Today, driving to Williamsburg gave me time to think, to reflect on my life and wonder about the lives of those in my family. My mind drifted to my grandfather.
He was uneducated, I think he made it to the second grade. He worked hard, 2 jobs to support his wife and 5 kids. He had a really hard life.
Papaw is still alive, tho ailing now. He has diabetes, a heart condition, and is in general bad health. He got cranky and surly in his old age, and I've not seen him, or attempted to see him in years. The last time he was here, was when Bonnie came back from Mexico.
Papaw shook his cane at me like he was gonna hit me with it, and came through the house to check on Bonnie. That was the last time I saw him. I doubt ever seeing him alive again. I know I shouldn't be this way. I know some day I'll probably regret not wanting to visit with him. He's the only real thing left of mamaw, but I just can't go visit him. I can't.
I can, though, think about him from time to time.. remember things he said, or did, and on the way to Williamsburg, I did just that.
I watched the land speed by and there's a lot of gardens to see.. a lot of corn fields.
I remembered a time when I was about 12, and my sister was 9. We were here that spring, fresh from Detroit, and it was garden planting time. Early one morning, Papaw got us up to go out and help them get the garden spot ready for the seeds. It was hot by 10 that morning, so hot, and he'd tilled and tilled the ground.. we took turns trying to help, but we spent most of our time following behind him, picking up the larger rocks and tossing them out of the garden.
When he finished tilling, he sat on the ground, drinking some water, taking a break and he looked at me and my sis, and with this grin, he said we were going to smooth the dirt out for him. Then he explained just how we were going to do that. He pointed to a cross tie that he'd tied rope around, and he said he was going to loop that rope around Lisa's and my tummys and have us drag it back and forth over the garden, to smooth out the clumps.
Lisa and I looked at that cross tie, and then to each other and we laughed, and we looked at him and we said, noway, you're kidding. That thing was 6 feet long and if you know what a cross tie is, you know those suckers are heavy.
The garden was on a hill. Not much here in Kentucky is flat ground, and there wasn't a piece of that garden space flat.
He laughed with us and drank his water, and after his break, sure as hell he told us to get the rope, and put it over our stomachs and drag that cross tie over the dirt. He wasn't kidding.
Lord it was hot.
*laughs*
We dragged that sucker all over that hillside, smoothing out clumps, grumbling and complaining, but by days end, we had all the clumps out.
I remember mumbling to Lisa that we were kids, not mules, that papaw had lost his ever lovin mind. We knew better than to let him hear that tho, we just did it and complained among ourselves. I always thought he was mean for having us do that, I thought he was just sitting there laughing, getting a kick out of watching us work like mules.
Today though, reflecting, I sat up with this sudden understanding.. Papaw didn't have the words to tell us what his life had been like as a child. He was showing us. By tying us to that cross tie, he was just showing us how he'd smoothed the ground for the garden at his own parents or grandparents place. He was teachind us some of his history!
Later, tonight, I was telling mom this revelation. How papaw had been trying to teach Lisa and me a lesson about his own life.. some of his history. She laughed and said, "No he wasn't. He was being an asshole..."
*laughs*
So much for Reflecting.
I want to go back in time. I want a complete do over! I'll take age 5. Yes, let me go back to 5 and do every thing over in my life starting from there.
I'll listen harder, I'll practice more, I'll be neater, smarter, stronger, faster, and better.
I'll eat my peas, and carrots, and I'll clean my room every day. I'll clean up after the dog and watch over my sister, and I'll be careful to take care of my clothes.
When I hit puberty, I'll understand why my skin's a mess, I'll know that a sudden interest in boys is natural, so I won't blush nearly so hard, and I won't be anywhere near so shy!
In my teens, I'll listen to my parents. I won't drive fast, and I'll be responsible. I'll get a part time job and save my money for college.
After graduation, I won't marry right out of high school. I'll get my nursing degree and live on my own for a few years.
I won't fall in love easily, I'll take my time and be sure, absolutely sure Mr. Right is just that. He'll be the only man I'll ever know. We'll have chidren together and nurture them together, none of this single mom business for me this time. When we're old, we'll sit on the porch and watch our grandchildren play in the yard. We'll look at each other and know we've had a good solid life together, one we didn't piss to the wind, one we lived right. We'll die together of old age, after a long, happy, prosperous life.
C'mon! Give me a do over!
Spang in mid-life. I find myself watching Sarah and my Mom. This highway of life, two cars, one on the north end, and one on the south end... one's going slower, and one's just flying. I'm just sort of in neutral, parked where I can see them both.
I want to shout back to Sarah, tell her some things I wish I'd known when I was her age, and I want to shout to Mom and ask her to give me some wisdom so I don't have to 'learn by doing' anymore. So I can skip the icky stuff and just sail on into the South lane with no bumps.
I guess that'd be cheating, wouldn't it? I guess even if she told me, I'd not really take the advice anymore than Sarah would mine. I guess that's why we each have our own lives to live.
Still, it'd be so much easier, to know what to do, to have all the answers - some kind of instruction manual for each phase of our lives. I'm sure I'd read it, just I don't know if I'd live by the thing or not.
I just feel that right now, at this point in my life, I'm about to bump into some profound discovery, some deep great meaning and understanding of something, some.. thing .. but I'm just not exactly sure what this thing is. It's like a warm piece of just made cotton candy - the way it lifts into the air in the spinner, just a small tiny strand, and you can grab it, but if you're not careful, it's going to break and be lost. I know that can't make sense to anyone but me, but.. if I'm really careful, and I'm not clumsy, I feel like I'm about to latch onto some understanding..
*laughs*
ok ok, well that's why this topic is in the "peculiar thoughts" section of my journal. moving on...
We went there today.. looked around for some cemeteries.. and but for a couple of old, small ones on the side of the road, on the way there, we couldn't find a single cemetery!
This made me suspicious! Don't people die in Williamsburg Kentucky? Or.. if so, do they go elsewhere for burial? There were several funeral homes.. I saw them, but where are the cemeteries?! Were the funeral homes a front? Is Williamsburg KY actually Salems Lot, and no one dies there, because they're already dead?
I just know with a name like "Williamsburg".. there just HAS to be some nice old cemeteries, but where the hell were they? We went all over the place, and didn't see a single one! C'mon Williamsburgers! Fess up! What the hell did you do with your graveyards?!
I've always seen things. Things that aren't there. Literally. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just losing my mind. Charlotte said that to me when she was dying. To her, the clock was taunting her - jumping from one wall to the other.
She just lay there, watching it jump and told me what it was doing, and shook her head at herself and said she was just afraid she was losing her mind.
I thought we had used our cash. I dreaded going to the bank today. Dreaded it so much. But then I looked in the file cabinet for something else, and found some money I forgotten I put back from myself. I didn't have to go to the bank after all, but hell, for the life of me, I don't recall putting that money in there.
I sit here trying to remember if I've always had a bad memory, and guess what. I can't remember! *laughs*
I think a year ago I'd have panicked about this memory loss, but for some reason, I dont have a good panic in me. *laughs* I'm too damned tired to panic.
I guess it's finally come down to it. I do need a vacation. A rest. A Sanitarium!
A padded room? The thought of that doesn't even panic me. What's going on here? *tries to panic about not being able to panic*
Oh well, there's something to be said for lethargy.
I don't miss the panic attacks whatsoever.. those things suck!
Well, it's getting late and the babies will be here in the morning. Gonna head out now and get some sleep.
G'nite world.
Once, a while back, when taking a bite out of a great big pear, Stan asked "Why don't they make pear pie?" His tone was so serious, he was so intent on wondering why, that I just cracked up.
But.. why, too, don't they make peach juice?
A thin blonde woman, older than I am, by about 15 years left Stan an ashtray in one of my dreams. Not bad considering he doesn't smoke.
In another, I dreamed I was chewing out some guy's throat.. he was the owner of our town, and a tyrant, and someone had to get rid of him, so I guess I took it upon myself to do it. *laughs*
I've been having some nutty dreams lately.
We went fishing Sunday with Mom and Dad on their boat. We took Mikyla and Mallory and mercy did those babies have a good time. Mallory's eyes were as big as saucers when Dad started the engine on the boat and Mikyla couldn't take her eyes off of the waves.
It was a beautiful day.. the sky was so blue, and only once in a while a big white cloud would drift by. It wasn't so hot we couldn't stand it, and it wasn't raining or cool, we parked the boat under some shade trees and fished, but no one caught anything.
In a while, Nick wanted to go swimming so Lisa let him. When Mik and Mal saw that, they wasnted to go in too, so I got out with them, but we kept our shoes on. I was sort of afraid there might be glass or needles in there and didn't want them to get hurt. Linville is a nice lake, it's clean looking, but you can't be too careful.
I can't decide if I want to go to Laurel this weekend or not. We'll see.
When I was about 4 - no older than that - my paternal grandmother took me to church with her a few times. She attended a pretty good sized church, Gilliad (sp?) Baptist, in Michigan. Wayne, Taylor, possibly in Detroit, I don't remember where exactly...
To me, it looked huge. But when you're that small, everything looks huge. In the main chapel, I remember looking down from the balcony where we'd sit, over the heads of what had to be 2 to 300 people down below, another balcony above us, and balconies to the sides. I don't know how many people that church held, but thinking back, trying to recall how it looked, I bet that sucker held from 800 to a thousand people.
The halls were huge, door after door of big rooms used for dinners, sunday school classes, plays, etc.. and there was an equally huge upstairs. You could go up one flight of stairs, down a huge hall, again filled with door after door, leading off to other halls, more doors, and finally after what seemed like a hundred miles of walking, more stairs, taking you back down stairs.
The parking lot too, was pretty big.. you could look out one side of windows, down, and see nothing but cars and asphalt and church buses. I've never seen a church here in Kentucky that was half so big.
I didn't care much for my paternal grandmother... I don't understand how I ended up going to that church with her. I remember her giving me some crescent butter cookies.. the kind sprinkled with a little bit of powdered sugar, and some milk, one morning before we went to church. I think that's probably the best memory I have of the woman. I think she meant to be kind, but I really don't think she knew how to behave with a little girl, and I always found that surprising, since she had so many of her own.
I can't remember if sunday school was before or after worship service. I try, but for the life of me I just can't recall. It seems like worship was first, and then sunday school, but then on second thought, that doesn't seem right either. Ah well. In any event, once we got inside the building, she'd flick her wrist and nod towards one of the big halls and tell me to go on to my sunday school class. Since it was so very big, I had no clue where that class was. Once, someone lead me there.. the second time, if I'm not miss-remembering, a cousin took me to my class. The third and last time I ever can remember going, I met my guardian angel.
My grandmother flicked her wrist and nodded me away, and I can remember going in the direction of her nod. The halls though all looked alike, and the doors were all the same light oak color, a small window in the top center. I was too small though to look into the windows, so I just kept walking. I walked the entire church over, from top to bottom, checking out cleaning closets, bathrooms, I'd peek into the classes, looking to see if anyone in any of them looked familiar enough for me to join them, and when I didn't, I'd back out and go on to the next.
It seemed like hours and hours passed, though it couldn't have been that long. I remember sitting in the worship service, alone, but I wasn't afraid. I remember sitting alone on a bench in a hall for a while, adults would pass occasionally and nod and walk on past. I'd been taught not to talk to strangers, so I didn't address these adults to let them know I was lost. I remember going into one of the sunday school classes (again, I can't remember if this was before or after the worship service) and this particular class looked promising. While there wasn't anyone familiar in there to me, there were some kids my age in there, accompanied by what I assumed were their parents.
This room was long and rectangular shaped. About 10 feet from the door stood one of those black boards that stood on legs, about 6 feet wide, 4 feet tall, and the thing flips over, from a black chalk board to a green one. A man was standing there, drawing random images as he spoke. He taught about how the devil was just looking for the right opportunity to enter into our hearts and lead us straight down the path to hell.
I sat on an end bleacher. I think that's what the seating was.. a few rows of bleacher type seats. I just listened quietly to him and watched him draw..
Suddenly, the door burst open, and my eyes grew huge, as the devil himself, strutted right into that room. My heart sank. I started to get scared, I mean this guy had the pointy tail going on, red suit, and he was even carrying a bright red pitchfork. He strutted around the room, looking at each of us as if he truly was going to snatch someone up and march them down the road to hell. In my four year old mind, as i watched him, I can remember looking at his face (he wore no halloween mask, just the costume) studying it. I took in the lines beneath his eyes, his lashes, even the pores on his face - and color of his lips, and I shook my head. I clearly, so vividly remember thinking, at this tender age, "What a crock of shit."..
I was afronted that they would stoop to that level to scare children, much less adults, into behaving and believing in the bible like that. That wasn't the devil, it was nothing more than a man, an ordinary man in a halloween devil suit. Disgusted, not frightened, I quietly (not rudely- never that) got up from my seat and left that class.
The halls were empty now...and I wasn't afraid. Not a bit. I was just going to walk around until my grandmother found me...or I found her, ever which came first.
After wards, when it was time to go, and everyone was pouring into the hall like cattle.. I got afraid. It was like a stampede. I remember being frantic and looking around harder for her. I knew she forgot me once we were inside, and it occurred to me that maybe she'd forget she brought me, and I had no idea how to get home. At that thought, I panicked. I didn't cry, but I did move a little faster, my eyes darting from one person to the next, looking for someone, familiar, someone who could tell me where to find my grandmother.
Someone gently put their hand into my own and squeezed. I looked over and up a few inches, not many, the boy wasn't much taller than me, half a foot at most. He had deep brown eyes, and skin the color of a brazil nut shell. His short hair seemed to curl in tiny curls all over his head. He was wearing a blue plaid shirt and dark dress slacks, dark blue or black..
I remember him plain as day. His lips were full and his teeth shined so white..
He said, "Come on, I know where your gramma is."
I didn't answer. I was pretty shy, and I'd never been up close to a black person before, much less talk to one...or have one talk to me. Still, I clung to his hand and walked with him to where he said my grandmother was. Soon, he stopped and he let go of my hand. He had taken me to the the top of some stairs, and the hall here was larger, I guess it was some sort of foyer. The same light oak color was on the walls, the stair banisters and benches that was sitting here and there in the hall. There, sitting on one of the benches, my grandmother was (I supposed) waiting for me.
I didn't think to thank the boy, I just ran to her with much relief, HUGE relief, and no, I didn't hug her, or touch her hand, she wasn't the touchy type.
She was angry.
"Where have you been?!" She spat.
I stood there for a minute, feeling guilty as all hell, because I hadn't gone to my class like she'd told me to, I did try to find it, honestly I did, but I just hadn't been able to find it.
I told her that I'd gotten lost. I told her that I'd gone into one class where they had some guy dress up like the devil, shaking his pitch fork at us, trying to scare us. Then I told her about the little black boy who had helped me find her. I turned, looking back in the direction he'd been, but of course, he was already gone.
She laughed then. No. It wasn't a laugh, it was a rude, sarcastic bark. This.. ugly sneer on her face, as if I was lying, as if she couldn't expect anything better than that from me. God I didn't like that woman. Heh.
She informed me in a tone that told me she didn't care much more for me either.
"Dear, there are no black people in this church."
Yanking my hand, she took me out, and that was that. I didn't go back with her again. She repeated the story to one of my aunts when we got back to her apartment, again, with this nasty sneering tone.. "she says a black boy helped her find me..."
Lord help me, for all that I can remember my guardian angel's teeth, his hair, even the shirt he was wearing, I can't remember which aunt was there that day. Her response made gramma's sarcasm a little easier for me to take.
She smiled, tossled my hair and said, "Well then, it must have been her guardian angel making sure she didn't get hurt."
Gramma didn't know what to say to that, and I just went to watch the fish in her acquarium the way I always did while I waited for dad to come pick me up.. all the while thinking about him, this guardian angel.
At that time, I wasn't aware that there was a race thing, black, white, red, whatever.. and that different races stayed in their 'own' churches. The year had to be 1965. I wasn't raised to hate anyone, I didn't know to look to see if there were black people in church with us white ones. It just didn't occur to me.
As I watched those fish swim, I sat there steaming at gramma.. and while my aunt had called the boy my guardian angel, I was too sensible to think he was truly an angel, but figured she was just calling him an angel the way that other man had called the guy who was dressed in a Halloween suit the devil.
1965.
I'm almost certain, looking back now, that gramma was right. There were no black people in Gilliad Baptist church back then. No little black boy clutched my hand and lead me through a sea of white faces without being seen and stopped, and questioned, 'young man where are you taking this little white girl?' - straight to where my grandmother was sitting, waiting for me.
In the fall of 1965, I met my guardian angel.
And he was black.
I've always wanted to get into making yard statues.. but never knew how. I figured it would be an expensive hobby so I just didn't even look into it. But.. a while back, I found a site that sells molds for making concrete benches, and bird baths, and I went back a couple of weeks ago and bought three molds. One's a gothic looking cement shelf that goes on the outside of the house, and I bought a bird bath mold and bench mold. If they turn out pretty, I'm going to go to another site I've found and buy an angel mold that's caught my eye.
Someone keeps going to the cemetery and stealing things from Charlotte's and my Grandmom's graves, we can't keep those little yard statues for the thief. But I thought, that if I can make my own statue for up there, and somehow leave a small rod with spikes in both ends, right inside the angel, and coming out of it about a foot, then cementing the bottom spikes into the ground, maybe the thief couldn't pick it up and we could keep the statues on the graves again.
I think that might work. I hope the cemetery thief tries to pick it up and gets a hernia.
Even as I write, it's raining. It's rained almost every day, since the first of May. The sun actually came out today for about 6 hours before it got all dark and cloudy. I love the rain, love a storm, so I'm not complaining. I bet though, this weather is tough on the folks who don't enjoy this weather. It's relentless this year. It won't be too long and it'll be fall again, and we've not yet had even an inkling of summer.