Rainy Afternoon in A Small Town

I walk into the corner drug store to pick up my prescription.  Well, first I try to pull a door that's clearly marked "Push" because the doors are hung backwards and they always mess with my brain, despite that I've been to this store a million times.  Behind the back counter, which is ten steps from the door, Brenda smiles at me.  We exchange pleasantries. She invites me to the next Lion's Club event and reminds me, “We always need good new members!”  Unlike Walgreen's, when I go to the Corner Drug I never have to give my name and address or tell the cashier whether I'm picking up or dropping off.  Brenda already knows

Standing by the register, Frank Crowe leans on the counter looking at me sideways and nods a hello without speaking.  I give him my tight lipped smile--the one where I don't show my teeth, then stick my debit card into the machine which takes an incredibly long time to complete my transaction.  I stand impatiently, tapping my foot as I wait for the beep that tells me I can retrieve my card.

Behind me, I hear the door squeak open again, Betty Looper.  I swear she's always in the Corner Drug.  Always picking up some prescription or another. She’s old.  No one knows really how old, but no one remembers a time when she wasn’t around either.  She’s like a permanent fixture here, just like that statue that stands crumbling and decaying in front of the court house of some old Civil War hero on his horse.  Nobody knows when it was erected and nobody knows when it will finally finish falling apart, but we all can see that its inevitable demise is nigh. 

 How many medications can one person even tolerate, anyway, before medicine is no longer a good thing?

Finally, Brenda hands me the little white paper bag, stapled at the top, with my bottle of pills inside.  With it in my hand, I turn and head out the door.  The pills rattle as I shift the bag to my left hand and start digging for my keys in my purse. I can feel old Frank's stare at my back.  Betty, ignoring me, presses onward, Brenda now turning her focus to her. 

“Now Bettty, you ain’t give us ten minutes to get that medicine ready before you come runnin’ over here.” She says to Ms. Looper, trying to sound like she’s teasing, but I can tell she’s more than a little put out.

Standing by the door, thumbing through some dusty old greeting cards, Estelle Cantrell looks up as I pass.  Her gaze is quick, but measuring.  She looks me up and down, making her judgment fast and sharp.  I don’t know what she thinks of my outfit or my hairstyle today and that’s probably a good thing.  I wonder what she’ll tell people about me?  I can just hear her now.  “She was in that store and out of it like she was on her way to a fire or something.  Ain’t no sense in anybody being in that big of a hurry.  If she put near as much time into ironing her clothes and fixing her hair she might not still be single.”

Honestly, I feel violated, like the simple act of refilling my blood pressure medication should come with some degree of anonymity or at least without judgment. But then in a small town, you tend to get the illusion that everyone knows too much about you.

You come to accept it, expect it after a time.  At first I found some comfort in being recognized, and in knowinmost every face I see.  It was almost like the feeling of home--like walking in every door to find family and a big casserole dish full of mac and cheese that everyone intends to share. Fresh gossip, thinly veiled as concern would fill the air with a familiar chatter that almost made you feel like you’d gone home for Sunday dinner.  I felt I sat among my own, adopted into this motley crowd of small town folks--hometown folks, only it's not my hometown.

They all seem to eye me in a sidelong way, even the ones who've adopted me.  They seem to accept me, even care about me, but then I remember the thin veil that covers most everything here. I’m recognized but not truly known and that confuses me more than the backward-hung doors at the Corner Drug.  

If I speak up too often or too loudly, I feel their eyes narrow and their lips purse with disapproval. 

"You're not from here." They're thinking.  

They say to each other, "She's not from here. She has no clue what she's talking about."

As if one small town in the South is so different from any other. 

 There's a kind of Southern pride, a false sense of originality that every little tucked down here below the Mason-Dixon wants to claim as theirs.  Like the way we all drink sweet tea, or the way most of us think grits are breakfast food only. 

"If you ain't from 'round here, you caint understand our way o’ life." They all say.  "We don't need no outsiders a comin' in, tellin' us how to do things."

Sometimes I think if it were up to Southerners we’d all still be using privies and drawing our water from backyard wells.  We’d be sending our womenfolk down to the river to wash clothes and making them cook on one of those old wood cook stoves.  To the chagrin of many, the Yankees somehow succeeded in modernizing the good ole South—even the small towns out in the middle of nowhere, like this one.

Progress is still a dirty word in the South and in small-town Southern America in particular.  If you speak the language of change, you are marked.  In the old days, you'd have been run out of town on a rail. Nowadays, you just get gnawed to pieces by gossip.

Along with the overblown sense of pride and originality you'll find in every tiny town, you'll find at least a fair amount of poverty.  On hillsides and hidden behind thick stands of pines, trailer parks stand like ancient ruins, their roofs tarred over, the windows held together by duct tape and a Sunday morning prayer.  They, and the people who occupy them are the landmarks of true Southern living.  Dirt driveways with deep ruts dug out by rain.  Clunker cars that just barely get folks to their jobs and back every day and  kids that spend too much time home alone...this is the reality of life in the Ruins.  

It wasn't always so.  Many years past, there was commerce here.  Factory jobs, hardware stores and green grocers, a post office and a cafe.  Now, shuttered and crumbling store-fronts sit empty, save for the ghosts of the past that dart with quick shadows across the sidewalks, specters of a place that used to exist.

Change came here, but it came like a thief in the night.  No one discussed or planned it.  It just came.  When the shoe store closed, everyone just drove on to the next town, to Wal-Mart or to Sears, where they could buy shoes and a dress in one place.  When the post office closed, a church moved in.  Slowly, change crept up each street, boarding up windows, every boutique, every beauty shop and every hardware store's sign permanently turned to read "Sorry, We're Closed."  That kind of change came easy.  It was gradual and since no one talked about it, no one had to actually see it happening.

Thing about change is, it's always happening.  

I drive across the street to pick up some Cokes and a frozen pizza for dinner from the local grocer.  The gals at the register say hello as I choose a buggy and go browsing through the aisles, picking up things I never intended to buy.  This store is old, too.  It's dingy and the floors have a peculiar hollow sound under the clomp of my heels.  The produce is limp, spotted bananas, potatoes growing eyes, mold on the blueberries, I decide I'll stop at the farm for fruit.  

I grab my milk and eggs and head to the register, where in line ahead of me a woman I recognize is already waiting.  I'm trying to remember her name when she speaks to me.

"Good to see you again.” She says kindly.  

"You too!" I say enthusiastically.  I'm probably smiling too big as I grapple for her name, or where I know her from.  

I'm relieved when she turns back to her groceries, laying them on the belt that doesn't work anymore.

I too, start to set my purchases on the belt, separating mine from my stranger-friend's with a yellow ruler someone left at the counter for that purpose.  When it's my turn, I use my arm to push everything closer to the cashier.  We make small talk as she rings up my milk and eggs, and I realize I forgot the Cokes.  Too lazy to bother with going back to get them, I tell myself I need to cut back anyway.

"Have a good weekend now!" The girl behind the register whose face but not name I know,  says.  

"You too!" I reply pleasantly.  I can't wait to get my things into the car and head home.  

As I make my way out the door, pushing the buggy with one hand, shoving my debit card back into my wallet with the other, it starts to rain.

Big, warm drops of water fall heavy on my back, soaking my silk blouse until it becomes my epidermis. It sticks tome, a purple skin, translucent enough so my bra shows through it, and every bump and curve of my upper body to boot.

I stand in the open, loading my food into the car, the deluge causing my hair to drip into my face. Now my skirt is soaked as well, the thin white linen like wet paper against my skin becoming cold and uncomfortably heavy. 

By the time I'm done I'm thoroughly wet and exposed. My light summer outfit gives me little in the way of modesty now that it's drenched.  I walk anyway to the buggy stall, with my head held high, dripping hair and running mascara notwithstanding.  Out the corner of my eye I see two men I recognize sitting in an old Buick, watching me.  When I look their way, they do not avert their gaze.  Behind the windshield they must feel like invisible voyeurs.

Sopping wet, I finally open the driver's side door of my car and try to quickly get in, my wet skirt restricting my movement. I immediately steam up the windows with my body heat and warm breath. 

I take a minute to shake out my hair, wipe the water and makeup off my face with a fast food napkin, take a deep breath.  I turn the key, flip on the defrost and the wipers, put the car in reverse.  As I start to back up, I look over my shoulder and see him there, just sitting in his truck, waiting, watching.

The thing about small towns is, you sometimes run into people you used to know.  You see them hiding behind end-caps at the gas station, and in their pickup trucks sometimes.  You should learn to be on the lookout for them, but sometimes you forget.  

I drive home, amused a little that those two guys in the Buick thought they were so hidden as they watched my practically nude body walk across the parking lot.  I feel that sick sensation, deep in my stomach, or in my uterus, or maybe my heart even, when I picture him waiting in his truck like a little kid thinking he’s hidden behind a sapling.

On my drive home I think over the past.  I recall times when I felt less of a stranger, but orbited a much bigger world.  I realize how, as I’ve shut myself off from people, my new world seems increasingly, painfully small.

Maybe I’m merely the shadow of something now. A dream that once was, or a place that used to be alive with movement and color.  Now I am that foreigner--not from 'round here.  Constantly seen, always recognized, but never, ever really known.

By the time I’m home the rain has stopped.  The sun threatens to pop back through the clouds as I unload the groceries and haul them inside.  I try to put them all away before I go change, but the air conditioning chills me to the bone as it permeates my wet clothes.  Home, no mac and cheese, no fresh gossip. No prying eyes or judgmental stares. Just me, in my wet clothes, a pile of groceries at my feet that I probably will never eat.    

Home Sweet Home...Or Not

My Boy. 

My challenge.  To lure him from the comfort of home takes a kind of skill at which I must constantly evolve as his parent.  In an announcement the night before, "We are spending the day out tomorrow."' I tell him so he won't get up and immediately engage in combat on Fortnite, then give me grief about leaving the house.  

Inevitably, while I shower, he connects with his friends and the match begins. 

"Fifteen minute warning," I tell him as I throw open the bathroom door, my hair still dripping.  I know I'll take longer than fifteen minutes to get ready, but still...

"Are you dressed?" I call to him as I load up the car.

"Yes mom!" He answers, the eye-rolling coming through in the tone of his voice.

"Shoes?" I ask. 

"Not yet." He sighs, realizing we really are about to leave home for the day.

In the car we make jokes and listen to history podcasts.  Once in a while he gets animated, telling me about something that happened at camp, or about some element of Fortnite that's similar to the podcast story.

We eat French fries, wiping salt on our pant-legs.  

He is fascinated by the long straight hills on highway 11, leading to the lakes.  When we finally get to the 

swimming hole, he's hesitant to get in.

"Let's just sit on the edge and put our toes in." I suggest. 

"Okay." He reluctantly agrees.  But before I know it, he's climbing on the rocks, out to his waist in his regular shorts after refusing to change into his swimming trunks. 

Whatever makes him happy.

I'm happy.  The cool water on my feet convinces me to change into my new red swimsuit and jump in.  

The rocks challenge me, but once I make it past them I'm swimming in water far deeper than I even want to know.  I remember this, or rather, my body remembers.  It remembers how to tread water,how the lake doesn't burn your eyes like a swimming pool.  My feet remember how to reach themselves toward the deep water beneath me, to find the coolness in its depths   My arms remember to stretch out like wings as I lie back and let the lake  catch me, and I float like a forgotten piece of driftwood for a while.  

My boy.  I have to encourage him to come to me in the deeper water.  On our blowup float we kick around the edge of the shoreline, his confidence growing with every minute we spend in the blue-green waters.  

When we start to pack up to leave he wants to know when we can come back again.  

"Soon," I said.  "Maybe even Tuesday."

"Ugh!" He eye rolls at me. "I really wanted to stay home on Tuesday!"

Where Should I Go But To The Lord?

Today I asked where the Lord was and a preacher came running.

Short of breath, with a damp, sweaty shirt pulled over his body, he said he was there to answer my question.

But he never did say where the Lord was.

He only asked, "What can I do?"

So I one-arm hugged him, despite his sweaty shirt, and said , "You're kind for coming, but there's nothing you can do."

"I'm here to help," he insisted, staring at me through his rectangular new glasses.

"Really," Said I.  "I'm fine."

But in my mind I wondered, was he telling me he's as close to the Lord as I'm ever going to get?

Because I remember long afternoons, much like this one, filled with hard work and music and Nature, that seemed to draw the very breath of God across my own damp skin.  

The Lord seems closer to me in the chirp of crickets and the croaks of tree frogs than in the hot wind of a preacher, hurrying to let me know where the Lord is.

There's a sunset to this day.  Blessed day!  It has an ending abundantly more beautiful than its beginning.  And isn't that the way of life, after all? 

I sit here on my front porch, listening to the night chorus tune up for its performance, to begin in earnest once the sun goes behind that hill over there.  

God's breath is cool, a comfort at the end of a hard journey, even one that only lasts from daylight to twilight. 

The reflection of all things holy, shines back at me from every window.  For it's in the growing, the tending, the dying and the rising up again that the Divine makes itself seen and known.

If one only cares to truly find it, or know it, or take it in.

The Lord abides in the grace it took for me to live this, this minute by minute bit of survival.  In the work of my hands that ache and beg me to quit.  In the fruit of my labors, that bid me keep going.  In the mercy of a sun going down, the heat of a July day finally relenting.

The Lord was in the sweat I washed down the drain as I stood naked before God in my shower, singing to keep from weeping.

The Preacher, well he left as quick as he came, no doubt running off intending with all good will, to carry the Lord with him, on his back or in his sweat or in his gaze. 

But the Lord didn't leave with him, anymore than the Lord hitch-hiked in on his shoulders.  

Bless his heart.  He doesn't know.

The Lord is found, for all of us, wherever we last left her.

Abberation

The driveway seems ordinary at first.  A mailbox sits to the left of it, with a newspaper slot underneath, which usually is empty.  No one really takes the paper anymore, not even country folk.  They've never felt too keen on keeping up with politics or local crime statistics.  Heck, they don't even consider that crime even happens in their neck of the woods.  And when I say woods, I mean woods.  You find yourself put at ease by the smoothly paved drive for about the first quarter of a mile as you wind your way past horses waving their long tails in the sunlight, baby goats butting one another, a few chickens, literally crossing the road in front of you.  Then, and gradually, the pavement turns to just tar and gravel, bumpy, unkempt and crumbling in places so badly that you find yourself dodging potholes.

After you pass the fork where one part of the drive way hangs far to the left and a tree sits right in the middle of your way (I always imagine it's like the Scarecrow) the pavement ends altogether and you're driving on a dirt pathway, marked by ruts made by other vehicles.  The rains of spring-time do a fairly good job of eroding the roadway, leaving gullies and ruts that you must navigate--some of them you must drive straight through, hoping the bottom of your car doesn't drag the ground or that you don't get stuck.

"Whose idea was this anyway?"  He asked.

"Um, I think it was yours." She answered with a smirk.

"Oh yeah."  His boss told him about this place, a smart little cabin by a lake, deep in the woods away from civilization.  He offered the weekend to them, saying they'd come home feeling recharged--that nature would do them good. 

But her husband wasn't a nature freak like the beaus of her past.  He was a city boy, more comfortable on a subway train than in a tent.  Since they met, he took up hiking with her, bought camping equipment, a jeep.  In it, they kept a supply of last minute outdoor gear.  A small tent, a flashlight, a sleeping bag for two, matches.  As they set out for the weekend adventure the small cache of equipment behind the back seat, smashed beneath their luggage seemed inconsequential.  Thanks to the cabin, they wouldn't need it.

No one gave them a clue as to how long the drive up to the cabin might be.  They made that first turn onto the smooth pavement of 132 Pine Knoll Drive at sunset.  As they drove through along the roughly largely unkempt pathway deeper into the canopy of the forest, night time seemed to descend upon them almost  preternaturally.

"I think we need the headlights." She urged.

"I can see just fine and I'm the driver," he quipped.

"Well, maybe you can put them on for me then," She teased,"because I want to see where you're going."  She didn't want to admit it, but she felt nervous.  Her hands were folded tightly on her lap, as though she were trying to keep warm.  Really though, she needed them there so she could feel a sense of control over them.  The last few months their marriage seemed adrift, or more like they were adrift from one another.  Their jobs, the kids, the way life never really turns out the way you plan it took its toll on them day after day. Deep down, she had such high hopes for this time together that she felt anxious about saying or doing something to mess it up.  So she kept her nervous hands in her lap and plastered a smile on her face, hoping that somehow she could infuse the air between them with hopefulness, even romance.

Just as he flipped the headlights on, three deer appeared in the middle of the drive. He slammed on the brakes, the jeep sliding a little sideways across the dirt and gravel roadway.  The deer stood for a moment, frozen, like they say, in the bright lights of the jeep.  He honked the horn at them, waved his arms almost like he was trying to make them laugh, then yelled at them, "Shoo, shoo!  Go away!"
 After the deer sized up their jeep, they went on their way, across the driveway and through the thick woods, their white tails disappearing into a ravine.

"Ah nature!" He said with a big smile. "I'm feeling high already, just from the fresh air." He joked with her.  She knew he'd rather be pacing a city street filled with smog any day than to find himself surrounded by thick forest and the company of wild animals.

"Well I think they are majestic and beautiful."

"They are, They are." He agreed enthusiastically before shoving the jeep back into gear and continuing ahead, hoping that soon they'd reach the cabin--a sign of civilization, or at least some semblance of it, with indoor plumbing and a stove on which to cook dinner.

"I can already tell we are in for a great weekend." She chattered excitedly.  "Breakfast in bed, horseback riding, night swimming, it's going to be amazing."

"Breakfast in bed, huh?" He asked, amused.  "Who's going to get breakfast in bed?"

"Well," She answered sheepishly, "I was hoping maybe..."

"Breakfast in bed it is, my dear. If we ever get there..."  She could sense the irritation in his voice.  The driveway was beginning to seem impossibly long and more difficult to traverse the farther they went.

"Yeah, if we ever get there." she agreed.  "This is a really long driveway."  Her hands, still in her lap, she began to pick her cuticles nervously.  She knew her thinking tended to delve into the irrational at times.  Of course the driveway has an end, she thought to herself it can't just go on like this forever.

On and on they drove as night fell in earnest. Tree frogs and crickets began to serenade them from the darkness as a dampness seemed to soak into their clothes.  Not even  the moon helped to light their way.  The stars were extra bright, with no city lights around to lessen the view of their glow.  She leaned her head against the window of the jeep, looking straight up at the stars, trying to find the big and little dippers.  She remembered doing the same thing as a child, on the rides home at night with her dad.

They rode in complete silence, a tenseness in the air between them, not with one another, but about the situation they were in.   They hung so many hopes on this reunion with nature, with one another.  To fail at it--to end up lost,in it would ruin their entire plan.  She could already imagine the argument, them blaming one another for the wrong turn, the address written down incorrectly, the big joke his boss played on them.

She remained hopeful though, as they rounded one curve after another with no cabin in sight.  He began to wonder if their directions had been wrong.

"We've been driving for about seventeen miles already--slow driving too because this driveway is horrible."  How long had it been since his boss came out here, he wondered to himself.  "We have to be there soon.  Do you think we took the wrong turn?" He asked.
.
"I don't think so.  The directions said, 'turn left at the mailbox marked 132 Pine Knoll' and that's what we did.  Maybe we should have taken the right fork back there at that tree?  Should we turn around?"

"Turn around?" He asked sounding incredulous. "After we've driven all this way? No way, we are committed now.  We either find the cabin tonight or we find a place to set up camp."

"I'll see if my phone has a signal out here." She dug in her purse and found her phone, the phone she promised not to bring.  He didn't even feel annoyed at her for breaking her promise.  He was just hopeful that she could find a signal and perhaps access her GPS so they could see how close they were getting.

"Well?" He asked, stopping the jeep.

"Nothing." She looked worried and disappointed.

"Hey, don't worry," He told her.  "We have this under control. I brought plenty of supplies and if we have to, we can find a place out here in the woods and camp out for the night, find the cabin in the  morning."

"Yeah?" She asked, hopeful.  "We could have a romantic camp out?"

"Absolutely!" He grinned.  "I even brought those candles that keep mosquitoes away.  We can eat dinner by candlelight."

"What dinner?"

"Oh...um, well, I got your favorite chocolate, some graham crackers and, lets see, a can of sausages" His lip curled in a cute sort of way when he said "can of sausages."

They both laughed.

"Okay then." She smiled, "Let's do it.  Let's have a camp out right here in these woods!"

He drove a little further on until he came to a flat piece of road with a small clearing to the right.  "There's enough room for the tent over there," he pointed, "And look at all that fallen brush, perfect for our campfire."

Before long their tent was erected, their campfire glowing in the black of night--the New Moon graciously lending an air of romance to their adventure.They had one flashlight with batteries and the headlamps of the jeep to help them navigate their way around putting up the tent and gathering their firewood. 

Together they ate the bar of dark chocolate, washed it down with lukewarm champagne straight from the bottle.  Cuddled up under a blanket by the fire they talked about nothing and everything.  They ignored the sounds of coyotes in the distance, the crackle of deer feet along the fallen branches in the deep woods around them.  They didn't hear when the mama bear wandered across the drive behind their jeep, stopping to sniff for food before she passed it up, taking her cubs with her into the other side of the forest.

Oblivious to the sound of an owl swooping down to catch a mouse just outside the zipped up haven of their tent, they made love without restraint, the creatures around them, ignoring the noises they made.  Nature accepts nature as it is, the sounds and sights, nothing warranting judgment or diversion.

Aberrations, though, hide among us as much in the perfunctory and expeditious tasks of suburbia as on the wayward path of a driveway that leads to nowhere and an aberration moved among them in the deep forest that night.  Not quite human, not quite beast, it stood at a distance, leaning against a sycamore, waiting for the sounds from the tent to fade, waiting for the lumbering sounds of sleep to take them over as their campfire began to fade under the star-dotted sky. 

News reports all say that the tent was found with all their things inside--a double sleeping bag, a purse with a dead cell phone, a box of unopened graham crackers, some canned sausages and two sets of clothes.  An empty champagne bottle lay on the ground by the smoldering fire, as though it were abandoned in the middle of a game of "spin the bottle."

Their jeep had four flat tires.  The keys for it were never found and there were no footprints on the driveway going in or out.  They had seemingly disappeared into the forest, no sign of either of them anywhere.

Just around the curve from where they stopped to set up camp, the porch light of the cabin still glowed, awaiting their arrival.  Inside the door, a vase of  fresh white lilies sat on the kitchen counter. Beside them, a card in a yellow envelope with her name scrawled on the front, was never opened, never read. Along the edge of the lake, a tall figure walked in a long stride, its footsteps leaving no trace in the mud around the shoreline.  Fog hung heavy over the waters, and the coos of mourning doves began to fill the early summer morning air. 

Sweet Grief

This afternoon I came home hot, tired, and feeling weak.  We had a busy day driving here and there gathering what we needed for Arthur's first birthday party tomorrow.  The stores were extra crowded, it being July 3rd.  The babies dealt with the heat better than us grown folks, and Charlie, the champ that he is, maintained order in the backseat for us as we dragged the children from one place to the other.  We ended up staying out far longer than we anticipated.  Both Sylia and I found ourselves completely drained from the heat, the walking, and the wrestling with two toddlers all day.  By the time I dropped her off, we were both ready to crash; then I remembered a dinner date.  Michele's birthday dinner at Kanpai was at 7:00 and it was already 6:00 when I dropped Sylia off.  I quickly traded shoes with her, put on some fresh makeup and headed out the door.  By the time we reached the end of the driveway I got a text that Michele wasn't able to get to dinner, so I decided I would not go either--I couldn't have made it on time anyway, and without the birthday girl, what's the point?  So we grabbed some drive-thru grub and came home.

As Charlie and I unloaded the car, I noticed my neighbor, Nell, on her golf cart up by her garden.  (She's also the landlord, although our relationship is much more friendly than business.)  I came inside and gave Charlie an envelope filled with the rent money and asked him to run it up to her while I finished putting things away.  In a few minutes he came back, short of breath from running and said, "Nell wants to talk to you."

"About what?" I asked.

"I don't know." He said, "I think she wants to know if Senior Action is closed tomorrow."

"Okay," I siad. "I'll run up and talk to her."

As I approached I took in the sight of her, in her mid-80's, she looked, at a distance, strong and able bodied as she hoed away at the weeds growing up around her tomato plants.  My mind flashed back for a second, to my daddy having us kids hold back the plants while he used the tiller to destroy the weeds growing up around his squash, cucumbers and melons.

"Who put you to work?" I asked, teasing her as I approached. She didn't hear me.

When I finally reached the edge of the garden after tromping through high grass in the back yard, she stopped her working to ask me the schedule for this week.  I told her we'd be open again on Thursday as usual.  I always know, deep down, that when Nell calls for me to come, I am going as a vessel.  I can try to give her friendship, comfort, even rent money, but on days like today all she really needed were some ears, willing to listen, and a heart that could sit with her and hold her grief for just a little while.

People need to tell their stories.  They need a safe person in their lives to tell those stories to-someone who won't brush them off or change the subject or start talking about when their great uncle's wife died in some freak accident.  Nell often needs to walk through her yard and remember her husband. She needs to keep him close somehow and her story--her grief story is one way she's able to do that.

I never knew Bud.  He and Nell were the best of friends from what I hear.  Their children all grown and moved away, Bud died on the afternoon of his brother's funeral.  Nell had only turned her back for a second. When she turned around he was lying on the ground where she last saw him standing. She believes he was headed for the porch swing, but never made it. She turned him over, and seeing his face, knew right away he was gone.  That image of his face remains etched in her memory, a stark reminder of how instantaneous loss can be.Traumatized by that image, her dreams prevented her from his visage for months afterwards. She dreamed of him often, and longed to see him as he was in life, but her mind only let her see him from the neck down.

She turned and sat down on the seat of her golf cart as I leaned against the front of it.  I listened as she spoke from her heart, while I brushed fire ants from my feet, trying to look unfazed by the stinging bites.

"I am half alive." She said to me.  "What I really want to do is go curl up in a corner and cover myself up and just be alone.  But I know I can't do that.  I push myself to get out and do things because I know that's what he would expect me to do."

She told me about a conversation Bud had with their daughter a few days before his death.  "If something ever happened to me, I know your mama would be alright." He told Sharon.  "She would go on and she would take care of you kids and make a good life for herself despite me being gone. But if something happened to your mama, I wouldn't make it."

"I can't quit on life because I know what he expected of me." She said, a far off look in her eyes as she gazed across the vast field--land she owns, among so many other worldly possessions.  I think she would give it all just to have him back again.

One night after a particularly rough day, she said she had a very realistic dream that she and Bud were getting the kids ready to take off on a long road trip somewhere."I remember in the dream, telling the kids to hurry up so we could get on the road early.  Then I went into my bedroom and I could hear Bud in the
 bathroom.  I opened the bathroom door and he was standing there, wiping his hands and face with a towel and I finally was able to see his face. I threw my arms around him. I laughed and cried and just hugged him so tight, and it seemed so real, like I could just feel him in my arms.  I asked him, 'Please tell me this is real, that it's not a dream. Please tell me you are really here with me.'"

"He didn't tell me it was real, but he looked me straight in the eyes and said, "I am always with you."

"Back then there was a towel bar in my bathroom, and I always kept a hand towel hanging there.  He would use it and he'd always leave it hanging there crooked.  I fussed about it all the time, and I'd go behind him and straighten it back up.  When I woke up that morning and went in my bathroom that hand towel was hanging there crooked, just like he'd been there."

Goosebumps popped up on my arms, and tears welled up in my eyes and hers. It seems God gives us sometimes, these little gifts of comfort in the most unexpected ways. I really believe it to be true.

I've listened to her tell his death story many a time, but every time there's something new she has to say.  We talked about how difficult her life became when she lost him, how even 23 years later, she has to push herself and will herself to live.

And I suppose that's what we all do to some degree.  We live with the pain of our losses, carrying them always close to our hearts, perpetually only half-alive without the presence of the ones we've loved. We always hear people talk of "moving on," but today I learned that most of us just carry on as best we can.

The truth is, out of all the emotional experiences life throws at us, grief is the one that sticks to your soul with all the strength of the love we held in our hearts for the ones we carry on without.

Best friends.  Partners for life.  That's what they were.  Through good times and bad, they were a team.  "When you've had the best in life, it's hard to live with something less." She said to me.

"You were very lucky to find a love like that." I said to her.  "Most of us spend a lifetime just dreaming about it."

"I know I was." She said.  "I was very lucky."

Grateful to be her confidant, I stood with her a little longer and listened.  She is teaching me, with every story, that some things in life transform us.  Grief is a pain that doesn't ever really expire, but even so,  it must not define us or prevent us from living.  We often treat it like a race to be run and finished, when it's really just a river that ebbs and flows through life.  We revel in the beauty of our memories, and ache at the pain of our losses, never really knowing or understanding why or when the waves of emotion will rise and fall.

What I've learned best, is that the stories of our losses make up the stories of our lives.  We memorize them, detail upon detail.  The memories keep us close to he ones we cherished, and the aches we feel at their absences become in some way, all we have left of them.

Love sometimes dies, joy often gives way to despair, happiness is always fleeting, but grief?  Grief is ever present.  It never, ever dies.  It just lies beneath the surface, tied to the best and the worst of our memories, memories that even death can never take away.

Surfing Through the Lies Landing in The Chaos of Truth

A while back I watched a documentary that focused on the amazing surfing ability of a teenage boy.  At the tender age of fourteen he took his surfboard out into the ocean and conquered waves that would swallow up a grown man.  Clearly, he possessed a gift, a skill bestowed upon few.  Still, his father who was a surfer as well, worried.  How could he not imagine losing him to the tremendous power of the sea? Yet he watched with pride,  his son taking on the ocean not to battle with it, but to assimilate himself into it, bend himself to its will, humbling both himself and the sea, leaving both the powers of the deep, conquered  surrendered.  The ocean bowing to his will, his spirit overcome with grateful respect for the power on which he glides. His father, though filled with anxiety and anticipation never hinted at discouraging his son from the danger that awaited him upon every tall wave.  His eyes bespoke a heart overflowing with pride  at the bravery of his child.   It does take brave kid to set out to conquer the ocean.  I think though, that his father's bravery may far outweigh the son's.   He wears it with humility, but with a fierceness of spirit rarely found the world over. He gives his son over to his dreams, releasing him to the deep, never knowing whether one day, the deep will claim him for good.

Experience is a fine teacher--a better one than any other I know.  And those of us who come at life without it often find ourselves facing walls of adversity that rival those 40 foot waves under that fourteen year old's surf board; only less equipped to ride out the wave until they reach the safety of the shallows, where their feet can finally touch the sandy ground.   I am often one of those people.  I often think I've weathered every kind of enormous wave that life could roll over me, but just like the endless undulation of the sea, life remains ever-changing, and I find myself sometimes under the swell.

A few days ago, I found life coming at me at speeds that rivaled the enormous Hawaiian wave you may recall from the memorable show of the 70's, "Hawaii 50."  I remember the intro music, the drums in the background, a quick clip of a hula skirted girl swinging her hips, and then, the Wave.  I only caught glimpses of it as  my mother hurried me off to bed as a child, but I recall that for some reason, it set a kind of terror in my mind that rolled through my dreams often.  I dreamed of being engulfed by it--lost inside a tunnel of water, unable to catch my breath or scream for help.  I suspect that my near drowning experience at Lake Murray when I was seven conjured up some of those ephemeral images.  I was probably 12 years old before I saw the ocean for myself, and never swam in it until I was 20.  I always imagined it as one roll after another of those big Hawaiian billows that haunted my childish dreams.

When I think about the vastness of the ocean, the ships that sit buried beneath its surface, the life that teems, deep below the tumult of those humongous waves, the lives it has devoured and the lives that through time and tribulation, were borne across it seeking safer shores, I am left in awe.  We live on a planet made of water, it swirls around us, affecting weather patterns and  fueling storms that devastate  the modest slips of land that we like to think we own and command.  But we really possess so little in the way of power; the reach of our control extending no further than the ends of our own noses, if we find the wisdom to ever acknowledge the truth.

All this talk about water.  Sometimes, I don't even know where I'm going when I start to speak of the things that tumble around in my brain.  But this time my life drew me to the water--or to the way it behaves and expects us to keep our footing as it continues to morph and move, forcing us to comply or suffer the consequences.

Over the lasts few weeks I feel like life threw me a surfboard and said,"hop on, we're going for a ride."  I had no choice, of course, but to oblige.  There were days when I knew my need to control came in second to other things.  Sickness, injury, end of school ceremonies and beginning of summer chaos took over my life there for a while, and I had no choice but to ride it all out.  In some ways I'm still riding--I might have never made it to my feet on that surfboard but I can belly surf with the best of them through the extraordinary struggles of life.

Then again, I find myself in a state of overwhelm often.  I find that social media's wealth of misinformation and the strong opinions of my acquaintances flood my mind and my emotions to the point that I want to shut myself down completely.  I am confused by much of what I see there--the blind followers of a party, a leader, or a belief system they've never taken one second to examine or test or dig deeper into--they fill me with a sense of familiar shame and dread.  I recall that I used to be one of them, someone who wanted to be told what to believe and who happily accepted what I was told as the truth.  Ignorance is bliss, they say, but when life comes at you with a reality as big as a 40 foot wave, ignorance makes a poor life preserver.

Once in a while I try to speak my own truth, but it falls on ears that are stuffed with bias and dogma and fear of finding they lived an entire lifetime believing a lie. Perhaps to them, the nightmare of allowing their beliefs to be challenged is akin to my dream of that enormous wave swallowing me up.  What are we without our beliefs, and who are we if our beliefs get challenged and then changed?

So because of our deeply held beliefs, we live in a world of fear..  We fear anything different from what our mama's and our preachers teach us.  We fear anything that comes from the mouths or the hearts of the "other" that does not abide with us in our bubble of belief and separation.  Religion and politics aside, there seems to be so little space on dry ground for equality and and respect between mankind.  Our human spaces are filled with limp justifications of the atrocities done to our fellow man.  The Christian masses somehow stand on the side of persecution and merciless accusation while those they vilify as evil and ungodly try to unite in love and in defense of those who are downtrodden and looked upon with disdain.  Those who merely want to follow The Commandment--that we love our neighbors as ourselves, seems to apply only to the neighbors who look and live the way we do.

Folks, I grew up sitting with my skinned up knees showing past the hem of my Sunday dresses, sitting at the feet of my Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Sarah Davis, who taught me more about the Jesus many say they serve, than most high-minded Baptist preachers can even hope to know before they stand behind the pulpit screaming and sweating  railing at their congregations about the travesty of their sins and about the God who eagerly awaits his chance to dole out punishments so severe you leave your church on Sunday never knowing that Jesus came to Love, not to condemn.  Sarah Davis taught me that Jesus sat down and ate with the undesirables.  He never sent the children away.  He spread grace and mercy everywhere he went--and example to us all, Christian or not, of how we should approach life, and how we should regard the welfare of our fellow man.

Never mind who Jesus was, or that we say we are his followers.  Our fear of being wrong outweighs our duty to Christ to be his hands and feet, to serve our fellow man as if we were taking care of Jesus himself.  We must find rationalizations for the evils we see perpetrated in the name of  the law.  Must we convince ourselves to believe the worst in others in order to feel better about the choices we've made?    How else could we sleep at night, knowing we have failed at the most basic and most important commandment Jesus gave.  We cannot love God with all our hearts and treat our fellow man with anything less than the love for our neighbors that he also commands.

I fear that instead of becoming experts at finding our own weaknesses and working hard to overcome them, the waves of truth are building momentum and as they gain speed, as they pick up momentum along the way, we will all find ourselves washed ashore beside our fellow human beings, moms and dads, lost children and the broken, life-worn elderly, the drug dealers and the addicts, each one as human as the next, each speaking their native tongues but hopefully, finally accepted, loved, understood.  For it is only in the darkest of times that human beings tend to come together to face whatever evil threatens to harm them all.  Right now we stand divided, but only now.

The tide is changing.  The waves grow stronger with every truth revealed.  We might all feel overwhelmed and heavy with the news of it all, but eventually, this turmoil will unite us.  It must, or we will find ourselves consumed by our prejudices, never to  embrace the entire human experience or richness with which it was intended from the beginning of time.

Escape

I do not know what it is like to live in constant fear of what my own country might do to me or my family.  I do not know how it feels to live in a country whose government turns its head, blind to murder.  Or I should say, murders, some of them orchestrated by people in the highest ranks of power.  I  never got in my car to drive to the store or to work, thinking I might not make it home because there's someone out there who is looking for a chance to kill me.  I've never lived without enough food, never lay in bed at night and listened to machine guns and bombs going off all around me. My privileges are many and my experiences in life threaten to leave me with the impression that the rest of the world lives as I do. 

As Americans, we tend to think that working hard and being a Christian is all a person needs to possess abundance.  We have no reference point for real suffering or fear.  We cannot fathom the urgency to escape the lives we worked so hard to build, just to save our lives and those of our children.  Many of us possess no understanding of the world outside our own bubble of existence.  We paint the whole world with the brush of our own reality, never considering that the neighbor across the street struggles with depression or that people all around the world go to bed every night in fear of what might happen to them before dawn.  We see our privileges as "blessings," and our accomplishments as gifts from God.  Meanwhile, somewhere in the Philippines little children are digging through garbage to find their next meal.  Our obtuse view of the world hardens our hearts to the very real terror and suffering of other human beings, whether they live next door or in South America, Central America, or all the way across the world.

Information is at our fingertips, if we care to find it.  In China, Korea, Russia, people only know what their government wants them to know, and often the information they get is manufactured to look like the truth when in reality, it contains nothing but lies.  We have the freedom to Google anything we want, but how many people care to research why droves of people leave their lives behind them, their homelands, to seek asylum here. 

Imagine for a moment, that sometime during the night tonight, your home is attacked by strangers.  They burst in with guns and demand that you hand over all your money--everything in your bank accounts, your savings, whatever is in your kids' piggy banks, everything.  Imagine that these people take up residence in your life.  They move into your house and they tell you when you can come and go.  They ration the food our of your own refrigerator.  They constantly threaten your family.  You live your life in terror, knowing when you go to bed at night that there are men with machine guns in your house who might decide to start shooting at any moment.  Men have taken over your neighbor's houses too, so you can't just go there.  The police are in on the whole deal--they know that people are living this way, but they do nothing about it.  Imagine that one day you and your neighbors all get together secretly and decide to escape under the cover of night--you're going to the next state over where people live in houses where there are no machine gun wielding strangers guarding every door.  So you pack up what little belongings you can carry and make the journey, a dangerous one through forests with no well-trodden pathways, where men in uniforms with weapons lurk in the shadows.  You live in tents or sleep in the open for days because your journey is long and arduous, but you persevere because you just know that people who live in a state that values freedom and liberty will shelter you from the oppression of living in a house guarded by men who threaten your safety at every turn.  You travel, hungry, tired, dirty.  You lose a few neighbors along the way who were just not strong enough to weather the journey.  Perhaps an elderly neighbor suffered a fall and couldn't continue on, a child falls sick and the family gets separated because someone has to stay with the child.  Imagine the day you finally reach the Georgia state line!  What relief and hope fills your heart!  You are finally at the threshold of safety with the promise of a new life where fear and poverty do not define you. 

Then you find out, Georgia doesn't want you.  Georgia doesn't care that you are escaping a life of fear and oppression.  Georgia thinks you're there to overcrowd their state, to steal jobs from current residents, to bring down their property values, and mooch off their taxes.  Georgia can't be bothered with your sob stories, they are hard working Americans--Christians who go to church every Sunday.  You aren't just unwanted, you are vilified, treated with disdain.  You are corralled, separated from your children and told to wait.  Wait for what?  You don't know.  You don't know what will happen to you or when you'll see your children again.  You don't know who is caring for them or if they are upset or hungry or afraid.  Georgia thinks this is best for you.  Georgia doesn't care how you feel--this is not about feelings, it's about their tax dollars and your threat to their way of life. 

I know, my attempt to reach you is lame.  I realize I cannot create empathy in a person who lacks it merely by asking them to imagine something other than the sheltered lives they lead. 

You can dress a hypocrite up in nice clothes and call him a good man, but he'll still be a hypocrite.

I'm afraid that's where we now stand, as humans, as a country, and as the Christians many claim to be.  Perhaps compassion, empathy, kindness and love are the internal workings of the soul that cannot be taught.  I believe they must be cultivated slowly over time, starting before we even put our bare feet to the floor and take our first wobbly steps.  Is it ever too late to start  the process?  That's a question for which I have no answer.  I only know what I hear and see around me. 

You can call it politics, liberalism, bleeding heart Democrats, snowflakes whining about us not giving handouts to undeserving low-life trash; what it really is though, is sad.  I'm not talking about politics here.  I"m not talking about your religious beliefs or who you voted for in the last election.  I'm not asking  you to change your views on abortion or to make a comparison between abortion and separating families from their living, breathing children.  I'm not referring to your opinion that I, as a Democrat, would be okay with a woman murdering her baby but bothered by what's going on with these children today or how your attempt at justifying what is happening by making that assumption or comparison proves your lack of understanding or empathy for other human beings. 

I'm merely talking reality.  The reality is, what's happening to people at the hands of America is wrong.  It's wrong if you're a Democrat.  It's wrong if you're a Republican.  It's wrong if you're Baptist, or Catholic, or Agnostic or Atheist.  It's just wrong, and no amount of pointing fingers or making justifications for it will ever make it right.  So, if you're pro-life, shouldn't you care what is happening to these children?  Is it a stretch for us to ask you to care?  Should we stop caring about a child as soon as it's born? How is that Christian?  How can anyone with a soul not care?  I, as a human being care.  Can I ask you, as a fellow human being to put aside your biases and put aside your political grudges long enough to see this human suffering for what it really is? 

We are America.  We can do so much better than this.

Here, I am leaving a link for you.  It only vaguely describes what these people coming to America to escape from.  I hope you will take the time to read it, ponder what it would be like to live under the threat of gang violence, government corruption, extortion, and the threat of murder.  Imagine worrying whether your sons or daughters will be picked by some gang member to carry drugs for them, and given no choice in the matter.  Imagine worrying about whether your sons will live another day.  Imagine having a list of family members you've already lost to violence.  And while you're at it, open your heart to the possibility that these truly are human beings who need safety and need shelter from the constant threat of death.

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/central-americas-violent-northern-triangle

Chance Encounter

It's not everyday that you get to meet an unforgettable character.  Whether by chance or some sinister twist of fate, I found myself in that position today.

First of all, a terrible cold has plagued me for the last 4 days, creeping its way through my body, from my clogged up sinuses to the ever-growing tickle in my throat that makes me want to cough my lungs loose, it continues to make its way through my respiratory system with reckless abandon.  I actually lay in bed this morning and fought that battle with myself.  You know the one, where you know your body is not going to keep up with the demands of the day, yet you feel the only option before you lies in your responsibility to others.  So I dragged myself up and got ready, dropped my boy off at school, drove up to the center and got the van and started my day of picking up senior members to attend Senior Action for the day.

In a way, this day snubbed me with irony at every turn. Off for 5 days in a row, I didn't recover from my cold fast enough to get back to normal before going back.  The new van driver was supposed to have started today, but got held up by HR paperwork.  The rain is a bitch when you're loading and unloading elderly folks from that large vehicle.  You could say if imaginary straws were drawn for this day, I drew the short one.

Once I got the van and started driving down Slater rd. I started to feel better about things.  The ride up highway 11 o pick up one of my members is a pleasant drive--relaxing even, and I started to look forward to it.

Then I happened upon a chance encounter with a woman named Karen.

At the end of Slater rd. I pulled up to the traffic light which was red at the moment.  I stopped with my right turn signal on, looked to the left, let two cars go, then looked back up at the light.  In that short amount of time the light had changed to green, so I while looking to the right out my windshield, proceeded to turn left.  Suddenly I heard a scraping and crunching sound.  "Crap!" I said.  "I hit someone.!"  I couldn't even see what or whom' I'd hit.

I got out of the van and ran around to see for sure what I had hit.  It was another car.  The woman inside wore her long graying hair in a ponytail.  She smelled of cigarettes and her car was filled with garbage, prescription bottles, you name it.  At first glance I thought she was elderly and I felt so badly that I reached in and hugged her and told her and asked if she was okay.  She said she was fine, but she was worried about her car and worried someone was going to hit her from behind.  I told her turn her flashers on as I called the highway patrol to report the accident.  Once we moved our vehicles out of the way, I invited her to come sit in the van with me where there was AC so she would not get so hot.  This woman was a character!

She had an expensive smart phone, but no service on it.  I had t let her use my phone to call her husband and daughter.  When she got out of her car and saw that her door was dinged and her tire was flat she went into panic attack mode.  I had to help her breathe through it and try to keep her in the moment with me instead of letting her mind rush off to the worse case scenarios of the future.

Her abusive husband showed up--yelling at her and then trying to yell at me.  I relished the opportunity to stand up to him and tell him he would not speak to me in that manner.  The lady asked me how did I do that without being scared.  I didn't have a real answer for her, I just know that a man isn't going to speak to me that way, no matter who he is/

Apparently it was a busy day for the Highway Patrol.  We waited 3 hours for an officer to arrive to file a report.  Three hours I was with this woman and intermittently her husband and 21 year old daughter who has suffered numerous serious injuries from car and 4 wheeler accidents.

The thing is, when you meet people in Marietta, you never really know what kind of person they are at first. This lady, whom at first glance I would have guessed was in her 70's, was only 53. She smoked like a chimney, then confided in me that her doctor told her she has heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, none of which she manages with any kind of medication. She's had cancer removed from her face and has been told if she doesn't stop smoking she will end up losing more skin on her face. I spent a long time talking to her about how important it is to take care of yourself by accepting that you have illnesses and taking steps to mange them. Her response was, "I don't claim any of that." I guess if you don't acknowledge something, it doesn't exist, huh?
I learned all about her 12 grandchildren and her youngest daughter who by the misfortune of 2 separate accidents has suffered head injury and partial paralysis of her right side.  I learned that her daughter was airlifted from an accident she caused on Highway 25 in Traveler's Rest a year or so ago, and that as a result of her accident on a 4 wheeler years before that, she has a "Titanic" plate in her head now.  I learned lots of new phrases and words I'd never heard in such contexts before.  I learned that if a person gets badly burned, they can get a skin "draft" that will fix them.  That "Titanic plates" can fix head injuries, and that the past tense of "Sperm Donation" is "Sperm Doned."  I got a front seat show to the daughters tattoo display, front, back and sides as she partially undressed beside Geer Highway right in front of a State Trooper.

"See her purdy angel wings?  I didn't even know she had them till I saw her in the ICU after her second accident." her mother beamed.

"They're....Nice...." I said. I wanted to say, "Put your clothes back on girl, I don't need to see your angel wings, your bible verses or your matching doves on your butt dimples.  To each her own, but if I don't ask to see your most intimate tattoos, it's probably best to keep em private.

Today was the first time I accidentally told someone her husband had cancer as well.  Total mistake on my part, but she made me walk right into it.  She told me that her husband recently had blood work done and it showed an elevated white blood cell count.  She said he had no infections and that he was very secretive about his appointment with his doctor after the blood work.  Then, she said, a few days later he called her into the bathroom to show her a piece of bloody tissue paper.  "Oh, it's just hemorrhoids," she said she told him.

"Well," she said he replied, "I didn't tell you last week, but the doctor said I have cancer."

As she relayed this story to me see seemed confused.  "Why would he say that to me?" she asked me.  "What does that even mean?  White blood cells don't mean you have cancer and if he has cancer he might die and I don't know how to take care of anything without him.  Why did he say that to me?" She pleaded with me.

Exasperated at this point, I gently said to her, "Do you think that might have been his way of telling you that he does, indeed have cancer?"

She began to cry again.  I could see her mind racing ahead to the future, his death, her financial ruin, her feeling lost and unable to take care of herself.  I tried to reel her back in to the present and that worked.  I tried to give her some kind of hope to cling to--maybe there's treatment that can help him, maybe it's not aggressive cancer, maybe its something he can beat.  She remembered her daughters fight and decided that her husband could make it through cancer if her daughter made it through both accidents.

You hear all the time to be kind to others, because they could be fighting a battle you don't even know about.  I am the first to admit that I had a true encounter with someone today that rates right up there with the Twilight Zone experience; but all the same, she was human and I just as human as she.  She's a woman who never learned to take care of her own physical health--she was more concerned about the dings in her car than her high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes.  She's a woman who is somewhat controlled and at least verbally beaten down by her spouse--a spouse she's so dependent on that if he dies, she son't know how to do life.  And that spouse she depends so much upon likely has cancer.  She has a daughter with severe disabilities who will likely need care for the rest of her life.

I didn't tell her much about me personally.  I just listened and let her talk, finding some of her language anecdotes highly entertaining.  I tried to keep my patience and help her stay calm in the midst of a highly stressful situation.  Then when the police got there she turned into a monster with two heads, arguing with the cop, telling him I said things I didn't say, suggesting that she wasn't beside me in my blind spot, etc...I could have felt angry I guess, after having kept her in the van with me for hours running the air so she could breathe better, letting her eat my breakfast and use my phone and giving her information on Medicare, Disability and Medicaid for her daughter, but what good would getting angry do?

I'm just glad everyone got out safe.  No one needed any titanic plates in their heads and no one had to get skin drafted.

We won't even go into the story about Karen's real father who "Sperm doned" her.   I can't even.

God bless us everyone--Especially Karen.  Hopefully life will look much brighter for her again soon.

And hopefully I will not "run into her" again anytime soon.

Nothing But Blue Skies

It's early summer, or late spring, whichever you prefer to call it.  Here in SC winter often shockingly gives way to summer without much warning in the way of springtime.  This year the cold seemed to linger far too long before giving way to sweltering hot days and humidity laden afternoons that try to steal your breath away.  Over the last week rain began to make a daily appearance, either by tapping on our roofs all day long, or by gathering darkly in a far corner of the sky, then descending in a deluge almost without warning.

Yesterday while I waited in the car line at school with my sunglasses on I suddenly realized I didn't need them anymore.  Headed South from home, the sun shone directly through the windshield, necessitating my glasses and sun visor.  When I turned into the school parking lot though, the sky on the other side greeted me with low, dark, foreboding clouds.  They stretched from the trees, far up into the sky, casting their ominous shadow over everything.  At one point my car sat situated so that on one side of me I saw darkness and on the other, a perfectly sunny day.  At the time I merely sat in awe of nature.  I pondered how two such opposing forces could exist in the very same sky.  Had I never turned from the road I from which I started I might never have seen that dark sky or been aware that in a few short minutes, I would end up driving through such heavy rain that I could barely see the road. 

The rain fell so hard on my car that it drowned out the sound of the podcast Charlie and I tried to listen to as we drove into town.  Puddles formed quickly in the road, so deep that as I drove through them they tried to pull my car toward the edge of the highway.  I slowed down, of course, giving full attention to my driving.  We turned off the podcast and sat in silence, just listening to the rain pummeling the roof of the car, hoping that soon we might drive out of that storm and once again find the other half of the day--the part where the sun shone brightly and we could once again turn the radio on.

Lately I feel as though inside my head a storm brews.  So many things happen in the world, and now, thanks to social media and news everywhere we look, we can't avoid knowing without making a willful effort to avoid knowing.  Much like avoiding seeing that storm by staying on the road on which I first started my journey yesterday, most of us try, in life, to not see things that challenge us or make us feel afraid.  Sometimes just hearing something that goes against what we believe and hold deeply as truth scares us.  It gets our hackles up, makes us defensive.  We search out that route where we began, when we saw nothing but blue skies ahead--no challenges, no  information that threatens
our stability on the road or storms so loud they drown out what we really want to hear.

Today I saw the news about Paige Patterson's removal from his position with the Southern Baptist Association's Seminary as a result of his past comments and teachings regarding violence and sexual assault against women.  I admit, I felt relief that finally something seemingly is being recognized about the danger of the attitudes that he and others like him perpetuate among members of the largest protestant denomination in America.  Unfortunately those attitudes and beliefs now invade the denomination, and many of the Baptist off-shoots of Southern Baptists, like the Independent Fundamentalists, the Free Will Baptists and  Missionary Baptists.  The idea that women must take a back seat role to men in all things, in my experience, is a dangerous one, despite scripture that seemingly commands women to subject themselves to the wills of their husbands, or if they have no husbands, their fathers, and if they have no father, their pastor.  The argument is often softened with, "Paul also commands that husbands love their wives as Christ loves the church, and if husbands do what they're supposed to do, then women will find it easy--even safe, to submit to the will of her husbands."


If I wanted to argue Biblical ideology I could.  I spent the first 30 years of my life in an Independent Baptist church, deeply involved in studying scripture on my own and with the guidance of pastors and teachers who gave their own perspectives as to how those scriptures should be interpreted.  Being fundamentalists, we were taught to take scripture in its most literal form while also hearing regularly that to question the authority of our pastor would lead us down the wrong spiritual path.  Never once, in all those years, did a pastor, preacher or teacher actually speak about scripture in its true context. 

Instead of arguing Biblical ideology, let's talk about the word "context."  As a Fundie, I was always taught "People will try to confuse you by using pieces of scripture out of context."  However, not one person ever looked at scripture in its true context, historically, socially, or even with consideration of the attitudes and beliefs of the time period in which they were written, and then explained what they meant.  In the Baptist world, church members are encouraged to study scripture for themselves, then apply it to their lives today--two thousand years after it was written.  Surely times have changed a bit since then, right?

In Biblical times men often had more than one wife.  In fact men often had harems of sorts, with numerous concubines to satisfy their sexual appetites and provide them with  children, yet by choice, we do not follow that Biblical practice today.  Even in the New Testament, we are taught that if a woman's husband dies, her husband's brother is to take her as his wife, even if he already has a wife.  If that happened in any church today it would be positively scandalous.  Bible scholars fail to mention that in the social climate that existed during Biblical times, women were little more than currency.  If you were female in those days, your fate lay directly in the hands of your father, or your husband, or even a brother.  You made few choices of your own--women were traded like cattle, told to stay silent, to keep themselves at home, care for their husbands and not make waves.  Women were blamed for the lustful sins of men, while the men themselves took no responsibility for their actions.  If your husband thought that you, upon your wedding night, were not a virgin, he could abandon you, which for a woman of that time could mean a cruel existence, or even death.  Women followed the constricts of their day because to not follow them meant struggle, poverty, starvation, they would find themselves ostracized from everyone they knew.  We thankfully have evolved as a society, past those old constructs now.  For the life of me though, I cannot figure out why we hang onto some parts of those old ideas, and throw out others, as if they never existed in scripture to begin with. 

These kinds of thoughts continue to gather in my head over the last couple of days, making my mind feel as heavy and dark as those thunderclouds hanging low in the sky over my son's school yesterday.  I try to keep the thoughts to myself--I know they are not appreciated, I know they threaten people whose beliefs follow a straight line where a storm of questions and stories of real lives torn apart by their deeply held beliefs never blows them off course.  But not looking away from your own path doesn't mean another entire world of experience doesn't  exist.  It is there, looming darkly over all of us, if only we can find the courage to look at it, examine it, and take measures to understand it.

Millions.  I mean millions of women, and children go through life with the heavy weight of abuse, sexual exploitation, even rape and molestation on their backs.  A lot of these things happen to them at the hands of the husbands to whom they are told they must submit if they truly want to honor God.  Many of them experience sexual assault by clergy members or even just men who sit on the pews near them every Sunday.  Trusting their pastors, the leaders of their church, millions of women, families of children who were molested, go to those leaders for guidance when horrific things happen to them.  Millions of those same people hear, "You, as a Christian, must forgive them and keep quiet about this.  It could destroy that man's ministry if you tell people what he did to you."  They're accused of provoking assault, made to apologize in front of the entire congregation for having been sexually assaulted by a member of the church staff.   They've been told their virginity is worth more than their very existence at times. 

Domestic abuse in America is at epidemic proportions.  I find it hard to believe that religious beliefs do not in some way contribute to this problem.  Empowering men while completely stripping women of all power cannot lead to good things for society at large.  One in 5 women (who actually report abuse) have or will experience an abusive relationship in their lifetime.  Think of 5 female friends you know.  One of them either has been abused in some way, or will be.  Maybe that person is you.  Who would you go to for help? 

The problem with submission, and even the idea of a man loving his wife as Christ loved the church is this: how far do we take it?  Who decides?  Who decides whether a husband is loving his wife as well as Christ loves the church?  Is a mere mortal man, imperfect as all humans are, even capable of loving a wife with the same kind of love God supposedly showers upon the church?  And if God loves the church so much, why is "the church" so often the very place where women and children in particular, are harmed in such life-changing, life-destroying ways?   Who decides these things for us, when we cannot appeal directly to God himself for a direct answer?  As Baptists, you'd depend on your pastor as a spiritual leader to give you guidance on just how far to take the idea of submitting to a husband, a father or the pastor himself.  If we give men this kind of absolute power over us, that power will absolutely lead to our demise. 

Please don't read me as saying all Christian or Southern Baptist men are evil abusive people.  I absolutely do not believe that.  I know though, from personal experience, that the well is poisoned and far too many of those men buy into the idea that women were placed on this Earth solely for the purpose of fulfilling the needs of men.  They take the term "Help Meet" from Genesis and decide it means "servant."  Should a woman have dreams and goals of her own, or is her number on goal in life to help her husband achieve his dreams and goals?  His "calling" if you will.  Is servitude to men and children really the only valuable contribution we can make to the world, spiritually or otherwise?

How short are we selling our own worth when we adapt these kinds of ideas to our ONE CHANCE at life?

I've been around long enough to know that for every question I ask here, some Baptist will have a rationalization handy.  I too, was taught to have a scripture at the ready to combat any question someone might pose to me about what I believed when I was in the Baptist faith.  Those rationalizations backed by scripture taken out of historical and often spiritual context were burned into my brain.  You can come at me with them, but I've heard them all before.  My questions remain valid, your answers are not sufficient.

I feel right now like my thoughts are falling like rain drops--a deluge of their own, falling in useless puddles along the roadside.  Perhaps some of them will get someone's attention and persuade them to take a look past their own sunny path of belief, into the dark abyss of misery and despair they've helped to create in the name of God, or religion, or being Baptist above all else. 

It's getting late.  I have a busy day tomorrow, and so, so many more thoughts thundering around inside my head.  This post is the beginning, not then end.  It is not a mere statement of my opinion, it is a testament to my own experiences, and to the experiences of so, so many other women who find themselves forever changed by the abuse they've suffered at the hands and words of pastors, husbands, Sunday School teachers and "Christian" counselors.  There is more.   So, so much more and I want to share it all with you if you can be brave enough to turn your head just a little, and look at the darkness that exists in the same realm as the light in which you bask.  I ask you to accept, for just a while, that belief on its own is not enough.  I ask you to listen, try to understand a kind of pain and spiritual damage that seems unimaginable, but exists all the same, as a result of the religious teachings you've probably clung tightly to all your life.  I ask you to go on this journey with me, to examine the truth that exists outside your bubble of belief, and maybe even along the way, learn something profound about love.

I hope you can stick with me past the bright sunny sky of your belief, into the dark, stormy world of reality.

The Good Book

Sunday afternoons we sit on the porch and watch nature.  In the spring we watch baby rabbits hop around timidly, looking for tall grass or a shrub to hide under.  By Fall we'll find rabbits scarce.  The foxes will show up sooner or later, or the coyotes.  The little rabbits are easy prey for them.  Still, every Spring we see the little ones hopping about, proof positive that rabbits will probably never dwindle to extinction.

Mama usually sits on the porch swing with knitting on her lap.  She hums the hymn we sang at church earlier, just in fits and starts between short bits of commentary she offers on the latest church gossip.  Today she said, "Next week is Homecoming Dinner.  I wonder what I should make."  She went back to humming a few lines of "Just As I Am," then added, "I hope Betty Crowe don't bring that warm potato salad again.  I always end up gettin' a spoonful of that before I realize what I've gotten ahold of."

"Bible says ta eat at home."  Granny said.   Granny Jo is sort of  like the Holy Bible; you don't think about her much, but she's still always making you feel guilty about something.  She sits and rocks, back and forth, back and forth, seemingly in her own little world, but you can rest assured she hears every word that's said around here.  She wears her soft, thin gray hair in a tight little bun at the back of her neck.  The stretched out bobby pins sometimes show, though in the past she took care to assure they remained well-hidden among the waves of thick chestnut locks that once cascaded over her shoulders.  I know because a picture of her at about 23 sits on the mantle next to a picture of grandpa in his Navy uniform.  Grandpa died before I my birth, so I only know him through the stories Granny Jo and Daddy sometimes tell.  Lately, Granny Jo only speaks here and there.  She rarely even notices when Daddy starts telling one of her favorite stories about Grandpa.  Her feet just barely reaching the painted blue porch floor, she uses just her tiptoes to push off.  Her brown house slippers show signs of wear, just where her toes inside them make contact with the floor.  Mama said last Sunday it looked like Granny was going to need new slippers soon.

"She'll have em worn out again in a week." Daddy teased.

Nobody answered Granny Jo's remark.  It hung in the air for what seemed like a long time when Daddy spoke up to answer Mama.

"Well I think you aughtta make a coconut cake." Daddy said.  "Nobody ever makes coconut cake anymore."  Once in a while on Sunday he sits with his guitar, picking out little tunes as he stares off into space.  On this particular Sunday he sat motionless, his eyes darting back and forth across the field in front of him.  Once in a while he'd gaze up at the end of the driveway, like he was expecting company or something.

"Bible says if a man don't work, he aught not ta eat." Granny Jo stopped long enough to say before pointing her toes at the floor again, starting back into the slow, steady rhythm she prefers. 

Mama sighed, put down her knitting and looked down at me playing on the floor of the porch with my dolls.  I could feel her watching me.  I looked up at her and smiled and she smiled back.  "Child, you are outgrowin' all your Sunday dresses.  Look how short that dress is on her, Chuck.  We need to go shoppin' this week."

"Yeah," Daddy answered, not even glancing in my direction.

"Can I get a purple dress for Homecoming Sunday?" I asked Mama eagerly.

"Well sure you can!" She answered, "If we can find one."

"What if it costs too much?"  I asked, always aware of our humble means, I never wanted to ask for things that were out of my family's reach.

"I think we can manage one purple dress, darlin'. Don't you think we can, Chuck?"

"Of course we can, well I'll just rob a bank if I have to,." Daddy teased, still not averting his gaze.

"Thou shalt not steal!" We heard from Granny's side of the porch.  She spoke up with such force that we all finally looked in her direction.  Without rocking, she turned her head towards me and pointed her long finger, " And Bible says not to adorn yourself in costly array."

I looked at Mama to see if Granny was right.  Mama just looked back down at her lap and shook her head as she picked her knitting back up again.

After several minutes of silence passed.  The warm air of summer blew across the porch now and then, but as the sun made its way across the sky, the big water oak in the side yard fell out of its path, and the porch swing was soon invaded by its warmth.  With the sun shining on her back,  Mama sighed real loud and said to no one,  "Well the Bible also says that women aught ta dress modestly and she can't go around with her fanny shinin' in them dresses that are too little."

Granny Jo kept rocking.

"Yep." Said Daddy.

"It's gettin' hot out here." Said Mama. 

I kept playing with my dolls, imagining myself in my new purple dress with lace and frills.  As Granny Jo rocked I could feel the floor boards of the porch ripple beneath me.

Mama got up all of a sudden and threw her knitting work into a basket.  "I think I'll go get the dishes washed up." She announced.

"Alright." Said Daddy.

Mama went inside, letting the screen door slam behind her.  We listened as her Sunday shoes clip-clapped down the hall.  After her footsteps faded Granny looked over at Daddy and said kind of quiet, "Bible says ye aught not work on Sunday."

"She's just goin' to wash up the dishes, Ma." Daddy said back, not even looking up.

Granny stopped rocking for a few seconds, as she glanced in Daddy's direction, then she resumed her rhythm and the porch boards began their rippling again.

One person can change the mood of a lazy Sunday afternoon as quick as the summer sky can whip up a thunderstorm.  Feeling the tension build between everyone, I decided to go walk around in the yard barefooted.  It was May, after all, and the bare soles of my feet  had yet to feel the warm tickle of new spring grass or the still cool patches of dirt where the bare spots of our yard sat beckoning me to make mud pies.  I took off my Sunday shoes, tucked my lacy socks inside them and set them by the front door.  I felt the cool wood floor boards beneath my feet for a minute, still dipping in rhythm to Granny's rocking chair,  before I took off down the steps.

"Don't get your dress dirty, now." Daddy warned.  "You gotta wear that back to church tonight."

"Okay, I'll be careful." I promised.  Then I ran around the side of the house to see if the new kittens had opened their eyes yet.  Mama said I couldn't touch them until they did.

They were under the side of the house where, from my bedroom window, I could watch the mama cat come and go as she fed them.  I could hear them mewing sometimes during the night and I wondered if they might be cold out there all alone.  I'd pray for those kittens, "Lord, please don't let that black dog get the kittens tonight.  Please keep em warm and safe."  I guess I checked on them every day as much to see if the Lord was answering my prayers as anything.  They were tiny still, curled up on top of one another with the mama cat beside them, keeping watch.  I wanted to hold one so bad, but I just sat there on the ground watching them root around for their mama.

Eventually the damp ground began seeping through my clothes.  I  jumped up and felt the back of my dress.  It was a little wet.  I decided I'd go back to the porch and play dolls, hoping daddy wouldn't notice the red-clay stain on my rear end.

When I walked back up onto the porch Daddy asked me how the kittens were doing.  "They're still too little to hold." I told him, disappointed.

"They'll be weaned soon enough." He assured me.  Then you can play with them all you want, but don't you get your heart set on keepin' all them things."

"I won't," I said.  But I already knew if I begged hard enough he'd give in and let me  keep them all.

"Run get me my Bible." He commanded, finally  breaking his gaze from the treeline in front of him.

I tried to slip past him to the door so he couldn't see the back of my dress.

"Don't let that slam." He ordered as I successfully made it around him, hiding my mud-stained dress and opened the screen door.  "Your mama might be takin' a nap."

"She's washin' dishes." I reminded him.

"Well don't let it slam."

I felt relieved that I  made it inside without him seeing my dress.  I found his Bible on the table by his chair.  It felt heavy in my hands.  The edges of the pages were shiny silver when  when you closed it tight. I turned it over and looked at the cover, "Holy Bible," it read in gold lettering at the top, and then my daddy's name in smaller letters at the bottom, "Charles McKormick."  I carried the large book back outside to him and laid it on his lap.

"Here you go, Daddy." I said cheerily.

"Thank you sweet pea."  He patted me on the head and smiled.  Without even thinking I turned on my heel and went to pick up my dolls again.

"What's that on the back of your dress?" He asked me.

"Whatcha mean?"

"Is that mud on the back of your dress?  Was you on the ground watchin' them dang kittens again?"

"Yes sir." I said, my eyes downcast.

"Better go see if your mama can get that stain out.  You need to find a clean dress for church tonight."

"Can't I just put on some play clothes for now?" I pleaded with him.

"No.  You ain't wearin' no britches on Sunday!" He said emphatically.

"Okay. I'll go find another dress." I said.  I opened the screen door again, forgetting to let it close slowly.  "Snap!" it said behind me.  I felt sort of angry.  A child can never begin to understand the disparate rules of religion or society, especially as they relate to females.  I never understood why my cousins who were boys, could wear whatever they wanted to on Sunday afternoons, while I stayed trapped inside a dress, unable to climb or play or even get a little red clay on my butt.

"Girl, don't you be slammin' doors now!" Daddy hollered behind me as I hurried to the kitchen to find mama.

 Granny picked up on the tone in Daddy's voice.

"Bible says spare the rod, spoil the child." Said Granny Jo. "You aught not be afraid to put a switch to that girl." She added as I ran to Mama as fast as I could.

I found her in the kitchen whipping up a banana pudding for after church later.  "Don't tell your granny I'm cookin'." She whispered with a grin.

"I won't!" I whispered back.

"I got my dress dirty." I told her.  She spun me around so she could see the red-clay stain.

"Well we should have put play clothes on you after church anyway."

"But Daddy said I can't wear britches on Sunday."

"What Daddy don't know won't hurt him." She said, shaking her head.  "Go put on some britches and go out the back door and play. And don't let your Granny see you."

I spent the rest of that afternoon wandering around outside.  I waded in the creek, climbed a tree, went up into the loft of the barn in my bare feet and sat there with my legs dangling over the edge for a while.  I checked on the kittens two more times, but they still had their eyes closed tight.  "Lord, please make em open their eyes tomorrow." I prayed.

As the sun crossed over the peak of our house and the grass under my dirty feet grew cooler, I heard Mama calling me back in to get ready for Sunday evening service.  Daddy and Granny were still sitting on the porch when I came sneaking in the back door.

"Heavens to Betsy!" Mama exclaimed.  "What in the world have you been doin' all day?  How does a girl get so dirty?"

"I don't know, Mama." I said."I just play is all."

"Go get in the tub." She said in a low voice.  "Before your daddy comes in here and catches you in them britches."

I took off.  I ran myself a bath and got in.  I washed my feet and my belly and arms, then got out to dry off.  Mama came in with my clean dress just as I was reaching for the towel.

"I think you forgot to wash something." She teased,  as she picked up a washcloth and roughly scrubbed my face clean.

Freshly dressed in my rescued Sunday dress and shiny shoes again, I grabbed my little white Bible and headed out the front door with Mama.

"Time for church." I announced.

Daddy was asleep with his Bible lying open on his lap.  Granny Jo was rocking a little slower.

"Where'd the day go?" Daddy asked as he stretched and closed the Good Book.  "Guess we better get going. We don't want to be late for prayer meetin'. "

"Bible says forsake not the assemblin' of yourselves together." Said Granny Jo, looking proud of herself for remembering that one.

Granny Jo hadn't been to church in so long I didn't remember ever seeing her on a pew, but every Sunday my folks invited her anyway.

"You goin' with us tonight?" Mama asked.

"No." Said Granny Jo.  "I reckon I'll just stay here.  Bible says women aught to be keepers at home."

"Alright then, " mama said rolling her eyes.  "Don't sit out here after dark.  You'll catch cold."

"Yep." Said Granny.

We drove off to church, Granny still rocking on the porch, the sunset falling low behind us in the rear view mirror.  Mama hummed a little bit of "Just as I am," before she said, "I wonder if Martha Coggins is gonna be wearing that skirt around her hips again tonight.  I wish she'd pull that thing up to her waist where it belongs."

"Yep." Said Daddy, rolling down his window.

In the back seat, I stared at my white Bible on my lap as the wind from Daddy's open window blew my hair into my face.  I wondered if someday I might know as much about what the Bible says as Granny Jo.  I decided that even if I did, I'd keep it to myself.

Mama hummed a few more bars.  Daddy reached over and patted her knee.

"Lord sure gave me a good wife." He said.  "Not many find a woman like you that honors and obeys her husband."'

Mama glanced at him and gave a faint grin, as Daddy reached over and took her hand. 

"Lord sure is good." Daddy said.

"Yep." Said Mama, expressionless, as she gazed out the windshield at the road ahead.