Ramblings. As in: Have Words -Will Ramble. As in: Ramble: to write or talk aimlessly or without sequence of ideas, to proceed with turns and twists; meander As In: observances of an everyday life in passing through the spectrum of extraordinary.
Deep FRIED Yin and Yang
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Aunt Kate tells me, "As long as I can see, I'm gonna see out!"
She's prone to leaving her door open, her windows open, and never closes her bedroom door. And she once saw a dead body (otherwise known as someone who had passed on) laid out in a house where the sheet had been pulled up over their face so since that day long, long ago now, she also doesn't sleep under sheets. It's a childhood thing.My mother, on the other hand, sleeps under sheets and closes doors, windows and curtains with abandon.
"Cozy," she calls it.
"Cozy like a Coffin," says Aunt Kate.
Listening to the two of them struggle and fight over this small things, doors and curtains, has been an integral part of my upbringing and I laud and applaud the idiosyncrasies of my family members. They are unique. They are charming. They are crazy. Sometimes. Just a little here and there. Just enough to make them really interesting storytellers. And that's the part I love the most. But they won't write the stories down. Not a one of them. They prefer to hold court before a live audience. And there is never a day that I'm not a willing audience of one.And now I'm calling from a distance, getting my daily reports from the backwoods of Georgia.
Aunt Kate, as some of you may know, has had a bad spell. She's in 'that chair' but she's fixed it so she can roll up to the stove. She's able to cook. All is not lost and she reports that the other day she took a bunch of steps with her walker. She's been going to therapy and declares she's gonna walk again. If anyone will it'll be her. Or my Momma. Stubborn women they are. Stubborn in different ways but a long, strong streak of stubborn just the same.Cousin Deb and Mom are road tripping. Off visiting Aunt Kate and I call to stay plugged in. To get the low down, the report on what is going on. And with the playback I always get a menu. Either in the making, just ate, or about to be eaten - as in, "We're having turnip greens and collards, Field had one and I had the other so we just cooked them both. And a little bit of cornbread, I've got peas on the stove top and a roast pork (see Follow the Pig journal entries) in the oven" and it goes on like that for sometime. "Tomorrow we're driving to Columbus because we're gonna go eat with Jackie." This because going to visit equates to going to eat.Lots of cultures share this. I used to have a family of Greeks that surrounded me and eating there too was a celebration - or maybe family, friends, life was a celebration and food was a natural by-product of that party. I loved it. It felt like . . . well, home.So the matriarch's of our family are together. Right there in the same room. Different as night and day - the yen and yang of our existence. These stubborn, Southern women full of life and secrets and things we need to know while their with us. Things we need to know before they even consider taking that planetary journey out of here. That's what I want to tell the grandmothers and mothers and aunts of the deep south - Wait! There's something you haven't said, something you haven't told us and we won't know how to go on without you. We won't know how to make it into the next twenty years and beyond. Give us more advice, more tellin, more truth - bottom line - give us more stories.Stories with names like Eddie Lewis and you know that old Jenkins boy, you know the one I'm talking about came down to the creek that day when you were five and tied your shoe settin right there on the doorstep - that's the one, well one day they had gone up to the mill creek pond and they took along with them Uncle Walts youngest - that was a cold day, colder than it is now, cold like it used to be . . .So there they are in Georgia, eating and storytelling, and I'm in Nashville and places in between and beyond telling the story of The Messenger of Magnolia Street to open ears on the road. But last night Sister and me were talking. Big dogs on the floor. Children between us as we sat across the room for each other, me in the rocker, her in the cushioned chair. My son holding her little boy child, pointing to pictures, the girl child walking around with something around her head that came down to her knees, and sister afraid she'll run into the walls and me saying, Well, she won't run through them, as if that makes any sense but it does and I realize how many women it takes to raise children. And I realize - we are well. We are as different as night and day and just the same- sister and me - sitting there with precious children and big dogs between us and talking about the strange things that come to us - the strange desires, the genetic imprints that make us suddenly do the same strange things that were a part of our early lives. Like suddenly when a spring day sparks a desire to get in the car and begin to drive to 'go visit our people.' A visit that rambles through towns, across states. A door knocking vacation that's sole purpose is to go visit one's blood kin and the good friends of one's blood kin, old friends of someones mother's from 6th grade. It's something in our veins, something that says stay connected, stay real. Remember. And we laugh at our sameness. At the code that keeps us. And we rock, and kiss babies, and pat dogs, and tell stories and I think, We're gonna be all right. As long as we have each other, all of us, We're all gonna be all right.
posted by River Jordan at 9:52 AM
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