Higher Things

At one time, I would have never thought I had a problem with pride. I've lived a lot, done so many different things, and been given grace over and over as I zig-zagged through all my projects, jobs and people. To my peril, I have grabbed one (usually artistic) adventure after the other. It seems there's always the next one looming on the horizon and they seem to hunt me down. I don't even look for them and they are there. There's a lot of mental planning and worrying, waking up nights sweating about the details. Then there's the buildup to the event and I despair, just knowing it's not possible that it will actually happen like it should. This is when I start realizing that I am, indeed, proud. Because that's when the Diva arrives. She's intense, ridiculous and a little mad. Nothing else in the world matters, and oh, the drama... Somehow, in the end, the final product gets finished and life can resume once again. There might be pictures, often not, because in the Zone there's not time for pictures, only the production. I'm always struck at some point in the process by that moment of clarity, when everything begins to flow. The creative melds with the practical and the inspiration pours out like unbidden lava. It's definitely a God-thing, nothing you can train for. All the flurry of the before-and-after stops as the song sings itself. Those moments might just be addictive, because in the scheme of things it's a small portion of the time committed. All you creatives know what I'm talking about.   I've said this many times, but I believe there are eternal purposes, in heaven, for the ways in which God makes believers with their various and sundry gifts and good compulsions. There are things which we know how to do that can't be explained. I love that about God. The evidence of the finger of the divine are all around us.

So acknowledging that, pride has to leave off. I sing to the great Creator and all of His wonder.    

Toasted

There are wedding bunnies multiplying out in my barn. Dozens of lanterns, hundreds of various votive holders, candles both real and fake, jars and containers of all sizes, lace and tulle to beat the band, and fake greenery curling around everything. I've been collecting this stuff for years, but I'm afraid it's going to take over and start growing like kudzu. 

My extended family doesn't know how to do anything small. It's go big or go home. So when my niece's wedding was looming, my sister and I started hitting up antique stores and yard sales, looking for glass bottles, candle holders and yes, fake greenery. There's some really ugly stuff out there, but we found enough pretty to cover a small town. We descended on Cave Spring, Georgia last Thursday, rolled up our sleeves and got started. An army of young people showed up to help -- we have some giant families in our periphery. The Lord said to fill and subdue the earth and we're taking that seriously. Any event means all hands on deck.  After three days of intense work, the wedding music finally started. We all took a deep breath and watched as beautiful old and young folks filled the chapel. Friends from decades past, family from far and near, and there might have been a few wedding crashers, seeing as the venue is in the middle of a public park.  

When at last the Grandmas and parents were escorted in and the young people began gliding towards the front, it was hard to hold back the tears. This part of any wedding is the golden hour, when so much past, present and future is distilled into a glistening moment. Time seems to stand still and I just want to squeeze all the goody out of it. The symbolism in Christian marriage, where the groom represents Christ and the bride represents His people...paints a lovely picture of all that is good and hopeful and redemptive in this world. I ugly-cry when the groom sees his beautiful, luminous bride, love pouring out of his eyes. 

There's the ceremony, then the party, with feasting, cheering, whooping and hollering. Little kids join the energetic young folks on the dance floor and it all flies by like a dervish. Before we know it, the ice swan is melting and the sparklers are lit and the couple departs in their car. We turn to each other, hugging, congratulating, deflating. There's much left to do, but the party's over. The night and the next day is spent getting it all packed and cleaned up, promising each other that we will never do this again, laughing, because we know it's not true. There are many more to come, with nieces and nephews and then grandchildren in line for their turns. There's always hope that some will marry into money, but then we'd lose all the comradery of the shared, often torturous experience. 

Then again, we could still whoop and holler, even if somebody else paid for all of it. Here's to rich uncles and destination weddings! 

Callings, Bling and How to Stand Down a Bully

Since we're on the subject of my Grandma with the Chicago roots...I've been thinking about her storage places. She lived in a modest home on the flat plains of Illinois, but her closets were not modest. In her spare bedroom alone, she had a walk-in closet full of shoes, then a smaller one packed with her formal dresses. There was a large piece of furniture, a high-boy that seemed to stretch to the ceiling. Inside it was her costume jewelry. Drawers full of it. She would let us girls play dress-up with all that goody, with no fussing or checking to make sure we did it right. If that was her costume jewelry, I'm sure her "good" jewelry was palatial. I loved her like there was no tomorrow.

This all in contrast to my country-girl MawMaw. I remember her putting toothpicks through the holes in her ears. She usually wore a shift and could be found toddling on her rheumy hips, outside weeding her garden or planting something. She could put a stick in the ground and it would grow, I do believe. Luscious persimmons and warm, juicy tomatoes were the jewels in her crown. Her biscuits were as hard as hockey pucks and everyone just did the shortcut (rather than break their teeth) and put them in their coffee. Her house was always slightly greasy and there was no pleasing her (there really was...she just thought it might be proud to let on). I can't hear a train without fondly thinking of her, in her old rickety house by the tracks. I loved her like there was no tomorrow. 

Grandpas don't factor too much in the distilled sweetness of my childhood. They were side-trappings, astericks on the lives of my Grandmothers. How my sweet Daddy came from one of them is just proof that there is a good and merciful God. And he became possibly the best Grandfather God ever made. He and my Mama's life consisted of rotating from one grandchild to the next, for all their events, games, speeches, constantly dandling the babies on his lap. Jesus said to suffer the little children to come unto Him...Daddy assumed that was the 11th commandment and they all loved him for it. 

Daddy was the most fun and sweet of men, but I remember his advice to us girls, when there was a bully bothering one of us. He told us that if someone ever hit or attacked us, we were to punch them back. I said, "Daddy -- the principal will expel us if we hit someone, even if they hit us first." He said to defend ourselves, and to do it well (he put it more like, "You better beat the fire outa her!") Maybe that's why we never had to actually do it. He always taught us to be kind and generous, to think of others first and to serve the needs of the people around us. But there's something to be said for attitude. He also told us to be ladies off the basketball court but to be tigers on the court. 

My Grandmas and Daddy, they could have done webinars... 

Love is Grand

Today is an impossibly beautiful spring day. It's cool (for Georgia), low humidity, the wind is gently blowing and my two (count 'em) lovely windchimes are speaking to one another on the front porch. I turned on all the fountains and I've got the front door open, where I can hear the water bubbling and the chimes talking. It's reminding me of our visits, many years ago, to Grandma Betty's house. She lived her last years in Kankakee, Illinois in a home that she and her husband built on a big corner lot, surrounded by trees and countryside. Several magical summers, we would go for a long stay. She worked for a book publisher, and would have boxes of books for our reading pleasure while we were there. We kids usually slept on the living room floor, sometimes for two weeks. The days were long and languid, full of dreaming and reading. My sister, Melanie, and I would explore the fields near her house. There was something secure and dreamy to me about those days. She had a fancy stereo in her living room, where we would play records. In those days, music was a priceless commodity. It was played on flat plastic disks that you had to be careful not to scratch (in case you don't know). Now we have every color and stripe of musical genre imagineable, but back then we had to buy those individual recordings, treasures to be safeguarded. She had the soundtrack from Oliver! and we played it until the adults were losing their minds. To this day, I can still sing every song from it. Sometimes I belt out "Who Will Buy?" -- imagining myself sashaying through the London streets with my basket of roses. I connect the whole album to my dear Grandma, who was anything but provincial. She was glamorous, smart, cultured and classy. Listening to that song this morning, my eyes smart with the missing of her. She only got to see one of my babies before she passed suddenly all those years ago. It is inexplicable, the unconditional love that flows from a good Grandmother to her grandchildren. I understand that now, as a Yaya myself. The link, the eye hook that passes between us. I only got to see her maybe once or twice a year, but I knew she thought I was the best thing since sliced bread. It still serves me. I pray that I can give that to my own precious grandchildren.  

Southern Nights

I dropped off my sugar baby this morning at the shop -- my pearl-white Ford Explorer, sweet as honey and prettier and sportier than any ole' Corvette or Lamberghini (those things are built so low to the ground, I bump my head trying to get in, not to mention that my knees don't bend that far anymore). I should not care for a vehicle as much as I do that one...it's just a thing, easily wrecked or disposed of. It's my third Ford Explorer, with all of them ferrying me and my people and my junk far and wide. They've all three been the most faithful of vehicles, with hundreds of thousands of miles on them and still beautiful when I've sold them. I'm asking God to make this particular one go 350,000 miles, 'cause it's just the juiciest. We've done it before, with two Ford vans (one of them 390K and we still sold it for a decent price!). My car salesman uncle used to highly disrespect Fords. He was a Chevy man to the core and loved to say: "Ford -- Found On The Road Dead!" But that has not been our vast and varied experience. At any of our family events here on Magnolia Street, you will see the driveway filled with trucks, SUVs and mayhem, mostly of the Ford variety. A tiny little Ford Focus might have been what saved us from financial ruin, many years ago, as it hauled Ken and I from here to Outer Atlanta Mongolia for years (me with my ladders, paint and supplies impossibly squeezed in on the passenger side). 

Thinking of all these things this morning, and especially our many uncles, as I smelled the intoxicating scent of spent motor oil and diesel fuel at the shop... my mind drifted to my childhood (oh, once again). I remember hot, muggy summer nights where the men in my family were gathered mysteriously around a vehicle, usually in some basement or barn out back. The womenfolk would be in the house talking, smoke wafting from my aunts' heads. The laughter was tinged with that husky, throaty cigarette-affected sound that actors crave (but have to decide whether the shortened life span is worth the risk). Us kids would be barefoot, playing and running in the yard, darkness swallowing us like a blanket. By night's end, we would be sweaty and filthy. Sometimes my Mama wouldn't even let us come in the house once we'd passed the point of no return. I had about 30-something cousins on the Slate side, and we all reveled in the simple childhood play of dirt, sweat, hide-and-seek and my favorite: "Run Away From the Orphanage" -- made-up dramas with Shakespearian-worthy narratives. Mama, even though she is the cleanest human I know, didn't keep us penned up or cosseted when it came to all the soil in our lives. She let us live and play to our hearts' content (there was always work, but all in good time). We were expected to gingerly sit in the car until we got home and then were whisked to our spotless tub where we were summarily scrubbed back to pinkness. 

A Southern Gothic childhood is sincerely the best childhood.