Unintentional Eavesdropping

Some conversations just have to be shared.

Sitting outside at my mother-in-law's house, concealed by a hedge, I heard the neighbor's one-sided telephone conversation:

“So, yeah, wanna hear something really awesome? I'm a descendant of Pocahontas.”

“You know how she married John Randolph? I found out my great-grandfather was John Randolph. So, that makes me 1/16th Cherokee. Cool, huh?

And you know what, when I told Kaitlyn, she said, “Pocahontas? She's just a cartoon character.”

“Well, you know, Kaitlyn's not all that smart. She didn't do well in school and doesn't know much about history and stuff. So, anyway, I'm 1/16th Cherokee, but I'm really bummed because I wanted to get that financial aid for school because of my Indian blood, but they stop at 1/24th, so I don't get it, since I'm just 1/16th."

"Heard it in a Love Song"

Listening to The Marshall Tucker Band, Carolina Dreams, this morning on our newly reclaimed stereo system. 20 year old speakers restored, a friend’s turntable (fortunate for us he’s been seduced by the digital age), and a 30 year old Kenwood receiver I purchased from a Vietnamese thrift store owner who knew the value and wouldn’t bargain.

There are certain bands that give me this feeling, difficult to describe, a feeling that the sun is shining somewhere, if not here, that there are deep, clear, drinkable rivers of truth, analog, flowing, connected, not just these bits and bites of randomly, albeit efficiently chopped up and smashed back together information.

Some voices and tunes and words create an essence, some kind of rock-solidity that makes time stop. Other voices, demands, my anemic grip on what I think life is, all are put aside, while the song’s story fills all, is all.

I project myself into the future, an old woman, 90-something, blind, almost deaf, asking my great grandchild to find this song, to listen to it, as I tell her that there was a time when men and women were different. Yes, honey, they even wore different clothes; the women wanted to be feminine and the men wanted to be masculine. And then I’d have to teach her the meanings of those words.

And there was a time when it was not punishable by law to say something like:

“I’m gonna be leavin’ at the break of dawn
Wish you could come, but I don’t need no woman taggin’ along
Gonna sneak out that door, couldn’t stand to see you cry
I’d stay another year if I saw a teardrop in your eye.”

And, yes, honey, there was a time when you didn't have to ask if that was a man or a woman singing. There was a difference. A good, solid, in-your-bones difference.

Miraculous Every One

I held a newborn baby
The artist’s genius fully realized
in the hands, fingers, fingernails

These in contrast to the legs,
so spare, as if only penciled-in,
and the face loose, saggy, generic

Eyes, mouth, and ears,
like the fingers, as-good-as
or perhaps better-than they’ll ever be

Her eyes as hungry as her mouth, searching,
searching. Her determination something
astonishing at just five days

Does the mother have those small,
perfectly round ears? Is the reddish hair from the father?
Who has the long, exquisite fingers?

Was their coming together a giving, or a taking?
The conception a ploy, an oversight?
Was there crying and blame? Or just an ‘Oh, well’?

What world will she see with those eager eyes?
Other eyes that say, “You are beautiful. I wanted you.”?
It’s likely. Couples, a long list of them

Are waiting, afraid to hope, daring to pray
That she will be theirs.

The Laugh of the Month

The other day my mother and I were having lunch at the Olive Garden. The acoustics were terrible, made worse by the fact there was a huge party of female office workers just across from us. My mother complained to me, saying something about how one friend says that whenever gypsies show up at her favorite restaurant, they’re real loud like that, too.

So, we’re doing the best we can to communicate, my mother telling me the funny stories of the week. I ask her about two of her friends, recently divorced. My mother is quoting the husband this way: “You know how Richard talks crazy. He said, ‘I ain’t gonna be no man mistress!’”

Right at that moment our tall, dark, very handsome waiter walks up, obviously hearing my mother, who is 77, say, “I ain’t gonna be no man’s mistress!”

I know he thought that because he burst into laughter, which he quickly tried to contain. I looked up at him and started laughing myself, then looked at my mother who hadn’t missed a beat, and was also starting to laugh. The waiter high-tailed it out of there, my mother watching him go no doubt back to the kitchen to tell what he’d just heard.

For a few glorious minutes, my mother and I enjoyed together the kind of cleansing Niagara Falls laughter that makes you feel like you’ve been reborn. My mother was clutching her stomach, tears filling her eyes, saying, “Stop, it hurts.” Just when we’d begin to recover, we’d relive the ludicrosy of of a 77 year old woman saying that to her 51 year old daughter and we’d go into convulsions again.

To Emily on Her 24th

This is a week of birthday posts. My daughter Emily wrote a great tribute to her father on her blog. This reminded me of a letter I wrote two years ago to her, and as her birthday was just yesterday, I post this now. I’m aware that all this gushing back and forth might be nauseating to some; if so, I apologize and reason that on any given day you’ll read things that you don’t care for. That said, here goes my letter to my oldest daughter Emily on her 24th birthday, now 26.

Dear Emily,

To this day I can see you in your little bassinet that first week of your life. We proudly changed you from the hospital’s t-shirt into a little pale green outfit that fit perfectly, marking you as ours, different from all the rest. I couldn’t believe that several hours before, you’d been floating in that other-world of wet, dark warmth, but had emerged perfectly formed, with skin clear and pink as if it had known the kiss of the sun and the air from the beginning.

I watched you as you looked around the small, plain room in the British Military Hospital, taking it all in – the wall, the corners, the ceiling, every little thing. I began to see things with fresh eyes – your eyes, the eyes of a human being thrust into a world yet to be experienced. Later I learned that newborns can’t see that far, but I don’t care. The experience was wonderful and profound, and I think, in a way, foundational for how I’ve approached being a parent.

I was awed by your very existence. There was a person who hadn’t been there before, taking her place in history, breathing her share of oxygen, making her voice heard in a world that had never heard that voice before. With your birth, as with all births, entered into the world a universe of will, of possibility. Within weeks, your hands began to grasp at everything in sight, another metaphor for that human determination to make the world your own.

And the years would bear this out. From your refusal to stay in our arms once you could squirm out of them in order to explore, to your insistence on wearing a dress every day no matter how cold, to your asking me when I was going to teach you how to fly, you were indeed always “doing your own thing”, as the Sesame Street song goes.

Even in your teenage years, while the other girls chose princess-like literary characters to dress up as, you chose to be the whale in Moby Dick. That mass of wire and tape and bed sheets resembled an albino Barney, but the strategically placed GI-Joe dressed as Captain Ahab with a spear and make-believe blood made it clear…well, almost. We laughed so hard we cried.

As those granted fellowship with the One who made you, we were blessed as parents to be guided by Him, learning as we went how to care for you. There were times when we did it all wrong, but I know that His grace was always there. We have been and are a privileged people.

You’ve turned out so well. We are so proud of you and Brian. It’s so great to see you building your life together; so wonderful to see your marriage reflect the realities in heaven – a groom loving and caring for his bride; the bride desiring to please the one who is now her protector and leader.

The backdrop of this letter is a week of horror in our world, as a young man - about your age, seeing the world as his enemy, pulled a trigger countless times, ending the lives of 32 people, each of whom was a universe of possibility, too.

So, I guess I’m dumbstruck with gratitude that I could have a child who, for every single day of her life, has added light and beauty to this world. And I’m so grateful that on this Saturday after the killings at Virginia Tech, after more bombings in Iraq, I know you are safe in Jackson, MS, answering the phone, “Emily O’Dell, Bike Shop”, no doubt scanning the landscape for possible photographs, considering a new recipe, planning to worship the God of your parents tomorrow morning. How those who lost a loved one must be longing for an ordinary day to make an ordinary phone call to their loved one.

Any life can bless or curse, give or take, create or destroy. You, and now Brian with you, are lights on a hill. May God continue to bless you and keep you and reach out to others through you.
Happy Birthday, precious one.

The Gifts of Spring

While on my walk, my own heart lately sodden with cares began to thaw with these first gifts of spring. A daring squirrel had climbed to the farthest edge of the highest and flimsiest branch, defying gravity, the tenderest shoots no doubt worth the risk. I loved his gumption, felt proud of his moxey, if envious.

The redbud trees are blooming; impossibly purple and delicate. Their greeting here at the close of winter while most of the other trees are still barren is like some angelic visitation bringing good tidings. I stopped and stared and could hardly believe the beauty, repented of my wintery unbelief.

I found myself marveling at the fortitude of a half-spent dandelion, standing brave and tall, alone, sprung amidst rocks. I fancied myself like that saint of old who was struck by the love of God at the sight of a falling leaf.

Two ducks squawked overhead like some old couple bickering and I wondered what they were saying, thought about C.S. Lewis’ talking animals. I then thought about a story I’d heard a few nights ago.

Pat’s cousin and her husband have some land in Texas – a few horses, fifty head of cattle. Sadly, one of the aging horses had to be put down. Al hired some guys to bury him on their land; Carol Lynne couldn’t bear to watch. That night, after they had gone to sleep, the human mourners were wakened by the animal ones.

“It was the worst sound I’ve ever heard. A crying. A moaning. It was awful.” (Carol Lynn says lots of things are awful, but her shudder convinced me.) “We looked outside and all of them cows had made a circle around where the horse had been buried. And they just kept making that horrible sound.”

And so I wonder about God’s creation. Rocks can cry out. Stars have names. Diamonds are hidden in mountains. Cows grieve for a horse. The sky turns black in response to a man's last breath on a cross. The creation stands on tiptoe. All the collaboration of all the geniuses of all time couldn't have imagined a world as amazing as the one we awaken to each morning.

Not Even Univac Could Figure Her Out

Growing up, my sister and I knew when our mother was talking on the phone with Ann because she always took on Ann’s voice. Ann has this extraordinary speech pattern: Southern and therefore slow and deliberate with added syllables. (My mother’s name Joanne becomes Jo-ah-yuhn.) Unlike other Southerners, though, her voice is not rounded-out, soft, or gravelly, but a roller-coaster voice with peaks of sharp, but still pleasant intonation. Hers is a voice with constant excitement, emphasis, punctuated with laughter, a musical voice that never ceases to make you want to listen.

Friends since they were three years old, “running wild up and down Main Street, jumping from the rooftops of downtown buildings”, it wasn’t until they were in their teens that it occurred to my mother that Ann was “a little slow”. No matter. They’ve remained friends to this day, now in their eighth decade of life.

Ann gets words wrong. She could have been the prototype for Amelia Bedelia. As teenagers, she was so proud of the cashmere sweater she’d bought, calling my mother on the phone to celebrate her purchase. “Is it a cardigan?” my mother asked. “No, Joanne. I already told you it was a cashmere.”

Later in life she showed my mother her “varico” vein. “It’s variCOSE, Ann, not variCO.” Ann said with her customary stubbornness, “You don’t understand, Joanne. I only have ONE.”

My mother and her friends would spend hours sitting around our kitchen table, smoking, drinking, playing a little cards, philosophizing. One afternoon, lips loosened by drink, Mama and Martha got on the subject of Ann’s inscrutability, my mother saying, “Not even Univac could figure Ann out.”

The next day Ann was petulant and cold, yet ready to explain why when my mother asked what was wrong. “I don’t appreciate you talking about me behind my back. Whoever this Univac person is, he doesn’t even know me!”