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.