Oh, Vertigo, When Will You Let Me GO GO?

Yes, it is hard to dance, get Halloween costumes ready, go to church, shave your legs, etc. with this crazy feeling in your ears.  Back to the doc I go, go tomorrow.  I'll try to carve Sarah Morgan's pumpkin today but Dad will have to man the trunk or treat mobile.  Enjoying Jennie and Nancy's blogs.  Read Persepolis and on to Maus I.  My first full length graphic novel completed.  I was struck by the rawness of the form.  It captured the girl's, main charaters,  growing up Iranian in a way that words just could not have alone.  I compare it to Diary of Ann Frank, a masterpiece of its own, and the way it charts the girl's movement through madness all around her.  I've always tried to understand that period in the Middle East's history and now I understand that as a Westerner I probably can't, not with true depth, but this novel gave me a look into Iran at present that will really help me when I hear Iranian stories in our "news."

China Adoption Group Reunion: From There to Here

This is much too fresh for me to write about yet but I feel I must while the senses are fresh with the feelings and images and sounds of the event.  For our family this was the first time in 6 years that the group with which we adopted our daughter was together minus three families.  These are the people that shared the experience of adoption with us the 14 days we where in China.  Upon arriving at the gathering house Sarah Morgan all but disappeared, hand-in-hand, with her crib mate she did not remember as they were adopted as near-16 month old children.  That didn't seem to matter.  The girls played together like they were neighborhood friends who shared the same backyards, swing sets, and classrooms everyday of their lives.  They were-connected!  Our group, the adults, come from all over the country, are vastly different than one another, have different amounts of children and family blends, but we all seem -connected!  It makes me think that if we could all think of ourselves as adopted, grafted together as one Dad said as we all tried to pose for a picture, "one whole crazy group,"  the whole world would feel more-connected!  Imagine the TEA Partyers  and the Occupy Wall Street Group-connected!  The Democrats and the Republicans-connected!  The rich and the poor-connected! The Muslims, Jews, Christians-connected!  The pacifists and the terrorists-connected!  Utopia-no.  Anarchy-maybe.  Impossible-probably.  Good?  Bad?  One could also make the argument,  it is sameness and shared experience and oneness of motive that really is the connection maker.  The long straight black locks of hair, the dark eyes that disappear in giggles, the finding of love caused by the sacrifice of abandonment.  And that "whole crazy group" might fight like cats and dogs except for the similarity of our union with our "forever child."  I mean one season of MTV's The Real World, Housewives of fill-in-the-blank with a city name, Survivor, or Big Brother and you know that Rodney King can ask all day, "Can't we all just get along?" and we can pretty much answer with a 99.9% accuracy-NO. I told you, it was too soon to write this.  I've already edited it three times.   I don't know, but I do know a group of 13 Chinese "sisters"  who could teach the world a thing or two about the "family of humanity" and if you are a believer, the "family of God."

On Being Alone

  My friend recently blogged about being alone and being in a group or a partnership/marriage. I thought I would reflect on this subject in my blog.  I was alone quite a lot during my life. I was an only child. We moved a lot. I loved my friends and my parents and my family and the people in our churches but they were not always there. My Parents had between six and eight churches most of the time when I was young-less when I was older. Daddy worked at carpentry, grew a garden, Momma canned and sewed to make ends meet.  They studied for their services for hours preparing to preach or teach, prayed and visited in the community, hospitals, and funeral homes many times a week. It was "our normal."  They loved me dearly and provided for me in a way that is a miracle, really.  They were different, Mom fiery and determined, not to be messed with, but great with a story and could make something out of almost nothing.  Daddy was quiet, strong, stubborn, smiling.  Mom worried about everything.  Daddy didn't worry.  Mom was careful.  Daddy pushed the edge.  How fast would the car go-he would find out.  I was caught in the middle a lot.  Between them.  Between the world against my Mother ( many hated her for being a minister, don't think so-ask someone even today about female preachers and see what they say) and the burden they both carried for the churches.  That burden became my burden very early in my life.  That is a lonely life for a little girl. My family lived mostly in Kentucky and Indiana and we only saw them a few times a year. I am still friends with my best friend from childhood. We met when I was 5 I think but we only shared three years of school together and then visited as often as we could from then-our families being close friends. I loved the church people I met and their presence in my life really filled in a lot of interest in how people are different. I have always loved the differences in people. I think that is my favorite thing -how people are so alike and how they are so different. My friend Marie who is one of the strongest women I have ever met and who has overcome more hurt than almost anyone I know and remains an optimist, laughs when I tell her I find most people beautiful, but I do. I wish I could find myself beautiful but I haven't gotten there yet. I played a lot by myself and learned a lot about being alone. It would be different now. I rode my bike and later my motorcycle everywhere. I explored the fields and countryside. I stayed outside playing any kind of ball I could find. I practiced my bat swing and pitch for hours at a time. I would get a rubber ball and pitch it against the concrete walls of the garage for hours at a time. I later did this with a tennis ball using my racket to play the "US Open, etc" in my mind for thousands of hits. Now I won't even let Sarah Morgan out in the yard without me to watch her. She asked me one day if she could just go around the mini barn and meet me on the other side of the house-I realized how close a watch I keep on her-but my friend Carol is a detective and she works a lot of OVERTIME trying to keep women and the elderly and children safe so I know who can be out there in the world to do irreversible harm. I must get Sarah Morgan more opportunities to be with other kids and freedom outside and open the world for her more. I married at 29 years old so I had several years on my own. I lived alone for a while. My college friends I call the sisters and I traveled all over the country camping along the way and I could never understand why my Mom was so worried. I understand now! I couldn't get up from the sleeping bag the next day if I tried camping today but my friends and I still travel and they have accepted Jon as a brother. One of them married after me and we accepted Daniel as a brother. I love them all so much. They took much of my loneliness away. The other two are single and a great inspiration to me. They are confident, beautiful, well-read and well traveled. We all love history and places and books and movies and restaurants, and did I mention BOOKS! I have learned the most probably from the women with which I have worked. They are a unique breed, they are tough and gentle and everything in between that any situation calls for. They have taught me about being a mother, a teacher, loyalty and friendship. Old and young I love them for what they bring to the table of life. Then there is Jon, my husband. He is everything I love and need. He is genuine, gentle, kind, funny, self denying, hard working, and so very loving. He thinks I'm beautiful and tells me that every day. He tells me one of his greatest desires is for me to see myself one day through his eyes-I hope I can someday. We are pretty well "joined at the hip." I depend on him too much I think.  I don’t mind eating out alone or going to a movie alone.  Travel-that would be hard for me.  I don’t drive as well as I used to and flying is really hard for me to do.  I was the bodyguard on those camping trips seeing the USA all those years ago. I carried the baseball bat and slept with it by my side in our tent each night. I grew up with guns but don't carry one. My Father wouldn't even let me play cowboys and Indians cause he said you can't even play like you are shooting someone. He impressed on me gun safety and responsibility. He always said never pick up a weapon that you don't intend to use-OR have used on you. That gives you pause. If asked wouldn't he protect his family with one of his guns he would always answer-I don't know what I'd do until I was in that situation. I kinda feel the same way and hope I never have to find out. It's funny though I would have been kicked out of school for zero tolerance because I always carried a pocket knife in my purse. My Father gave me several that I treasure and I have purchased several throughout my life. I just never thought of them as a weapon but just another tool. That wouldn't work today, would it? Anyway, I think the world is a very hard place for a woman alone and I think the single mothers and grandmothers of the world are the most courageous group of people in the world. I think then that economics is rough on women, also-tougher than men-I just do. Lastly, on being alone-some of the most aloneness I have ever felt came when I was in a crowd of people. When I was shy or misunderstood or different or whatever. Most of the alienation came from my own mind but it is a terrible aloneness. During those times I have always sought God. God has always been there for me. The ray of hope, the thing I leaned on, the thing I trusted, the thing in which I believed-not understood but believed. Sometimes He seemed so far away but I still had faith that He was indeed near and I trusted in that I could not see or feel until I could feel it again.  I know there will probably come a time in life when I am alone again.  I hope I have the wisdom to live it and not fear it.

Other Mother

I don't think I've ever written about Sarah Morgan's birth mother.  This weekend the group of couples with which we traveled to China are meeting for a 6 year reunion in Goodlettsville.  They will be coming from all around the country.  Sarah Morgan's crib mate  is coming from Dallas with her parents.  I have a love for Sarah Morgan's birth mother but also a great detachment.  I feel no anger toward her and I feel a vague love for her that is very hard to describe.  It is tinged with feelings that don't accompany any other love I feel.  In other words I feel differently about her than any other person in my life.  She is there in my life but undefined.  I think of her in the most routine of time not on Mother's Day or Chinese New Year or near Sarah Morgan's birth date.   I sometimes scan Sarah Morgan's face, her features, the speech patterns, her tendencies, her body parts-fingers and toes and wonder the features given by the other Mother.  I often tell Sarah Morgan I can't believe God put that much cute on one person-then I start at her toes and go up saying-toes-yes, cute, ankles, heels, shin-yes, all cute,  until she giggles and we hug.  Her other Mother must be beautiful.  I don't feel the same about her Father or the family-why do I put all the positives of Sarah Morgan on her Mother?  She could have been selfish, or mean, or unfeeling but I won't let her be.  I think it was how I saw women in China-at the mercy of-everything-family, men, economics, class, poverty, alienation, history, government, law, tradition.  Sarah Morgan's records only say that she was a newborn when found by a caretaker at the city gate.  They named the day they found her as her birth date.  That would mean that her other Mother had to have given birth to her and then the same day get the baby to the gate.  Could she have done this by herself?  Would she have been able?  Did someone make her do it?  Was it the plan?  Did someone else take the baby for her, from her?  It is against the law to abandon in China, of course it is against the plan of the government to have too many children-the paradox of China-believe me-not the only one.  The other Mother probably has or will have other children.  Sarah Morgan probably has siblings.  They could be anywhere in the world or in her home town or in the busy cities where families send their young to work in the urban factories that churn out our blue jeans and Christmas decorations.  Sarah Morgan would not have had enough status to even be sent to work in one of the live-in factories.  What would she have done?  I think of the female beggars who grabbed our suitcases at the Beijing airport and tried to run with them to our van to gather a few cents from us for their efforts and who had to be roughly moved away by our guide and made to let go of the luggage.  We had been only on Chinese soil a few minutes then. Sarah Morgan is a survivor, She would have made it but at what cost?  Sarah Morgan moves like my Mother and sometimes when she jokes she looks like my aunt, so I must move and look that way and not realize it.  She loves to collect rocks and build things-a very my Father's family-like thing to do.  It is like a university experiment about environment vs heredity played out each day within Sarah Morgan.  No, I don't have the answer.  It is so strange though that I know we, Jon, Sarah Morgan and I were meant to be together.  I don't know how but I KNOW it.  Why are our parents gone when she needs them so much in her life? Why this timing?  I don't know.  Do I worry about how old we will be and how young she will be?  Yes, even though you would think that after everything I would trust God to deal with that.  On Friday I will be surrounded with flowing blue black hair and smiles, and girl giggles and I will meet again the only people to have shared the same experience we did.  Who were there to hear the screams as they placed Sarah Morgan in our arms.  The bus rides, the plane trips, the food, the smells, the fear, the heat, the laughter, the awe, the miracle.  I'm sure each of us will carry some thought of the other Mothers with us.  As the world grows smaller I may one day see another face that is my daughter's and find that she is much like me.

This is a recent self-portrait completed by Sarah Morgan for her guidance class.  When she brought it home I thought , wow, that looks so much like the image of the "Other Mother" I had made.

Click to enlarge poem to read.

Click to enlarge to read

The People You Meet

One of my favorite weekends is Bell Buckle Craft Fair. Over the years I have enjoyed this event so much. Today was my first day to feel healthy in awhile and the sunshine, friends, art, and the people really was the best tonic. I got to see one of my favorite fabric artists again. A very sweet lady who does yarn work in the Portugese style. She said it is a vanishing art. She is always surprised to win a ribbon. Her wonderful demeanor and beautiful colors of yarn work made me feel like we were old friends. I didn't hold up long walking but enjoyed people and dog watching and soaking up the October sun. Maybe I'll start drawing again some as well as writing.

Another "Fish" Story

 

Another time fishing with my Father we went far back along the Tennessee River fishing along the slues that flooded the marshy area.  I define a slue fishing hole as one to which you must drive a 1960 Dodge four door sedan on a “road” comprised of at least five holes of water that cover the path with increasing levels of water that rise from somewhere around mid door to just below the windows of the car but the car does continue to run after passing through the miry pools and no noticeable water leaks into the floorboards.  Why did we not have a truck you might ask, because my folks were preachers and they had to have a car so the carpenter truck was the car (with a ladder tied on the top and the backend of a truck that had been made into a trailer hooked on the back), the funeral procession leader was the car, and the fishing and hunting vehicle was the car.  My Mother was 4 feet 10 inches tall and couldn’t get in a truck.

 Anyway, back to the slue.  When we arrived we parked and baited, sent out our lines.  Night clawers, crickets, raw chicken livers were are usual bait and sometimes we seined for minnows in a creek before we went fishing and kept them in our minnow bucket.  It just depended on what was biting.  On this particular day I don’t remember it being bad or good fishing so I imagine we were catching some.  We would stop to eat.  Now, today I would GermEx  Sarah Morgan’s hands like preparing for surgery but then we just washed off in the slue water, shook off the wet and opened the cans of Vienna sausages and ripped apart the cracker sleeve and drove into it with our fingers.  Fishing makes you starving! That is not properly written but that is what it makes you. We would drink from a big thermos of ice cold water that Daddy took when he was out working or in the outdoors.  He would drink from the thermos and I’d drink from the cap and he would always say, awwww, nothing quiches your thirst like water, good, old water.  Then he’d smile and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.  I often wonder what he would think of all the bottled water people buy and drink today.  After eating and toward afternoon, one of the lines started getting some action.  I don’t remember whose pole it was but I started reeling it in-something felt big on the other end and then it felt wrong-the line went slack not loose off just changed.  The catch was still on but the momentum had-switched.  I watched as that line came toward the bank and me without me cranking that reel an inch.  Then from out of that murky water came a reptilian running on all fours.  As it ran past me I saw its yardstick long slimy silhouette black inky body and tail head over the rocks and into the woods.  Before the line could tighten, Daddy cut it and the overgrown snaky salamander slithered away-which was pretty much where I’d hoped it would go.  Open mouthed I looked at the spot where it came from the water and then retraced its path to where it disappeared and then I looked at my Dad.  I expected a like look from him but all he said was, Waterdog.   I said what?  Waterdog.   That was a waterdog.   I looked at him again and blinked my eyes and over the years I have fashioned in my mind the question I formed in that look.  You mean to tell me that in all these years we’ve been fishing, in all these places so far off the beaten path we’ve been together, and in all the things we’d seen you knew about this creature and you hadn’t thought to tell me that one day I might just pull something out of the water that could motor onto dry land on its own. That might have been a piece of information that could have helped in this situation. But I didn’t ask.  He wouldn’t have gotten mad-it was just his way.  Momma said the Massengales were like that, they talked and then they didn’t.  I’m sort of like that myself.  Sarah Morgan and I were watching one of those shows were the haggard looking fisherman travels the globe trying to hook mythical prey.  This show was about a creature that was written about and was the subject of tribal art but very vaguely reported.  So we watch until the last five minutes of the show and low and behold the guy caught it.  A waterdog!  An Asiatic Waterdog.  Sarah Morgan looked up at me in disbelief that such a living thing existed.  I said, yes, I caught one once upon a time.  I’ve got to take that girl fishing! 

Another Snippet

Lots of fishing stories I could tell.  First, I refuse to watch Hillbilly Hand Fishing.  This reality series takes noodlers, hand fishing experts, who skillfully catch catfish by hand, underwater, in the species’ hiding holes, fisher’s head under the water for several moments at a time, until said fish hooks on to the hand of the fisherman, and then wrestles large fish to the surface. Then these guides take group of virgin hand fishers into the river for a noodling experience. After a childhood spent trying not to get stung, bitten, eaten, or infected I simply don’t have the patience for people in muddy river water teaching someone who’s never even been in the country to stick their fingers, or worse in a hole on the banks of that river and wait for whatever might want to hook on to them to sink mouth, teeth, fangs, or jaws into the waiting appendage.   Not to mention drowning-the banks and bottoms of a river are unforgiving, an underwater jungle of twisting silt covered ooze that refuses to be gripped and secured for salvation.  And about the time you find that out-it’s too late.  OK, what brought that on? A childhood of being surprised at what one can pull out, run from, or fight off what comes from the South’s ponds, lakes, and rivers.  I have a healthy respect for that element of surprise.

1.   Caution should be maintained when reaching down to unhook a low hanging trotline hook.  (A trotline is a series of hooks on one line placed across the river set out baited and accessed by johnboat.) 

2.   A snapping turtle pulled from a trotline into your boat multiples in size and strength directly equal to length or lack of length of the boat in which you ride and how fast one of you can get to an oar.

3.  Water snakes will not swim away from you, they will stalk you.  I was stalked by a water moccasin once for about an hour.  It singled me out on the bank where I was sitting under a branch fishing and swam right for me.  I of course gave up my position and it swam around the area and went up in the branches a while before it returned to the water.  I then returned awhile later to a spot a little above the spot and here came the snake again.  This time I relieved myself to the low water bridge where my Father was fishing with a smile on his face.  Is he after you, Donna Kay, Daddy said?  I said it seemed like it to me.  We had a little laugh.  Then this snake comes swimming up the channel straight toward me.  He swims right up under where I’m standing and he reaches his neck out of the water about 4 inches high-I didn’t even know a snake could do that.  That snake neck and head started swaying back and forth.  Daddy said, Donna Kay, I think he’s trying to figure how to get up to you.  I picked up a rock and threw it at the snake hoping to scare it away and believe it or not I hit the thing right on the head and killed it-it went limp in the water belly side up.  We were stunned.  I threw as a big rock as I could throw on to it and it must have sunk it because we never saw it again.

More fish stories tomorrow-that one made me tired.

Snippet

I’m a tender of graves.

I’m a keeper of secrets.

I’m a teller of stories few care to hear.

I’m a teacher who has lost her way.
I’m a writer who is still seeking her craft.
I’m a prayer with an answer unknown.
I’m a Christian with faith that God gives me through song.
I’m a friend, kin, wife and mother with a love so strong.
Will the gold of my past endure or will it turn brass?
Will the soul of my present find joy in a world it doesn’t know?
Will my future be wise with lessons learned on the way?
Who will be with me in those final days?
Will I gather them round me then-the secrets, and the stories, the prayers, the Loves, and the songs-the gold of the past, the joy of the soul, and in finality, the lessons learned as the Master leads me
Home?   


Today a snap shot story and then maybe another one tomorrow:

The researchers and biologists say they don't exist, not in the Eastern woodlands, at least. Folklore. The Black Panther. The cat that screams like a woman at night. I never heard one cry but my Father said he had in his boyhood and as far as I know he never lied about anything. But, I saw one.

We were hunting. I was young, preteen. I don't remember what forest but I know we were in the deep woods because Daddy had said he'd better mark our way in because if he got turned around a person could walk for acres out here and not find a way out. That's why I think it was a black panther. I would have written it off as the feral cousin of some long ago domesticated black tom cat but we were just too far back.

We had come to a clearing and paused to rest. Then from above and to my left abit came a rustling from the branches of a tree.  I turned in time to see a compact black form drop straight down.  It was the sound that convinced more than anything.  That black shape hit the duff of leaves with a tremendous thud.  This was no sound connected to the twisting flex of a house or barn cat collecting itself in free fall to land lightly on its paws.  This thud was all solid power. Like a boxer’s punch it had hit the ground.  It stayed low but the speed was incredible.  At no time did I feel scared because I sensed that in that living thing’s DNA it wanted more away from me than I could imagine.  Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t run away scared, it just decided to be there and the next second it decided to be gone.  Maybe that’s why people say they are myth.  Things might have been different if it had been dusk, certainingly different if it had been dark, but then, we would not have been in THOSE woods at night, not unless things had gone very badly, indeed.  I remember looking at my Father and asking him if he saw it.  He said, yes, he had.  Was it a panther, the black cat?  Sure looked like it he said.  We retraced the happenings for a moment to commit it to memory, cause we never could remember the details of a story the way my Mother could and then we moved on.  Times dwindled with my Father in the woods as I grew up.  Now I rarely even enter a copse of trees.  I miss it. 

Saturday Night

Sinus and ear problems are better but the beautiful weather and time of year pulls me to come outside and play.  I MUST be good a few more days!  I hate to miss church again but I'm going to be quite again tomorrow at home and just rest and let the medicine have a catch to clear this up.  I have longed for Jon to be able to tell be exactly what pitch this ringing in my ear is on?  I will be glad when that symptom is GONE!  I want to get ready to go to Bell Buckle next week but the biggest date is our adoption groups 6th reunion in Goodlettsville in two weeks.  The 13 couples that adopted in China together are spending a weekend together with the girls!  I'm sure it will be emotional and thrilling.  Sarah Morgan and her crib mate, Savannah, for the first 16 months of her life will get to be together-she is from Texas.  Our group shared a unique and wonderful experience together those first weeks in China that really will always bind us together.

Jobs of My Father

Tenant Farmer

8 mule team driver

Rolling Mill Worker

Dairy Farm Laborer

Orange Grove Smudger

Guano Factory Worker

Construction Worker

Carpenter

Grave Digger

Minister

Evangelist

Pastor

and probably manying more I do not remember.  I lost my Father to cancer in 1992.  He would have been 100 years old this year.  I miss him so much.  We were so close and could almost talk without speaking.  Just putting an arm around my shoulders during my teenage years could drive the sadness away.  We fished, hunted, worked, together for hours and hours, days and days, and weeks and weeks.  He was a wonderful man and I love and admire him more and more each day.  He taught me so much in the time we had together.  He got to know Jon, my husband, and be with us our first 3 years of marriage.  He treated and loved Jon like a son.  I'm so glad we could share just that short amount of time.  I wish my daughter could be with him.  He had children follow him around all the time.  He was that kind of man, they naturally loved him and felt safe, protected, and loved in his presence.  He had a great zeal for life.  A powerful faith and an amazing understanding and love of nature.  Thanks, Daddy.

Speck Ridge Smoke: A Blend of Stories about a Schoolyard in Rural Kentucky as Told by my Mother

Playing under the trees, moonshine brewing in the hills, the love, the laughter, the sadness, and the choices-it was all there in a place in Kentucky called Speck Ridge.

Speck Ridge Smoke

The school bell rang and recess began but even before the boys and girls spilled out of the schoolhouse door the smoke would rise from the hollows close to Speck School. The cool, fresh water springing from Speck Cave was winding, heating, blending through copper, coil, and daub in an alchemy of alcohol.

As the games of squirrels in trees and ghosts in graveyards would begin with the boys, the girls would start building their houses under the big trees.  The boys would whoop and holler tearing through the play houses riding their imaginary horses through the girls’ tidy rooms.  The girls would shoo them out with their tree branch brooms as they’d seen their mothers do when a muddy boot dared thump on a clean floor.  Some boys would see the smoke rising from the valley below and note the location as one to go wide around by unwritten law, if out hunting within the woods.  Others would notice, too, and view it not as a wispy snaking cloud but as something a clan with them.  A Daddy, a Brother, an Uncle’s life was signaled in those hill country smoke stacks.

The boy would separate from the rest with shouts , come on, come back, but he would venture into the woods anyway.  He knew each path from here to there whether in afternoon’s dappled light or midnight’s clear black.  What drew him so?  Would draw him all his life?  Kin, tradition, friend, foe, taste, smell, or something in him, which was waiting to make him surrender? 

He’d come to his tree and lean awhile and take out his pocket knife and cut off a branch.  He’d smile as he saw the heart he’d cut, SAB loves SAP.  He laughed, he’d had to reach as high as he could to carve that heart, now it was barely chin high.  He loved her still and always would, forever forged together as a brother to her he’d be. 

His thoughts turned to the younger sister who would soon be sweeping out the dirt floor of her schoolyard house around the trees.  She’d probably play the Momma with a baby on her hip.  No way could he know how many in their life would be really cradled there and sadly how many times he would cause a worried brow.  But, he’d always be loved right till the end.  Couldn’t help but love him with that grin.  As he studied in thought with a whittled sweet gum brush in his mouth of the work there would be for him to do when he got home, maybe to tote a runoff load.  He’d have to do it to be a man but the boy in him would grab a hot baked sweet potato out of the stove and kiss his Momma before he’d go.

Before that though, he’d return to the well-worn playground even though he was too far away to hear the school bell ring.  It wasn’t a fear of a switching that hurried him back.  No, there were stories to tell, double dares to give, jokes to make, and marbles to hit.  Yank a few pigtails, pull a few pranks, and to be patted on the back by many as the school bell rang.  They’d all go back in after a drink with the dipper from the pail.  He’d be among the last and give a glance back before he entered the shadow of the door.

Sometimes early in life we choose a path urged this way or that, good and bad; most times a mixture of both.  That trail twists and turns like those steamy columns of air and he followed his as sure as Speck Ridge smoke.

My response to the book and movie, THE HELP.

These are two poems I wrote years ago but I was reminded of them after reading the novel, The Help, and then seeing the movie.  The novel did touch me but the movie settled.  It could have done so much MORE!  It kept to the safe laugh, hinted at the danger, and minimized the evil of racism.  I was a child a little older than Maybelle's age in the sixties but even I knew the dangers that hummed along the color lines.  Anyway, here are the poems.

Praying for Dr. King

            You wouldn’t think praying would be a scary thing to do, but I remember being scared to death this day Daddy prayed. 

            We bowed our heads and closed our eyes, but men began moving. I’d been taught not to look around during times of prayer and I kept to that rule not out of fear of doing something wrong but for the reverence of doing something right. With eyes still closed I knew something was wrong.  From all sides they came.  I felt the air they stirred as they brushed by me at my seat near the aisle.

            I knew what he had said up there in the pulpit, that we should all be in prayer for Dr. King lay dead and his followers were beside themselves with grief and that this was a day of prayer that although the leader had died for his message to live.  That was not what a white preacher in a small rural church on the Tennessee-Alabama border was supposed to be praying about in 1968.  I was only eight, but even I knew that.

            He prayed anyway as the people left and when I did open my eyes there were just a few of us left, mostly the women and the children.  My Daddy didn’t look surprised, or mad, or sad.  He looked like he always looked; that everything was going to be alright look.  Not safe but alright. It was a humble, contented, steady look.  One that let me know how serious the situation was, that he was prepared to go on whatever the cost and that decision included me whom he loved so dear, his only child. He preached his sermon, of which I remember not one word.  How we were treated on the way out, I have no recall.   Then we drove home.   In silence or conversation, I do not know. Oh, the men tried to move him from the church the next week and I remember my Mother saying they talked to him like a dog but she said he answered them like you would your Grandfather with all the respect and dignity he could muster but he never backed down and he never got angry. We waited, but no cattle truck came to our door to load our things.  

            My Daddy taught me a lesson that day in that church about what people really were, whether black or white, wrong or right, for you or against you.  It is not about them.  It is about you and how far you are prepared to go.  You are commanded by God to live with compassion, faith, strength, and humility and to speak for justice.  I learned that the day he prayed for Dr. King.

The Snowy Cross

The Snowy Cross

I came upon a snowy cross.

In silhouette by white refined the stark, dark dross.

It seemed so purely placed there

As if angel wings had touched it where-

A Savior once strained against his ties

And his forgiveness from the crossbars flies.

Is its size diminutive?

How fooled our eyes to think that grace would not live.

One of the crosses thrice

Had been reformed in the ice.

The arms of the piece once so straight and neat

Had shifted, twisted, and turned in their icy keep.

The timbered post

That once helped body and soul turn to Ghost

Were made as wings of birds in flight

One reaching upward and the other twirled toward Earth with great might.

It seemed to almost come to life

This snowy cross that caught the light

And in the snow it lived anew

As moisture to the ground renews.

I’ll see what grows there in the spring

And place on the cross a wreath of flowery offering.