Tuesday, February 14, 2006

To My Sister

You are to me so many things I cannot express. Have you noticed I try to tell you how wonderful you are every time we are in the company of one another? Perhaps you think it is the mood of the moment, or the perhaps my state of inebriation. I worry you might think I am simply trying to make you feel good about yourself. That perhaps you’ve considered the possibility that I might construct the praises I give you because I want to believe some falsehood about your personality that doesn’t exist.
The truth is, Kimberly, that I have worshipped you since I was a child. I can remember you too young to interact with me, strawberry blonde hair and pudgy cheeks, all smiles and dimples. No angel I ever studied was prettier. Later when you were older I loved all the things you were that I was not. Organized, popular, good at school, beautiful. I didn’t know you back then. Not really. I wish I had.
But perhaps we’ve come into this season of our friendship at the best time. Two people grown, fairly certain of who we are, but willing to reach out, needing a friend, love, a sister. For all that I complain about whatever fault may be bothering me at the moment, the truth behind the grievance is a fear that I will lose you. To ill health, to some mishap, or because we have some ridiculous argument that doesn't belong in our lives in this here and now. My adoration of you has only changed in that I am coming to know the person I love so dearly. More than a sister, you are the friend I can trust my heart to. I believe in God because of gifts like you. You give me smiles and hope when all else is dark and gloom.
I love you. And I always will.

Acorns


Once upon a time there was an old, gnarled oak tree standing at the edge of a vast and lifeless desert. Around the oak tree was an oasis of life, a paradise palatial in its beauty. The oak tree had been there for as long as any of the other plants and animals could remember, and it served as home, haven, and wellspring of all good things for everything that flourished around it.
Upon the branches of this mighty tree were many acorns, and two of these acorns had grown up together since their birth. They were very close, sharing all of their joys and hopes with each other from day to day. They were happy, and did not want to change a thing about their lives.
The world is hard, however, and fate sometimes has other plans, even for the most fragile and kind of all souls. A terrible storm blew in one day, blotting the sun from the sky and bending all the smaller trees around the oak almost to the ground. Rain and hail lashed out at the garden paradise, and many were lost in the destruction.
The storm passed, as all storms do, and the acorns survived. This, my friends, is the good news. The bad news (isn't there always bad news?) is that they were torn from the limbs of the only home and family they'd known. Swept upward into the torrential sky, rent from one another and deposited on opposite sides of the cracked wasteland. The first acorn flew miles and miles until it dropped into a bed of sandy soil. The second acorn barely missed dropping to the bottom of a canyon, an abyss so deep that light never struck the bottom. This acorn found meager shelter between two boulders and spent the night in fear for its life.
No nurtured growth was in the future for these seedlings. Alas, the only hope left to each acorn was that the storm which had so ravaged their existence had also softened the normally hard earth and left a small puddles of moisture in which they could find some sustenance.
Now, I can hear you saying “This is not possible! How could a little acorn survive in a desert?” But I ask you, have you not ever seen a tree or bush, or a flower, growing where it should not be able to grow? Sprouting from rock, cracked pavement, or salted soil? Life has a way of persevering. And that, dear readers, is exactly what happened with these acorns. The love they shared was so stupendous they could not bear to die. Each acorn huddled down as far as that small patch of damp dirt would allow them to, and drank as deeply as they could of the water that was left to them. Then they pushed. Bravely, determinedly, and without concern as to what might come next they heaved themselves upward and outward, cracking their tiny shells. That tiny bit of moisture, that blazing sun and the determination to live provided each of them the fertilization they needed. It was an arduous battle, and one they both nearly lost many times. Yet they persevered. The little green shoots they had now become struggled to breach the confining terrain until at last they spread their tiny leaves and viewed the sky once again.
Years passed, and the tiny acorns, now trees in their own right, wilted in the heat of the fiery sun. Most trees would have given up, but not these two. They used their energy to thrust their roots down into the soil and sought what nourishment they could find. Each acorn, once quite tame and coddled, was now a tree fighting for its very life.
I’d like to tell you they grew up straight and tall, and that no disease or other misfortune befell them. But you’d think I was a liar if I did, and so I would be. Though they eventually grew to be thick and sturdy and strong, they also grew to be gnarled and twisted, scarred and misshapen. The canopy of each tree was full and green, but many hollows and cracks filled the tree trunks from every hardship. The world they lived in was barbarous, and it left its mark on each of them.
You must be thinking, “How sad! How horrible!” But if you are, then you do not understand they way of the world. You see, life is made to be difficult to prepare us for what we need so we can be strong, and more able to be who we need to be. And so it was for these trees. You see, they were not theonly life forms that were tossed into this awful place. Birds and insects were now and again blown in by passing storms, and they found a home in the hollows of each tree. There they lived and died, bringing companionship, and eventually nourishment, to the trees. Seeds were swept in, or dropped by birds, and one day grasses began to grow beneath the trees, and flowers. One of the oak trees had a thriving colony of honey bees; the other was home to a family of owls.
Though far apart, the trees grew up in a similar fashion, and never forgot their childhood sweetheart. They sensed that somewhere, the one they loved still lived. Every day they dropped their roots a little deeper, but they also reached out and across for the soul mate they knew to be somewhere out there.
Years passed, more than a hundred in fact, and the tiny acorns were both now mighty oak trees standing in the center of a vast and lifeless desert. Beneath and around each tree was a thriving oasis of life, a paradise in the midst of a wasteland. Each oak now served as home, haven, and wellspring of all good things for everything that prospered around it.
This is the circle of life.
And one night while all slept, and a bright moon hung full and shimmering in a sky woven of blue velvet and silver stars ... a sigh was heard across the breadth and the length of the desert. A sigh that made every living thing smile in its soul and dream of all theloved ones they’d ever known.
At the moment of that sweetsigh, the tiny tendrils which the oaks had been painstakingly moving outward, seeking tirelessly and relentlessly, met in the midst of that desert. The roots curled around each other in a caress as much like a kiss as anything could be; grasping and binding to one another with a joy so profound that every living thing on the earth felt it. (Have you ever suddenly smiled, and didn't know why? Well, now you know.)
I won't bother to tell you they were never sad again. I won't treat you like a fool and say that they were never sick, never suffered, and never died. But I will tell you that they spent the rest of every day in their magnificent lives satisfied and never regretting what had come to pass. They discovered, as I hope you might be so fortunate to some day, that while love and faith and perseverance might not serve as a barrier to pain, they will help you through it. While they won’t protect you from tragedy, they’ll soften the blow. And while we always hope and wish for everything in our lives to be easy, sometimes some of the most beautiful things come from that which is most difficult.

Pennies, Bullets, and Bookmarks

Have you ever noticed that as you grow older you life is full of little “bookmarks” to remind you of events that have danced across the years of your life? Smells that bring back childhood moments and emotions as if you had just experienced them? Songs that bring and ache to your chest, or a smile to your face, a subtle souvenir from a day long gone?
These little bookmarks have sometimes been wonderful for me, like a scrapbook I carry in my head and heart to ensure that memories are not just some distant dusting waiting to be swept away. But there are moments, sad and often scary-gray-wish-I-could-let-this-one-go moments, which often creep up when they are least welcome or expected.
I was seven years old the summer that my cousin died. We hadn’t been that close, my parents were divorced for three years by then, and I saw her only during my summer visits to Texas. We were the same age, less two months, but she somehow seemed to be years ahead of me. I mean, sure, we played together during the rare weekend my father took me to his brother’s home. But the main reason she played with me was because the small town she lived in afforded her so little entertainment that she was willing to spare a day or two dealing with me, despite my immaturity.
My uncle lived in one of those towns that could slip by unnoticed if you glanced at the map at the same moment you came upon it. Grain silos graced one side of the two lane road, with the railroad tracks snug against the backs of them, and the town with it’s three whole streets stretched out like cracker crumbs strewn carelessly on the other side of the street. The smell of cattle and chickens was pervasive, wafting across the miles of bean, corn, and tomato crops to conceal any other scent that might be so ridiculous as to perfume the air. The summers unyielding heat only compounded the effect, magnifying the manure odor as the day progressed until by nightfall it seemed to cling to my clothes.
My cousin was adventurous, which was probably why she found me so annoying and immature. I was acutely skittish and flinched at everything from bugs to loud noises, and often pleaded with her to play something “safe” with me, like making mud pies under the one oak tree in her mama’s back yard. I can remember her look of distain as she turned away and marched off to the newest exploit she’d decided on, ignoring me until I gave in and ran to catch up.
That last Sunday the game of choice was “squash the penny” on the railroad tracks. Laying our old tarnished pennies on the rail in neat little rows we would run and hide behind the old wooden pallets stacked near the silos and watch as the train flashed by, slinging our converted prizes out for us to find and gloat over.
I had quickly warmed to this game, dispensing my fears when I discovered how the pennies, still hot in my hand, were flattened or severed in half. By the time she pulled out the bullet she’d stolen from her daddy from her pocket and waved it in the air with an excited grin I was so caught up in the enthusiasm that I didn’t even stop to wonder if I should be afraid.
Thick.
The train seemed to fly toward us as if it knew there was a new prize awaiting it’s arrival… it’s chugging-rattling shaking the ground beneath our feet with a fervor that seemed personal and imminent. When it came even with us and our hiding spot by the silo the roar of the engine and wheels almost drown out the sharp *snap* of the train finding the long bullet we had lain on the track.
I grinned and laughed aloud, the thrill of the moment sweeping me upwards so that it felt like my spirit was sweeping after the massive monster. Turning I looked to my cousin to share the joy of the moment, and saw to my surprise she was laying on the ground. My only real remaining memory of that moment is her upturned hands, dirty and smudged with Texas earth, curled lightly as if in sleep.
The funeral must have been within the following few days, though time seems to have disappeared between the Sunday of the accident and the one where I stood in my stiff print dress beneath the canopy near her graveside. It was quiet. Horribly silent. Most of the tears had been shed and there was no real expression of grief.
My dad stood with my aunt, clasping her hand. My uncle hadn’t come, was unable to muster himself out of the painful daze that was a mix of grief and whiskey. It would be years beforehe ventured out of the broken man that the death of his only daughter had made of him.
I stood alone. As much out of need as because no one was sure how to treat me. They didn’t want to blame me, but I think that somehow they couldn’t help it. The minister began his eulogy in a soft monotone that carried like dust motes in the still of the hot day.
But the worst of it was the flowers. Countless bouquets of flora, wreaths, potted vegetation… everywhere. Thick and fragrant … their perfume lay thick in the arid afternoon, mixing with the never-ending smell of cows and manure.
I tried holding my breath, and breathing low and panting out of my mouth alone, but I couldn’t escape it. My cousin lay there, dead, (oh my… and it could have been… should have been … me) and all I could smell was cow dung and flowers on a day that made everything smell as if it were simmering on a stove.
I don’t remember much after that. I threw up when we got home, as hot and feverish as the miserable day now passing behind us. I was suddenly not alone anymore, but surrounded by sympathetic murmurings and hugs, cools rags and ice cream. I would never be blamed for the death of my cousin after that, somehow my illness had given me an innocence that reality had been unable to supply.
I never spent another summer in Texas.
But as years passed I discovered that the smell of flowers was strangely repugnant. Somehow manure didn’t seem so bad, though it brought to me a slow melancholy that reminded me a summer in Texas I didn’t want to think about too closely. But the smell of flowers on a hot day has since caused me to feel as if I might strangle. Panicky flutterings sweep through my chest and I can almost swear that somewhere in the distance I can hear a train, wailing, shaking, … coming for me in the swelter of the summer sun.

Square Dancing in the Coop


This Story was written for the
barnesandnoble.com presents...Write & Win Contests!, topic: Music. The rules, in short, were that the story had to mention the topic, and be 250 words or less. This story took second place in the contest.
Granny loved the fiddle, and she sawed a mean tune Sunday afternoon.
The porch was small, and most of the older folk sat in the shade to be found there. The some of the others sprawled beneath trees to find relief from the sun.
I didn’t bother, the humidity was thick enough to boil crawdads in my pockets, and a little shade wasn’t going to help.
Cyrus looked like a fool, standing in the center the pen. He crouched; feet planted firmly apart, arms akimbo as if he were a wrestler at the county fair. The hen watched him from the corner of her eye, not deceived by the stupid expression on his face. He wasn’t going to outsmart her, but she knew if he were to fall on her she’d be fried up with taters and biscuits within the hour. She clucked quietly to herself, feathers smooth as if she were alone in the world.
Bubba leaned back, rolling his chaw between his lip and teeth, occasionally spitting like a grasshopper into the dirt. He tapped his foot to the music, and I noticed everyone seemed to be nodding to the jig a little bit.
That’s when Cyrus swung his dang arm at what we had expected to be lunch, and ole hen jumped just high enough to use that momentum to let him throw her outta the yard.
Well, there went dinner, and the fiddle too. Bubba jus’ laughed. He likes cornbread an’ beans jus fine.
~January 15, 2005