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.