Some Endings Make Great Beginnings

This was my first blog. It served me well. I love some of these posts and will read them again and again to feed my own soul and remind me how I got to this point of signing off, moving on, and reclaiming my own life.

Been a hell of a journey - thanks for sharing some small part of it with me.

See you on the other side.

Sometimes words can change your life...

It's true.

Sometimes the words are those destined for greatness, spoken or written by writers, philosophers, political and social leaders -- words that travel through time and never lose the wisdom of their message.

How do I love thee...
Ask not...
I have a dream...

Sometimes the words are those destined for obscurity, yet forever etched across the consciousness of those privy to them.

I love you...
Will you marry me?
It's a girl!

And sometimes, in these days of electronic communications, the words appear digitalized and glowing on the tiny screen of your cell phone.

From: Jessica Gaither
There is a 7mm neoplastic lesion @L3 on my spine :(
Received:
Fri Jan 30, 10:00 am

Sometimes words can change your life... forever.

Today...

This unbridled emotion brought to you by:

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Looking for my roomie...

I have looked everywhere I know to look. I have searched Facebook and MySpace, knowing full well she probably wouldn't cotton to such nonsense. I have Googled and asked Jeeves and subjected myself to the unending e-mail barrage of Classmates, but she is nowhere to be found.

Please, somebody help me find my roomie!

It was the summer of 1972 and I was a rising freshman at Mercer University. A packet of housing information arrived in the mail, asking for my personal data to assist in choosing a roommate for me from among all the other roommate-less freshman women arriving that fall. College was to be my grand escape from the sameness of my life to that point, so I requested a roommate from distant lands (west of the Mississippi and north of the Carolinas) and I asked that she be black.

Well, she turned out to be neither of those things. First, she was from my hometown, born and bred, and a graduate of the "Army brat" high school on the other side of town. Secondly, she was not black. However, she was a warm, rich shade of mahogany that contrasted starkly with my pasty white hippy chick complexion, had an Afro as wide as her shoulders, and was wearing a dashiki.
Even though my parents were standing behind me when she walked into our dorm room that first day, I could feel my parents' faces settling into the teeth-gritting, plastered-smile masks worn by polite white Southerners who suddenly find themselves in the presence of that other race with whom they feel most uncomfortable. Oh yeah, this was gonna be good...

We were roommates for two years during which:

Poet James Baldwin looked down his nose at the students gathered in my Writing Poetry class and said that as far as he was concerned, everyone in the South spoke "colored".

The Tattnall Square Baptist Church on the corner of the Mercer campus barred my roommate, me, and three others from entering their house of worship because of the skin color of three of us, then split in two when the minister read my scathing (but Biblically annotated) declaration of hypocrisy from the pulpit the next Sunday and said he agreed that blacks and whites should be able to worship together.

Dick Gregory came to speak and called all whites "superniggers", an insult that became a term of endearment between she and I, and my new name on notes, birthday cards, and the door of our dorm room.

On a visit home, members of my father's church questioned whether my roommate and I used the same toilet. To add to their disgust when I said we did indeed, I informed them that we also wore each other's clothes. Horrors!

I introduced her to Rod McKuen and she bought me an African carving to show me how butts were supposed to look. We both read Malcolm X and for awhile there were silences between us. She returned to the all day Sunday services of the traditional African Episcopal Church and I abandoned my Southern Baptist roots for agnosticism and transendental meditation. But mostly we were two girls away from home for the first time, exploring our freedom, sharing our lives until all hours of the night. Two years, two dorms, and always in trouble with the RAs for laughing and talking too loudly.

She was my maid of honor when I got married. Her father and my husband ended up teaching together at the same middle school. She became a Volunteer in Service to America (VISTA) worker and I moved to the country and had a baby. Her family threw me the only baby shower I had. I did the reading at her wedding. She had three girls, I had two. We lost touch, found ourselves in the same class when we both returned to another college, shared the trials and tribulations of adolescent daughters, lived in different states, lost touch once again. Then someone told me her husband had died, unexpectedly, and much too young. I wrote her to offer my sympathy, she called me, we caught up with our lives, and then...

It's been over 15 years since that last call. So why am I looking for her now? Because on November 4th, this country elected Barack Obama president of the United States and as I wept through the celebration of that night, there was only one person I wanted to share that moment with -- my roomie. I wanted to see her eyes shining, hear her voice shouting, laugh and cry and dance and sing out loud with her until someone came and told us, like so many years ago, to quiet down. We had different histories until we shared a history of our own; new history is now being made and despite the distances of time and space, it is again shared. She is the only thing missing from my joy in this moment.

And now it is the night before the inauguration and I can't find her anywhere. I want to hear where life has led her, share her daughters' stories, learn whether she found love again, and if she is a grandmother like me. Yes, Renee, I have six (!) grandsons in multiple hues of ethnicity, and one of them even reminds me of you:




Catherine Renee Lewis McBride,

Baker High School Class of 1972,
Mercer University Class of 1976,
Columbus State University graduate school,
former (?) resident of Buena Vista, GA

your supernigger misses you and wishes you would call...

I Shall Be Released

I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released. -- Bob Dylan

There are people and events in all our lives that hold us prisoner. Sometimes we are fully cognizant of these time-worn shackles and finding the key to our freedom comes with relative ease. But sometimes we just shuffle through life in denial of their existence, silencing the rattle of chains that keep us bound to our history, convincing ourselves we have learned to move beyond the past, that we could walk away from the solitary confinement of our fears anytime we choose. So we wrap ourselves in the disguise of darkness, hiding from the light of exposure, content to walk through the valley of shadows, shunning the light.

But sometimes, despite our own worst intentions, the light finds us. And when it does, the shadows dissipate, the truth is exposed, and memory returns. Tonight Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. And the light came on.

Years from now, will you remember where you were when that victory was announced? Remember what you felt? What you did? What you said?

I was sitting in my living room, emailing my daughter for hours, watching election returns on television AND on my laptop. And when the announcement came at 11:00 pm that Barack Obama was the next president of the United States and television cameras in Chicago, Atlanta, and Harlem allowed me to share in the reactions of thousands of people, I burst into tears and grinned from ear to ear. Hope can do funny things to your heart.

It was late, but I called Janet to tell her the good news. Then I couldn't talk, because my crying turned to sobbing, and the election became personal.

I am a child of the South, a child of the 1950s, a child of fundamentalist origins, a child born color-blind in a color-conscious time and place. It ain't been easy being that particular shade of white. Exposed by the light of change in the making, the dark remnants of a lifetime of racial, philosophical, and religious pain poured out of me, and I cried like a baby.

No, seriously -- like a baby.

Like the young child who wandered to the far end of the local farmer's market to get a drink from the special COLORED water fountain only to be told she had to drink from the WHITE fountain instead - what was so special about white water when they got to drink the colored water? The child who got spanked for wandering away and being found with those people -- again.

Like the child staring horrified out the window of the car as a frame house was consumed by flames, the initial screams of its residents quickly and eerily silenced as white firefighters hosed down surrounding properties, but refused to pour water on the fire consuming a nigger house.

Like the child scooting down into the floorwell of the car to avoid the screaming ghosts dancing wildly around the blazing cross planted in the median of her hometown's main street.

Like the child who spent one of the happiest summers of her life playing in the streets around her grandmother's store, finding a new best friend named Robert just like her little brother, only to have her uncle take her aside one day and inform her that it was okay to play with Robert, but that she could never marry him because he was a nigger. (I was 6 -- and you were worried about me marrying him?)

Like the young teenage idealist moved by the words and deeds of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, devastated by their deaths, and sucker-punched by her father who said their murders were for the best because they were just trouble-makers and the world was better off without them.

Like the new college freshman who strolled to the on-campus church with 4 of her friends, only to be turned away at the door because her 3 black friends weren't welcome in GOD's house. What?!?

Like the young working mother who took an "emergency" call from her daughter's black teacher questioning said daughter's demand to have her school picture made with the BLACK cabbage patch doll instead of the white one.

Like the grandmother proudly wheeling her Hispanic grandsons through the grocery store only to have a most proper Wynnton dowager gush about how cute they were and how Christian it was of me to be a foster parent to one of those poor children. After all, you know how they all turn out...

I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released. -- Bob Dylan

Scanning the sea of faces in the Chicago crowd, I spotted Jesse Jackson, chewing his lower lip in a failed attempt to stem the flow of tears. And there was Oprah, the look on her face that of the little girl in Mississippi she started as, that little girl with no hope who rose above her beginnings, but still somehow felt like "not enough" until tonight, until Obama, until the circle showed itself unbroken by history. I do not share their skin and I cannot share their historical pain. But in that moment, we shared the release of a common sorrow.

At no time during this election process was race an issue for me; however, until recent months, I truly did not think I would see an African American man elected president in my lifetime. But it happened and if this is possible, how many other unrealized utopic dreams might come to fruition in the light of Obama's vision? I am excited about these possibilities and what changes lie ahead. This calming, serene man has led me back to that place of hope "where all things are possible" and, for the first time in a long while, made me believe in the promise of this country that was lost along with the idealism of my youth.

Can he deliver? I believe he already has. I could see it in the faces in the crowd, feel it in my own heart, hear it resonating in his words. He has delivered exactly what he promised: hope. And that hope will fuel the change we are to be.

In the Company of Angels

I think I will start this off with a verse of scripture, just to show I can:




Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. -- Hebrews 13:2 (King James Version)


Do you believe in angels?

Did your skin just crawl and your tummy twist with post-religious-upbringing-stress because you are uncomfortable with the entire concept and want to run away before they pass the collection plates? If so, you are the ones to whom I am writing this.

Or did your heart swell from the remembrance of such encounters and your hand shoot into the air as you jumped up and down shouting "Ooh, ooh, me! Call on me! I've got an angel story you won't believe!"? If so, stick around also -- this blog welcomes an "amen and hallelujah" chorus.

I have been on a strange and educational journey the past couple of years -- or maybe longer (as some of you insist). Quite possibly, the actual timeframe is my entire life. I can relate to that. But whatever the parameters of imaginary time and space limitations, my journey has always been in the company of angels.

Maybe I haven't always been as aware or willing to acknowledge that as I am now, when tripping over my growing angelic entourage leaves me no room for doubt. And please don't think about sending me to the padded-wall palace for a little R&R -- I have even spent time in the company of psych-angels and would not be deterred.

But in the name of brevity, I want to write about the Beach Angels of Volusia County, because they were the inspiration for this in the first place and the reason I am now writing this from North Carolina and not Florida. Confused? WHOSE life are we talking about here? Exactly.

I am, as many of you know, an incredible manifestress of jobs and living spaces. It has taken me years to recognize that about myself, but it is undeniable given my journey so far. Give me a few days, sometimes just a few hours, and I can relocate and be re-employed before you even get the usual new address/phone number message in your email notifying you that the gypsy wind has once more seduced me. However, in the vortex that is Volusia County, Florida, I found myself at once homeless and jobless and abandoning all hope. Thank goodness there was a beach and an ocean and a horizon to keep me from going under for good.

And there were wonderful places to live, right on the beach, but I needed a job first. And there were great jobs available, but no one was calling me back. Until one day when my phone rang, asking me to come in about a job that paid too little to live on, doing something I did NOT want to do anymore. So of course I said sure thing, and scheduled an interview with an angel. Oh, I didn't know it at the time and there wasn't the tell-tale aroma that so often precedes their arrival, but within 5 minutes of sitting down across from the woman who was hiring, I knew this was not about a job at all.

There were none of the usual interview questions. My resume was nowhere in sight. Instead, she unfolded a paper chart and started asking me questions about what was important to me in my life. Now, I was more than a little sleep deprived, and my boundaries were in shreds from my most recent encounter with the heart-stomper I contracted with for this lifetime, so what could I do? I answered the questions honestly and openly and from my soul. And halfway through the process, she stopped and showed me a book and said "This is what you should be writing." And it was something I had been thinking about, but had told no one. And she went back to asking me questions and writing my answers on her chart, and when she was done, she started at the beginning and read me... a description of myself.

Now it was not a description I would have given at that time, or any time for that matter, but it was truly who and what and why I am. As I left the office, she handed me another book about living your life based on your personal values, and on it was a sticky note on which she had written, "Be a voice for others."

And I drove home that day over the Dunlawton bridge with the beach, the ocean, and the horizon lifting my heart even higher despite my tears, knowing that I would be leaving this place I so easily loved. Did I leave right away? No. Did I slip back into the self-doubt and indecision that kept me spinning my wheels? Of course.

As my sistah Ruth says, "... angels [are] messengers - no free will. They deliver messages for the higher power. And they would deliver our messages, too, if we would stop thinking of ourselves as being inferior." Now we all know that I am sometimes a bit slow in responding to my messages. So it took me awhile. But then I spent the weekend packing up my stuff -- just in case. And on Friday, I applied for jobs in Asheville -- just in case. And Saturday, I loaded my car so on Sunday I could drive back to the mountains, back to my friends, back to where I started this adventure 2 1/2 years ago. On Monday, my first day back, I had a phone interview for one of the jobs I applied for on Friday. And I got the job -- in Asheville, where people are leaving because there are no jobs. And, thanks to said friends, I will be moving into my new apartment within days.

So here I am. Again. Not quite sure why or for how long, but absolutely positive that what I need to see, hear, and experience on this leg of my journey will be delivered by UPS (Universal Prodding Services) and that if I take the time to notice such things, I will find myself -- as always -- in the company of angels.

Pat Jobe Makes My Face Hurt (actually a blog on losing my laptop)

Pete: "I just love Pat Jobe."
(breaks into shit-eating grin)
Janet: "I know you do. And he just loves you, too."
(rolls eyes)
Pete: "He's like the other side of me. If I were a guy, I would be Jobe."
(grins even wider)
Janet: "Yep, yin and yang."
(rolls eyes the other direction)
Pete: "Heh, heh, heh..."
(facial muscles cramp as grin threatens to split face)

Okay, go ahead and rinse your mouth out to get rid of the little bit of vomit that came up when you read that piece of dialogue. And you don't even want to know how many times we have actually had that very conversation. I believe that would be every time we saw Pat perform, or he sent me an email, or I sent him an email, or heard him on the radio, or watched him on TV.

The cosmic translation of that drivel, however, is something else entirely: in 1979, Pat Jobe saved my life. Seriously. It was a dark time for me, a time when I felt alone and separated from everything and everyone around me. I wanted to die and take all the light with me. Then the powers that be dropped both of us into the offices of the JDRE and the light began to flicker, sputter, and stay on again. At the time I thought I was in love with the goofball, but in reality I was, like Narcissus, falling in love with my own reflection.

It took me a long time to see what really happened back then, but what I found in Jobe was my first recognizable link to all that is. That is why I keep making the comment that he is the other side of me, that I just love him. He was my "first," my initial reconnection with Oneness. It is not that he is perfect (insert sound of Universe guffawing) or enlightened or some spiritual guru -- not even close. He is something much more valuable to me.

That connection with Pat Jobe is my touchstone.

Not in the traditional sense of a stone used to assay the purity of precious metals -- although at times I have scratched my words across his surface to see what kind of mark was left -- but rather in the sense of being able to reach out and touch that connection again whenever I need affirmation, but am doubting my own knowing. And sometimes that reaching out has not been a conscious act. Sometimes when the waves of doubt seemed about to wash me away again, my hand would reach for a handhold, anything to steady me, and my fingers would brush against something in the darkness and there he would be: on the radio, in my inbox, on a poster announcing a performance. Cool, huh?

But this past December, when my laptop disappeared into the maelstrom that was those final days of 2007, I felt an old familiar sense of loss and separation and grief rise in me, and there were moments when I reached out and found only darkness. That laptop held my life - my personal records, my contact information for friends and family far and near, pictures of events and evidence of relationships over the past 4 years, the only photos of my youngest never met in person grandchildren, documentation that I existed, that I interacted, that I was connected... gone.


In just a moment of paralyzing hate and anger, someone struck out blindly, needing to cause pain, and the blow missed its target and landed on me instead. It felt like a large portion of my life just vanished. In fact, it was actually physical -- the deep, gut-wrenching emptiness that instantly swept through me. And almost immediately, the realization that almost brought me to my knees in grief: all my writing was on that computer. And not just the novels and stories and poetry, but the little pieces that meant so much to me -- Bill's eulogy, my essay on Fred Rogers, love letters, that glorious piece on being a redneck, the notes and scribblings of works in progress and ideas for the future. Gone. Someone had stabbed me in the belly of my creativity and the child I had nurtured for so long lay bloodied and dismembered, a gash of scarlet across a sandy beach, washed away by a relentless tide...

Think that is hyperbole? Are you a writer? An artist? I tried to explain it that day, and people tried to be sympathetic, but, bless their hearts, it was not enough. I needed to share this pain with another writer, someone who would understand, someone who would hear of my loss and wail along with me, someone who would understand my grief and the overwhelming finality of losing my creative "child." I needed Jobe, but my means for getting in touch with him were on that computer. And then it really hit me.

In this day of too busy for letters, too busy for phone calls, e-mail keeps us connected on this rapidly tilting planet. And all my email for the past 8-9 years was carefully organized on that laptop. Oh my god. Those emails were a journal of my life, the lives of my friends, the death of a friend, the back and forth flow and intermingling of lives on this physical plane. Short little notes to stay in touch, longer epistles of sharing, the epic emails between Nancy and me (the last vestiges of a relationship gone silent) and everything between Jobe and me, including that last painful admission from him that another marriage had gone under and he was feeling lost -- that last email that I never answered...

I am trying to learn to stay in the present moment, to be fully aware and connected at all times, and revisiting this loss -- as revisiting any moment from the past -- only serves to disconnect us from what actually is. But this is a loss that needed to be grieved and I have been making myself sick with the denial of my pain. Tonight I have let this rise up and through me, twist my heart with the agony, and wash away the bile with my tears. I look like shit, but I feel like hope.

And in the clarity of this new day, I am aware of all my touchstones, all my connections past and present and as yet unnamed, all the pieces of us that are the whole of us, and I am filled with the wonder of it all. My life, my loves, my friends, my family are not the pictures or letters or pieces of fluff I held onto in hopes of avoiding loss. No, all of those people and times and places became part of me in those moments. And I am still here, so they are also -- only even more than I had allowed them to be in my narrow, stagnant view. In a way I have freed them and myself to move on and grow and be for all time. Pretty cool.


And that creation of mine, the literary "child" unborn? Even while I allowed my heart to mourn, I had to face that vision of a creation conceived so long ago, but never birthed. I had to own my words aborted, but still in utero, held prisoner for years by my doubts and fears. I had to let it go, all of it, so there will be room for something more -- something like this:

Pete: "I just love Pete Gaither."
(breaks into shit-eating grin)
Janet: "Well, it's about time."
(rolls eyes)
Pete: "She's like the other side of me. If I were a writer, I would be Pete."
(grins even wider)
Janet: "You are a writer and you are Pete."
(rolls eyes the other direction)
Pete: "Oh yeah, I know. Heh, heh, heh..."
(facial muscles cramp as grin threatens to split face)

Thank you, Jobe, for being the first and for making me laugh and letting me cry and seeing the wonder in me until I could see it for myself. And thank you, gentle reader, for doing the same.

The More Things Change, the Less I Feel the Same: Observations Upon Exiting a House of Mirrors

Ah yes, spring has sprung: daylight savings time has destroyed the syncopation of my circadian rhythms, the jacaranda trees are freshly purple, and the first lizard of the season has invaded my shower. Must be time to pack my stuff and move on down the road...

Where are you going this time? Hard sayin', not knowin'...

I have had a most interesting year. Janet says it has been two years and maybe it has. But that 1st year was a maelstrom of chaos and confusion that sucked me in, ground me up, and spit me out on an unplanned-for piece of Florida real estate. It wasn't unfamiliar, just on the "wrong" coast. Or so I thought at the time with my little mind that believes it knows more than the greater whole of which I am a part. (That was new age fore-shadowing, in case you are not yet acquainted with the Universe and its spot-on, wicked sense of cosmic humor.)

Where was I? Oh yes, belched up on a not so foreign shore after a year or so in the belly of the beast. Anyway, once I realized where I was, seemed only logical to settle in for a spell and get a job. So I did. In the aforementioned house of mirrors. Turned down several better paying, more lucrative offers to voluntarily commit myself to an uncensored carnival sideshow. Oh, yeah. Once again I missed the warning and walked right into the train. Sigh...

But this time was different. Right away I recognized that my presence in this seemingly innocuous cube-farm was no accident. This had the Universe's dirty little fingerprints all over it. What else could I do but settle in, fasten my seatbelt, and wait for the ride to begin?

I love rollercoasters.

Probably a good thing, considering how much time I spend on them figuratively. I used to joke about having a "one-way ticket on the rollercoaster of love." Now a closer perusal of this ticket reveals the one-way rollercoaster ride is actually that looping, curving, uphill/downhill, hairpin curved journey called life -- and the ticket is non-transferable.

The Universe blessed me with a collection of co-workers whose convex and concave surfaces reflected starkly the faces of my past. Oh yes, sometimes the nightmares follow you into the light of day. It was hard to watch my former selves plodding through the daily dramascape. It was even harder to not join in the chorus and whine along with old tapes. And the ghosts of my past were unrelenting, harsh, and happy to stir up any dirt and decay swept into corners instead of disposed of completely. It was a long, confusing, loud, frightening, melodramatic year and at the end of it, I am tired and longing for peace and serenity, and honoring of my ability to hang on during the crazy times and not lose what I have worked so hard to find -- myself.

So now, as the rollercoaster jerks and pulls itself up another incline, I have time to take a breath, look around, just be in this moment of relative calm, and not worry about or anticipate the next freefall of exhiliration (I am in the process of re-naming and claiming my fears - can you tell?). And time for a moment of gratitude to all those supporting cast members at TNG who signed up for mirror duty in order to show me not only how far I have come, but that I have the drive and skills to continue this renovation and reclamation of my soul. Ya'll done good.

WAIT! Rollercoaster! I am about to roll out from one coast and move to the other. Good one, Universe, another good one... heh heh heh.

Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter...

Or maybe that's what blogs are anyway -- letters to ourselves and some small piece of the world.


But it's not the same. And e-mail doesn't do the trick either. Oh sure, there is something still pretty wonderful about sending an electronic note to anyone anywhere in the world and having it delivered, and even responded to, immediately. However, electronic shorthand is not the same as writing or receiving a good, old-fashioned letter delivered by hand or through the mail.

A real letter is written or typed on paper, sealed in an envelope, and sometimes wrapped around photographs or newspaper clippings or dried flower petals or locks of hair. And a truly creative letter even goes beyond convention and arrives scrawled across adding machine tape, down a roll of toilet paper, or cut into puzzle pieces with much assembly required -- a pleasure prolonging process not unlike literary foreplay.

I have, at various times in my life, been a prolific letter writer. And I have had the good fortune of being the recipient of letters from others who love written intercourse as much as I do. I wish I had kept every letter I ever received. If I had, I would be up tonight re-reading them all instead of sitting here in the darkness writing a blog about letters. But, somewhere along the road that is my lifetime, some of them were misplaced, carelessly forgotten, and (please forgive me, dear friends and family) several years ago, I actually intentionally dumpstered most of the letters received over my lifetime There were dozens, some dating back to my penpal days in elementary school. They filled a large box. Don't ask me why I did it. It seemed like the thing to do at the time.


And, narcissist that I am, I would also like to read all the letters I have sent to others: sneak back in time, see who I was at that moment, what so filled my heart that I was moved to commit it to paper for eternity. And the love letters... I think I may have written a few that would make me blush to even admit I ever laid ink across a page with such abandon. My old letters are still out there. I know because some of you have told me so over the years. One of you even keeps them locked in a safety deposit box at the bank. (Are you sure you want your family finding those when you're gone?)

Then there's the blatant voyeur in me that loves reading other people's letters. I am a sucker for published collections of letters -- individual ones like Flannery O'Connor, Georgia O'Keefe, the Bronte sisters, as well the complete correspondence of George Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and Henry Miller and Anais Nin. Such a window on their lives, their times, their passions... One of my favorite things is finding old letters or postcards in antique shops or flea markets, reading them, filling in the vagaries of a stranger's life with my over-amped imagination.

The writer in me misses writing letters, misses the anticipation of receiving a letter in hand, misses the sentiment of re-reading a creased and faded memory. The romantic in me misses the unabashed intimacy that bravely committing thought and feeling to paper produces. I know I long for many things to be as they once were, sentimental old fool that I am, but none so much as this. I want to pick up my mail and find a letter that stirs my heart, makes me laugh out loud or cry into the night, dares me to think beyond my own dogma, reveals the soul of the writer. I want to again experience the passion and bravery of personal prose.

I recently asked an acquaintance to write me a letter, just write about anything at all that really mattered to her. In fact, I had the nerve to ask on two different occasions. You would have thought I had asked her to pose nude or reveal the skeletons in the family closet. And this person is a writer, someone whom I would assume would be most comfortable with such a request. Because that is what I miss the most, I think: corresponding with those who so freely share their experiences that every time I read their letters, the moments recorded become my own.

Write someone a letter. If you write me, I'll write you back. Some day when I am famous and need a dose of embarrassment to bring me back to earth, you can publish the letters and maybe make a little spending money. If not, you'll at least have kindling or something to read in the middle of sleepless nights when nostalgia hums you awake with a mosquito's persistence...

Doug Marlette: An Equal Opportunity Offender and a Damn Fine Dude

Doug Marlette is gone. And he took the parrot, the politics, and the preacher with him... What do we do now?

I grew up -- well, older anyway -- with Doug Marlette's cartoons. He started cartooning professionally right after graduating from college. That same year I was just starting my post-secondary education and intent on eliminating the apparent demons of my Southern (not to mention Baptist) background. There was an unjust and unjustifiable war going on, and a totally dishonest idiot in the White House. Social values were being trampled right and left, some never to rise again. The earth was in trouble from pollution, overuse, and the rape of wilderness in the name of progressive greed.

It was 1972.

Sometime during my freshman year, a man named Will Campbell walked onto the campus of Mercer University and called the spade of organized religion a spade. Then he wandered into the arena of Nixonian politics and called a liar a liar. For years I refused to vote because of that time with Will Campbell and his writings. What has that got to do with Doug Marlette? Well, I'll tell you.

Doug Marlette also met Will Campbell and the outcome of his infatuation with the preacher/philosopher was a character in his cartoon strip "Kudzu" by the name of Rev. Will B. Dunn. I have been worshipping at the Reverend's altar ever since. I don't know if a person's soulmate can actually be a cartoon character, but the Rev. Will, as channelled by Marlette, seemed to be reading my mind and my heart more often than not.

When I heard the news today that Doug Marlette was gone, my stomach turned to lead. I had to sit down. I didn't cry. I also didn't breathe -- for way too long. Pat Conroy cried. He said he's been crying all day because he doesn't know how he will go on without his friend. I know what he means. Losing a good friend can feel like losing all hope. Losing the world Marlette created feels like I've temporarily lost my voice -- that's Voice, as in the expression of self.

His cartoons spared no one and no thing sacred. He was, as the title of this blog states, an equal opportunity offender. But he offended and created with passion, and without backing down. I once read that if there were no First Amendment, Doug Marlette would have had to find another line of work. Thank the powers that be for free speech. Even if sometimes that expression was wordless, it still spoke volumes...

Doug Marlette is gone, and I will miss the mirror his art provided for my soul. I will miss the satire, the sacrilege, and the sacred humor that made me laugh out loud and cry down deep. For 35 years of my life, I had Doug Marlette shouting out to the world what I wished I could say. After that long, you would think I could come up with some better last words, but I think I'll just let him speak for me one more time...

Heh heh heh, see what I mean?

For more about Doug Marlette, click here.

ADDENDUM:

Below is the final Doug Marlette cartoon penned by his nephew. Like I said, sometimes words fail us, but the message carries on...

Unpacking a lifetime and throwing stuff away - releasing my inner minimalist

Take a look at my home's interior afer I moved my "stuff" from North Carolina. Or, maybe I should say look at what is obstructing the view of said interior.

What is all this stuff?

I originally moved down here with just what I could fit into my car, and it is not a large car. The temporary apartment I bartered to live in while making repairs was two rooms, and contained only a futon plus a desk I rescued from a pile of garbage a block over. My kitchen contained 2 pots, a frying pan, 2 plastic plates and bowls, and 2 plastic glasses, along with silverware for 4, a few knives and other utensils, and some plastic containers for leftovers. In my bathroom? One towel and a bathmat, shampoo, a bar of soap, deodorant, makeup, and a hairbrush. (I did bring my computer, printer, etc. -- hey, I'm not some new age ascetic, for buddha's sake!)

INSERT PSEUDO-SYMPATHETIC MUMBLING FROM THOSE-WHO-THINK-THEY-KNOW-WHAT-IS-BEST-FOR-ME:

"Poor, poor Pete. Has she really come to this? A mere scattering of belongings, not a book to her name, only the clothes on her back?"

One could only hope...

I keep opening boxes and wondering why do I have this, why do I need this, why do I even want it anymore? Most of this I will never use/cook with/read/wear ever again.

I live in a sub-tropical climate. When I lived here 10 years ago, I never wore a coat or jacket. Never. Yet I have moved an entire winter wardrobe, including 3 capes and 2 coats and a zillion knitted scarves. And did I mention the full drawer of socks? Hell, I had already given up pantyhose (moved 7 pair) and, as of two weeks ago, knee high hose as well (moved 21 pair) because I can dress totally casual on my job and I hate wearing any more than is absolutely necessary to keep from scaring the neighbors. You can't wear hose or socks with flipflops or sandals anyway, and they look stupid with clam diggers. Duh.

And what is really scary is that I have almost this much stuff still in storage in Asheville -- Christmas decorations (don't celebrate the shopping season anymore), enough camping equipment for a major expedition (can't get up from the ground anymore, and already sleep with bugs and lizards), my childhood dolls (stop laughing), beads beads and more beads (like I could hit those tiny holes with a needle anymore), even MORE winter clothes, and who knows what else crammed into tubs and boxes and garages and basements and such. And I claim to have been downsizing for the past few years. ARRGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you feel that scream?

There is so much in life we hold onto white-knuckled with fear. Without this person, this possession, this job, this label, this mask... who are we? All my life I have wrapped myself in the traditional religious and social values with which I was raised. (Oh, get up off the floor and pay attention -- those who REALLY know me are already aware of this, and those of you who THINK you know me are distracting them with your hysterics.) It has been like mummy-wrapping one's self in duct tape, then trying to dance like Isadora Duncan. You feel the music in your soul, but you can't move.

Instead you stand there, bound by your belief that if you just wait long enough, sacrifice enough, and allow the abuse long enough, there will be happily-ever-after in the end. The reality is you just turn into a pinata for those who need to destroy something and still expect sweet rewards to fill their bloodied hands. Years go by. It's time for the happy ending. And it isn't there. Why? Because you need a happy beginning to make a happy ending. And if life doesn't deal you a happy beginning, you gotta break free and happy-dance yourself into an ecstatic do-over.

This time when the sucker-punch left my ears ringing, I got it.

I have witnesses. And affirmation from the powers that be. And some incredible friends who loved me anyway and kicked my butt when it needed kicking and picked me up when I hit the floor again and again and again. And loved me anyway again and again and again. Wow, hard not to be happy after that! And that other stuff I thought was love -- or would be some day? Well, as Keb Mo would sing, "I don't know what that is, but it ain't love."

Don't expect an overnight transformation. Duct tape leaves a sticky residue and it will take time and a lot of spiritual Goo Gone before everything thrown at me just slides right off. But I am learning to like being non-stick as I sort through the remnants of a false life and, bag by bag, get rid of the old to make room for the new. How can you grab fistfuls of joy and love and abundance and wonder if your hands are still clenching the pain and the fear and the disappointment of the past?

My apartment is full, and then some. My life is full, and then some.

So what do I do now?

I get two cats!

But that's next week -- after trash day.

Stay tuned...

In Search of Faraway

Georgia O'Keeffe often escaped the reality of her marriage to Alfred Stieglitz -- a man she said was "much more wonderful in his work than as a human being" -- by spending months at a time in the New Mexico desert, a place she called "faraway".

I am fascinated by this woman's history and the paintings that resulted from living a truly authentic life. To know at the age of 12 that she wanted to be an artist, to follow that dream without wavering, to have the courage to let her art evolve far beyond the ordinary -- how does one summon that level of integrity in all areas of life? Where does one find the courage to live beyond the fear, in that mind-set of faraway?

Some would say it is found in the infamous "dark night of the soul." And I think that sometimes that is true. I know I have wandered those shadows myself on occasion and fought my way back into the light, sure that this time I had gotten it right. Wrong. Well, okay, not wrong necessarily, but somehow incomplete and still wanting. I know, I know -- it's a journey, not a destination (screw the McDonald's).

But what if we just started in the light in the first place? We are all born fully programmed and equipped for our individual journeys through life, so how do we so often find ourselves mired in the mud of uncharted detours and dead ends along the way? I think we lose sight of our own reflections, and it starts at birth when we forget we originated from oneness and begin to look for a definition of ourselves "out there" somewhere.

It's been a hell of a year since I last wrote in this blog of my basic need for water in my life -- a year of looking at the past with the eyes of the present, and painfully letting go of people, places, and things in my life I once thought defined and fulfilled me. I expected grief, but experienced only the briefest moments of sadness before the lightness of being that inevitably followed. And what did I find reflected back to me in those moments? Fear, mostly. And a disbelief that things so long considered bedrock could be as easily washed away as any shifting sand.

So. Where am I? Where am I going? Inside. I am going inside: back to my origins, back to my home, my roots, my creation. Will I miss some of you? Well, actually...no. Of course, I will carry you with me always, since the essence of each person and place and event of this lifetime makes up the reality we create. But I no longer need the illusion of certainty and permanence I allowed myself to accept as the reflection of my true self. Distance, like time, is relevant (if you believe it is real) and irrelevant (if you recognize the inherent fallacies).


And if you're wandering a sunny beach someday and think you recognize the woman aging slowly and serenely in the velvet soft warmth of tropical breezes, stop and see if she might just be me. If so, I will welcome you to my home, my studio, my garden, my island -- this place deep inside from which I came and to which I have returned. A place called "faraway".

Life's a beach, and then you die...

I wish.

Right now life is a cold, rainy, dreary day in a traffic-ensnared megalopolis without a soul -- well, without much of a Southern soul anyway. Everything here is hurry-hurry, gimme-gimme, outta-my-way-sucker.

There is also money to be made here. I, however, am not making any of it. Instead, I am contributing to other people making it. People I don't know, people I don't like. Where's the fun in that? And that, I just realized, is the issue here: it ain't fun.

I am in serious need of some fun.

Decades ago (ouch), fun was a lot of go-go, gimme-gimme -- things, experiences, people out of the ordinary. On some level, that kind of "fun" always exhausted me, left me hungry for more; perhaps because it was actually created out of the need for excitement. Then there was another kind of fun -- this one totally based in the ordinary. And that is what I am craving now, effortless, everyday fun spontaneously arising out of a serene and slow-motion life -- maybe along a river or a beach somewhere.

When did this happen, this abandonment of my lifelong infatuation with all things Appalachian for the pull of ancient waters? I have not seen the ocean in almost seven years, not since I left Florida. What's up with that? Why have I denied myself something that I love? I have done that for a while now -- denied myself spiritual nourishment in exchange for... what? I think I may be suffering from dehydration of the soul, and maybe the heart as well.

Whatever it is, I am running from thirst, running from cold, running from noise. What am I running toward? I have no idea. But I do have memories that rise above the angst:

-- sunrises on the 'Hooch with spirals of mist rising from the coolness of the river's depths into the inevitable heat of day, evaporating into the morning like dissipating ghosts caught outside the safety of darkness

-- sunsets on that old, slow river where the teasing breezes of evening were no real competition for the sultry richness of all that sun-warmed water filling the night air with its voluptuous sensuality (mix that with the scents of night-blooming jasmine and then talk to me about pheremones...)

-- sunrises on the beach at Fort Desoto as hundreds of seabirds gather in a great cacophony of welcome for the blazing star that suddenly springs from the darkness behind me and slashes open the sky from treeline to horizon with the bloody purples and magentas that precede the dawn

-- sunsets on Pass a Grille, waiting for the sun to slip into the watery horizon, listening for the hiss, straining to catch a glimpse of that infamous green flash, the whisper of sea oats along the dunes behind me, the pearlescent strands of moonlit foam along the water's edge

-- and that blazing afternoon along the Atlantic shore of Shackleford bank, surrounded by mountains of imported Bahamian sea shells delivered by hurricane the week before, when I stood watching the dolphins watching me and was voyeur to the most sacred dance of the sea, unable to move, to speak, as two dolphins circled lazily just offshore, circling, weaving, moving together in the laziest of spirals before disappearing beneath the undulating surface of the waves, suddenly rising again like a rocket in free-flight, exploding high above the surface of the water as one, joined together in an ancient mating dance, exulting in the openness and breath of light and sky and life ongoing, their songs shrilling the yellow-hot air before the splash, and the silence, and the awe...

What a gift the sea gave me that day! Even now my heart stirs from its hibernation, humming with the remembrance of life affirmed, and my body inhales the memory of sand, and salt, and sea, and I remember to sink into the sameness, the eternal repetitions of life's tides, the rise and fall of the journey, the connections of water to my soul.

It is sameness that I seek, a watery vista with a horizon, the assurance of tides and dawns and glorious sunsets, the smell of life itself carried by seabreezes, a return to the watery soup from which I was created.

I want to go home again and know when I am there.

'Tis the Season, Now Give me a Reason

Bah, humbug.

You've been warned. I am not in a happy, happy, jolly, jolly mood this holiday season -- despite the best intentions of some of those people in my life who think it is the natural thing to dive into the Christmas-Chanuka-Kwanzaa-whatever season that is now fully upon us.


Instead, I am not putting up a tree or a wreath or any decorations related to the multi-month shopping frenzy we now call Christmas. And don't even get me started on the 24-hour holiday music radio stations that have been glutting the airways since the first of November. Geez, who ever thought I would learn to despise the music I once looked forward to every year?

My one concession to the season was buying Christmas cards for those on my decidedly shortened card list. Instead of buying boxes of cards to sending to everyone, I decide to send cards that spoke specifically to the people I wanted to send them to. Okay, a few got boxed cards, but the card was so ME and the receivers will recognize that and it is okay. However, looking for just the right card for the odd assortment of folks who make up my little world led me to a question.

Am I asking too much, or has Hallmark just gotten lazy? At any rate, after hours among the fluff and fruit, I decided the card nazis need a little help in expanding their current offerings. I thought Hallmark, et al, had covered every possibility.

Apparently my life just has more than it's share of "possibilities." Sigh.

And some of those possibilities are starting to converge just over the horizon, like a gathering beacon of light guiding the inevitability of change right into my little stable of complacency. Great. Life shuffling of messianic proportions -- that's what I need right now, yessirree Bob. How do you run away from home when your feet are nailed to the floor? My internal editor just tried to make that "nailed to a cross," but even I will only go so far with a metaphor.

Whatever.

Here's to the season and the hope that springs eternal that a new year and a new start are just around the corner, if only we knew which corner.

And if only there were a star to guide us...

Containment Areas for Relocating Yankees, and Half-backs in the Mountains

I have a daughter who lives in Cary, North Carolina -- the nebulous area of urban sprawl around the Research Triangle Park that is now known as Cary, not the original Southern town by that name. This "new and improved" Cary is often referred to using the acrostic that appears in the title of this blog:

Containment
Area for
Relocating
Yankees

The rest of the title refers to those poor, mis-guided snow-birders who moved to Florida, found it lacking, and then moved further north without actually returning to their places of origin. In other words, they only made it half way back home. And since the mid-point between Florida and New York/New Jersey happens to be the formerly Southern state of North Carolina, Half-backs have become as plentiful and annoying as mosquitoes.

Where the hell is she going with this? Well, I'll tell you.

I am a Southerner, born and bred. That once irritated and embarrassed the bejesus out of me -- now it is one of the things that names me. And it also marks me as an endangered species in an increasingly homogenized American culture spawned by an overly-mobile society dependent on the media for self-definition. So I find myself clinging desperately to a label which I once disdained -- it is my life-raft in a sea of sameness.

What started this rant tonight was the assumption by a very nice writer-person (of Midwest origins) that she could learn enough about the South and Southerners by reading books written by Southerners -- books like the Sweet Potato Queen series and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, among others; books that any true Southerner recognizes for the exaggerated, tongue-in-cheek, Yankee-suckering, tall tales they truly are. And therein lies the proverbial rub: Southerners love a good story, and if we don't have a good story, we'll make one up -- or make a so-so story better with a few slight embellishments. Hence the plethora of good, bad, and great Southern writers through the centuries -- in a region where the Bible belt was liable to wrap itself around your bare legs for the sin of lying, fiction covered a multitude of transgressions.

I am a Southern writer. And story-teller. Years after the initial telling, I have had my own well-told lies returned to me as gospel. That cracks me up. It also reminds me that when I was growing up Baptist in Georgia, lying was referred to as "telling a story" -- as in, "So, you say the dog ate your homework. You're not telling me a story, are you?"

Heh heh heh...

Anyway, the idea that someone thought, however innocently. that she could learn to write Southern by studying books fired me right up. How dare she? Then came her admission that books might not be enough, that if she were going to pull off writing a book set in the South, with Southern characters, it might be easier to "move to the South and talk to people."

HAHAHAHAAAAA!!! A good laugh will stop a fight about every time.

Oh, I was just as nice as I could be -- invited her to c'mon down, set a spell, talk to us (by the way, a phrase such as "chew the fat" will garner you more mileage down here than "can we talk?"). I explained that we would be very gracious (to her face), feed her well, and invite her to stop by again the next time she passed through. And that's the truth.

I also warned her that we Southerners will lie through our teeth to anyone we feel is just looking to put us down or verify pre-existing put-downs. We will also lie about the truth -- if it makes the story better. And sometimes we lie in hopes of having our lies presented as truth to other Southerners who know them to be lies. Why? To make the wannabe Southerner look like a fool. Making outsiders, and our relatives, look like fools is one of those "smile to your face, stab you in the back" traditions we Southerners hold dear.

Now I'm up here on my Southern soap-box, preaching to the choir. And I'm homesick as all hell for the South that was, the South that is fast disappearing, the South that is being edged out, covered up, by a bland anonymity I don't recognize. But then, most of you reading this already know what I'm talking about, don't you? And those who don't, never will.


It's a Southern thing.

The Fear of Impermanence, The Certainty of Change

Why is it called life insurance anyway? It doesn’t insure that you will live. In fact, the industry is pretty much based on the fact that everyone is going to die. So why don’t they call it death insurance? Accuracy and honesty in one phrase.

We know, somewhere deep inside us beneath the armor of our denial, that we, and everyone we know, is going to die someday. Yet when it happens, even at the end of a long terminal disease process, we are always caught by surprise. There is a moment of disbelief that we were not the ones to escape mortality. Was it something we never expected?

People expect babies and are not surprised when an infant comes mewling into this reality. But where was that being before conception? Was it lying on the deathbed of another plane, surrounded by those of its kind who never thought it would leave them? Why do we not expect death?

Can you imagine the difference it would make if we celebrated the passage from this life as we do the passage into it? I can see it now. Instead of baby showers where we bestow gifts on the incoming, there would be dearly departed showers celebrating the shedding of the mortal coil, the transition back into that incredible lightness of being. A person who knew their time was coming could spread their worldly goods among whomever they desired, share the joy of giving and receiving. Those who leave unexpectedly (see? there’s that conundrum again) would have their leftovers distributed by family or friends, maybe at some kind of potlatch ceremony.

In either case, there would be food and drink and wrapping paper. People would share remembrances and experiences – just like a baby shower. Only instead of the usual “my labor was longer/shorter/worse/more dignified than yours," people would sit around eating petit fours with little blue or pink icing caskets on top and expound on how so-and-so’s death was longer/shorter/worse/more dignified than another so-and-so’s.

Of course, I am speaking from an essentially Western point of philosophical reference. There are in fact other cultures which already do this. For them, birth and death are just two sides of a door we pass through in a lifetime – leaving one place and going to another. Birth. Death. No difference. Just a change of semantics or body size, and not always even that. Babies die, too.

So here we sit on our side of the planetary rock, wobbling through a mostly uncharted vacuum, living in fear that someone or something is about to be taken away from us. And when, not if, that happens, we are sure we will be the lesser for having lost them/it. So our fear of impermanence, which is actually our intuitive knowledge that nothing is permanent, expands into the accompanying fears of loneliness, lack, death, and even the dark.

When my kids were afraid of the unknowns that lurked in the darkness, I would turn on the light and show them that there was nothing in the dark that was not there in the light. The lurking bear in the dark corner once more became, in the light, the pile of laundry on the toy box, the hovering ghost once more the curtain fluttering in the breeze of an open window. Maybe we need someone to turn on the light, show us that what we fear on one side of the earth’s rotation is something we wouldn’t give a second glance in the light of the other side.

The Buddhists believe that everything is change, nothing is permanent, and that it is our clinging to thoughts or possessions or people out of our fear of losing them that causes our suffering. Maybe so. I’ve got to admit that life always run a little smoother when I let go of what I am so afraid of losing. How can the universe fill my hand if I refuse to empty it so I can receive?

It flooded in New Hampshire this week, more of nature’s display of her power over human arrogance. My sister/friend of many lifetimes had to flee the water and returned to find her home still standing, but some possessions ruined. She is cleaning out after the storm, tossing the old to the curb, and bringing in the new. I am glad she is unhurt, happier still that she did not have to face the pain of losing family. See how hard it is to let go of the idea that transition is synonymous with pain and loss?

Several years ago, I thought I could not live without her within eyesight. Now I find that I can wait out the days until I learn she is safe without falling into the black hole of panic that she might be gone forever. As the days of my life move past, I am finding it easier and easier to open my hands to the surrender that allows the re-cycling of life, the second chances, the new and unexpected wonder that envelopes me when I stop struggling to find it.

But until the moment of surrender itself, I cling hard and fast to what has already moved on without me. And I suffer.

Crossed Wires and Fried Cars

It’s no Katrina.

That’s my new mantra these days whenever anything goes wrong, awry, or straight down the toilet. It helps me keep my perspective when any problem enters my screwy little world. Like just now when every word I’d written in this blog for the last 2 hours just disappeared. – and it was really good stuff, too. A fairly intense personal tragedy for a writer, but hey, it’s no Katrina.

It seems to work fairly well most of the time, allowing me the necessary interruption of my personal angst to get a grip on what’s really important. Too bad it has no effect on the resulting self-righteousness. Of course, there are other times when I just belly-flop into the oozing muck of a full-blown week-long pity party where I want it to be five o’clock all the time.

Not that I’m a drinker as this implies. Why fill valuable stomach space with all those watery intoxicants when there is still food on the planet? My personal drugs of choice are Ben and Jerry’s Fudge Brownie Frozen Yogurt, Oreos, and original real Coke (the soda, not the powder).

Most of my writing takes place under the influence of these same “drugs.” Alas, I feel the winds of change and intervention annoying those weird little hairs on the back of my neck. Or maybe it’s just the drugs…

Next week I have a doctor’s appointment at which I will probably be told that my high blood sugar, high cholesterol, and high triglycerides mean a change to a healthier diet and lifestyle and a prescription for oral diabetes medication – real drugs.. This is your brain; this is your brain on glucose. Now, where’s the fun in that? I know, I know, it’s no Katrina. However, I have changed to a new doctor some 30 miles away on the off chance that I will get lost on my way there and avoid reality a little longer.

About a month ago I had a lot of work done on my poor old car to try and keep her on the road for at least another year – even went out and bought her a new set of 4 for $88 tires. One of the repairs involved installing a switch on my dashboard to manually control the no longer functioning cooling fan to my engine. This meant that I have to switch the fan on when driving and off when I stop the car so my battery does not run down. Hey, this is what it takes to keep a 20-year-old car running, okay? It still ain’t Katrina.


So, anyway, a couple of days ago I am sitting in the parking garage of the resort hotel where I work, chowing down on fried catfish from Bojangles right out of the pasteboard box (a biscuit? where are my hushpuppies, you Yankees?) trying to get it all eaten in time to clock in for my shift. Apparently fried catfish causes memory loss, because when I came out 7 hours later, my battery was deceased. But…it’s no Katrina. I call security and ask them to come jump my car. No problem.

By the time help arrives, it has slipped into the wee hours of the next day, but I have a magazine with me so, no problem. I raise the hood of the car, turn around, and the whole thing comes crashing down on the support arm, leaving the hood not-quite-open and not-quite closed. Mostly not-quite-closed and stuck. No, no, no Katrina. But with a little elbow grease and a lot of grunting we get it opened again and I climb into the driver’s seat ready to start the car. I notice the security dude looks a little confused, but he finally untangles the jumper cables and starts attaching them to the two batteries.

Watching him through the tiny crack between raised hood and windshield, I see him reach into my car and start to attach the last clamp to the remaining battery terminal instead of grounding it to the car frame. Before a word can leave my mouth to stop him, he incorrectly attached the clamp and sparks fly, flames erupt, and smoke rolls. I jump out of my car to avoid becoming more fried than the catfish and yell at him to take the clamp off. I am staring down into the smoky interior of my engine compartment when the guy asks me – as God is my witness – if I want him to try it again.

I politely refuse his kind offer and thank him for his time as he drives away. No, really, that’s what I do. Get up off the floor and stop laughing – I’m not done yet. Billowing clouds of smoke are still rising from my car and a few remaining sparks penetrate the darkness like distant lightning before a rising storm. The heavy odor of ozone penetrates my consciousness and morphs into…is that the smell of seawater? The howling winds of change whip around me. At least 30 feet of incoming storm surge roll over me and I scrape into the sandy bottom with no idea which way is up. I am face to face with the Undertoad.*

Hey, hurricanes happen.

So, anyway, today I make arrangements to have what is left of my car towed. I call up my New Age mechanic to let him know the car is on the way and bring him up to date on what happened. Now this man is nothing if not ultra-conservative with his speech. After I manage to get through my entire tirade without crying, he waits just a nano-second before saying, “Oh boy...”


Oh boy? That’s all he has to say? Now I’m losing it. I ask him what that means. He says the security guy probably crossed the cables, charged my electrical system in reverse. Great. I ask him if that is bad. He meditates for a while, then says maybe not, maybe it is only a relay, not the entire wiring harness. I explain that the sparks and flames started at the battery and traveled back toward the firewall. He finishes the entire repertoire of Astanga yoga poses and gently ohms, “Ohhhh, boy...”

I think I am in deep trouble here. No car, no way to get to job. No job, no…everything. My mantra fails me. What I need is some new phrase to help me through the hard times, bring me back to center.

Oh, boy…


*For those of you not familiar with The World According to GARP, the undertoad is a child’s misunderstanding of a dangerous undertow.

It's What You Do At The McDonald's That Determines Your Destiny: Hurricanes, Back Pain, and the Loss of a Child

Don't start asking me which McDonald's or whether it is built on a vortex or something -- this is a metaphor. It has nothing to do with the restaurant or a time warp. If you want to start searching for truth at your local McDonald's, go right ahead. You gotta find the answers somewhere. All I know is that today my daughter, Jessica, and I drove around a good portion of Wake County, North Carolina, only to find out we had make a large circle and ended up back where we started and no closer to our planned destination.


Now, Jessica hasn't lived in this area but a few months and is still learning her way around by anchoring her shopping expeditions to familiar landmarks -- in this case, a crossroads McDonald's restaurant. Since she is on a lot of drugs right now due to a back injury, her thoughts tend to misfire on the way from her brain to her mouth. So while she meant to say that which way you turn at the McDonald's determines which direction you'll be going, what came out was "It's what you do at the McDonald's that determines your destiny."

And where am I going with this? Well, I'll tell you: I have no idea. Right now neither direction nor destiny seem to hold the upper hand. If we have learned nothing else from the events of this past week, hopefully we have a fresh perspective on the dead ends and detours that choice and fate insert into our lives at the first signs of complacency. Some say that life itself is change. A lot of us would rather things always stay the same. This is the point where someone should shout out the warning to be careful what you ask for.

And while I'm still circling the "driving down life's roads" metaphor, let's talk about those warning signs along the way. You know the ones:

Left Lane Closed Ahead
Left Lane Closed 1/2 Mile
Left Lane Closed 100 Yards
Evacuate All Low-lying Areas
Katrina Sets Sights for New Orleans
Landfall Expected in 8 Hours
Sleep Deprivation Major Cause of Accidents
Bend Knees When Lifting
Slow Down, You Move Too Fast
Life Is Short
Stop and Smell the Roses
A Little Child Shall Lead Them


Okay, I detoured from actual road signs, but that just proves my point, doesn't it? How often do we or others wait until the last possible moment to move over into the continuing lane? What fear in us makes us need to get ahead of everyone else, endangering not only ourselves, but those around us? We don't always react to the foreshadowing of a lane change, much less the clanging bells and flashing lights of an impending life change. And it isn't the oncoming change of direction itself that determines the course our destiny takes, it's the way we respond to that change.

It is not the hurricane warnings that change our lives, it is the choice we make to either evacuate to higher ground or live with the consequences of the storm's chaos. It is not the first twinge of discomfort poking through the weeks of fatigue that puts us flat on our backs, it is the choice we make to either slow down and rest or keep up the mad dash that results in constant pain and incapacitation. It is not the inevitable death of a terminally ill child that rips apart the parental heart, it is the choice made to either let nature take its course or fight back with treatments that may or may not prolong the length, if not the quality, of life.

There is no right or wrong here, and these are not the only choices in any of these situations. My point is that no matter what life throws our way, it is what we do with the shake-up that determines our destiny, our destination. I cringed as I typed that since I am an adamant proselytizer of the "life is a journey, not a destination" gospel. But the events of this week have put a major crease in the roadmap of my life as well and now I find myself back at the McDonald's, wondering in which direction lies my destiny. And while I wait, I take comfort in the blue sky overhead, the amazing bank of summer color flowering against the lushness of green grass, the restorative elixir of ice water, and the wisdom that I can't actually be lost if I don't know where I am going.

In seeking the higher ground of peace above the chaos of the storm, I can listen to the voice of stillness instead of the cacophony of fear. In the reflection of another's pain, I remember to take care of myself as well. And from the very, very brief life of a child, I find affirmation that life itself is a spectacular, wonder-filled moment of being -- the twinkling star in the darkness that broadcasts our light to all who encounter it.

But it's also short, so what are you waiting for?


For Maddy...whose dying taught us all so much about living and loving and letting go