Shittah Happens

Last week as Thanksgiving Day approached I remember thinking how blessed I am, how blessed we are, as a family. We are in good health. Our daughter is a beautiful and charming, intelligent, level-headed young lady who doesn't do drugs, isn't a Goth, and thinks boys are still an annoyance. My husband is gainfully employed. After 22 years of marriage (tomorrow!) he is still the one person with whom I want to spend all my time. We are weathering the economic recession, maybe worse than some, but certainly better than others.

Just as I was feeling pretty good about my life, that's when the shittim hit the fan.

My work computer caught a virus and it looked like everything was lost. My credit card was hacked and had to be blocked. In the meantime my other credit card expired. My car started making that "I'm going to start flinging metal objects soon" sound and the same day my husband had to limp home in his truck, fearing a valve was on its way through the engine block. We are being financially eaten alive by a high mortgage rate; our refinance application came back with a low appraisal, and we don't have the balance to throw at the loan. (Yoo who! Mr. Banker Man! That's why we're refinancing!)

And that was just Wednesday.

Come to think of it, isn't that when bad things always happen? Not on Wednesdays. I don't mean that. I mean that one day we're rocking right along, thinking we're impervious to the minor annoyances other people have to deal with, riding high in April, so to speak, only to be shot down in May. Why is that? Did I do something to cause these problems? Did I get too cocky? Did I say something unkind to another human being? Did I forget to pray? Was I not grateful enough? Is this my karma comeuppance? What did I do to make all this "bad" happen?

The truth is, sometimes I do contribute to my own difficulties when I make bad decisions, and maybe some of this can be attributed to bad decisions. But I'm inclined to believe most of this was not our fault, since we're really just doing the best we can with what we've got, trying to be frugal, smart, and faithful. And the truth is, sometimes shittim just happens.

I'm not referring to the pejorative potty-mouth slang expression that has come to be commonplace in our English language. I'm referring to the Hebrew word, which has a very different meaning.

Shittim, from the shittah, if you will, isn't what you think it is. Shittim IS yellowish-brown, and it does take a shittah to make it. So far, so the same. But shittim is really a type of wood, from the shittah tree, an acacia species, and was used to construct the tables, altars, boards and ark of the Jewish tabernacle.

Pretty cool.

So maybe when shittim happens, maybe it is a blessing in the shape of a turd. Allow me to elaborate.

Maybe shittim is God's way of getting our attention, of reminding us that He is the tree, and we are the branches, and apart from Him we can do nothing. Sometimes I have been lulled into believing that I can do all things through my own power, not through Christ, who gives me strength. Sometimes I need a gentle whack, broadside, like from a two-by-four, to remind me. Might as well be shittim wood.

Maybe shittim is God's way of giving us perspective. Carl Sagan noted in "Cosmos" that our universe is billions of years old--hard to grasp until you factor it down and put it in the relative terms of a calendar year. Using the calendar analogy, the universe was born on January 1st, at 12:01am but we homosapiens didn't show up, relatively speaking, until December 31st, at about 11:58 pm. We're newbies. The universe and its creator have been around a shittah-load longer than we, and the fly in our ointment today is hardly worth a passing glance in the cosmic scheme of things. There is a much larger picture here than my computer coughing up nonsense and refusing to let me do a web search. I take much comfort in that.

Perhaps shittah helps me remember to count my blessings, rather than focus on what seem to be curses. Sure, my computer problems are a pain, and our credit card, automotive, and financial woes are an unwelcome, unbudgeted bunch of inconveniences. But we are in good health. Our daughter is a beautiful and charming, intelligent, level-headed young lady who doesn't do drugs, isn't a Goth, and thinks boys are still an annoyance. My husband is gainfully employed. After 22 years of marriage (tomorrow!) he is still the one person with whom I want to spend all my time. We are weathering the economic recession, maybe worse than some, but certainly better than others.

Sometimes I can't see the forest for the trees. Sometimes those trees are a collection of shittah, and sometimes it's useful to step in it so I'll remember to step back occasionally, and take a good long look at the forest of blessings I'm right smack in the middle of. And be thankful that shittah happens.

Prequel to The Help

I remember seeing a 1950s vintage photograph of a “South of Broad-esque” home, Christmas Eve. This Kodak moment showed a gathering of women in cocktail dresses smoking, laughing, exchanging gifts. The spent wrappings on the parlor floor were ankle-deep. Men were dressed as if they’d come from a church service, fresh out of the candlelight and cold. Everyone was smiling, laughing, and clinking drinks. A happy, Caucasian affair. In the shadows of this warm and cozy photo, the dark faces of The Help sat outside the room: present, but separated. The women wore maid uniforms, pressed and professional. The men were in white wait coats as you might expect to see at the old Colony House. Were they invited to the party, peripherally? Or were they there working? I remember thinking that even at Christmas, there was no common denominator.

There have been several letters to the editor in the Charleston newspaper discussing the book and movie, “The Help;” people relating real-life Charleston stories of affection—even familial feelings—for the black folk who raised them. Rectifying these two “pictures” has been difficult for me.

I am fortunate, though, to have been introduced to Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook. This book is the equivalent of a prequel to “The Help” because it deals directly with the euphemistic term’s origins: slavery. Janie's career as a reliable cook began with the Rutledges on Calhoun Street where she was a slave. In her journal, which  references events back to March 1862, Janie wrote that the Rutledges called her "their daily gift." Janie said she was "perfectly happy," and continued to live and work there until the family died out. 

Janie's resume includes employment with several of Charleston's most prominent families, ending with the Julius Jahnz home at 34 Smith St. Janie describes an intimate attachment to all her employers and their families. She indicates that the feeling was mutual. She was part of each household, worshipping with some, handing up grandbabies to be christened, being cared for when times were tough and finally, living with the Jahnzes at the end of her life even when she could no longer work.

Janie wrote about the Jahnzes in her journal: “I am well care for in the family when Santa Claus comes he calls for the old cook and he Showers bountiful to me I have every thing heart desire My Madame’s like a mother to me when I did not have a friend She sheltered me her and hers Better half.  I love them all.” While we don’t have a photograph per se of the Christmases Janie mentioned, it is possible to imagine the scene. It is a pleasant image to me.

Did Janie know whose roof she lived under? Absolutely. Did that affect the way she presented the white people she worked for? More than likely. But Janie was a sought-after employee—dependable, competent, trustworthy, a pleasant person and a heck of a good cook. And she was valued as such. Was there probably a separation similar to the one in the 1950s photo in her interactions with whites? Yes. Unfortunately, yes. Those were the mores of the time. But Janie worked the system, and the system worked for her. What may have begun as a business relationship in each instance became a personal relationship, a mutual friendship built on reciprocal respect. If you want to get a fresh perspective on what real Charleston Help was like, at the beginning, read Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook. It’s an historical “snapshot” well worth taking a look at.

Coffee spoons

Mr. Prufrock (from T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock") and I have much in common. He and I have measured out our lives with coffee spoons, with trivial matters.

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is my second favorite poem, right behind Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening." J. Alfred's love song has always been maddening to me because he is an educated person who does far too much ruminating and far too little doing. His time is slipping away. He is fully aware of this fact. And yet, he fails to act, choosing instead to lament the heavy burden of his great intellect.

Frost's poem, on the other hand, is quite the opposite.

The protagonist in this poem is just a regular guy, with obligations. He's tired, and he yearns to rest. And those woods! They're so quiet. They beckon. But he pushes on. He has promises to keep. And miles to go before he sleeps.

In our home we have artwork representing both poems. The one depicting Frost's poem is titled, by me, "Miles To Go." This simple woodcut is of a dense northwestern winter forest, dark and deep. There appears to be almost no way in, and once there, certainly no way out. Staring into the trees you can almost hear the silence. The words of the poem are scrawled around the edge of the lithograph in different colored pencils. The printing of the adult artist's inner child.

The art depicting T. S. Eliot's poem hangs near the coffee pot. It, too, is titled something different by the artist, but I call it "Coffee Spoons." The linocut shows two rows of coffee mugs, endless coffee mugs, lined up in an infinite row of all the coffee ever drunk in one life. The cups cast shadows in front of them, as if the day is almost over, not just beginning. These are long shadows. Meloncholy shadows. Castings that warn of time that is slipping away, while I sip.

I look at it every morning when I get a cup of coffee. It might sound like the kind of first vision that would send a body right back to bed. But every morning, I see the silver spoons that sit in almost every black and white mug in that picture. Stirrings.

Both poems are reminders to me that life is but a blink. Like J. Alfred, my hair is thinning. I allow reasons to rationalize my failure to act. I am content with the mundane measurements of life. And like the anonymous promise-keeping gentleman who would rather stop and just rest in those dark, quiet, hidden woods where no one would ever even know I had gone, I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. Both poems are filled with warnings...and with possibility, if I choose to act before my time runs out.

So I offer just two questions as we skate toward Advent. One: what promises do you have to keep, with the rest of your days here on the big blue ball? In your own way, how do you hope to impact this world before you leave it? Your answers don't have to be grandiose. They can be as simple and beautiful as a pay-it-forward attitude like being kind to fellow motorists in traffic. And Two: what silver spoons keep you moving forward toward those promises? What twinkly object keeps your eyes on the prize, and reminds you that it is worth the effort?

I am very interested in your answers. I hope you will share your dreams and goals with me, as well as those things that keep you stuck where you are. I have 10 followers and I am asking each of you, and anyone else who might check in periodically, to leave a comment either here or on my facebook page (Lisa Miles Foster).

Life can be so frightening. Inertia seems to be the option I choose most often. I'd just rather sleep until it's all over, pull the covers over my head and give in to the pull of the woods. But I was not created to be a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas, and neither were you. Do you dare disturb the universe?

Better question: do you dare not to?

What Are You Afraid Of?

Seems like a topical question, with All Hallows Eve approaching Monday. Halloween has always been one of my favorite semi-precious holidays. It's not in the Christmas category but it's better than VD (Valentine's Day.) There's not much more I like better than dressing up to be something I'm not (namely, ME) and getting paid IN CANDY to do it. When we were young my sister and I would make two trips on Halloween. As soon as dusk fell we schlepped our parents around the neighborhood until we physically could not carry our candy sacks any more. So we returned home, dumped it, (and Mom and Dad) and went back out again. The amount and variety of our take was epic. Always the anal-retentive type, one of my favorite activities was sorting my haul: chocolate in one pile. I saved that. Caramel in another. Fruity crap, that was what Dad was allowed to eat.

We had some wonderful costumes too, made by my mom. One year I was a court jester. I wore white tights with one leg that Mom had dyed blue. I had big blue plastic pompom buttons (like those cheerleader shaky things, only a little smaller) down the front of my felt costume and a pointed hat on top of my head. That was the year my sister poked herself in the eye with a stick just prior to Halloween. She had to go as a donkey for the second year in a row because it was the only costume that worked with the eye patch.

I continued the homemade costume tradition with our daughter, beginning with a lady bug outfit when she was just 6 months old. Some costumes she liked, others, not so much. I believe her favorite may have been when she was 9. The idea came directly from Sarah, and she would not be deterred; I was the one tasked with making her idea happen. I shopped the clearance fabric section and found the bright, sheer fabric and gold lame' pictured. I used a very simple pattern to make the skirt and then bought a mark-down bikini for the top, which I embellished with coin-and-bead trim. The headdress was just leftover fabric folded around a headband with more bead embellishments. We tossed in a tambourine and some finger-clackers and put golden flip flops on her feet. She sounded like a  percussion section as she sasheed down the street. We put floozy makeup on her eyes and lips, stuck a rhinestone in her belly button and then made sure we walked well behind her while trick-or-treating so no one would know we were her parents. I was afraid someone would contact an agency.

I'm kidding of course, but it does goes back to the original question: What are you afraid of? I think there is afraid. And then there is AFRAID. I am afraid of public speaking. Losing my little girl, for whatever reason, is a primal fear.

I am afraid to die. I am AFRAID to outlive my husband.

I am afraid to fail. I am AFRAID to lose the desire to try.

I am afraid to be financially ruined. I am AFRAID to have no one in my life who values me.

Surely being AFRAID serves some purpose. It is a survival instinct, after all, that keeps us from leaping off the precipice just to see what will happen. But it is a completely different animal to be afraid. Being afraid is what gnaws at us, pushes us forward, stirs those creative juices that cook up into the notion of a parasuit, and gives us the hoopspa to stand on that rock and take a leap of faith.

I still love to dress up and be transformed into something I'm not. I've been Glenda (the good witch) and Wilma Flintstone. I've been a wench to my husband's pirate. I've been the Bride of Frankenstein, (and winner of "Most Halloweeny"), Church Lady (won 3rd prize for that one.) Last year I was Bellatrix LaStrange. The laundry list of impersonations I've achieved reads like a Sinatra song: I've been a puppet, a  pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king....and I've loved being all those personalities, in one way or another.

So tomorrow evening, when the goblins come to your door looking for handouts, I hope you will consider what really scares you. Try not to be afraid to ask, and allow for the possibility that the best answer to the question is the question itself: "Now really. What am I afraid of?" Failure? That's life. And each time I find myself flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race. That's life. It ain't livin if you ain't driven. Even if you're headed the wrong way. At least you're going somewhere.

Happy Halloween everyone. And a very merry All Saints Day on Tuesday.

Feed The Birds

I've been told I'm a pretty good cook, but I have to admit, some dishes I make are not fit for human consumption.

That's because some dishes are for the birds. Today was homemade suet, in honor of United Kingdom's National "Feed The Birds" Day Oct. 29.

Suet is an irresistible and extremely nutritious birdcake that sustains my feathered friends through the cold and lean winter months. It is a concoction of rendered fat (or lard, if you'd rather not spend your morning as I do, watching animal fat melt over a low flame) and add extra crunchy peanut butter, uncooked oatmeal, corn meal, a little sugar, some white flour and mix it all up like a great big mud pie. Then personalize it: this batch contains pine nuts, slivered almonds, and sunflower seeds.

Birds have brought a huge amount of pleasure into my world, but they have also brought their share of heartache. I have held a ruby-throated hummingbird, trapped in our garage and panicky, hitting his head against the window in a confused, manic desire to escape. I have held a yellow-throated vireo who hit a window and almost died, and a near-drowned purple martin who allowed me to rescue him. My husband and I subdued a seagull long enough to unhook him from the fishing lure he had swallowed. A common yellowthroat was my patient for a brief moment, and I have tried to save baby brown thrashers and failed. I have cleaned up more remains of Cat Trophies than I care to revisit here. I have observed a grieving Canada goose, refusing to leave the side of his mate that was hit on a busy highway. I have watched angry commuters, in a furious rush and practically prostrate on their horns, while geese in no big hurry amble single-file across neighborhood streets, and I have discovered a female mallard lying dead in the road of our subdivision, the victim of one of those impatient, inattentive, perhaps even indifferent drivers. This particular wound will always be open, never heal. Like the ostrich, most days I prefer to stick my head in the sand and just not think about it.

"I have looked upon those brilliant creatures, And now my heart is sore." William Butler Yeats

Sometimes recognizing and appreciating beauty leaves us open to its degradation and loss. This is how it is now, for me.

Birds are very important to me. My daughter is convinced that one bird, in particular, is more important than she is. While our Senegal Parrot, Cadeau, is not a wild bird, he is the bird I get to spoil the most. He is the bird I get to hold, and he is the bird who has helped me build a deeper love with those of his kind. But when I tell people we have a parrot, I get one of three reactions: 1) very infrequently, the person will be wildly interested, 2) more often, the person will nod up and down, say nothing, and their eyes will dart around for another topic--or person to talk to, or 3) the person will say "Oh, they live a really long time, don't they?" or will scrunch up his or her nose and say, "Ew. Birds poop."

And so, Cadeau is my friend winnower. Either you get the bird, or I don't get you.

Whether wild bird or companion parrot, there is something ethereal about these winged creatures. I love the indomitable-ness of the species, descending as they do from the dinosaur. Scales became feathers, and looking into Cadeau's prehistoric, almost pterodactyl face is like looking back in time. He has been here longer than we have. I desperately want to protect that.

Who wouldn't? Birds are beautiful, graceful, wildly varied creatures of flight that flit through the air like fairies and sing as if they might explode from the joy of their own voices. Once focused on their presence they are like a moving treasure hunt, and the prize is a gold star in your field guide. There is a sense of accomplishment with birds, because they take patience and dedication to attract, observe and identify. They make me happy. It is no wonder the blue bird is our ambassador for happiness.

"The bluebird carries the sky on his back." Henry David Thoreau

Birds of all kinds are an unexpected blessing whenever I encounter them. Too many species, though, are losing habitat, and their numbers are dwindling. Some, like our very own Carolina Parakeet, are gone forever. This beautiful bird, said to be the most colorful in North America, was hunted for sport, and for its feathers to decorate women's hats. The bane of farmers' existence, they were shot in untold numbers to prevent destruction of crops. One of its favorite foods, however, was the sandspur and cocklebur. How many of us beachgoers today would welcome back the ONLY animal that ever ate those confounded things? Now the only parrot to live on our continent no longer colors the skies. And that is a loss for humanity. As Richard Louv so aptly notes in his book, The Nature Principle, when we mentally distance ourselves from other animals we empty them, in our eyes, of  'experience and secrets.' And that empties us, as well.

"When you tug on a string in Nature, you find it is connected to everything else." John Muir

It was only recently that I discovered I had a bird mobile in my crib as an infant. One of my earliest memories is standing at the window, pointing at the "wed bird." Maybe these "id" memories wrote their song on my heart. Maybe I was preordained to give a human voice to bird song. Maybe I have just come to realize, at this point in life, that no one is as creative as our creator, and nothing we might paint, or write, or compose can truly be called art in comparison.

"It is not art that rains down upon us in the song of a bird; but the simplest modulation, correctly executed, is already art." Igor Stravinsky

I've been disparagingly called Jane Hathaway over the years but I embrace it. I even call myself the Crazy Bird Lady, and have come to look upon that as a supreme honor and a compliment. I take, as my mentor, the Little Old Bird Woman from Mary Poppins. In my own special way, to the people, I call. Take time to look, to listen, to appreciate and then to protect the fleeting beauty of nature, remembering the sign Albert Einstein kept on his Princeton office door:

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

Our silence will not protect us. As a global population I believe if we refuse to give voice to this fundamental truth, it will be our undoing. So sing for your supper, all my beautiful birds. You have taught me a song, and I will share it with others.

"Without birds, where would we have learned that there can be a song in the heart?"  Hal Borland




Please visit this website for more information about Feed The Birds Day:

	http://www.rspb.org.uk/

Another initiative overseas is raising a creative army for conservation through a series of multimedia exhibitions that breathe artistic life back into extinct bird species, celebrating their diversity through paintings and sculpture, talks and poetry, installations and live music. "Ghosts of Gone Birds" also sheds light on front line conservation work being done around the world to prevent any more birds migrating to "gone" status.
http://www.ghostsofgonebirds.com/

Book Him Danno

I generally don't tell people we watch Hawaii Five 0. When I have, in the past, invariably I would get, "Oh, I love that new show!" Then I would have to explain that we don't watch the NEW show. We watch the REAL show. And a polite argument would ensue and feelings would get hurt and names would be called, and it just opened more cans of worms than I was prepared to deal with. How many cans of worms is my breaking point, I have no idea, but apparently it was one too many.

The reason I like the old television series better is because I am (or have been, most of my life) a black-and-white person. Ever been there? Ever prefer things to be cut, and then dried? I've been torn over the years between the belief that it is our duty to demonstrate black-and-whiteness to the souls we encounter, and the belief that black-and-white exists only in the minds of children and a few monastic orders.

As I have aged, though, I have "grayed" up a bit. The little black and white feet of my childhood have grown into great big adult size 10 Feet of Clay. Truth is, out here in the trenches, baby, it can get pretty muddy. The more we interact with our fellow human beings, the more we realize that we are all part of a very gray world, and that black-and-white is not for us to color. Only God gets those crayons.

But, I still really like black and white. Don't we all like that, just a little bit? Don't we really want the simplicity of either or? Just so very black. And yet, so white. Simple. Clean. Neat and tidy.

And that is why I prefer Hawaii Five 0, the REAL one. The REAL Steve McGarrett's directives were never questioned. There was an order to things. He was in authority. When he said "jump," Chin Ho didn't say, "How high?" He said NOTHING. He just left with his notebook and went to work. The REAL Hawaii Five 0 was very black and white. Even though it was in color.

This is not to say that Steve was a benevolent dictator. He was not that at all. He was in charge, but he regularly held group meetings with chalk boards, mug shots and maps, to brainstorm with his team in order to solve the crime and catch the criminal. Steve snapped his fingers while he was pondering a case, and each officer who worked under him snapped into action like a fine-tuned machine or a poem or a you-fill-in-the-blank thing of beauty. Steve was fiercely protective of his staff, but he expected total dedication. He got it too, both because he was respectable, and because he demonstrated respect for the highly trained men and women who worked for him.

But until last night, I never fully appreciated the depth--in terms I can relate to--of that show's black-and-whiteness. The episode we watched was a later one, probably close to the end of the 12-year run in 1980. With this 30-year perspective, what I heard actually brought a tear to this old English major's eye.

In the show Steve was piecing together the facts of a theft, trying to determine who might have pulled it off. Danny mentioned a criminal who was out of prison whom Steve had arrested: Hunter R. Hickey, the last of the great paperhangers. As soon as Steve realized that this was the man behind the crime, he said, "That's he."

That's he? I was flabbergasted. Did Steve really just correctly agree a subject with a predicate noun? It has just been so long since I've heard it done right, it almost sounded wrong. And I thought to myself: if the NEW Steve McGarrett had said that, he'd be laughed out of his high-tech office, told to come back when he could talk good.

And so continues the lingering dichotomy in my black-and-white-gone-gray world. I like rules. In my head there are things that are just right. And then there are things that are wrong. Is that so bad? Can't there just be a few hard and fast rules that endure, if only for us anal-retentive types?

So here's what I've decided about that.

Maybe I get to say, down here, that children and adults should use our beautiful English language correctly, and maybe that makes me sound like a dried-up old school teacher. (And it doesn't mean that rules don't change.) And maybe I get to say, down here, that structure and authority are critical to many aspects of getting jobs done, and maybe that makes me sound like a throwback to the phone booth and manual typewriter days. (And that doesn't mean that loosy-goosy outfits can't and don't work just as efficiently. Somehow.) And maybe I get to say, down here, that God is a black-and-white God, and maybe that makes me sound holier than thou. (And that doesn't mean that He is, or that I am.) But the difference here is that I am required to bear in mind that I am not HE, (yep. It's correct) and never will be, and that my job is to introduce Him around to my gray-world friends, remembering all the while that I myself am just as gray as they get. I don't get to say, down here, that I have all the answers. Because only God knows the plans He has for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Down here, I am certainly free to wag my finger about some things (and maybe I should), understanding that it may get wagged right back at me. But in the real-world episode of life, I am not God's Beat Cop. My job is to listen, and learn, and look to my own house, and love others, and leave the rest to the Lord. The real one, not the Jack one. In this case, and this case only, even Jack would bow to the higher authority.

A Hug For Harper

I spent 25 years behind a desk, in a cubicle, at newspapers in Columbia and Charleston. I met some fascinating people. And I've lost some very dear souls to different kinds of cancer over the course of my career.

Melanoma took a good friend of mine when I was in my 20s and working at The State newspaper in Columbia, SC. Bill was a retail advertising sales representative with a dry wit. There was something pensive and incredibly sad about him, under the surface, that drew me to him. He thought about things. He understood me, and I understood him. He made me laugh. Just before Bill's diagnosis--a class 5 melanoma that was discovered by chance in the shower--he found the love of his life. Her name was Miss Wright. Bill found that to be wildly amusing, as did I. She found his illness to be too much for her to bear, and so, Bill died without her.

Ovarian cancer took the life of the Post and Courier party when she was barely in her 40s. Margaret (although few people ever knew her real name) was a six-foot-tall kinky-curly blonde-headed Li'l Orphan Annie type: indominable, always the optimist, always a smile, a joke. Tootie had a laugh that would make you smile contagiously. In her presence you always felt valued as a person. She never had a bad day (although she had many of them) because she never complained. I remember she came into my office one day to talk. I never not had time for Tootie. Never wanted to miss the blessing. After our brief conversation about whatever business-thing it was, (who can remember these inane things? And who really even wants to?) she said she had to be on her way because she had more "fellowshipping" to do. That was Tootie Margaret. She was fantastic at her job, and she had the heart of Christ. And now she's gone.

And then I read about Harper.

My last supervisor at The Post and Courier was a fine man: fair, professional, caring, competent, optimistic, inventive. The kind of person you might not always agree with, but could respect, you know? Someone who made you feel valued as an employee. Someone who treated everyone with dignity and compassion. Someone with a healthy balance of work and play, and who encouraged others to find the same. A man of faith.

Jamie's oldest daughter was diagnosed in 2009 with a rare soft-tissue cancer. But rather than become a victim, his daughter Harper chose to rally around her illness for other children, throwing all her efforts into toy drives for MUSC Children's Hospital patients, as well as fundraising campaigns for other cancer patients. "Hugs for Harper" became that little girl's way of reaching out beyond her despicable disease to others who were fighting too. She turned tragedy into triumph in her own sweet way, even though Harper died a few days ago. She was 11 years old.

My author friend Karen Zacharias asks in her book, "Where's Your Jesus Now?" and honestly, it is difficult for me not to wonder where God is, at times like these. Why was Bill struck down in the prime of his life, just after finding a woman with whom he hoped to share his life? Why was Tootie taken away--one of the brightest lights I've ever encountered? And Harper? Who can even form the question, in this case? The suffering. The emotional toll on family and friends. The grief.

Did He cause all this? Or did He just let it happen, refusing to intervene? It is impossible to offer answers, I've concluded. There is no rhyme or reason. There is no "making sense" of any of this. There is no lucky charm to keep God off your back, or to keep Him in your corner.

So what do we take forward? What do we take to the grieving loved ones? A casserole? And a trite platitude like "God needed another angel in heaven" or "It's for the best?" Or maybe "God doesn't give you more than you can handle?"

At times like these I fall back to my Stephen Ministry training. It is the only thing that has ever spoken real-life words of biblical encouragement to me about tragedy and loss. Stephen Ministry is a nondenominational ministry that pairs a trained lay caregiver with someone who needs a skilled listener and friend to walk alongside them for a period of time. Dr. Kenneth Haugk, founder of Stephen Ministry, relates the loss of his wife to ovarian cancer in his book Don't Sing Songs To A Heavy Heart. This book is the result of working through his grief with the help of his faith and formal training in psychology. It should be on everyone's bedside table, ready for that day when mind-numbing, debilitating grief strikes close to home.

In the book Dr. Haugk says the community of believers--the church--is called to be Christ's Easter body in a Good Friday world. That's a tough row to hoe. That means while everything seems to be falling apart, we must be the sentinel for ultimate victory. Darkest before the dawn. That sort of thing.

What does that mean, down here in the pits? What words would Christ's Easter mouth say to a Good Friday family whose baby just died?

It means, I think, that we do not offer "witness" so much as we offer "with-ness." We are present, in the pain. We do not fill up the void with simpy platitudes. We wait. We listen. We hold and hug. We weep right alongside. We stand in the family's kitchen and carve ham because we don't know what else to do. We do not try to "fix" it just to make ourselves feel better. When we don't know what to say, we keep our blathering traps shut.

And yes. We bring casseroles. That day, and two months later, when everyone else has returned to Life As Usual and the grieving person is just beginning to come to terms with their new reality.

Some say the Gospel can be boiled down to two commandments:  Love God. And love people. Sometimes God is really hard to love. Sometimes people are too. Sometimes all we want are answers when, sometimes, there just aren't any. Not on this side of the veil anyway. But what we do have on our side is our common humanity, and we dare not lose sight of that. And we have on our side the humanity of God's son Jesus, Dr. Haugk reminds us, who was a man of sorrows, well acquainted with pain and suffering.

As my sweet friend Alex, a breast cancer survivor, said, "Weakness leads to dependency. Dependency leads to relationships. Relationships lead to community." The short version is Weakness leads to Community: communing with God, because even as we beat furiously against His chest, God is holding us in loving arms, and communing with people, because we need each other in this Good Friday world, if only to remind each other that Easter is on its way.

Free Willy

I hated that movie. I hate all those movies about animals ("Free Willy," "Hoot," "Bambi," largely considered by me as misery-making movies) that slice my heart open and let me bleed salty tears, only to stitch me back up again with some Hollywood happy ending that doesn't really "fix" me back to the point where I was living a happy life, like before I watched the movie. I despise being jerked around that way.

In my last post I mentioned a bit of public speaking that would be required of me at the release party for Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook. True to form I began obsessing over this task days, WEEKS prior. By Friday night, I was one big coiled up and knotted intestinal tract. X-rays would have looked more like an over-used hair dryer cord, twisted, kinked, practically untangleable, than a healthy section of "people pipe."

It was bad. But, as I like to point out, it can always get worse.

Upon our arrival at 274 Calhoun Street at 4:15pm, I decided it was time to step up the paranoia.

First I almost locked myself in the 200-year-old bathroom accidentally. I could not get out.

Then I gave myself an epic case of dry mouth and began to obsess about when--not if--that thin white waxy line of caked lipstick would form at the point where my lips meet. This caused me to fixate on rubbing my index finger around my lips, again and again, to make certain there was no lip crease. Minutes were clicking off toward 6:30--the time on the agenda when I would "say a few words." I was in one of those abstract paintings with a narrow hall and no doors, descending unremittingly into hell. Six Thirty was coming. For ME.

My friend showed up at 4:30pm. (He doesn't read, so he won't know I'm talking about him.)

With kind eyes, he asked what he could do to help. I told him he could listen to my speech. And he and my husband did that for me, out on the veranda, the piazza, oh the stupid porch.

Then people started coming in around 5:15pm. Some people I knew. Friends and family, there to support me. Others I did not know. So many people that they were lined up outside, waiting to get in. I began signing books. All through the snacks and wine drinking, I signed. I talked with each person individually. I enjoyed this immensely, chit-chatting about their connections with the house, or with Charleston, or offering their own "Janie" stories. Books that were purchased as gifts were personalized. I enjoyed finding out a little about these gift receivers so that I could write something meaningful to them. The room got louder, and louder and louder as the hum of cocktail chat reached that familiar level where everyone must talk at a higher decibel to be heard over everyone else talking louder to be heard.

Our party was a success.

As the time crept on toward 7:15, I noticed the whale in the room. Willy was right there, taking up all available space in The Big House, dripping water across the ginger snaps and baby carrots with ranch dressing. He was thrashing about just like a fish out of water, and I realized I had missed giving my speech. I did not have to do it. A sense of relief washed over me.

Thank-you God, I whispered. Thank-you for saving me, for protecting me from having to do something outside my comfort zone.

And then, right on the heels of relief came a sense of urgency, like a rogue wave at sea.

No.

I stood up. And I asked, aloud, if I could be allowed (pun intended) to say a few words. I said I had practiced what I wanted to say all week. I said I had worked hard at memorizing it. I said I had something I wanted to say to everyone in the room. I said I wanted to practice speaking in public, because I may be called upon again, at some time in the future, to "say a few words" and I would like to feel more comfortable about doing that.

I could have opted not to do my speech. God gave me that choice. But He and I knew there was a fish in that room.

I looked around the room, at all these wonderful people who had given up their Friday evening to be there with me. My sister and her husband, my mother and father, my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law, friends from church and friends from the cul-de-sac. Friends from out of town and business friends--my husband's and mine. The beginning-of-the-evening strangers, whom I had shared pleasant conversation and stories with as they offered their books to be signed. These friends and family who smiled back at me because they love me, and are proud of me, and wish me well. This very large group of whale enthusiasts who were there to help me help Willy on his path to real freedom. Freedom from fear.

I felt as if I was talking one-on-one with each of them, just as I do every day. And I wasn't nervous.

God knows I could have let that whale die, right there on the banquet table. God knows I wanted to. And God knows that, because I chose, of my own free will, to speak up anyway, I will be more empowered next time.

That God. He's tricky that way. He knew exactly what I needed, and He showed up at my party Friday night, with free willy.

Hair (Not The Musical)

Most things in my life revolve around my hair.

If my hair looks good, my life looks good. If I leave the house thinking my hair looks good, even if it doesn’t any more, I have a good day.

Conversely if my hair looks bad, my whole day is probably going to be one ugly failed attempt at structure and volume. If I leave the house thinking my hair looks bad, even if it doesn’t any more, I will have a bad day. It will consume me, and while I may appear to be listening, thinking, meditating on what you’ve said, the looped tape in my head keeps repeating, “Your hair looks bad. Think only about your hair. Because it really looks bad today.”

My strength, like Samson in the Bible, seems to be all follicle.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking all women feel this way about their hair. And you’re also thinking, I’ll bet her hair really DOES look bad.

I remember sitting in a hairdresser’s chair years ago, yammering on to him about the fact that I have thin, lifeless hair. At that point the hairdresser had 3 options. He could have lied to me (“Oh don’t be silly. You have the sort of hair any lioness would envy.”) He could have given me a diplomatic answer. (“While it’s true your hair is as fine as corn silk, we do have to work smart with a charming cut and products that make the most of your tresses.” Insert suggestion of high-priced styling gel here, sold at his salon, and everybody’s happy.) Or he could have told me the truth. (“Yes. You do have poopy hair. And frankly it is a stretch of my artistic ability to come up with a solution each time you show up for an appointment.”)

As a hair care professional, he should have at least given me a diplomatic answer. I pay enough for it. Maybe not enough for the lie, but certainly more than the truth should have cost me. Because what he said, after some considerable thought, was: “Yes, you have hair that fairly crawls across your scalp.”

I was appalled.

I left that salon immediately after tipping him and vowed never to return again. And except for the next five or six appointments, I never did.

Our pastor says when God looks down on those of us with hair, He sees our wonderfully hairy heads. When He looks down on those of us who are bald, He sees His reflection. Interesting concept, and one that made me look at hair, and the lack of it, in a new “light.”

I have a friend, a very special friend to me, who is blind. Before she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she had beautiful long straight Asian blue-black hair, which all fell out after the first few chemos. My friend shaved her head and wore it proudly. There is beauty, and then there is beauty. My friend is the latter. She has a wicked sense of humor that has been undaunted by all this silliness involving her sickness. She is a blast of fresh air, not just a breath, and I am always comforted in her presence, even though I should be the one comforting her.

How much more would things matter to us, if the things that didn’t matter, didn’t?

Tomorrow evening I will be saying “a few words” at the Release Party for Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook. Public speaking is my weakness. I will be a nervous wreck, wondering if my hair looks good and convincing myself that it doesn’t. I think I will ask my blind friend Alex, who will be there with me tomorrow, how my hair looks. Because I know her, and her wit, and I believe her answer would be, "What hair?" And in that moment she will have reminded me that God sees straight through my hair, and into my heart. I pray that He will see His reflection there, and will use my weakness, like Samson, to display His awesome strength. Amen.

On Salt, Success and Sour Stomachs

To borrow a classic line from Morton Salt, "When it rains, it pours."

Seems like life is that way at times. We slog through our routines most of our days, putting one foot in front of the other like donkeys leashed to a grist wheel. And we complain heavily about the routineness of our existences. Then, out of the blue, something happens to shake things up. Are we thankful for the change in the mundane rhythm of life? Are we excited about the flurry of activity? Or do we pine for the days when life was predictable, manageable, boring, even lifeLESS?

More than likely our reaction depends on whether it's raining big wet juicy blessings or golf-ball sized curses of hail (that's where the devil lives, if you're southern y'all.) Good things are far easier stomached than bad things. But good or bad, perhaps we can agree that there are long dry spells in our lives: uneventful, where did the time go? years, and then there are "holy tear drops from heaven, Batman, I'm drowning" monsoons.

It never rains. But it pours.

While trying to determine if the famous Umbrella Girl catch phrase was original to Morton Salt, I discovered that their first advertising slogan, circa Janie's timeframe of 1911, was "Even in rainy weather, it flows freely." Doesn't really roll off the tongue does it? Sounds like something I would write! While I understand the company's main objective was to convey that their product would not clump, even in highly humid conditions, I think they made a good decision going with the simpler rains/pours analogy. It is one of those sayings that extrapolates so well to life, thereby keeping Morton Salt on the tips of our tongues, so to speak, even in general conversation.

The danger, of course, is that we remember the saying and forget who said it. But by now you know that I digress. Back to the raining and the pouring.

The Release Party for Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook has been scheduled, and it will be held, fittingly, at the historic Charleston home where Janie was a slave. Just as that was finalized, more events were added to September's schedule: a newspaper interview, two television interviews, a book signing. Two speaking engagements are on the calendar for October and November and a third one is tentative. I guess right now isn't a good time to request to be locked back into my harness so I can walk that circle again. Because that's really all I want to do, right now.

I don't want to be fearless, like Oprah tells us to be. Live your best life. Dream big. And then dream bigger. Seize the day and all that crud. It hurts to be stretched. The Rack of Life is scary and messy and uncomfortable to say the very least. Can't I just go sit in a corner somewhere and wait to die? Wouldn't that be ok?

Of course, that's an option. I'm sure countless numbers choose it every single day. I've been choosing it for most of my life.

But hopefully there comes a time (AGE 50. There's no getting around it. It's AGE 50) when you decide that you're going to at least try. You may fail. You may succeed. But if you never try, then that's the same as failure. In fact it's worse. It's squandering. It is a slap in my maker's face to choose to be a flower upon the wall, thumbing my stigma (that's a part of a flower; even biology mocks me) at the gift He has given me.

What about you? What gifts have you been given that aren't being put to their best use? What fear have you allowed to control your life?

At the Release Party I've been told I'll need to "say a few words." This is the Marketing Director's euphemistic way of informing me that I will be called upon to do some public speaking. Maybe I'll blow it. Maybe I'll blow chunks on the front row, because if ever there was a catalyst for Irritable Bowel Syndrome, speaking to a group of people is it for me. While I don't want to do it, and I fear failure, and I would rather hide in the closet until it's all over, there is a part of me that wants to try. I want to overcome my fear. I don't want it to control my life. And so I've resolved that, while it is raining, I will try to make the most of this time in my life.

  

Umbrella Girl's last hair and frock update was in 1968. I was 8 years old at the time and it never occurred to me until this week, researching for my Friday night blog update, that my mother had chosen that little girl's haircut for me. I was the poster child for raining and pouring and I never even knew. Thanks Mom. You should get out of the kitchen occasionally. Well, Umbrella Girl is all grown up now. Keep your bumbershoot; I'm going to walk out into this gullywasher, wherever it takes me. I am not that little girl any more.

And I'm certainly not that jackass walking around in circles.

For the Love of Food

It is unfortunate that not one of Janie's recipes survived. Wouldn't it be grand to be able to make peach leather just the way she did it? Or groundnut candy? Many of the old southern recipes do survive: hoppin' john, Carolina Pilau, and others. We just don't know who wrote most of them. I do believe I could almost channel Janie through the preparation process if I could follow her instructions for even one of her favorite dishes. It would be a way of knowing her better.

While I can't cook from Janie's own direction, I can enjoy many of the recipes that would have made it to a post-Civil War Charleston table. Many of these closely guarded secrets were first recorded in The Carolina Housewife, or House and Home:  By a Lady of Charleston, published anonymously in 1847. In it the author described a scene which Janie wrote about in her journal, one that was very familiar to the old cook:

“Then the Battery Dairy and their boat coming over at about six o’clock from Mr. Lawton’s place on James Island.  The loud cheerful banging of milk tins by the docking hands was followed by the horses and wagons going out with the bottles, while a social situation developed with nearby nurses, waitresses, and children coming to the dairy for milk…” (xi)

What a lovely image, huh? The splash of the south bay water against a wooden boat, right on schedule from Lawton's dairy. The clippity clop of horse hooves on cobblestone as the wagons pulled away from the docks to distribute their product. The smell of horse piles and salt in the air. Comfortable din of affable conversation among the group of folks who habitually met there to buy milk. I can see some of them taking a swig out of the tin on the way home, chatting with friends as they went.

So that image, coupled with the one in Wednesday's Charleston Post and Courier highlighting a sweet potato giveaway (see link here: Pile of sweet potatoes at Pinopolis church goes to rural residents in need The Post and Courier, Charleston SC - News, Sports, Entertainment) got me to thinkin'. And I remembered a recipe I practically pried out of the black woman who cooked for my husband's family some 30 years ago at a Thanksgiving dinner.

This lady, Mary, was very much like my grandmother in that she had no idea how much of anything went into her sweet potato pone. I'm sure she was very much like Janie too. That's because she was a kinetic cook; she just did it. Ingredients in motion...just let the force be with you. Correspond that with my version of cooking, (I am a butt cook, meaning extremely anal...) and you can see how my insistence that she be specific about whether it is TWO teaspoons or TWO and a HALF teaspoons drove her out of my presence in short order.

But she didn't get far.

One of the great-aunts had picked Mary up and driven her to their house to cook. So, really, she was our holiday hostage. And I would have her confession.

What I got out of Mary that Thanksgiving Day is printed below. It is her Sweet Potato Pone, and you'll just have to figure your own measurements to suit your taste. That's what I did, not using my butt at all, and really, it's all good.

2-3 sweet potatoes, grated
cinnamon
nutmeg
1 can evaporated milk
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar and 1 package of Equal
1/2 stick butter
Cook sweet potatoes on the stove; stir will until they start to boil. Cook 5 minutes and keep stirring. Mix other ingredients and add to the pot. Turn into a casserole dish and bake at 400 degrees until brown.

For Us Foodies

Since Janie was a cook, and a darned good one based on her employment record, how about a recipe in Friday's blog? It won't be Janie's recipe, but it will be an old southern one, cooked up every major holiday by a friend of my husband's family. Hint: the sweet potato giveaway in today's Charleston Post and Courier set me on to it.....stay tuned!

Leftovers

One of the realities of writing is that sometimes not everything you cook up makes it to the plate. Maybe what was written is irrelevant or off-topic. Maybe the overall document is just too long and something had to go. Maybe it’s just "scata," as my Greek friend at the newspaper used to say. "Scata" does happen, and just because it happens in a different language don’t make it smell more swell. It just makes it a more appropriate comment for an office setting. Unless the office is in Greece.

So below you will find an “out-take” from the book Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook, An ex-slave’s recipe for living. (Funny how "out-take" is the reverse of “take-out…” does that make the definition of “out-take” a container of food you bring with you TO the restaurant? Or maybe “take-out” is something that a producer puts INTO a motion picture, after it has been edited? I’m just saying…) 

But back to the topic at hand. I wrote the words below for the book but they were either not part of the final manuscript or altered in some way. I’m not one for wasting words; they are much too precious to me. And besides, I like these out-taken take-outs. And my granny, the best country cook I ever knew, would have liked these leftovers too. So this is for you Mom:

When I was a child I asked my granny how to make biscuits. I sincerely wanted to know. Granny lived in Alabama City—now Gadsden—and she was as kuntree as the day is long. “Aw, foot,” she said, throwing her head back with a laugh that revealed two buck teeth beneath a bristly upper lip. “Ah doan no, Leeser.” Only after repeated requests did she offer a vague description, with more hand flourishes than facts, of a process involving flour and lard and buttermilk. How much flour? Enough to sop up the buttermilk. How much buttermilk? Enough to absorb the flour. How long do you cook them? Until they’re done. 

Of course, Granny was vague because Granny didn’t know. Truth was, she just cooked, with the precision, if not the “preciseness” of a talented chef. And we all just ate it up like we’d never eaten before, at Granny’s house. 

Many a skilled black woman cooked the same way in Charleston before and after the war. Most likely, it is how Janie cooked too. Janie, like many other black cooks, may have developed some of her own recipes, although it was white women who usually wrote them down. When some of Charleston’s best-loved receipts were finally assembled for publication, one thing the editor realized was that the difficulty was not in convincing the cook to share her secret; it was in translating the gesturings of the Grannys of the Lowcountry into a recipe that could be replicated. 

Cooks were plentiful in postbellum Charleston, especially newly freed black cooks, a situation that was agreeable to their white employers. Like most black cooks, Janie probably was more familiar with the business end of her employers’ kitchens than the women who hired her. While many found it difficult to secure work in post-war Charleston, Janie never seemed to be without a job. Her journal, primarily a personal account of Charleston history through the early 20^th century, is also a kind of employment history. It is her resume, in which she recounts the families who employed her during her career.  

In Janie’s time, a letter of reference would suffice to secure employment. Judging by the folks for whom she worked and the length of employment at each home, Janie’s pride in not needing “papers,” as she wrote in her journal, was not mere puffery. She must have been a coveted cook, a hard worker, a pleasant person to be around, and a trusted friend who could be counted on to watch homes and children unsupervised. 

Not only were families larger then, but the servant staff was larger as well. The job of cook was not work for the weak. Over the course of her career, Janie’s duties included daily trips to the city’s Market for fresh meat, fruits and vegetables, visiting a neighborhood green grocer or purchasing from street vendors. The term “perishable” applied to most food in the 19^th century. Food that would spoil without benefit of today’s refrigeration was either bought and eaten quickly or tossed out as Charleston eagle fodder. Keeping food longer meant buying 100-pound blocks of ice, made of water drawn from Charleston’s artesian wells and delivered daily by horse-drawn wagon.

The families for whom Janie worked may have kept gardens as well, providing produce for the household. She may have tended some gardens in her lifetime. Canned foods were available during Janie’s years, but she likely did her share of canning and preserving as well. As cook, Janie would have been responsible for preparing cuts of meat or whole birds for cooking, perhaps even chasing a chicken down in the yard on occasion.  There was plenty of time standing over a hot stove without the luxury of air conditioning, and a heaping portion of bending and lifting heavy iron pans or pots full of water, not to mention washing, chopping, and cleaning. Rice, for example--so much an edible commodity that they named a variety "Carolina Gold"--was a fixture at almost every meal. To bring it to table required spending copious amounts of time washing, rinsing and sifting the grains over and over again in a cleaning and culling process to remove all the dirt and gravel. 

   

I do believe I would have loved eating Janie’s leftovers, just like my Granny’s. I’m thinking scratch-made cat head biscuits with apple butter, creamed corn right off the cob, pickled okra, greasy green beans, fried chicken, and peach cobbler for dessert. Whole milk. Black coffee. And the top button of my capris undone before it popped off on its own. Take some home with me? Well, if you insist; maybe just a small plate for later. No sense wasting it just because we didn't eat it all up in one book deal, I mean meal.

I'm hoping you agree; even Janie's take-outs are good to chew on. Bon appetit.

Honesty

"The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here! I'm somebody now! Millions of people look at this book every day! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity--your name in print--that MAKES people."               

Steve Martin, The Jerk

                                                 
There is just something about being published that confers the illusion of personal worthiness. Call it a need of the inner child if you will, but there is some part of all of us that wants to see our name (favorably) in print. Even us shy types. People don't hear from us often, but that doesn't mean we don't have something to say. We all have something to say, and the perceived permanence of the printed word leads us to believe--correctly or incorrectly--that our words, our names, our lives, have value.

For many, being published means writing a book, or being a part of some written work such as a newspaper, magazine, playbill or a brick with our name on it in the middle of King Street. For others, being published means contributing something that gets written about. Both are means to one end: ensuring that people who come after us will know our name. 

That particular flavor of Kool-Aid leads us to believe that our name, and by association our existence, will live forever. Of course the fallacy is that just because no one knows your name doesn't mean it can't still be a fun Boston-area sports bar. And it doesn't mean you won't be remembered.

I think that's it, at its core. We all just want to be remembered.

Some of us want to be remembered for making a difference. Some of us just don't want to to be forgotten. We are afraid we will fade into oblivion. And if we do, that means, somehow, that our lives were meaningless. Without purpose.

That's one reason people have children. It is. So there'll be one child left in this world to carry on, to carry on....the family name. Or the family business. Or the memory of WHO I WAS. Children are our living tabula rasa, our opus,es...opi. They are vessels for some portion of our soul.

So we'll call this my Honesty blog. And here is the part where I gulp, step to the edge, and have the courage to take my own leap of faith in pursuit of my special purpose. Sorry Steve, we all have one. Even the girls.

I could say I wrote Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook because it is the kind of story that needs to be shared with a wider audience. That would be true. Being associated with Janie through her writing has been an honor and a pleasure. This work is historically significant, and it is my privilege to be associated with it.

I could say I wrote the book because I want to honor Janie's memory and protect what she intended her journal to do: make a difference. Tru dat squared. But what is even truer (the trueyist) is that I have an inborn (maybe inbred) need to be appreciated. My inner child enjoys hearing that people like what I wrote. I like the attention, the accolades. There. I said it. I have always wanted to be published, not just as a writer but as an author. While I am scared to death about what lies ahead in this process, there is also a sense of calm, knowing that this means the Library of Congress, at least, will have me on file. And that means I will be remembered. 

Was Janie motivated by the same desire--to be remembered--when she wrote her journal at age 77? Perhaps. But I hope I've come to know Janie well enough over the last 3 years to speculate on her motivations for writing. I believe she wanted to make a difference by helping a new generation understand where they came from.

She feared that black history would be lost unless each and every individual takes charge of remembering it. "The negro teachers say nothing has been taught in history about the Negro," Janie wrote in her journal. "Well if you want a history get busy commit to memory," she wrote. Quicherbellyaiken, I can hear her say. In my mind Janie is a pressed and prim, finger-wagging lovable old lady who does not put up with excuses.

She also desperately wanted to pass along her religious beliefs to a current generation that had fallen away from biblical teachings. She worried for their souls.

Good lessons from a wise lady. Whether she would have been remembered in some way if her journal had not been published...who can say. Contrary to what Steve Martin's character believed, though, being published (whether in the phone book or anywhere else) is not what "makes" a person. Not in the Grand Scheme of Things. Janie understood that. And I would further venture to say that Janie would not have been concerned with being remembered so much as with being memorable. I believe she would have liked the idea of her journal being written on the hearts of future generations. Yes. She would have liked that very much. That's where she would want to see her name in print.

There, and in the Lamb's book of life: heaven's directory.
                                                             

What Inspires You to Write?

I have many blank "books:" journals, really, but I like to think of them as books that just haven't been written yet. One of my favorites is a care-worn leather journal with leather strap that I use on special trips, to record thoughts, observations, little snippets, ideas or turns of phrases I want to remember. This journal looks like something among the possessions of Indiana Jones or Dian Fossey: a soul keeper that has seen salt and spray, been lost in a jungle mud slide and found under sand-swept dunes many times over the course of its life. It has the appearance of something inherited, or won in a fist fight. It is the kind of journal that can only improve with age, wear, and the vicissitudes of life. It is my Velveteen Rabbit.

I took this journal to Devil's Fork State Park, on Lake Jocassee, last week. I knew that, of all my blank books, this was the one that should accompany me there. This was my nature book yet to be written. Nature is my best inspiration. It makes me introspective.

And itchy.

Lake Jocassee is 75 miles of undeveloped shoreline and more than 7,500 acres of water as clear as any in the Caribbean. It is deep. And cold. At its deepest, it is 385 feet. Where land licks liquid, sandy shores spread out below bright white rock. Thumbing through my "mind pictures" right now I can see Turtle Island. Behind it are three progressively higher mountain ranges, each one a lighter shade of green, like a watercolor, until the last barely visible peak almost blends into the clouds. I can hear the cicadas. I can smell the faint fishiness of mountain stream-fed water. This is what I want to preserve in my journal, for myself and for future generations. This is the image I want to share. This is what inspires me to write. And it makes me wonder: what inspires others to write?

Something in me believes that Janie Mitchell, the 77-year-old black woman who wrote a journal of her Charleston memories from 1862 through 1931, wanted to write. I think maybe she didn't write, until that journal, but I think there was a writer in her. There's a little captain in all of us, as the sage advertising copywriter reminds us, but some of us have more "captain" than others, and some of us have souls that ache to communicate, to be understood, to make a difference on little slips of paper. Janie was one of those souls, one of those "writer types," even if she had never written before, or since.

So what motivated Janie to write on that Emancipation Day January 1, 1931?

For one thing, she was encouraged to do so. At that time Janie worked for a family whose youngest daughter was home from college, where she studied history. This young woman had grown up hearing Janie's stories. And she knew the old cook had personal experience of a pivotal point in American history; with Janie's passing, these first-hand observances would be lost. So she made a gift of a composition notebook to Janie, and encouraged her to write about her life and those times. Janie did just that, in a burst of inspiration, never knowing that her words would reach across generations almost a century later.

Janie had something to say, and she knew it. She knew men, black and white, who were instrumental in the war and who played significant roles in moving forward after the South's defeat. Charleston was a broken city. The nation was brought to her knees. These were Phoenix times, and Janie knew people who helped us rise from the ashes.

She also wanted to speak to the younger generation, both of her time and of coming times. Janie was steadfastly religious. I often think that exceedingly trying times will polarize a person: either they cling to their beliefs or they abandon them completely. Janie was the former, and she watched as a generation came along who had not been brought up in the church. She wanted her writing to make a difference in their lives by sharing what she had clung to.

And Janie wanted certain facts to be remembered, because there are just some things that should never be forgotten.

But the truth is, Janie probably just got itchy.

She was inspired to write on that New Year's Day 80 years ago. She had a sudden urge to scratch out her observations. Because really, when you're itchy, there's not much else you can think about.

We all have something to say, to preserve and interpret for posterity. We all can be history's eyes, recording the truths of our short life spans. Certainly along the timeline of history, there are generations who can never travel the path of those years, except through our telling of it. So my question today is, what makes you itchy?

And to that, whatever that is for you, I raise my camp cup to the possibility of an epic shortage of Benadryl.

New Business

Now that the book is Off to see the Printer, the Wonderful Printer of (whatever rhymes with Oz but has something to do with historical nonfiction...anyone? This would have been perfect for Peter Benchley!) it is time to turn attention toward New Business: the Business of Selling.

Truth be told, the writing part has a wee bit of selling in it as well. In my very limited experience, I've learned that first and foremost is a good story. It has to be something a publisher is willing to risk investing money in, with the hope of at least a break-even return. Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook is definitely a good story. It is a good story because of its historical context; Janie was born in Charleston around 1854 to a free black working-class family. She references events back to 1862. When the war came along, her family ran to the protection of slavery.

Calling slavery a form of protection may seem, at best, a poor choice of words for an institution that is a vile manifestation of our baser selves. At worst, the use of the term is insulting, arrogant and racist. In Charleston at this time, however, Janie's family had very few options. Charleston was bent on ensnaring as many free African Americans as possible and running the rest out of the state. The book details the family's circumstances and expounds on the pervading climate in order to provide a proper political, social and economical backdrop for the reader to digest events in Janie's life. But suffice to say here that the white family who took Janie's family in was acquainted with them and sympathetic to their predicament. That they offered the protection of  slavery is evident in the larger context because they protected Janie’s family from the slavery that the law allowed. As a dear friend of mine pointed out, Janie’s family chose protection. And they did that by choosing “slavery,” to avoid slavery.

After the war she was free but remained with the family who had sheltered her, working as a cook, until circumstances required her to seek employment elsewhere. She had no difficulty doing so as she was a reputable and coveted employee.

Janie worked for some of Charleston's most prestigious families. In her journal, which she wrote in a burst of inspiration New Year's Day 1931, she chronicles people, places and events in Charleston through the Civil War and its aftermath. Her journal is a treasure that offers historians and history lovers a peek into a time that we desperately want to understand, to come to terms with, to learn from and grow beyond. It was a time that many say shaped our country into the strong union it is today. To read the first-hand account from a working-class black woman who lived through those times is something quite special indeed.

But a good story isn't a guaranteed path to publishing.

Some publishers have their plates full, no matter how good a gamble a book appears to be. Others have stringent foci, concentrating on just one theme or another. Sometimes national publishers just don't see the benefit in a "regional" book. That is why we found a home for Janie here in Charleston, at Evening Post Books.

A good query letter is essential for selling an idea. And even if a publisher is interested, many want several chapters for review before determining the book's profitability. A good story must be told well--sounds obvious but it really is true. Selling is the backbone of the business, from concept to forceps, when that body of work is literally pulled out of you and held up for the reading world's inspection: when the stock goes on the shelves.

For the writer, that is when the selling REALLY begins. Which brings me to the place I'm at, right now. Writing is done. Time to put my marketing cap on and think like the corporate employee I have unwittingly become. Again.

That is why today was brainstorm day. We had three categories for brainstorming: Book Signings, Publicity and Endorsements. I think brainstorming is a wonderful tool, focusing on acceptance of all ideas--the more the better--without judgment. One idea leads to another, and another, until at the end of the process hopefully there is this creative breakthrough.

Interestingly, that is not the original meaning of the word.

A "brainstorm" originally was a severe mental disturbance, but I prefer the more descriptive "series of sudden, violent, cerebral disturbances." So put that on the list with leprosy and gonorrhea. Do not want that.
It wasn't until Alex Faickney Osborn published Applied Imagination that the term morphed into what it means today: a sudden inspiration, idea or plan usually arrived at by a group think activity in which all ideas are expressed in a "say whatever comes to mind" free-for-all and none are criticized.
In our brainstorming session we came up with a nice list of spots to sign books. I'm told by people who have written books before (I just used 6 words to say, "authors." Editors do earn their money) that this is the "fun part." This is the part where you get to interact with book-buying people, people who want to meet the person who wrote the book, and get their autograph. This is the "fun" part. Maybe. But for me, this is definitely not the "easy" part.

Because "a writer writes," as that movie most aptly noted. A writer does not necessarily SPEAK. Both are valid forms of communication. Both use words, have points to articulate, something to offer. But my words come out of my fingers, not across my lips. And those fingers, along with the palms they're connected to, are going to be dripping with flop sweat. And if you expect me to say something witty, come across like a pundit, then you might want to hand me a piece of paper, show me to a corner and then GO AWAY for a while so I can quite literally "compose" myself. Even if I have written a prepared speech, it might be better for all concerned (especially me) if we just hire a ghost speaker to deliver it. (They have ghost writers--why not ghost speakers?) Someone who won't throw up in the middle of a sentence. I've heard you can lose an audience that way.

I am hopeful that the "fun" part will be just that, for me. I am hoping that I will hit a stride at some point, meet a lot of nice people who love the book, who love Janie as much as I do, who enjoy reading her story and are genuinely interested in what she wrote and my exposition of what she wrote. I pray that I am a worthy ambassador of this wonderful woman whose diary has so much to offer us, in this time. I hope in our brainstorm session we produced a powerful list of potential places to meet and greet anyone who wants to meet and greet me.

But mostly I hope that I don't have a brainstorm as a result of the brainstorm. I would hate to be the one to bring the etymology of the word full circle.

In the poet's words

Robert Frost's poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, has always been my favorite. My first newspaper column was titled "Miles To Go;" I thought it a propos to name my blog in the tradition as well. Because not much has changed since that first column 3 decades ago. I always seem to be quite a long way from my goal.

That is the nature of life though. We meet a goal and we set a new one. We are never quite done, are we? Not until we sleep.

The goal in front of me now is becoming a published author. No. Strike that. That goal has been met. Now the goal is marketing the book. Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook, will be available next month from Evening Post Books. And right now, the introvert in me looks longingly at those lovely, dark and deep woods, more frightened of the possibility of success than of failure. I can do failure! But I have promises to keep, (and they're written in a contract) and miles to go.

Come with me?