Filed under: Uncategorized, Writing | Tags: @lourdesgnavarro, @nprweekend, Climate Change, West Coast Fires
Sunday Morning September 13th 2020
I sit at the glass top table on the patio, a cup of coffee sweetened with honey and a tiny apple pie are my breakfast, one that was leftover from the batch I baked special for my daughter and her friends. The late summer insects sing with the birds, the air is full of petrichor from the night’s rain. It is greener than most Septembers that I have known. I listen to a radio interview with a woman who has been keeping an audio diary about helping her three children with their online schooling during the pandemic for NPR’s education segments, only this morning her family has had to evacuate from the fires raging near her small town in Oregon. They are all in a hotel with their two dogs outside of Redmond, Washington. Even there, you can see smoke in the air. The woman’s voice is calm and clear, all her strengths mustering in this moment to hold her family together. To keep them safe. To keep fear from knocking them flat. They will do their best to keep up with school online, she said. Her son was doing his online English assignment as they were packing the car to flee. She apologizes for not giving very specific answers to the questions about education, she laughs a little and says ‘it’s maybe not the first thing on my mind.’ I listen to her voice and understand that she is speaking from inside the hotel bathroom or the closet, while her family is in the room, perhaps sleeping, perhaps watching the news, texting their friends. What have you seen? How is our house? Is it close now? I look down at my little breakfast. The little pie I made with love sits before me. How can I allow myself its sweetness?
Filed under: Art of the Day, Uncategorized, Writing | Tags: Hindman Settlement School, pandemic, Writing, Zoom
We have all of us felt it, all of us lucky ones.
We have felt that thing that happens when you cross over the little bridge spanning the creek. The creek. Troublesome Creek.
It’s a homecoming.
Interruptions INTERruptions IntERRUPTIONS
As soon as I almost (almost) get the thoughts into the corral, I’m texted by my daughter who needs me to come downstairs immediately to zoom in with the therapist who is helping her to dig herself up and out of the eating disorder vortex that has sucked her in during the pandemic lockdown. And so I go and just like that my thoughts, feelings and words gallop off in three different directions.
When you cross Troublesome, those interruptions stay home. They have to go to great lengths to track you down.
Troublesome Creek runs through Hindman, the seat of Knott County in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. It is the home of the Hindman Settlement School, founded in 1902 by May Stone and Katherine Pettit. It was the first rural settlement school in the United states and is one of the few remaining. Its programs have changed over the years, but its mission has not: Honor the past, improve the present, and plan for the future of Central Appalachia. They have dyslexia programs for children, parents and educators, a burgeoning foodways program that is revitalizing agriculture in Appalachia and many cultural heritage programs, one of which is the Appalachian Writers Workshop. For 45 years it has been both incubator and life raft for writers with ties to Appalachia.
The last week in July, we lucky ones get to cross the bridge and spend a week in this place that has been held sacred for generations. Every year I reflect on what it is that transforms a place into sacred ground. It is a collective project undertaken by all who come. Everyone who crosses that bridge is there to teach or learn or to somehow support the work that is being done there. Minds and hearts are bent on exploring, discovering, sharing, expressing, supporting, celebrating. There is tremendous joy in such company. This joy creates a light that shines in the day to reveal hidden paths and glows through the night to heal the soul. It sounds hyperbolic written here, but anyone who has been will tell you that this is so. The busy-ness of our everyday life cannot reach us for a blessed while. Us! What happiness to be an us, to be a we not a me. In this company we do not need to explain or defend ourselves. We do not need to hide.
This Year of the Plagues or Year of the Great Reckoning, Hindman was online.
Enormous collective sigh.
Collective mourning, too, of all that we would lose:
-The rituals of arriving, claiming your bunk, finding your roommates.
-The Welcome lecture that never fails to mention snakes.
-Hugging old friends, catching up in a heartbeat.
-Three delicious meals a day magically appearing just when you need them, eaten in lively togetherness. (Never underestimate how far this goes in setting the muse free)
-Dishwashing duty with old friends and new friends and literary heroes.
-The sparkle of dew on the morning spider webs spanning the footbridge to class.
-Staying up late talking in groups, talking in pairs, singing in circles, at the Gathering Place, on porches, up in the open air chapel on the hillside by the graves of James Still and Elizabeth Watts, passing moonshine in jars until far too late.
-Negotiating sleep in the bunkbeds, being reminded of what it is to snore.
-The revelation of the participants readings, hearing a poem by your new dishwashing friend that makes you gasp, then cry, then laugh again, leaving you full of wonder.
-Laughing at Robert Gipe’s masterful introductions in the evening readings, performance events unto themselves.
-More revelations as the instructors read their work. Damn, they can write, words so evocative and well-aimed that they can split a tree in two.
-Feeling that time has stopped as you sit in your workshop class, finding facets in your own work you didn’t know were there, like that reoccurring dream you have of finding new skylit rooms in your house.
-Hiking the loop up behind the highest cabin, looking for the box turtles that always tell you the same thing: you already have everything you need. Just write.
-Listening to the keynote speaker after an unforgettable Appalachian feast. Such as Nikki Giovanni beginning her talk with “The penis is in trouble y’all”. And the glory of Dorothy Allison’s thunder and lightning, her gentle rain and the sun coming out, her benediction shooting us from the cannon: ‘Now get the fuck out of here and write!’
-Partaking of holy communion in the ritual reading of Jim Wayne Miller’s “The Brier Sermon”, a poem that exhorts us: ‘You must be born again`.
And we are, every year.
We wondered, I wondered, each of us wondered- would any of this survive the 2020 Pandemic edition?
I had my doubts. For one thing, there would be no journey. There wouldn’t be planning, packing, securing the household for my absence, loading up the car and pulling away. There wouldn’t be the long drive from the flatlands, to rolling farms, to foothills and off the highway into the mountains. I wouldn’t see my cell service come and go, pass the signs for Frozen, Typo, Flat, Mary, Dice, Pigeonroost, Rowdy and Dwarf. I wouldn’t rejoice when I finally get WMMT on the dial, wouldn’t feel my heart quicken when I got to Hazard, frown and shake my head as I passed the Lost Mountain, smile the rest of the way up the Daniel Boone Parkway, still refusing to call it Hal Rogers, positively sing as I take that turn past Yoder’s, down the big hill into Hindman, turning left onto the James Still Highway at the Midee Mart and right again over the bridge spanning Troublesome. And there I am, looking for a parking space and scanning the porch at May Stone- who is already sitting there rocking away, waving as the cars pull in?
Clicking on a Zoom link is a poor substitute.
And yet- it was there after all. The Hindman Heart. I felt it pounding as I clicked on the links. My friends and teachers were there and new folks too. Their talent and courage and generosity touched me even as I sat curled up in the armchair by the writing window with my cat Dr. Wilson. We had our classes, the daily participants readings, the evening readings. We had nightly Zoom hangouts with conversation and music, the evening beverage of your choice. My young friend Clayton started a Zoom breakfast club that quite frankly was the highlight of the week for me, coming closest to the pleasure of sitting down and sharing a meal together. I hadn’t realized how much I needed company. We even had suggested attire for each day- formal wear one day, western wear the next and so on until we had a bona fide spirit week. Again, I hadn’t realized how much I needed play.
For the first time this year, Zoom felt homey to me, a comfort. This is miraculous, because after teaching online all spring and having my second job online as well, I have come close to flinging my small screen overseer into the fish pond on many occasions. Sure there are ways that the virtual workshop might be improved if, god forbid, it has to be online again next year, but the school did an amazing thing in building a platform that could support the spirit of the workshop in this grand online experiment. We even managed a reading of The Brier Sermon.
“They say people can go blind gradually.
They say people can go deaf gradually.
Lose the sense of taste little by little.
They forget the shapes of leaves on trees,
forget the sound of the creek running,
the world just blurs, grows silent.
They forget the taste of coffee and all their food.
Now what would it be like if that sight were given back?
If they heard the creek running again, or a crow call?
If suddenly they could taste their food again?
Something is restored to them, a richness.
They’ve found something they didn’t even know they’d lost.
They’re born again to sights and sounds and tastes.
Oh, you must be born again.”
Were we born again? Here I leave the we and go back to just me.
Rebirth? No. But I have been given enough gas to get to the nearest service station. And I am learning how to create the space my own work requires so that I don’t lose my mind once and for all. Some folks were able to go off and get a hotel room or arrange things so that they had utter privacy as they engaged in the virtual workshop, others continued to work and fulfill family obligations while attending, most tried some sort of compromise between the two. When the children hollered ‘Mom! The dogs got into the garbage and it’s all over the house and they’re throwing up everywhere’, they hollered back down the stairs ‘I’m not here, I’m at Hindman!’ Those people are my heroes. But damn it’s hard to set those boundaries. For me there is tremendous mental resistance and guilt. I’m up against my own fundamental belief that my work is not nearly so important as working the jobs that pay the bills and tending to those I love.
If I don’t fight for the time, I won’t get it. No one else is going to hold that sacred space for me the way Hindman does one week out of the year. I have to hold it sacred myself.
At the beginning of the summer all sorts of little IED’s exploded in my road. Exhausted and depressed from the online school semester, there was the discovery that my daughter had successfully hidden the resurgence of her eating disorder, the failure of a class at college and the subsequent loss of financial aid for the coming year. She was in big trouble, all hands on deck. Weeks were spent wrangling her back into an Intensive Outpatient Program, having to play the villain to get her to eat again, and appealing the financial aid decision based on her learning differences, the pandemic and her mental health. Then there was the pain I felt in not being able to help my mother and her own pandemic isolation because I was spending so much time putting out the fires at my house. I watched my plans for writing retreat further and further down the calendar.
One night in mid-June, I felt particularly low. To distract and amuse myself, I pulled up the Randonautica app, an oracle adventure designed by quantum physicists. Set an intention, (you don’t enter it, you just think it), keep this in mind as you click on the app requesting a destination that is generated through random quantum calculations that I cannot even begin to understand. I have had remarkable experiences doing this, the interconnectedness of thought and manifestation on full display. My intention: Giving myself permission to write. I got a location that took me to this newish house on Rudy Lane, not far from my mother where I had spent the evening. It was a large house that appeared to be empty. I pulled into the circular drive but felt like I was trespassing, so I pulled out again, drove a little ways off and stopped the car to write my report in the app as being not meaningful. You win some, you lose some. I wrote ‘Just an empty house, maybe I’m missing something’. I decided to ask for a second location, I used my same intention with a great deal more mental intensity “to give myself permission to write, to make the space for it without guilt”. It seemed to take longer than usual to get a destination point. Then there it was- the exact same location I was given before. This had never happened before. I was stunned. Clearly I had missed something.
I did a quick search to confirm that the house was indeed empty- it had been sold only three days before. I went back, parked the car and went to the back of the house where the destination beacon blinked. There was a creek running right behind the house with steep banks shored up in places by caged rock to fight the erosion. The creek was nearly dry, (leap minnow, leap), but evidence was everywhere that it could be wild. It could be, well, troublesome. Of course. That’s where I give myself permission to write. That’s where I give myself permission to think only of myself. It was very green behind that house, thickly shaded by trees on the banks, the light beautiful as it faded. I quite forgot that I was in the middle of Louisville. There was a soggy deck off the back of the house that looked right over the creek. I walked up on it and then saw that there was a wooden footbridge across the creek, where the property expanded into an open field. I crossed the bridge. Permission to write. I need to cross Troublesome Creek here at home.
And that is what I am learning to do. It’s a struggle to override decades of programming. The virtual week at Hindman has given me the fuel to power on. I must cross Troublesome Creek for a time every day, speaking firmly into my own ear- You have nothing to feel guilty about, nothing to fear. Waste and lose no more time, poet. You must be born again.
Filed under: Teaching, Uncategorized, Writing | Tags: pandemic, poetry, teaching online, time
I wrote the piece below some time ago, a few years ago in fact. I came across it a few days ago and it made me think again about how much I’ve been longing for a change in the way time is spent, about how hard it is to step outside time’s current. I’m sorry, deeply sorry for the pandemic and the loss and suffering it is causing. I’m also relieved to sit on the bank for a time and watch the river rush on, online teaching aside…
Young god
Just try getting to the heart of anything
in the divided day,
patchworked with tasks
driven by calendar alerts,
servant to the god of Newton.
· don’t forget you have to
· make sure there is enough to
· pick up so and so at such and such a time
· you must remember to
· do you have time for
· make sure that so and so knows
· how long will it take to
(plan teach assess grade sweep clean weed water
feed clear wash dry fold put away pay collect
calculate estimate gather cook serve take away
pick up drop off control keep safe compose send
flag mark as unread trash)
The gods of Jung sow seeds of revolution
in my sleep,
where strange long halls in my house open
to unknown rooms whose ceilings
are nothing but stars,
where icy seas lap the curbs of my city
and navigation requires a true horizon.
The ancient ones are roused,
the gods of breath and pulse,
of water, wind, leaf and stone.
They are shouting now,
Clamoring between my daylight steps,
I must stop or be tripped-
Smash all the clocks!
Tear the leaves from the calendar
and let them fly through the windows!
Throw them all on the tracks,
the train you scheduled is barreling through!
You foolish young god, you,
Time is your own invention.
Filed under: Art of the Day, memory memorabilia re-membering, Uncategorized | Tags: INheritance, Junk Pick up, Remembrance
Piled high by the curb were most of my neighbor’s belongings, it seemed, set out ahead of the scheduled junk pick up. Set out for all to see, set out for strangers to pick over what might be wanted. I never knew her name though we spoke often as I passed her house on my daily dog walks. Her pin headed dog was named Sugar. It was a dreadful little dog. Its middle grew and grew while its tiny head seemed to shrink. It snarled and growled from its doorway like a miniature hellhound every time the dogs and I rounded its corner. I lived in dread of the day it would finally burst through the storm door, but that day never came. I could see the signs that my neighbor was failing. And now, there were her things piled high- clothes, family photos, furniture, framed embroidered pictures asking God to bless this little home, all things no one in her family found worthy to keep, the opposite of a burial mound.
My mother has been carefully, methodically, clearing out drawer and closet and shelf. She gifts treasures to us, a little at a time, or gives away to Goodwill or St. Vincent DePaul. She is in good health, but at eighty, she cannot help but think of closure. There will be no pile on the curb for her, none of us could bear that, least of all her. Recently I’ve been gifted boxes of postcards, written over a hundred years ago to my Great-Grandmother and her daughter, my grandmother. I’ve sorted and put them in an album to pour over at odds times, wondering about the hand that wrote them, the hand that received them. To whom will I gift them? Will I have the forethought to do it before I am gone?
I hope to be like Callie Rudy, who was closer to God than anyone I’ve known, full of twinkle and strength and patience. She lived her life in service to others and when she died at eighty-three, they found she had boxed up and labeled all her things so they would find their way to whom they were meant for. Not a thing left undone. She was found in her backyard one morning, after her final act of taking out the garbage.
Filed under: Art of the Day, Uncategorized, Writing | Tags: Rockefeller, wealth, Williamsburg
At dawn I watch all
the little generals muster
for the morning’s battle.
The fleet of silent carts
line up under the pines,
loaded with their arsenals.
The solemn marshals
(no enlisted on this hallowed ground)
are dressed in battle uniform:
Collared cotton shirt,
short sleeve,
solid pastel,
a loose but tailored cut
designed to cover
prosperous bellies
and tuck neatly
into khaki shorts
belted with monogram
leather or needlepoint,
topped with visor, ball cap
or the occasional
Havana fedora
of the five star veteran among them.
“My ball will go in the hole, gentlemen,
however far away it appears,
despite the trap of sand, water or bunker.
I have the measured strength
and long vision,
the mental steel
and mighty club
to do it.
Mark my words gentlemen,
my ball will penetrate the hole
long before yours.”
Let the generals play.
Perhaps the privates,
lieutenants, sergeants,
and captains will be left
in peace for a time.
Let the generals play.
It is a beautiful day.
Suspicion of wealth is a default setting of mine, yet here I am enjoying immensely what immense wealth has created and afforded- The Williamsburg Inn, Colonial Williamsburg, William and Mary. Eternal thanks to my sister for this glorious weekend together, my first real vacation in years. Wealth can be like the Grandmother Tree in the forest- the biggest and grandest tree that disperses its amassed treasure of nutrients into the roots of everything around it as it slowly declines and passes away.
Filed under: Art of the Day, Uncategorized | Tags: Cats, signs and omens, spirit walk, Unearthly visitor, vision quest
Saturday morning, blessedly cooler, the humidity gone. The insects sang with the birds and I sat outside with my coffee watching the cats’ lively play, invigorated by the reprieve from summer’s hammer. They charged up into the Golden Rain Tree and swiped at each other from their perches. I grabbed my phone to take their portrait. Down the hill on the lane that runs in front of my house, a man walked by. He talked softly to himself, looked up and saw me there looking down to him. I waved, as I do. He waved, stopped walking and started talking to me as he turned to climb up through the old lily beds and ornamental grasses of my yard. I couldn’t follow what he was saying, something about trying to get up this way every year to do a bit of work, something about picking broccoli spears in Shelby County. He was a white man with long graying hair and a beard, both of which were red once. Perhaps he was in his sixties, perhaps older. He wore loose jeans and a zipped up jacket the color of earth and moss, both of which looked to be worn a long time though not dirty. It was startling how he climbed right up into my yard, ignoring boundaries most folks wouldn’t consider crossing. The dogs rushed down to him, giving him a friendly welcome, and he greeted them with pats. Still he continued his climb toward me, his hands restlessly picking and pulling leaves and branches as he passed. Some were weeds, some were plants dying off at the end of summer, but some were not. He snapped off a branch of the Golden Rain Tree and the head of a sedum that was fixing to flower. His hands had their own will, a need to be picking and snapping as he worked through the farm rows of his mind. Soon he was upon me, right up on the patio bricks by the little fish pond. I was more puzzled than alarmed.
“How about I walk you this way down the path” I said, hoping to lead him back toward the road.
“A path is alway good” he said. He followed me but looked over his shoulder toward my house and its door open wide to the living room inside. “You have a nice house. I bet you have a bedroom.”
There was nothing sinister in his voice, just a simple kind of wistfulness.
“Yes” I said. “Here, this path leads back down to the lane.”
“A path is always good” he said again. But instead of following it, he kept walking into my neighbor’s yard, turning to continue his ascent up the hill.
“It’s good that there are still Indians in this place” was the last thing I heard him say as he made his way, pulling and snapping plants along his way up to the little bit of wood we have behind our houses. I watched him until he was gone.
Was there something I ought to have done for him? He asked for nothing. He seemed to be simply passing through, a visitor from another world following a path I could not see, and as I write this, I am suddenly doubting that it really happened at all.
Filed under: Art of the Day, Uncategorized, Writing | Tags: adoption, Baptism, Leaving for COllege, motherhood
Cleaning out the attic eave storage space this summer, after the possum frat party that had been raging there all winter, I found many treasures I had stowed away. Some that still cause pain, some that are bittersweet, but many many that are simply sweet. I’ve set some sweet ones on my desk to look over when I need them, like tonight as my daughter is downstairs packing her things to leave for college for the first time.
I found that poem again. It has been pinned to my bulletin board above my desk. And I found again the words I wrote for her baptisms, for she did indeed have more than one. The first took place in the church I grew up in, Highland Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Ky. The second was in my Chicago church home- Wellington Avenue United Church of Christ.
From the Kentucky baptism:
The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. I did not know what to pray for, what to hope for. I tried to live with the idea of never having a child of my own and I found I could not. But I did not know what path to take or what path to make. I didn’t even know who to ask. Then between projects, I took on work as a nanny through a service. My very first job I walked into an apartment to find Katie, a 2 1/2 year old girl adopted from an orphanage in China. I became dizzy, the ground moved under me and I quite literally saw a curtain open in front of me and I heard the words, I really really did, “This is your future”.
See, the miracle is not that the bush burned without being consumed, the miracle is that instead of running away from a brush fire, Moses stopped long enough to notice that fact. The miracle is that absorbed as I was by my own fears, my own despair, my own feeling of being abandoned, I was able to look at Katie and see that curtain open. I was going to adopt a daughter. There was an answer to my wordless prayer, and I was the answer to hers. A motherless child and a childless mother, and now we are we.
And from the Chicago baptism:
Three years ago on this day I was a couple of months away from my epiphany, still grappling with myself, wrestling the angel to the ground to demand my blessing. Two years ago I had gathered my demand for a blessing into a dossier that then sat on a pile of such demands in some Chinese official’s In basket. A year ago today I held the little photo of the blessing in my hand and today my arms and heart are full of blessings, full of her, my daughter, my gift from God.
Her name came to me long before she did. At a time in my life when I was particularly alive to everything around me, especially the natural world, I was struck by the name of Jessamine County, Kentucky. It was early spring and I was driving through it a couple of times a week, commuting to Eastern Kentucky and those blessed mountains. Jessamine. And then from somewhere another word attached itself- kindred, one of the most beautiful words I know. Jessamine Kindred, the daughter I dreamt about, my secret child whose name I wrote in places that no one else would ever see. And now that name appears beside mine on a piece of paper that says we belong to each other, and on her very own Social Security card, and on this church bulletin. My eyes still can’t quite believe it. The daughter I dreamt of. The name that she was given when brought to the orphanage was Meng Ai. It means “Dreaming of Love”.
We both dream of love still, conjure it everyday, make mistakes, try again. “I am from those moments where my mom and I walked hand in hand looking for new adventures”. Now it’s time for her to walk on her own and it’s breaking both our hearts, but golly I’m grateful. She’s healthier, she’s ready, it’s time.
Filed under: Art of the Day, Uncategorized, Writing | Tags: Art of the Day, Saturdays
God bless the young rabbit
with the early morning sun
shining through its ears.
God bless the chimney swifts and mourning doves,
the adolescent robins
careening from branch to branch.
God bless the red tailed hawk
enduring the harangue
of the self righteous jay.
God bless the fox who knows
the back way,
slipping safely home.
God bless the runners
(god knows why they run),
moving as one down the empty street.
God bless the orphans
waking up to their free morning,
the caregivers who planned for it all week.
God bless the thirsty grass,
The parched trees and shrubs,
the flowers that bloom anyway.
God bless the old dogs
with their busted knees
and their young hearts.
And God bless the mother
who dallies on the hilltop
for a moment, just a moment
before launching into a list of chores
that would bury a regiment.
Another Saturday morning dalliance.
Filed under: Teaching, Uncategorized | Tags: mass shootings, School, Teaching
This week has been spent back at school, a week of preparation for the teachers. Faculty meetings, room prep, brainstorming, catching up with colleagues. All the gears are beginning to turn, meshing with each other, cranking up to launch another school year. We all have things we plan to teach.
Two more horrific mass shootings within 24 hours of each other. The work of young white men who believe they know who deserves to die, who feel they have the right to destroy the lives of The Other. One of their imagined enemies was a school girl who just finished the eighth grade. She didn’t flee when the shooting started, she tried to help her grandmother who uses a cane. Who taught that young man such hatred?
Teaching is a sacred endeavor. What is taught is not nearly as important as who is teaching. Someone who really sees each student. Someone who respects them and believes the absolute best about them. Someone who loves them. That is who I strive to be.
Our head of school began our first faculty meeting by addressing the shootings. She stated that on our journey together we will focus more than ever on taking care of each other, all of us- students, parents, faculty, staff. We take care of each other because The Other is our family. And this is why I am deeply grateful to be part of my school, because it is more than just talk. It is what we do. We teach love.
Filed under: Art of the Day, Uncategorized | Tags: Art of the Day, Circles, Cycles
6/1/19 Early morning. I’ve been thinking a lot about circles, all the orbits we make, all the beginnings, the middles, the ends that lead right back into another beginning. So I sat outside last night and drew it as best I could, in the little piece of green that I have the care of, the “bit of earth” that is my own secret garden. The end of another school year, the start of another summer, the end of J’s secondary education, the start of her collegial learning, the sun sets at the end of another day and I go to sleep solid in the belief that it will rise again.
I thought a lot about Mom’s grand birthday party so lavishly hosted by my brother and sister, celebrating her 80 trips around the sun and 60 trips for my cousin Bobby. A carousel of photos, some almost 80 years old themselves, played over and over on the big screen in the corner, the past made present in front of our eyes. There were so many friends there, so much family, she hinted that this might not be such a bad send off if she were to pop off in the night, but of course we aren’t done with her yet. She doesn’t have our permission to go. That’s what we like to think, that death requires our permission, that we are somehow in control our endings. Maybe sometimes we are, but mostly the carousel stops and we sigh because the ride is over. We hop down off our horse and go find the next ride.
There were beautiful toasts at the party, my brother’s of course, and old friends and that of my beloved nephew who surprised his Nonna in a grand Hallmark moment by coming through the door when she wasn’t expecting him, thinking he couldn’t get leave from the Air Force base where he serves. The look of wonder and disbelief on her face as he walked through the door with his arms open wide! The same look on his mother’s face when he gathered her up in a hug. Only my sneaky sister and her husband were in the know- how they laughed with the pleasure of it. That party was a great gift, a chance for us to come together from all over, a chance to be together in happiness.
We sang happy birthday by the light of the only two candles that Mom would allow- one for her, one for my cousin- led in song by the jazz singer my brother hired. For once that tiresome song was a joy and not the dirge it usually bogs into. And at the end of the night, there was dancing. One of mom’s high school friends stood up and asked her to dance. He had always been the best dancer, Mom tells us, the best escort to any debutante ball. There they were, gracefully, joyfully dancing to “What a Wonderful World”, the song I chose nine years ago for Dad’s funeral. It was perfectly right. It was as if Dad were suddenly there. How he loved to dance with his Florence Lee.
The Fox at Dawn 