldest granddaughter as the preacher, while the two that had played naked as babies, giggled through the vows, and the youngest danced down the walkway casting rose petals from our bushes upon the path. We taught our grandchildren how to live off the “land,” bayou style, with our endless rounds of catching crabs off our back door dock. Our oldest learned the hard way by casting herself into the water along with the crab trap.
My family gathered here to celebrate our lives after saying goodbye to our oldest brother and his ashes. This was the home that held my son’s family as they handled the initial shock after the death of his wife’s mother. It was into this house that I entered when Richard was in the throes of the near-fatal heart attack, after which he endured a ten-day coma. These were the windows looking out on the waves that carried my cares away while waiting for word on whether Richard would get a new lease on life that only a new heart could provide.
Not only did I have the memories staring out at me from the photos, I also unearthed remnants of the Holidays in the Holler bacchanal that was our last gathering here. So many memories, so much mourning for a permanence that can never be in this life. Every time I see my loved ones, I’m overcome with gratitude for their being. And every time I say good-bye, I feel like I’ve lost a part of me.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Neighbors and Nesting
We’ve just completed a forty-eight hour period of neighbors and nesting. Some days are so perfect that it’s hard to find anything to say about them. I know that’s a good problem to have, but it sometimes leads to puerile poems rather than pithy prose.
Jack and I were invited to sign and sell Jack’s book at the neighboring hamlet of Hiawassee, the proceeds of which will benefit their community center. I buzzed around meeting talented area artists while Jack showed off his book and the photos of his home and the wildlife surrounding it. Jack’s snapshots of snakes are always a successful draw.
Deborah and Charlie were there with one of their classic cars. Deborah’s presence led to me getting recruited to help at the barbecue pork plate concession. Jack sold, without my help, enough books to make our trip worthwhile, and I got to meet more very talented neighbors.
Returning home from the festival, Charlie and Deborah jumped into their more modern vehicle and transported me and Richard to a multi-ethnic restaurant on the Ocoee River and then to a community theatre where one of their dear friends was appearing in a musical comedy about relationships and religion in the mountains. As usual, Charlie took us on a tour of all the areas we passed on the way there and back. How he’s amassed so much knowledge of the area is beyond me, but there’s no such thing as a boring trip with Charlie. We arrived home way past my bedtime, so I definitely slept in the next morning.
Nesting in preparation for John and Mary’s visit was the order of the day when we finally rose from our slumber. As Jack says, we know it’s time to clean the house when we have to wipe our feet before going outside. This was one of those times.
Jack had given us all the spent stalks from his rows of broccoli plants. He had never heard of eating the stalks without the florettes, but this is our favorite part of this crucifer. Richard spent the day peeling twenty six gallons (two kitchen garbage bags full) of stalks while I continued to de-bulk the dirt that has accumulated in our house. Thank goodness, Mamie called first thing in the morning to invite us over for supper; this gave me an event to look forward to as I chased down the dust bunnies and corralled the cobwebs.
I made the mistake, about two hours before we were due at Mamie’s, of going outside to empty the vacuum cleaner. A cool, dry breeze was gently blowing, and the dappled sun was dancing through the leaves of the trees. I walked down our front steps to pull just one or two weeds from around our beautifully blooming hydrangea bushes. But the hydrangeas were fainting for a drink of water, so this led to another outdoor task. I had to be outside to continue repositioning the water hose, so how could I possibly return to vacuuming?
The vacuum cleaner still awaits my return, but Mamie was thrilled by a bountiful bouquet of multi-hued hydrangeas gracing her supper buffet.
Jack and I were invited to sign and sell Jack’s book at the neighboring hamlet of Hiawassee, the proceeds of which will benefit their community center. I buzzed around meeting talented area artists while Jack showed off his book and the photos of his home and the wildlife surrounding it. Jack’s snapshots of snakes are always a successful draw.
Deborah and Charlie were there with one of their classic cars. Deborah’s presence led to me getting recruited to help at the barbecue pork plate concession. Jack sold, without my help, enough books to make our trip worthwhile, and I got to meet more very talented neighbors.
Returning home from the festival, Charlie and Deborah jumped into their more modern vehicle and transported me and Richard to a multi-ethnic restaurant on the Ocoee River and then to a community theatre where one of their dear friends was appearing in a musical comedy about relationships and religion in the mountains. As usual, Charlie took us on a tour of all the areas we passed on the way there and back. How he’s amassed so much knowledge of the area is beyond me, but there’s no such thing as a boring trip with Charlie. We arrived home way past my bedtime, so I definitely slept in the next morning.
Nesting in preparation for John and Mary’s visit was the order of the day when we finally rose from our slumber. As Jack says, we know it’s time to clean the house when we have to wipe our feet before going outside. This was one of those times.
Jack had given us all the spent stalks from his rows of broccoli plants. He had never heard of eating the stalks without the florettes, but this is our favorite part of this crucifer. Richard spent the day peeling twenty six gallons (two kitchen garbage bags full) of stalks while I continued to de-bulk the dirt that has accumulated in our house. Thank goodness, Mamie called first thing in the morning to invite us over for supper; this gave me an event to look forward to as I chased down the dust bunnies and corralled the cobwebs.
I made the mistake, about two hours before we were due at Mamie’s, of going outside to empty the vacuum cleaner. A cool, dry breeze was gently blowing, and the dappled sun was dancing through the leaves of the trees. I walked down our front steps to pull just one or two weeds from around our beautifully blooming hydrangea bushes. But the hydrangeas were fainting for a drink of water, so this led to another outdoor task. I had to be outside to continue repositioning the water hose, so how could I possibly return to vacuuming?
The vacuum cleaner still awaits my return, but Mamie was thrilled by a bountiful bouquet of multi-hued hydrangeas gracing her supper buffet.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Most Marvelous Marriages
We went to a party honoring Wanda and Ralph’s fifty years of marriage. I remember that it was not so very long ago that, in any couple married fifty years, at least one of the partners (usually the husband) had one foot in the grave. My paternal grandfather barely made it; within a week of their grand celebration, we were mourning the demise of his earthly shell – which, for over a year, was truly a shell of the man he had been. I still believe he hung on just so that Grandma could have her golden moment with her man.
Ralph and Wanda are still as vibrant as two people can be; running circles around us newcomers to mountain life. They exude good humor and a love that can move mountains; I just like basking in their glow. I’ve heard Wanda say that Aunt Mamie taught her how to work, so it’s no wonder she’s still so spirited. She ended our last exercise class with a demonstration of the mountains’ close cousin to Irish step dancing known as clogging. I know that, as a child, Ralph also hung out a lot at Mamie’s. He’s still working part-time at keeping the large retreat center in Coker Creek maintained, as well as being chair person for our Ruritan club’s huge Autumn Gold Festival – this is in addition to recording Wanda’s mountain music for posterity.
Mamie seems to be a big part of the rich soil system of a lot of sturdy family trees, and I know that she still misses her man who left his physical life almost forty years ago. I love to hear the stories of their work and play as a couple -- like when they had to plant their crops by the light of tractor headlamps upon closing their store after nine at night.
Jack tells of how his daddy came over the mountain with the Civilian Conservation Corps and married a gal in Coker Creek. They lived out their lives with no electricity or indoor plumbing, but Jack has such good memories of his parents’ lives that he preserves their lifestyle to this day. Jack’s mother and Mamie’s mom were great friends. He and his brother, Charles, still speak fondly about how they all looked and enjoyed after each other.
We’re expecting John and Mary for an extended visit. This is another couple who seem destined to reach the fifty years of marriage mark. He’s a big bear of a Renaissance man and she’s an opera singer; two more different people you would probably never meet in a marriage, except perhaps in my marriage to Richard. I just love it when Big John does something for his Sweet Mary, and with fluttering eyelids, she trills, “My Hero.”
Maybe what we all need to make marriage work, is to realize that family life is about heroism, humor, and appreciation. Richard and I are relative newcomers to marriage, with only twenty years under the belt of our relationship. We’re fortunate to be surrounded by such a steady group of supporters.
Ralph and Wanda are still as vibrant as two people can be; running circles around us newcomers to mountain life. They exude good humor and a love that can move mountains; I just like basking in their glow. I’ve heard Wanda say that Aunt Mamie taught her how to work, so it’s no wonder she’s still so spirited. She ended our last exercise class with a demonstration of the mountains’ close cousin to Irish step dancing known as clogging. I know that, as a child, Ralph also hung out a lot at Mamie’s. He’s still working part-time at keeping the large retreat center in Coker Creek maintained, as well as being chair person for our Ruritan club’s huge Autumn Gold Festival – this is in addition to recording Wanda’s mountain music for posterity.
Mamie seems to be a big part of the rich soil system of a lot of sturdy family trees, and I know that she still misses her man who left his physical life almost forty years ago. I love to hear the stories of their work and play as a couple -- like when they had to plant their crops by the light of tractor headlamps upon closing their store after nine at night.
Jack tells of how his daddy came over the mountain with the Civilian Conservation Corps and married a gal in Coker Creek. They lived out their lives with no electricity or indoor plumbing, but Jack has such good memories of his parents’ lives that he preserves their lifestyle to this day. Jack’s mother and Mamie’s mom were great friends. He and his brother, Charles, still speak fondly about how they all looked and enjoyed after each other.
We’re expecting John and Mary for an extended visit. This is another couple who seem destined to reach the fifty years of marriage mark. He’s a big bear of a Renaissance man and she’s an opera singer; two more different people you would probably never meet in a marriage, except perhaps in my marriage to Richard. I just love it when Big John does something for his Sweet Mary, and with fluttering eyelids, she trills, “My Hero.”
Maybe what we all need to make marriage work, is to realize that family life is about heroism, humor, and appreciation. Richard and I are relative newcomers to marriage, with only twenty years under the belt of our relationship. We’re fortunate to be surrounded by such a steady group of supporters.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Tree Trimming
I looked out the window and what did I see?
But a utility truck parked under our tree.
They were revving their chain saws and cutting off branches.
I asked myself, “What are the chances
That they’d leave most of our tree if they possibly could?”
If we didn’t love our old trees, we’d sell them for wood.
Our trees give us shade and great privacy;
This is of utmost importance to me.
Our hammock wouldn’t be quite the same
If hung on metal bars with a chain.
To my great relief, there was little taken;
Although, the fuss left me a bit shaken.
But a utility truck parked under our tree.
They were revving their chain saws and cutting off branches.
I asked myself, “What are the chances
That they’d leave most of our tree if they possibly could?”
If we didn’t love our old trees, we’d sell them for wood.
Our trees give us shade and great privacy;
This is of utmost importance to me.
Our hammock wouldn’t be quite the same
If hung on metal bars with a chain.
To my great relief, there was little taken;
Although, the fuss left me a bit shaken.
Friday, June 18, 2010
An Attitude of Gratitude
Who’d have ever thunk it: Richard accepting a social invitation that excluded me? He was so unprepared that he told the caller that he and I had gardening to do this evening. I reminded him that a wise man I know had once admonished me that I should never decline social invitations in order to take care of our home. The wise man (named Richard) said, “We’re not here for the house; the house is here for us.” Ditto that for “our” garden on Mamie’s land.
Richard went fishing with his friend while I went to work. Mamie and I regularly give each other a hard time. She has told me more than once that since I travel without Richard, if she was younger she’d have already stolen my man. Mamie regularly tells people that every time there’s gardening to be done, I send Richard to do it while I disappear to Atlanta, Louisiana, or the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I told her to mark the date on her calendar as the day I came to work the garden while Richard went to play.
My father’s mother was already recruiting us to attend her hundredth birthday bash when she died at the age of ninety-six and a half. I keep reminding Mamie that I expect her to live to see her hundredth birthday so that I can help throw her the party we never got to give our grandma. I tell her that the reason we feed her is to keep her healthy until she reaches the century mark. I even tell her that’s why we’re gardening on her ground.
The truth is that Mamie is a person who, in Richard’s words, “will be pleased.” It’s a delight to hear her talk about the pleasure she gets from her garden. She recently told me that she wouldn’t care if she never got to eat one bite out of the garden we’re growing, she just loves to see it grow. She likes to go out, and lovingly look at it, and comment on how beautiful it is with its nice straight rows -- thanks to Richard’s scientific side. And she’s positively poetic about keeping caught up with the weeding.
More than one plant has had to be moved because I didn’t consult Mamie before planting, but she also freely admits that she’s still learning after over three quarters of a century at this game. Some squashes get too chummy with their neighbors and start inter-breeding, so they have to be separated to succeed. There are plants that have to be planted in certain places to keep them from her chickens and others that need certain soil conditions. And who knew that butternut squash needed twenty-five feet to run around in?
I’ve read a lot of garden lore in books, but unless you talk to the farmer who gardened your land before you did, there’s a lot of trial and error that still has to happen. Mamie may be saving me from some of the trial and error, and she’s a lot more interesting than any gardening book.
Richard went fishing with his friend while I went to work. Mamie and I regularly give each other a hard time. She has told me more than once that since I travel without Richard, if she was younger she’d have already stolen my man. Mamie regularly tells people that every time there’s gardening to be done, I send Richard to do it while I disappear to Atlanta, Louisiana, or the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I told her to mark the date on her calendar as the day I came to work the garden while Richard went to play.
My father’s mother was already recruiting us to attend her hundredth birthday bash when she died at the age of ninety-six and a half. I keep reminding Mamie that I expect her to live to see her hundredth birthday so that I can help throw her the party we never got to give our grandma. I tell her that the reason we feed her is to keep her healthy until she reaches the century mark. I even tell her that’s why we’re gardening on her ground.
The truth is that Mamie is a person who, in Richard’s words, “will be pleased.” It’s a delight to hear her talk about the pleasure she gets from her garden. She recently told me that she wouldn’t care if she never got to eat one bite out of the garden we’re growing, she just loves to see it grow. She likes to go out, and lovingly look at it, and comment on how beautiful it is with its nice straight rows -- thanks to Richard’s scientific side. And she’s positively poetic about keeping caught up with the weeding.
More than one plant has had to be moved because I didn’t consult Mamie before planting, but she also freely admits that she’s still learning after over three quarters of a century at this game. Some squashes get too chummy with their neighbors and start inter-breeding, so they have to be separated to succeed. There are plants that have to be planted in certain places to keep them from her chickens and others that need certain soil conditions. And who knew that butternut squash needed twenty-five feet to run around in?
I’ve read a lot of garden lore in books, but unless you talk to the farmer who gardened your land before you did, there’s a lot of trial and error that still has to happen. Mamie may be saving me from some of the trial and error, and she’s a lot more interesting than any gardening book.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Managing Memories
All change seems to send me into a cycle of grieving; I’m the only person I know who can grieve over a dead tree. Right now, I’m grieving over what I bought to be my lifeline to all of our old world after we lost our home and everything in it to Hurricane Katrina. We lived without a physical address for nine months while I kept current and connected to those people and places we love with my new, first-ever, sleek, silver laptop computer.
That computer has been my almost constant companion into which I’ve poured my soul when no one else could bear to listen. It’s been rattling and wheezing for some time, so I have backed all the information up to an external memory -- much like I’m attempting to have Mamie download her ninety years of memories into my mind.
My silver soul mate is now unable to access any of the stored information. I know I need to find a replacement, but there’s not only the decision of what new machine would best suit my needs; there’s always a learning curve to overcome. I’m just not yet ready to learn the ways of a new partner in prose. What kind of nutbag do you have to be to grieve over a computer?
I think I’ve been sent to Coker Creek to make peace with the cycles of nature: creation, gestation, birth, production, reproduction, decay, dormancy, and rebirth. If there’s one thing that I desperately want to learn from my mountain mama, it’s how to get over grief.
She left her whole family and her home state when she eloped with the love-of-her-life at the ripe old age of fourteen. It was two years and the birth of a grandchild before she dared go back to face her father. She made a lovely life for herself in her husband’s home state, and has many awards to show for the success of her endeavors.
It’s not as if she didn’t have challenges to face; it simply seems that she took each challenge to be another adventure in education. She was the oldest of five daughters; don’t you know how desperately she must have missed her mama and sisters before the days of nearly-free long distance telephone calls? Maybe that’s why she began assisting her new postmaster father-in-law at the local post office; she could get her letters from home as soon as they hit the counter. She and at least one of her sisters still write regularly to one another.
Mamie was showing me some of her citations and happened upon her penmanship primers from when she was ten years old. She said, “I’ve been told that I have nice handwriting. Here’s the books I used to teach myself. They gave them to us at school, and I just took an interest.” Obviously, her interest paid off; Mamie has beautiful penmanship and quite a way with words. Anyone lucky enough to correspond with Mamie is indeed luck enough.
We’ve gotten into the habit of visiting her past for a bit every time I stop in; then she accompanies me to the garden whenever she feels up to the task. There, she shows me how to plant the future in foods and handle a hoe to ensure that the wonderful exceeds the weeds.
That computer has been my almost constant companion into which I’ve poured my soul when no one else could bear to listen. It’s been rattling and wheezing for some time, so I have backed all the information up to an external memory -- much like I’m attempting to have Mamie download her ninety years of memories into my mind.
My silver soul mate is now unable to access any of the stored information. I know I need to find a replacement, but there’s not only the decision of what new machine would best suit my needs; there’s always a learning curve to overcome. I’m just not yet ready to learn the ways of a new partner in prose. What kind of nutbag do you have to be to grieve over a computer?
I think I’ve been sent to Coker Creek to make peace with the cycles of nature: creation, gestation, birth, production, reproduction, decay, dormancy, and rebirth. If there’s one thing that I desperately want to learn from my mountain mama, it’s how to get over grief.
She left her whole family and her home state when she eloped with the love-of-her-life at the ripe old age of fourteen. It was two years and the birth of a grandchild before she dared go back to face her father. She made a lovely life for herself in her husband’s home state, and has many awards to show for the success of her endeavors.
It’s not as if she didn’t have challenges to face; it simply seems that she took each challenge to be another adventure in education. She was the oldest of five daughters; don’t you know how desperately she must have missed her mama and sisters before the days of nearly-free long distance telephone calls? Maybe that’s why she began assisting her new postmaster father-in-law at the local post office; she could get her letters from home as soon as they hit the counter. She and at least one of her sisters still write regularly to one another.
Mamie was showing me some of her citations and happened upon her penmanship primers from when she was ten years old. She said, “I’ve been told that I have nice handwriting. Here’s the books I used to teach myself. They gave them to us at school, and I just took an interest.” Obviously, her interest paid off; Mamie has beautiful penmanship and quite a way with words. Anyone lucky enough to correspond with Mamie is indeed luck enough.
We’ve gotten into the habit of visiting her past for a bit every time I stop in; then she accompanies me to the garden whenever she feels up to the task. There, she shows me how to plant the future in foods and handle a hoe to ensure that the wonderful exceeds the weeds.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Most Amazing Mamie
Mamie is the most amazing worker I’ve ever seen. I went to plant sweet potato sets that she insisted needed immediate attention two days ago. Our weather has been so humid that you could ring sweat out of your ponytail after half an hour outside, but this doesn’t deter Mamie. I couldn’t locate her two days ago because she had gone to Tellico on errands, so by the time I caught up with her yesterday she was raring to go to the garden.
Mamie had said that the carrots, beets and already spouted potato plants could use a bit more mounding of dirt around their foliage.
Before proceeding to plant, I figured that I should mind the maintenance of our other root crops.
As I tended to the rows of carrots and red and white potatoes, she set to killing potato and bean beetles. She loves killing weeds and bugs, which I think is a good way to work through life’s frustrations. If you gotta kill something, a bean beetle is a good place to begin.
Sometimes, Mamie drives down to the garden, but this time she had walked, which meant that she didn’t even have a cup of water with her. She had also neglected to put on her sun hat, but she wouldn’t be convinced to take a break to go get these things. She hoed up one row and down another until she was satisfied that the weeds wouldn’t win the day.
After we finished the upper garden, I set my sights to the lower area which Richard had finished harrowing in preparation for sweet potatoes and a second planting of corn. Next thing I knew, Mamie had been to the house to get the seed corn and was beside me planting the potatoes.
By this time, I had taken a couple of shade breaks, but Mamie just wouldn’t stop or sit. As we worked together, she entertained me with lessons she’s learned in seventy-six years of gardening in the same ground. I keep telling her that she’s got a lot more to teach me, so she’d better slow down. After all, she is the woman who has said for two years that she’s too old to tend a garden. She just laughs and says that she lies a lot. She also says that this is her last year of tending egg layers, but I suspect this is another of her “lies.”
I finally got her to agree to let me cover the potato plants and offered to walk her back to the house. She insisted that she could walk unaided. I kept looking over at Mamie as I worked; she was bending to pull weeds and hoeing another row. At long last, she stopped long enough to ask me if I’d drive her home. She promised to sit down and rehydrate herself.
Less than an hour later, as I arrived at her back door to put away the tools, here came Wonder Woman with a box of matches. “Don’t you just love to rest a little bit and then come out to do more work? I think I’ll go burn my trash pile,” she announced.
All I could think of was a nice long shower and an evening on the couch. They just don’t make mamas like Mamie any more.
Mamie had said that the carrots, beets and already spouted potato plants could use a bit more mounding of dirt around their foliage.
Before proceeding to plant, I figured that I should mind the maintenance of our other root crops.
As I tended to the rows of carrots and red and white potatoes, she set to killing potato and bean beetles. She loves killing weeds and bugs, which I think is a good way to work through life’s frustrations. If you gotta kill something, a bean beetle is a good place to begin.
Sometimes, Mamie drives down to the garden, but this time she had walked, which meant that she didn’t even have a cup of water with her. She had also neglected to put on her sun hat, but she wouldn’t be convinced to take a break to go get these things. She hoed up one row and down another until she was satisfied that the weeds wouldn’t win the day.
After we finished the upper garden, I set my sights to the lower area which Richard had finished harrowing in preparation for sweet potatoes and a second planting of corn. Next thing I knew, Mamie had been to the house to get the seed corn and was beside me planting the potatoes.
By this time, I had taken a couple of shade breaks, but Mamie just wouldn’t stop or sit. As we worked together, she entertained me with lessons she’s learned in seventy-six years of gardening in the same ground. I keep telling her that she’s got a lot more to teach me, so she’d better slow down. After all, she is the woman who has said for two years that she’s too old to tend a garden. She just laughs and says that she lies a lot. She also says that this is her last year of tending egg layers, but I suspect this is another of her “lies.”
I finally got her to agree to let me cover the potato plants and offered to walk her back to the house. She insisted that she could walk unaided. I kept looking over at Mamie as I worked; she was bending to pull weeds and hoeing another row. At long last, she stopped long enough to ask me if I’d drive her home. She promised to sit down and rehydrate herself.
Less than an hour later, as I arrived at her back door to put away the tools, here came Wonder Woman with a box of matches. “Don’t you just love to rest a little bit and then come out to do more work? I think I’ll go burn my trash pile,” she announced.
All I could think of was a nice long shower and an evening on the couch. They just don’t make mamas like Mamie any more.
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