Diana Renfro from A Point of View

Winter Storm

2012-02-20T18:15:00.000-08:00

The first real snowof 2012 comes in February the Sunday before President's Day, and for folks luckyenough to have the holiday off, it is perfect timing. We can enjoy this onewithout the dread of scraping out tomorrow.

The neighbor'sbeagles dig out of their pen when the flakes begin to fall and then wander our way seekingadventure. By the time Johnny gets here though, they have moved on and can'tbe found.

Bandit enjoys thesnow. It's a new adventure to protect us from foreignbeagles.

There is no reasonto go anywhere. It's best not to. So we build a fire and eat a savory brunch and share some wine while we watch the snow first blustering then sifting down. Big wet flakes blow in as we try to capture the beauty with a camera through an open window. It's never quite the same.

As daylight starts to fade, beagles bark in the distance, loud and insistent, seemingly stuck in the woods behind a sturdy goat-fence. Johnny says they will come home eventually. Several trucks have wrecked, sliding off curves in the road.

Then the world is transformed...

In stillness and quiet...

After dark there iscoziness to savor. Tomorrow will be a different kind of day...

A day with no blustery clouds, with an early sun that rises in an open blue sky and throws its light on the proud trees all a-glitter before the melt can begin,

And all the dogs are home and the families are warm creating new stories to tell,

And over-wintering birds find fresh seed in the feeder,

And all seems right with the world.

Through the Night

2012-02-16T14:20:00.000-08:00

Months after her litter of six has been chosen

and taken away one by one, Cappuccino,

your lonely cat removes folded socks

from clean laundry stacks, gently

with her teeth, and hastens them

to shelters of her choosing.

Her mewling wakes me

as she tucks them into corners

and scolds them behind chairs.

And I think of you, folded into bed

on the eighth floor of a dormitory,

afraid...I want to wail.

In the morning, I find her sock-children

and sort them into drawers. She,

from her sun spot near the glass door,

turns from watching and lifts her chin

to singe my heart with a wistful gaze.

Online and In the Pink

2012-02-11T11:59:00.000-08:00

This was written one February while Iwas living in Charlotte NC and my aging parents were still in Opelika AL in the home where I grew up. My mother cared for my Dad at home until he died in2007 then she moved to Wilkesboro NC where she enjoyed severalyears of independence at Rose Glen Village. She is now living in Morningside ofAuburn where she is happy and well-cared-for. My Aunt Clara has beeninstitutionalized with Alzheimer’s disease for over ten years, now.

I see a lotof family love in this memory…

Online and In the Pink

My Mom is now getting my old desktop computerbecause I have a new laptop that moves with me like my dog. I hoped my parents wouldfind mental stimulation using the internet and a new, easy way to communicate.

It started simply enough. I brought herthe computer, printer, keyboard, speakers, wires, cables, microphone, and mouse and put it on the dining roomtable because there was no other available space. I have since been working to get itoff the table and set-up in her bedroom. I got here Tuesday night and this isFriday. In spite of my efforts to do something for her, she has ended up doing way too much. She is now taking anap.

First, she found an antique desk in herbasement which I cleaned thoroughly. Then I picked it up and muscled it around tothe front porch before we found termites. So, I wrestled it this time intothe trunk of my car and drove it back around to the basement where she found it, and while she called pest control to come check the housefor termites, I went to K-Mart and bought her a computer table.

Of course the table was not assembled,and just removing it from the trunk of my car in the box proved impossible. So, I openedit and moved it inside in pieces. Then, using the enclosed eight pages of instructions, we started putting it together. That was Wednesday, and now late afternoon, and she kept working while I went out to Bruno's and bought food and cooked supper.After a surge of brain sugar, we got back to screwing parts together andreading instructions which provided mental stimulation of the rarest kind.

Some of the parts were missing (flatwashers and spring washers) and it looked like a third of the screw holeshadn't been drilled. (Imagine that!) With pieces and parts littered all aroundher house, we crashed and went to bed.

I woke up eager to get back to myproject but we noticed a leak in the kitchen sink with water running out of thecabinet onto the kitchen floor. We cut off the water and called a plumberbefore getting back to the computer desk and putting together as much as wecould before buying parts.

Since my Mom was stuck waiting for theplumber, she wanted me to take care of another chore: my Dad's watch fromChristmas didn't fit and he needed to go exchange it. He's on oxygen, so wehave to move slowly and things take longer. And, he wanted to pick up my AuntClara so she could go and buy a watch with us. She was thrilled; and after wegot his watch at Wal-Mart, they wanted to get some lunch—Red Lobster lunchbecause my Dad had been watching some savory advertisements on TV.

At Red Lobster, we had a patient andspunky waiter who moved us to a better table right off. His only fault was thathe took our order too fast. As my Dad was eating, he complained that he didn'tremember seeing any shrimp or lobster on the menu and wondered why he hadordered catfish at a place like this. Actually, it was because I orderedblackened catfish and he said, "That sounds good. I'll have that too, onlyfried," but he forgot.

He ate things he wasn't supposed to eat,like three cheese biscuits and French fries and I knew I’d be in trouble withmy mom for that. Aunt Clara said the slaw was the best bowl of slaw she hadever eaten. She cried because she was so happy we were together. You can seewhy I couldn’t just take them straight home, so I took them with me to the carwash where I spent all the quarters I had on entertainment. The Goo Goo CarWash had a great foaming brush. Pink foam! They loved it and after that,everyone felt revived, including me, and I could finally take them home.

Well, when we got back, my mother had given upon the plumber and was ready to go buy some bits for her never-before-usedCraftsman Automatic Screwdriver. It came with instructions which showed how touse it as a drill, but we had to go to Sears to buy the drill bits.

There was no one obviously working atSears that day except a check-out lady, so I told her what we needed. She said,“Okay, I’ll page someone."

Before long a young man came out of hidingand we showed him what we had and told him what we needed. He shook his headand said, “I’ll have to find someone else to help you with that. I barely knowmy own job.”

The next man led us to a wall of drill bitsand kits and assured us that we could buy any size or shape on the rack becauseall the parts there fit Craftsmen automatic screwdrivers no matter what.“They're all made to work together,” he said. My mother started arguing,nicely, because it looked to us like the round bits wouldn't fit. I asked ifthey could be returned if they didn't work, and he assured me they could, sowanting to get back to work, we headed to check out.

The check-out-lady, quite aggravated,said, "You can't use these. You need hex bits, but I can't show you wherethey are because I can’t leave the register."

When a third man came to help, he showedus hex bits in expensive kits and converter sets. We asked him to open one to see ifthe parts fit. Well, they didn't, so he opened a second expensive set and thosedidn't fit either. He hunted for a third kit, which they were out of, but meanwhile, wandering theaisle I found some hex bits in singles! The check-out lady nodded her approval whenwe bought a couple of sizes for less than a dollar!

Sears sold washers too, but only by thebox. We needed two sets of two, so we went to the other side of town to Lowe’s andusing their diagrams found the four washers we needed to complete the projectand went home. Nearing suppertime on Thursday, we learned that the termite manfound no termites in the walls of the house, but the plumber never came. Havingno water, we skipped supper and attacked our project again. Already, our brainactivity had increased by leaps and bounds.

While I took the dog for a walk aroundthe block, my mother drilled holes in the desktop. When I got back and told hershe had drilled into the top and not the bottom, she said, “Well, you shouldhave come back sooner.”

Well, I turned it over, screwedmore holes and put it on right. We would now need some wood filler.

When I was ready to attach the shelf for thekeyboard on the underside of the desktop, I lay on my back under the desk withthe automatic screwdriver pointed upward and aligned the hole in the shelfsupport with the drilled hole in the desktop. She held the part in place for meand still lying on my back, I put in the screw. We were all set to finish untilI mentioned that I was about to screw up.

That's when we lost it. As we broke downinto a laughing hysteria that rendered us dysfunctional, all loose parts camefalling down. When she regained composure, Mama put ina desperate plea to a second plumber who promised to come, and though I had been determined to get her an email address before we went to bed, we crashed and left it for this morning.

The second plumber fixed the sink whileI took Daddy to the grocery and to the bank. I'm about to cook and wash dishesagain, and while there are still printers and speakers to deal with, we might befinished by Sunday. I'm feeling a little addled right now, incompetent, andlast but not to go unmentioned, OLD.

Mama’s got email, but no termites and noleak, so I’m taking the dog for a ride. We’re going to the Goo Goo, and I’m sure after that, I’ll be back in the pink.

Unexpected Warm Winter

2012-01-25T14:28:00.000-08:00

I need winter forwriting.

This is a warm, dryJanuary day and I am sitting on the porch with alpha dog Rudy in my lap as Iwould on a summer day, soaking in sun rays and making vitamin D in amonth when I usually hide indoors. The gushing of water through the narrow creek bed and the soft roar of a breeze through the stick trees are punctuated by the repetitive flap of the flag and the click of its clipsagainst the pole.

Stella, Clara's frisky small dog, whines to play fetchbut I am writing and reading and stroking another dog. Bandit, preferring alookout perch hides in the upstairs study. Dogs don't want me to write. Thissunny day should be for playing.

It doesn't feel likefall or spring, just a strange winter day with flies buzzing and bulbs pushinggreen spears through soft ground. "It is JANUARY," I want to shout. Asoaring crow mocks me. "Ha….Ha...Ha, ha, ha."

Only the evergreensare glossy and rich with color. The hills are brown. But the cherry tree at theend of the stepping-stones reaches for April. I hope the sap isn't rising. Myfear is that its buds will be nipped and we won't have cherries in July. And there are the apples, pears, blueberriesand hickory nuts. So much is at stake, beauty…and sustenance. Even migratorybirds can be fooled, and if they come too soon, their food supplies and habitatwill be altered.

Oaks are neverfooled, nor peonies. Locusts appear to be so dead that I want to cut them downfor fence-posts. Several years ago, in autumn, Traylor cut five and stripped the bark for posts on the cottage porch. Last year, he cut more to make an arbor out back. It seems no one mourns a felled locust tree.

We've had more rainthan usual, so if it were colder, we would be buried in snow and I would bewishing for spring and whining about how hard it is to get out. But I know it's just talk. I love the changeof seasons and the mood each brings. For me, the sights and sounds, the textures and scents of each seasonfeel like the essence of life, a necessary cycling.

So I will relish thisunexpected gift, grateful for the frisky dogs that are causing me to get up and walk the mile to the mailbox and back, savoring the scents along the way of mud and damp straw and leaves, the warming needles on the spruce and pines. I will bare more of my arms to the sun and squint and sweat on the uphill climb. I will live the life that is in me.

I can always write when winter comes.

Evening in Spain at C'est si Bon

2012-01-22T20:03:00.000-08:00

A Tantalizing Evening in Spain at C'est si Bon Cooking School in Chapel Hill was the perfect foil for Janus trying to depress us with a gray cold 2012. Not to be! We had a delicious night cooking and tasting Spanish foods and wines and learned both a variety of cooking tricks and some lesser known Iberian traditions.

C'est Si Bon Cooking School kitchen

We started with appetizers and introductions by way of mentioning a favorite food we would preparefor someone special.

Tapas: Chorizo, Queso Manchego, Olives, Mushrooms

In summer, gazpacho would be my favorite to prepare, but for January, Dorette's choice of garbanzo bean soup over seasoned grilled pork was divine.

About to read from Spanish Doors

Though it was Friday the 13th, I was lucky enough to have eager listeners wanting to hear some of what I had written about Spain and its people. The novel started with a dream about a wonderful place and a person I wanted to find. After searching California and other similar coastlines, I decided on Spain which once I visited became a passion I had to explore and write about.

Newlyweds enjoying wine and a story

More local guests

Local guests and friends

While the weather outside was dreary, we put on some clean white aprons and heated up the kitchen.

Our cooking Instructors:
Rich, owner-sommelier, Lauren chef assistant, Dorette, owner-chef

The Evening's Menu:

Pisto Manchego with Pan D’Horno

(spanish roasted vegetables with a beautiful handcrafted bread)

Sopa with Roast Pork and Smoked Garlic

(steeped broth paired with roast pork and smoked paprika garlic)

Malaga Style Swiss Chard and Other Greens

(winter greens prepared with citrus and olive oil typical of Andalucia)

Chocolate Flan with Candied Almond and Sea Salt Brittle

(a wobbly creamy flan paired with a crunchy and salty brittle creates an avant garde dessert)

The cooking was fun and the meal tasty. For me, the best laughs came while trying out some celebrated traditions. First, we tried the porrón an old vessel for serving and drinking wine. I loved that so many of our guests were good sports and attempted to drink from the porrón and some even got close to doing it perfectly. It's way harder than it looks!

porrón and Spanish wine

For more information, look here:
http://iberianature.com/spain_culture/culture-and-history-of-spain-p/porron-the-spanish-drinking-vessel/

Another celebratory Spanish tradition is preparing a queimada from orujo, coffee beans, sugar and orange peel. Orujo is a flammable liquer made in Galicia. The ceremony is common around All Saints Day for calling the good spirits and banishing all the bad ones.

After dinner queimada: a Galician tradition

For more information, look here:

http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Galicia/La-Coruna/blog-310414.html

Sharing the queimada

For me, the evening was one I will long remember and treasure as a time to meet readers and cooks in the Triangle area as well as connect with long-lost friends from childhood.

Opelika girls reunited

Images of Spain

You too can follow Arden on her journey through Spain in Spanish Doors, available at www.createspace.com/3448218.

Softer Now

2012-01-11T14:22:00.000-08:00

Iremember you hard-

yourchest,

yourback,

yourthighs-

makinglove to a fortress,

forstrength.

Nowyou are my pillow

whereI sleep

andweep

andrest,

mysilken comforter

tostroke

andsigh into.

Excerpt from Spanish Doors, a novel.....

2012-01-04T08:25:00.000-08:00

After the ceremony, they walked as a group back to Gramma’s where her neighbors and friends gathered and reminisced for most of the afternoon. They were an artsy bunch—old men with long, graying hair pulled back in ponytails, women in flowing colorful smocks and sandals with socks. Her house overflowed with food, which they ate together as one friend strummed his guitar and others sang. Rounds of rowdy laughter came from a group huddled around Kaira’s photograph albums, giving Arden reason to smile.

Stephen expressed a particular interest in the china cabinet and the clay pitchers Kaira had collected over the years. “I’m a potter myself,” he explained.

Arden opened its double doors to show him Gramma’s unique collection. “Every one of them is handmade,” she said, lifting the smallest and recalling when it was purchased after watching a potter at work in Williamsburg. She replaced it and asked, “Do you use a wheel?”

Stephen nodded, his lips twitching toward a smile, which he covered with the back of his hand.

Arden noticed the perfect line of his nose, his broad, strong chin and, when he dropped his hand to take the pitcher she handed him, his even white teeth. “What’s the grin about?”

“I don’t know,” he said, hiking his shoulders. “I like to make one-of-a-kind things you might put on a mantle.”

“You’re an artist then, “Arden guessed. “Like Gramma.” His sensual hands turned Gramma’s pitcher, and it occurred to her that he might be gay. “You live with Bernie Jacobs, don’t you?”

“Yes, and Anna Robertson,” he added, exchanging one pitcher for another. “The Catholic Church bought the house from someone who had a kiln out back, something Bernie and Anna have no interest in, but it seemed to be just waiting for me.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Synchronicity, I like to call it. We worked out a housing deal, rent-free for services. For me, that means encounter groups and youth groups. We hold meetings in the studio, which forces me to keep it clean.” He raised his eyebrows and took out another glass piece that seemed out of place in Gramma’s collection. “What’s this?”

“It’s a porrón,” she remembered, “for sharing wine.”

Made in Spain of blown glass, it had a long spout pulled from a rounded base to the full height of the vessel for dispensing, and there was a corked opening at the top for filling it. Surprised that she remembered the name for it, Arden said, “I always thought it looked like part of a chemistry set.” A mental picture of her father teased her then, his head thrown back, neck arched and mouth open, while he poured wine in a stream down his throat and swallowed both rhythmically and effortlessly.

At the sink, she removed the stopper and filled it with water. “Like this,” she said, lifting the porrón over her face at arms’ length. She aimed its spout carefully at the back of her open mouth so that the rush of water filled her throat and shut down all attempts to swallow. She choked and water rushed over her face, laughter gurgling in her throat. She dropped her head over the sink, coughing, to recover.

Stephen laughed and pulled paper towels for her to dry her face.

“Whew,” she said, sucking in air. “It takes practice.” She handed him the porrón, saying, “Here you try,” trading it for more paper towels and wiping at her face and the front of her blouse.

“Later,” he said, grinning and setting it aside.

“Come on, try it.”

“I’d rather try with wine,” he said.

“That’s fine,” she said.

“No, I’d rather just drink some wine. Why don’t I go out and buy us a bottle?”

“There’s some here,” she said, nodding toward a small wine rack and pointing to the cabinet above it, which held the glasses. “She keeps a corkscrew—kept a corkscrew—in the right top drawer.”

“You have some too?”

“Rioja,” she said, “near the bottom.”

After selecting a bottle of Rioja, he uncorked it and poured.

Arden savored a mouthful, rolling it over her tongue, feeling its silkiness, noting its light fruit. She swallowed, eyes closed, feeling Gramma’s presence as if she shared the moment.

Stephen inhaled the bouquet, then tasted. “Very nice.” He set down his glass and went back to examining clay pitchers, seemingly self-conscious about her eyes on his hands. “Caused by an iron,” he explained. “Happened when I was a toddler.”

Arden shook her head, regretting that she had noticed. “I’m sorry.”

“I reached up on the ironing board,” he said, “and when the iron fell on my hand, I couldn’t get it out.”

“How painful.” Arden winced. “Where was your mother?”

“Running to save me. She spent the Fourth of July in the hospital with me, both of us sedated, she says.”

“Does it bother you still?”

“Only this one nail catches on fabrics and sometimes scratches the slip as I shape my pottery.” He showed her.

Arden felt comfortable with Stephen. He had a way of putting her at ease, and she liked that. “When can I see your work?”

“Soon,” he said, abruptly bringing her back to Gramma. “Did you look for letters in the back of the cabinet?”

“There aren’t any letters! The drawers are full of linens and flatware. I’ll show you.” Bending over and sliding out the bottom drawer, she showed him, “Tablecloths and dresser scarves.”

“Don’t,” he protested her reaction.

“Middle drawer,” she continued, “place mats, napkin rings, napkins.”

“You don’t have to prove it to me,” he said.

“I’ll prove it to myself, then. If there are letters here, I want to know it. Top drawer: flatware, same as always. I don’t think there was anything to what she said in the hospital. I think she was incoherent due to the brain injury.”

Stephen studied the side of the cabinet. “Wonder why the top drawer isn’t as deep as the lower two?” He fingered the upper side panel and traced a hinge at the rear. “See this?” Under the pressure of his fingertips, as he moved them along the panel toward a midline crack, the panel nudged.

Arden was transfixed by his fingers on the curious panel, one she now observed in a new way. The possibility that Gramma had kept something private hidden in this cabinet—which was so familiar—was unsettling.

Having no drawer pull or knob, the panel gave no clues as to how it might open, but Stephen fumbled at pushing and pulling and attempted to tease it out with a fingernail. Then he unfolded his pocket-knife and offered it to Arden.

“Should I?”

“Why not? What if there’s really something here she wants you to find? I have a hunch there is.”

With apprehension, she handed the knife back. “You try,” she said. “Do you mind?”

He took it and slipped the blade into the panel and teased it out.

A gasp escaped Arden’s lips as she inserted a finger and swung it open. Hinged back all the way to the wall like a fan was a quarter-circle drawer stuffed with paper, dozens of thin pages of airmail stationery.

“Letters,” she mumbled.

All were hand-written in a script that tilted slightly left of vertical with a frequent dramatic flourish. A long oval Q began the address, “Querida Mami,” and, in closing, a thin pointed A to begin the signature “Alvaro.”

“My father.” Tearing, her eyes met Stephen’s. His glittered with satisfaction. “You were right,” she said.

As she fumbled through pages, she noticed a date, and her heart raced. She held it out for Stephen to read.

“The fifteenth of February, this year,” he said. “Last month.

“Last month,” Arden repeated.

“There’s another panel on the other side. Should I open that one too?

“Yes.” Arden reeled with the implications.

“This is personal,” he said after opening a second drawer full of similar pages. “Maybe I should go.”

Stunned, she could only nod.

“You need some rest,” he said. “It’s been quite a day.”

Stone silent, she saw him to the door. “Goodnight,” she managed, and, “Thanks.” He gave her a quick hug and left.

Books available at...http://www.createspace.com/3448218

Harris stream

2011-12-29T09:16:00.001-08:00

Harris stream, a photo by Alun John on Flickr.

Looks like Grassy Creek!

Via Flickr:
Isle of Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland:

Threadbare

2011-12-29T07:26:00.000-08:00

Love fits close as an old pair

of jeans. Remember the denim-blues
she wore at eighteen?
Stone-washed twenty times,
ripped at the knees, laundered
to shredding -- the woven membrane
between your hot hand and her thigh.
Bleached whites, slender-cut,
dropped at your bedside
when passion's skin craved
silken dreams of Spanish knights,
and mornings, pulled on again
beside the clicking clock set to alarm.

She lays them out now

in folded stacks, a tactile
collection and tries them on
to remember how they fit
then, how they felt new.
But there’s no going back
to then; and now
she wears you that way,
worn and threadbare
as an old pair of jeans.

Missing -- a short story

2011-12-21T10:04:00.000-08:00

I don’t know why I decided to go. Lisa had been missing for two weeks and I’d begun to cave in, to think the worst. I wanted my wife back or at the least, just to know for sure she was dead. Waiting was hell. So the same afternoon that Madge Blalock called, I left work to meet her. She had seen someone who looked a lot like Lisa on a bus to New Orleans the day she disappeared. Unlike most of the crackpots who’d been calling me, Madge Blalock sounded reasonable; her voice reminded me a little of my mother’s. So this thin new strand of hope pulled me up and out to Madge Blalock’s house to see what she was about.
It was early November, Thursday, and I agreed to meet at her house because she said a “Passel of kids” would be in and out and she needed to be at home. Now I sat in her kitchen stirring the cup of coffee she’d given me, not asking if I wanted it but what I wanted in it, as a tall boy with braces ran through calling, “Hi, Mom,” and tossing a book bag in a chair. He closed a door somewhere down a hallway and turned on some music.
It didn’t seem to bother Madge that I was a stranger. She talked to me as if she were quite used to having strays pull up to this yellow pine table to listen and drink coffee as she cooked dinner.
“I’ve been visiting my daughter Ellen in New Orleans,” she began. “She has a new baby girl, Maggie. Isn’t it amazing how fast you can fall in love with a baby?” Madge rinsed her hands in the sink and wiped them on a dishtowel. “I went down on the bus just to help Ellen a few days and ended up staying way too long.”
My collar felt tight and I pulled on the knot of my tie to loosen it. The heat accumulating in the kitchen was making me sweat.
“My husband and the boys finally insisted it was time for me to come home. I got back yesterday. This morning I got out the newspapers B. G. stacked up for me while I was gone and tried to catch up on all the news. It was a bit overwhelming after two weeks. But I just started in the beginning, at the bottom of the stack. The only story I read was about your wife’s disappearance. I was shocked when I saw her picture.”
I cleared my throat to speak. “You’ve seen her?”
“She’s the very person who sat beside me on the bus to New Orleans that day. I left Charlotte on Trailways at eleven.”
My heart lurched forward; but I didn’t want to get my hopes up again for nothing. “How sure are you?”
“Well, her hair was pulled back different from the picture. And she didn’t smile at all. It’s hard to be certain, but when I read that her husband’s name was Frank, I decided to call you. That’s too much of a coincidence. It has to be her and I hope for your sake, and especially for hers and the baby’s, that you're the Frank she spoke about and you’ll be able to trace her from there.”
She must have seen the disappointment in my face. “What’s the matter?”
“We don’t have a baby.” I swallowed hard. “Did she tell you she had a baby?”
Her expression clouded and her eyes grew distant. I could almost see her thoughts pull inward behind her eyes. Turning away, she stirred some sautéing onions with a wooden spatula. Then she shifted back and looked right at me, her hands on her hips like a mother who thinks her kid is telling a lie. “You don’t have a baby?”
I took a long breath. I didn’t want to go into a lengthy explanation, so I simply said, “No, no children.”
“Well, I guess that changes everything.” Madge squinted as if remembering required more concentration now. “Her baby girl, Angela, was the whole reason for our quick friendship. I was on my way to meet my first granddaughter, you understand.” She looked at me with sad eyes. “I’m really sorry. I must be all wrong about this.”
“It’s no problem,” I said, standing to go. Hers wasn’t the first false lead, but this one wrung me out. Never had it been so close. I wanted to go out and come back in, start over and get it right.
A timer went off and Madge opened the oven. She took out an iron skillet of crusty brown cornbread and closed it quickly to avoid the escaping heat. The kitchen door swung open behind her and a linebacker of a young man came in and kissed her on the cheek. “Yumm,” he said, lingering over the stove moving his face from pan to steaming pan.
“Gerald, this is Mr. Frank Despin,” she said, and to me, “This is my oldest son, Gerald, Jr.”
He looked at me and put his hand straight out. “Pleased to meet you.” He smiled handsomely. “Here for dinner?”
“No, I was...”
“Do stay for dinner,” Madge said without hesitation. “It’s the least I can offer after putting you through this.”
“No. Thank you, but...”
“You have dinner plans already?”
“It’s not that.”
“Well then, stay. My other son and Big Gerald will be here within the hour and the table’s set. We’ll just add another place. That’s all there is to it.”
“Give up, Mr. Despin. You can’t argue with my mom about dinner.”
“Well...” I wouldn’t have argued with Gerald about anything. “If you're sure...”
“Good,” said Madge. “Gerald show him to a more comfortable place to sit and you two can get to know each other while you wait.”

In the den, Gerald pointed to a sofa. “Where do you work?” he asked, switching on the television.
“I’m an accountant. With First Accounting, uptown.”
“Oh yeah? I’m studying to be an accountant.” His eagerness was tiresome. For a moment he watched the weatherman then he turned back to me. “I started a small business last year landscaping, for neighbors mostly. I’ve had to invest in some big equipment and get some help.” As another man entered the room, he stood and said, “Hi, Dad. Come meet Mr. Despin. He’s with First Accounting.”
“Well, I declare.” The older man, whose size and appearance was nearly identical to the younger, thrust out a hand. “Gerald Blalock; B. G. for short.”
He sat down across from me and Gerald said, “Dad, I was starting to tell him my experience with accounting.” They shared a smile and Gerald looked back at me. “I’ve been doing my own books, but it’s getting ahead of me. There’s so much to keep up with. Especially the taxes.”
They both looked at me then and waited. I sat in awkward silence, wondering what comment they expected.
“I’d...well, sure,” I said after a moment. “I’d be happy to go over your records. Call my office tomorrow and set up a time.”
“Great.” He seemed satisfied and as the conversation lulled momentarily, we all turned to the television screen where a still photograph of a child was underlined with, “Have you seen me?” I thought of Lisa. Her picture had been on television like this for a week, requesting information surrounding her disappearance. Now, she’d been replaced.
Something plucked at my mind, like movement near the corner of my eye. I turned my head, but nothing was there. What on earth am I doing here? I stood up to go but Madge walked in calling us to dinner. Gerald and his father stood up too, smiling and commenting on my readiness, and I moved with the tide into the dining room and was cornered into a chair and there I sat.
From someplace within the house, Madge had gathered three sons whose appetite at the table reminded me of how I felt about my mother’s meals at their age. The roast and rice with gravy looked and smelled like one of my mother’s Sunday dinners. Hot cornbread, iced tea with lemon, green beans. Like B.G., my dad sat at the head of the table.
More introductions. The boy I’d seen earlier was Robert. Jake, younger, wanted to hear about New Orleans, and Eddie, four or five, focused intently on his mother’s descriptions of his new niece.
“We’ll see her Thanksgiving,” said B.G., “And that won’t be long.”
“She won’t be so tiny then,” Madge told Eddie. “You can hold her.”
“I wanna see her now,” said Eddie. I knew the feeling, but something else was connecting in my mind about a baby - about the baby that actually disappeared around the same time Lisa did. As they talked, my achy emptiness filled with apprehension.
Eddie looked up at me and asked, “Do you have a baby?”
My chest tightened vice-like and I couldn’t speak. I shook my head no as I reached for my tea.
Tell us about your wife,” said Madge, her eyes soft and sincere. “What does Lisa like to do?”
The tea wouldn’t go down. I coughed and Gerald stood up preparing to hit my back.
Madge disregarded the coughing. I noticed that Madge was speaking in the present tense as if she knew how much I wanted to talk about Lisa. Even good friends had stopped mentioning her name like she’d never existed.
“She’s a dancer,” I said finally, “Ballet.”
“Lovely,” said Madge. “I always wished for a daughter who would be a ballerina. She swept the boys with her eyes as if challenging them to find her one.
“That’s Lisa’s passion,” I said. “She’s elegant and graceful...and beautiful. She used to teach ballet in a studio off South Boulevard until enrollment dropped and we had to close it. Now she dances various parts for the civic ballet and sometimes travels out-of-town to dance a lead role or two.”
“We're going to the Nutcracker,” said Jake. “I have to go. My Mom’s making me.”
“Lisa used to dance in the Nutcracker.” My fork fell, clattering on my plate. “Sorry.” I grabbed it. “Anyway, this year she didn’t get a part.” I didn’t tell them how hard she’d worked to get back in shape for tryouts, how she’d refused to eat, what a tough time it had been...that life had become an express train with no opportunity to get off.
Everyone was looking at me, waiting. “She went to Tulane, actually started out in medical school, but it didn’t take her long to discover that she was a dancer.” I smiled, and added, “She’s always in a hurry; always running, usually on her toes. I remember one of her friends asked, 'Why are you always running,' and she said, ‘the faster I get there, the longer I can stay.'“
Madge and B. G. smiled politely.
“And she’s always making do with broken things, and worn-out things because she won’t take the time to get them fixed or get a new one.” I laughed nervously, wishing I could shut up. “Like her handbag, for instance.”
“Her handbag?” B.G. acted as if he were genuinely interested in my meager attempts at conversation. He helped himself to another load of rice and passed it to me.
I nodded. “This gray leather thing...”
From the green beans on her fork, Madge’s eyes swept up at me.
Her look stopped me momentarily, then I finished, “...with a broken zipper.”
She gaped. It became as clear to me as the realization in Madge’s eyes: she had seen Lisa on the way to New Orleans. Confusion faded into light-headedness. Madge closed her mouth, but I had already panicked.
“I’d better be going,” I said, pushing back my chair against stubborn carpeting. “I’m sorry to eat and run, but I have to get home.”
“You didn’t bring your car?” asked Eddie.
Robert tousled his hair as everyone laughed.
Standing, Madge said, “Everyone, please tell Mr. Despin goodnight.”
“Thank you, Madge.” I nodded, “B. G.”
Madge walked me to the door. “The handbag!” she exclaimed in a whisper, eyes wide with astonishment. “Lee, on the bus, had a gray leather bag with a half ripped-out zipper!”
“I’ll call you as soon as I sort it all out. I can’t thank you enough.” I started out the door, but paused when I overheard Eddie say, “He’s like a Teddy bear, with hard clothes.”

I went racing home only to lie in our bed and wait for dawn, groping for sleep that would not come to silence the spinning questions. Could Lisa kidnap a baby? What if she did? What if she and the baby had both been kidnapped? Had she pretended that things were normal to keep from being killed? Finally, I got up and made myself a cup of coffee to clear my head. It was the right thing to do, I decided, and phoned officer Blackburn to report my suspicions.
“There’s a possibility,” I said, “That my wife and the baby that disappeared at the same time are together.” I couldn’t bring myself to say what I feared.
“I appreciate your call, Mr. Despin, but it’s our job to consider all the possibilities and I assure you it was one of the first things that came to mind. We’ve been working on the possibility she kidnapped that baby from the beginning.”
He said it. I didn’t have to. All along, that’s what they were thinking. A sense of dread stole my breath, as I prepared to tell him about Madge Blalock.
“Everyone is a suspect, but no one is presumed guilty. It’s an open investigation and anything could happen. You need to prepare yourself for that.”
I hesitated. “Where are you looking now?”
“Everywhere. Hey look, Mr. Despin, if you know something...”
“I - I just thought of it.”
“I’m with somebody right now.” Blackburn’s gruff voice was cautious. “How long’ll you be there?”
“Well...”
“What say I drop by your office? Be there in an hour.”
“Sure,” I said, preferring the delay. “That’s fine.”
I hung up the phone and opened the refrigerator. Little remained of what Lisa had bought. Just condiments and some old celery that I’d soon have to throw out. I closed the door. Not much appetite. I walked down the hall to the baby’s room and leaned on the doorframe, looking at the piled-up boxes of gifts never returned. Something had to be done about them. Lisa couldn’t do it. Now I would have to decide, especially about the crib and baby chest.
Through the window, I saw that it was raining. I wondered if my folks had gone to the beach. Who had prevailed, my mother or my sister, Nan?
As usual when Mother had called she asked how I was doing. “Fine,” I lied. It was a game: meaningless question, meaningless answer.
“Your Dad and I are going down to the beach,” she said, “And we were hoping you’d come along and get your mind off things.”
“I can’t Mother...There’s too much to do.”
“Holden Beach is exquisite this time of year. I wouldn’t miss it for anything. We’ve rented a house with a fireplace and two extra bedrooms. Billy and Nan are coming too. I told them we wouldn’t go if it rains, but Nan’s bringing her knitting and says she wants to go especially if it’s raining. She wants to sit by the fire and work on another baby blanket. She’s already on her second, and she’s only four months along.”
I almost said it was too soon to be doing that, but I caught myself and didn’t say anything.
“Oh, Frank, don’t worry about Nan. Nothing’s going to happen. She’s so...”
“So what?”
“So healthy. All my daughters have had healthy babies. You know that.”
She didn’t mean to say things that hurt, but there was so little to say that didn’t hurt.
“I’ve really gotta go. It’s time for work.”
“Okay, but Frank, can I tell Nan what you’ve decided about handing down the crib and chest?”
I didn’t know how I would do it, but I said, “Tell her I’ll ship it.”
Now, as I considered how hard it would be to actually go through with the promise, the phone rang. I jumped, then rushed to the kitchen and jerked it up, hoping.
“Frank? This is Madge Blalock.”
“Madge. Hello.”
“It may be none of my business, but I’d like to help.”
I was silent for a moment, unsure of her intentions, unsure of my own. “Do you know about the missing baby?”
“I do now.”
“Have you called the police?” My breathing stopped, waiting for her answer.
“Not yet.”
I took a quick breath. “I did, just now. Blackburn said they’d been working on the possibility she’d stolen the baby since the beginning.” I stalled. “I’m going to New Orleans and see if I can find her. Could you give me some lead time before you call?”
“All night I’ve been thinking. A woman out there is desperately missing her baby.”
“I know.”
“But Frank, you don’t know. I kept imagining my daughter without little Maggie, the joy suddenly ripped from her arms, the hurting, the torment. Only a woman can understand that.”
“Dammit!” I shouted, hitting the kitchen wall. “I do know! Four months ago, we had a baby, Lisa and me. She wasn’t just a baby; she had a name. And she looked so healthy and cried so loud. You couldn’t see anything wrong. Nothing at all. How were we supposed to know she had a heart defect? Something so rare it happens only once in 100,000 births? They didn’t even know, till she died."
“Oh Frank...”
“When she was four weeks old.”
“I should have...”
“How do you prevent something when no one knows what causes it?”
“I’m so sorry.”
"And why do women think they're the only ones who feel? That’s a bunch of crap!” My legs trembled, near buckling. “The father’s supposed to hold things together,” I told Madge, “Stay in control. The father goes to the hospital to pick up the baby’s things. He signs the autopsy report, makes the funeral arrangements. A mother can fall apart and the doctor gives her valium to get through the funeral. The father gets his act together and goes back to work to pay the useless bill. What am I, some robot? Am I supposed to just keep on going, like nothing ever happened? Like we never had a baby? Like she never existed?”
Madge was silent.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally,” I didn’t mean to shout.”
“How can I help Frank?”
“Just wait to call the police, that’s all.”
“Let me give you my daughter’s phone number. Do you have a pencil? I’ll call her so she’ll be expecting to hear from you.”
“You have your own family to worry about,” I said, but I was thinking of mine. They’d been hard on Lisa, blaming her endless dieting and her rigorous performance schedule. And I’d never had the guts to defend her. I felt comfortable in their camp, being strong, because at least they weren’t blaming me. I never said it wasn’t Lisa’s fault; nobody’s to blame, and I had to wonder, Did I ever say it to Lisa?

I took the ten o'clock flight out of Charlotte Douglas Airport and arrived at the Hotel Monteleon in New Orleans before eleven their time. I regretted leaving Madge wondering what happened to me, but I hadn’t had time to think it over until I got on the plane. I just did what I had to do. She’d said she had to call the police, and though I understood, I also knew that I had to try to find Lisa first.
I slipped my key card into the door several times before the light flashed and I was able to turn the handle and get into my room. I tossed my carryall with its two changes of clothes on the bed and opened the bedside table looking for the phone book. There was a name in the back of my mind of a friend that Lisa had known in college. I flipped to C and put my finger at the top of the column. Slowly I came down pronouncing the names. On the plane I’d been through the Ca-Co-Clu-Chi-routine mentally to no avail. It would come to me, I thought, when I saw it in writing.
On the third page, Cra...Craven. That was it. Now which one? Probably near Tulane, but then I don’t know the streets. I reached for my map. He was a professor. Biology, something scientific that she didn’t like. Not biology then.
I walked to the bathroom and took out my toothbrush. That’s it. Anatomy. Gross Anatomy with the accent on gross.
I flipped to the back pages. Tulane Medical School. I dialed the number.
“Hello, I’m looking for a Doctor Craven, an anatomy professor. Is there someone by that name on your staff?”
“Yes, but he’s out for lunch. May I take a message?”
“When do you expect him?”
“He has class at one, but he usually checks his messages when labs are over at six.”
“Thanks,” I said and hung up. I’d have to go catch him before he went to class.

I was annoyed by the laughter in the slow elevator. The door opened onto a crowded lobby, clots of tourists stopping the flow. Finally, I hailed a taxi on Royal Street in front of the hotel as St. Mary’s cathedral chimed noon.
Out St. Charles Street, the taxi stopped in front of Charity Hospital. From there, I found the Tulane School of Medicine Building, its core swarming with men and women in brown coats. When I asked a secretary for Dr. Craven’s office, she pointed toward a tall man with an armload of papers.
He looked up. “May I help you?”
“Frank Despin,” I said, holding out my hand.
“Andy Craven.” He shook my hand formally, then a flash of recognition. “Sure...” He shook my hand vigorously, smiling. “You're Lisa’s husband. What brings you to New Orleans?”
“I’m looking for her, actually. I was hoping you’d seen her.”
“Here?” I detected genuine surprise. “I haven’t seen Lisa in…three years?”
“She’s disappeared and I have reason to believe she came here.”
“Disappeared? How do you mean that?”
“She just disappeared. I mean missing person, all that.”
Andy shrouded his face with long, spreading fingers. “Why do you think she’s here?”
“A tip,” I said, pulling a snapshot from my pocket with a sweaty hand. “This was labor day weekend.”
Andy studied the snapshot then handed it to the secretary who had stood up to look around his high shoulder, and held out her hand for it.
Her glance arced from the photo to Andy’s face. “It’s the woman I told you about,” she said, as if pronouncing herself right. “It’s the one with the baby, remember?”
“You thought she was lost?” Andy’s eyes widened.
“This is the same lady. She was lost all right.” She shook her head as she plopped back into her chair.
Andy perused my face, for a long time, and perhaps a little suspiciously. Then he handed the stack of papers to the secretary and said, “Could you take these exams to my classroom and pass them out?”
“Sure. Should I stay?”
“Yes. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” He turned to me and motioned down the hall.
“Oh.” The secretary stopped, and spun around on the ball of her foot. “Check your messages. One’s from a police lieutenant.”
“Thanks,” he said, stiffening, but still walking. In his office, he nodded for me to sit. “What happened? Did you split up?”
“No, it’s not like that,” I said, wanting to be as quick as possible. “We lost a baby in June and she’s had a tough time.”
Andy kept his eyes on me as he slipped behind his desk toward the window.
“Not long after it happened,” I added, “She had a big audition and failed to get a part, any part, even a small one.”
Andy raised the blinds slowly, letting light flood the metallic space.
“She was wasted,” I said, in words like a squeak. “So was I, but I couldn’t...” My throat tightened and I couldn’t swallow. “I was trying to be strong, and just keep going, and let her know I loved her anyway. She may have misunderstood.”
Andy tipped his head back slightly to one side, moving one ear closer, like he heard exactly what I meant and agreed. He nodded sideways and pursed his lips into a pensive frown. He propped an elbow on his crossed leg and took his chin in hand.
“A few weeks later,” I continued, “She disappeared from the dance studio, without her car...with nothing, like she’d been kidnapped. The police are looking all over, but not just for Lisa. They think she’s kidnapped a baby.”
His brow fell, his hand slipped up over his eyes. “And you think she came to me.” He studied the floor, his shoes, mine, all the time shaking his head. Why?”
“Because she came to New Orleans and you're here.” This was the hard part; I’d always resented their friendship. I gripped my chair and swallowed. “She said you weren’t lovers, but it doesn’t matter now. If she’s here, I just want to talk to her.”
He pulled his chair closer to mine and leaned toward me. “She’s right. We weren’t lovers.” He shrugged it off with a shoulder. “I would have liked it that way, but she was in love with you.”
My heart rose and fell.
“Passionately,” he said. “There’s no one more attractive than a woman who’s passionately in love. And it was you, the handsome man from a loving family who would give her everything she wanted in life...a rock to stand on.”
He knew her well, I thought, glancing away. Lisa’s parents had withdrawn support when she quit medical school to pursue a career in dance. They called her vain and irresponsible.
“So,” he said carefully, “You know about the abortion.”
Blinking, I tried again to look at him. “What abortion?”
“I thought she’d tell you eventually...” He leaned his face into both hands now. “After you married.”
“She didn’t.” I recognized this as something I neither wanted to know or not to know. My heart grew brittle, like glass.
“I was new here,” he said, “And still a sucker for a pretty girl’s tears. Lisa cried through a whole class one day, and when it was over, I pulled her aside. I took her to my office to do something, I don’t know, like give her a special assignment. She was failing the course. We agreed on a contract to get her grade up to a D and I felt like the Hero, until I found out she wasn’t crying about failing my class. She was crying about an abortion.”
“Your baby?” I asked with steely dread.
He looked up sadly. “Yours. Mardi Gras? 1975?”
The glass shattered. “Why?”
“Sleeping Beauty was never cast as a pregnant woman.”
My posture, I noticed, was just like his, now. I sat up straight. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Your family, your values.”
“Damn my family!”
Andy lifted a hand to quiet me. “She said if you found out, you’d be ashamed of her.”
“She told you!"
“At a weak moment. She regretted it. But, it was the beginning of a good friendship, and I’m thankful for that. Still, if she’s here now, I haven’t seen her.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, getting up like an old man. “Your class...”
He stood. “No, I’m sorry. If I see her...”
I gave him the hotel number and left.

There was no time to waste. If she weren’t here, I’d try the Theatre of the Performing Arts. What if the police already have her? I all but ran. Down the hall, down flights of stairs, down another hall toward the entrance, past a student lounge. In the lounge, something caught my eye and I stopped. A gray leather purse lay on the coffee table, and beside it, a diaper bag.
My heart thundered. I turned to the small room, but how slowly my feet crept.
Lisa studied the selections in a coke machine. The fuzzy head of a baby bobbed over her shoulder. She turned toward me, reaching for her handbag.
“Lisa.”
Blankly, she smiled. “No, I’m Lee,” she said, fumbling with the zipper of her purse. “You must be...” When she lifted her gaze fully to mine, her eyes widened. What was there? Something less than recognition, but more than dismissal.
“Frank,” I said, reassuringly, reaching for the purse.
She jerked it, protectively, to her chest.
“I’m Frank,” I reassured.
“Hi,” she said. She waited, suspiciously, as if to see what I would do.
What would I do? I stepped backward and drew a deep breath, trying to relax my chest. I nodded at the purse. “I know how to fix it, remember?”
“Fix what?” She shifted the baby, but her eyes remained steady, on me.
“The zipper, remember? I can always get it.”
Her stare cut to my soul. In her eyes, though, something powerful was dissolving. Slowly, I reached out, and this time she let me take the purse from her hands.
Her mouth fell open and she staggered backwards into the coke machine, her face crumpling in recognition. She closed her eyes as if dropping a sheet over things intolerable, and the baby wailed.

Previously published in Racing Home, New Short Stories by Award-Winning North Carolina Writers, 2001, The Paper Journey Press, Sharlene Baker, ed.

Feels Like Home to Me

2011-12-14T16:09:00.000-08:00

You ask us how we found this place and I tell you it was listed in the Second Hand News, but you still wonder how we knew it was ours. You wonder what drew us, what spoke to us. Life changes in a moment, with a single thought, an idea, and sometimes a feeling. Familiar is a good feeling and it just happened, trust me. No one saw it coming.

In its prime, what we now call A Point of View was a self-sufficient farm.

My grandparents on both sides were Alabama dirt farmers, and I remember my aunt telling me about the Harris family farm in Tallapoosa County where her grandparents lived. They too were self-sufficient. The diagram she drew looked like the map of a small town.

They worked many acres of land and lived in a centrally-located house with a wrap-around porch. Alongside the house, they planted vegetables for the table and grew rows of fruit trees and berry bushes. Also close to the house, there was a well, a bell-tower and an outdoor privy. Further back, they got eggs from a chicken house, raised pigs in a pen and cured meats in a smoke house. The mule lived in a fenced area with his own barn next to sprawling fields of cotton.

Conveniently located across the road from the house was a fenced cow barn with milking stalls. Beyond it, cows roamed the pastures. Just down the road ,a car barn housed Grandpa John's new Model A Ford next to another barn for a prized and well-cared-for wagon. Behind that was a blacksmithing house and fields of corn and sugar cane. Syrup making was an celebrated annual event. The mule moved a turn-style that extracted juice from sugar cane, sorghum and millet which was then cooked down to syrup.

I don't remember that farm in its heyday. My grandparents got a farm of their own when they married, and then they moved to town (Opelika, AL) soon after my dad was born and opened Harris's Grocery. But I do remember the Saturday I got to travel back to the country with my grandparents for a hog killing. While I've repressed any memories of an actual killing, I remember the pot-bellied stove and making lye soap out of fat. I also recall the taste of biscuits with fresh butter melting under a drizzle of cane syrup.

My mother's family (Barnes) even a generation later managed to be self-sufficient as farmers and grew cotton as a cash crop. I remember eating pomegranates under the kitchen window and my grandmother's pound cake at the table. She made clothes for 8 children of which my mother was the last.

Traylor's family (Traillour in France) was more diverse, but not much. His family had more ministers, bankers and Kings (James of Scotland,) than farmers, although there were Parks and Bakers. Maybe he was meant to direct things and people, and thus-no surprise-ended up in Human Resources with one foot in Grassy Creek and the other reluctant to leave the city.

And what about those Scotch-Irish and English immigrants who settled the Highlands of North Carolina? They were our ancestors. A John Harris arrived from Leith, Scotland in 1685, and Renfro which means "flowing brook," traces back to the Renfrews of Renfrewshire, Scotland. We both have roots in England, Ireland, Wales and a smattering from parts of western Europe.

We live off Sussex Road near the Youngs (Scottish) on a farm that was long owned by the Waddells (Scottish) with a flowing brook and rolling hills. Still, we are less than a day's drive from the coast. Couldn't we be somewhere in the past in the British Isles?

And maybe it's also natural to love Spain. Over 5000 years BC, the mountain people of the central Iberian peninsula (Basque country) migrated to what is now the British Isles. Those early wandering people remained a genetically unaltered race because there was little outside influence. Even after the Celtic expansion, there was little genetic change in the Scotch-Irish people, while the Iberian peninsula itself was under constant, sometimes radical change. (see www.worldology.com/Europe)

Finally, out of farming comes a love of food, fresh food, processed only as needed to make it safe or to survive the winter. What I remember about both of my grandmothers is what and how they fed us. We ate with them on Sundays, and Sunday dinners in the South have always been more than the average meal, but to me the dining room table was the altar in the home. We prayed there and we were nourished there.

So there it is. I've come to believe in genetic memory. It just feels right to be here. The rolling hills, animals grazing, gardens and forests, neighborly folks around us raising chickens and blueberries and making apple cider, sewing and digging in the earth.

We work hard, play hard, and eat well-close to the earth. Feels like home to me.

Grassy Creek, North Carolina, USA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEcv5uPbYsU

link to a YouTube slide show of the Isle of Harris, Scotland

How We Got Here

2011-12-07T16:22:00.000-08:00

We found this place listed in the Second Hand News on a Sunday morning in November of 1999. We were supposed to be leaving Ashe County, but we took an unexpected turn-about.

I had finished my novel, Spanish Doors (although it became the first draft of the novel) and I was thinking about a new project. I mentioned this to a friend. "What I really want to do is create a writer's retreat, somewhere away from town that is quiet and close to nature." He offered his weekend home as a base for exploration. "Ashe County has been discovered," he said, "but check it out. It's a good time to buy."

I found the newspaper there by his fireplace, the Second Hand News with the ad: "50 acres in Grassy Creek."

At the time, friends were actively concerned over Y2K and the possible collapse of modern communication. Maybe that's why we wanted a piece of solid ground to walk on. We got out of the car and walked the property, looking past the dilapidated buildings near the road. Had we not, we never would have fallen in love.

We trekked the cow paths and the old farm trail and tried to find a fence line around the property, not sure what 50 acres looked like. The price included only the land, but there were two barns, a stable, a woodshed, a chicken house plus two other foul houses, a tool shed, a cannery, and a small house. The house had been crushed by a fallen tree and exposed to the elements. Having no plumbing or electricity, we knew it could not be a home. Most of the buildings still held crocks, jars, ropes, beehives, buckets, and various other supplies and equipment. It had been 15 years since the owner died and willed the land to his son.

The loveliest characteristic was that behind the house, through a narrow passage between hills and over a small branch, we entered a magical place where the land opened up into magnificent bowl. Cows grazed the sides. Wild flowers (knee-high to shoulder-high) were freeze-dried and beautiful and I could only imagine how they had looked in summer.

The hills were steep to climb but we took an around-the-rim approach, lessening the grade. We walked side by side in silent awe, with an occasional, "Do you think that field is part of the 50?" and a lot of deep breathing. Deer antlers, hawk feathers and marshy plants suggested a kind of life we couldn't see. Colorful fall leaves were crisp under foot, but the trees were blown bare already. What would this be in the growing season?

It took vision. We saw the potential. We fell in love.

But we had to get back to Charlotte, to work and family, a busy life. When would we find time to look at other properties and compare prices and views and who knows what else? We called the owner back because he had planned to turn the sale over to a realtor the following Monday, but said if we might be interested, he would wait. I told him to give us two weeks. We closed on the property the week after Christmas, before the New Year, 2000.

What an exciting year. But that is only the beginning of the story.

I felt the presence of God here and I knew that it was not just about me, or us. God didn't mean for us to come here and stare agape, but share agape.

And so we started to build...

Food For Thought

2011-12-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

Thursday,December 01, 2011

It's a brisk, snowynight in Grassy Creek and I have cilantro growing happily in the breeze on the front porch railing. How low can itgo? The world appears a whitened conglomerate of all we saw here yesterday. Myantiquarian husband happily plans the layout and décor for a new condo in thecity. Just dreaming?

I've learned thatour Christmas rendezvous will be cut short again this year by the NBA, whichfinally reached a collective bargaining agreement. I'm glad Caroline has thefun job of Arena Host for the Bobcats, but it's hard to like professionalbasketball right now and I was looking forward to her unrushed Christmas visit.

After Thanksgivingand looking toward Christmas, food is on my mind, particularly the scarcity ofit in families who don't have work. Did you ever worry about owners ofprofessional sports teams or their players not having enough food while theyweren't working? I didn't. But growing consistently in this affluent sportsenriched country is the number ofchildren who don't have enough to eat .

In Ashe County, oneout of four children, lives below the poverty level.

I write because Idon't have the gift of gab. My sister-in-law, Ruth, does and that makes us agood team. We had the good fortune of helping with the Community Meal in WestJefferson on Saturday and I know it won't be the last time. She talked to allwho came and knows many by name now while I thought about what to write. Weworked with several other volunteers to put out a great meal, bothsatisfying and fun.

There are too manywho need healthy food and a warm place to eat it. That thought converted toaction will help. It's not even hard.

Ashe Outreach Ministries

Making Memories

2011-11-29T08:48:00.001-08:00

This year, Thanksgiving was on my birthday, a gift like no other. Family and friends present with me, laughing, creating and playing, eating and taking long walks. There is no better gift than that. One Facebook friend posted with a wink symbol: "The whole country is preparing special meals today and having parades in your honor." I chuckled. Had that been true, I couldn't have been happier or more grateful than for the simple, fun days we had.

We got to spend it here at the farm, Traylor and I with our two daughters, Caroline and Clara, and with Jon and Sherry Launt, our good friends who were once Charlotte neighbors for twenty-two years. It seems that small gatherings of family and friends bring special memories because each person brings unique gifts and talents.

Caroline raised the bar on fitness this year wanting half raw foods and daily exercise. She surprised me with a card that melted my heart. Clara brought her need to laugh and some jars of orange and green putty that made farting noises when squashed. She had the energy to keep playing with the dogs when everyone else was ready for a nap. Both daughters insisted on playing Taboo, the simple game that makes us laugh until we cry, a game they love because as partners, they always win.

Sherry brought gifts of food and wine, a table runner and coasters to use for holidays to come and shared her talent for sewing those gifts--handmade and useful items--which got my creative juices flowing. Jon brought his gift of words to express his wise attitude of humble gratitude.

And what is life without animals? There was Cappuccino, our cat of 16 years and our two rat terriers, Bandit and Rudy. Clara's rat terrier, Stella, lives here and the Launt's brought their large red-brown Australian Shepherd, Kiwi. Dogs that curl around us and keep us warm or bound around us on our long walks enrich us daily.

Traylor suggested that we not cook, but have our meal at the River House Country Inn and Restaurant where our special friends served the traditional turkey, dressing, and gravy, green vegetables, creamed onions, cranberry relish and pumpkin bread pudding. On the way, I sang, "Over the river and through the woods to Gayle Winston's house we go." Traylor's sister Ruth joined us for the meal, making the day just right. It was all such fun.

As Jon remembered those who could not be with us, I thought of my mother who is now well-cared for and happy at Morningside of Auburn and Traylor and Ruth's mom who recently moved to a nursing home. Each year, we make unique memories and then the next year brings something new and different.

What will next year bring? Who won't be here to make new memories? It could be any of us; it could be me. If this were to be my last Thanksgiving, then let it be said, I have been blessed and I am grateful.

From Washington, D.C.

2011-11-21T14:43:00.001-08:00

Returning fromWashington, D.C. this week I am overcome with thanksgiving for the men whodesigned our government and the women who influenced them-their mothers,sisters, wives, daughters, nurses, teachers. I am thankful to live in a countrywhere the pursuit of happiness is still available for those who are willing towork for it. Often, those ready to work the hardest are immigrants, legal ornot, who will do whatever job is available to make American dollars to supporttheir families and give them a newer better standard of living.

Walking through thecountry's capitol, you can't miss the excitement, the potential, the diversityof people and ideas. People of all nationalities, all races, all regions of theUS, all political parties, all kinds of mixed couples and mixed families, religiousgroups, protest groups walk side by side.

The monuments andmuseums help us remember and honor the great ideas that shaped our union over200+ years and the sacrifices that kept us free, as well as the mistakes andatrocities that must not be allowed to happen again. From the founding fathersto Martin Luther King, our leaders are honored in larger than life memorialsbecause they rose above the many to make a difference for all.

I don't think wewill give up on this legacy. This is a country where we still strive for thebest possible government. Even now, we are struggling to revamp it-to make itmore representative and more transparent. It is not the first time ourgovernment has lost its way and forgotten to listen to the people. Remember the60s and 70s when a counter-culture movement turned cities on their heels, amisguided war that we fought with our best young men.

But, because it isnot the first time, we know that this we can remedy. We the people have individual rights to talkabout what is wrong, to gather and stew about it, to assemble for a peacefulprotest and to vote every dysfunctional congressperson out of office.

This Thanksgiving, Iam grateful to know that I can express my opinion, strongly or gently, inwriting or verbally. I can use words and peaceful actions to make people thinkor make them angry without getting shot and shoved into an unmarked grave orput in a political prison without hope of escape. I am thankful that Americansare educated to know about these freedoms because when we forget, that is whenwe can lose it all.

At Thanksgiving, Godbless these United States of America.

A Name, A Loss, A Tradition

2011-11-11T12:37:00.001-08:00

This is the time ofyear Traylor must have had in mind when he named the Nuthouse Cottage. Squirrels and chipmunks are busy storing nuts. From my upstairs bedroom window, I watch them scurry from tree to tree, dive into the fallen leaves, andleap out with stuffed cheeks. They dart about and spring upinto the boughs of trees, down into rotting stumps, under overturned flowerpots and empty, undisturbed relics, all in a frantic effort to assemble a stash of winter food.

It was July, though,when Traylor got his idea. We were enjoying the annual Winefest on the New River by River House where Rob and Bet Mangum, the potters of Turkey Knob, had filled a vendor booth with some of their best new work. Rob was into sculpting large clusters of acorns, shiny with textured caps. We chose our favorite composition for the mantel in our new guesthouse, an appropriate work of art. And when Traylor placed it,he officially dubbed the house around it the Nuthouse Cottage.

We've added otherpieces the Mangums created over time including a "Betisse" (Bet's painted, glazed andframed tiles in a composition modeled after Matisse) hanging near the mantel on thewall , but sadly, nothing more of Bett's can be added. She died of lung cancer near Christmas of 2009. I miss her work, but I miss her presence, too. She was a petiteblonde with a pretty smile who played guitar and sang, who created beautifulpottery, a mother, a wife, a friend, a teacher.

Each November there was a tradition at Turkey Knob, a Christmas Open House and Sale, usually Thanksgiving weekend. Traylor and I looked forward to seeing what was new and liked to drive our guests over for a shopping excursion if not just an art gallery experience. Last year, at his Open House, Rob spoke of selling Turkey Knob. It was a sad time.

This year, acorns have fallenmore abundantly than ever around the Nuthouse Cottage. Legend has it that a good year for nuts is a good year for small mammals which are a critical part of the deer tick life-cycle. An abundance of acorns in the fall leads to a proliferation of deer ticks the following summer. I like to think of the acorns left behind, though, the ones with the potential of unfolding into a seedling with the potential to become an oak tree.

Again for 2011, Rob Mangum announced his traditional Christmas Open House and Sale at Turkey Knob, open the weekends of November 25-27th and again on Dec. 2-4. I hope you can go. It's an exciting event if you love beautifully crafted pottery and learning about how it was made.

Traylor and I will go with bells expecting goodthings, new things. Time heals and while this tradition celebrates the creative past at TurkeyKnob, it gives us hope of a productive, artistic future there, too, with clay acorns evolving, oh...maybe into the equivalent of clay oak trees.

See for yourself at www.turkeyknob.com

Apple Pressing

2011-11-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

Apple Pressing

Up in these North Carolina hills and out in the country, it's a tradition to grind apples to a pulp using an apple press to render the juice. Motorized machines are available, but this week a group of my friends used the hand cranked version. It had been purchased on a road trip at Cline's Antiques in Mount Pleasant for $125, an astonishing find! My good friend Sandy found it in a back barn-a prize in need of a few tweaks in order to function-but she knew from experience that the product would be a treat well worth the price and effort.

Our group of five (called the "Creekies" because we live near a confluence of creeks) had been harvesting throughout the month of October from a variety of trees, and we had baskets of apples, both red and yellow, firm and soft, tart and sweet. We baked apple pies, muffins and breads, canned applesauce and jelly, froze apple wedges and more, but in the end, there were apples leftover. Some go to horses and goats, but Sandy now has this press. She organized a pressing.

We gathered on a warm afternoon behind her house. Mary used a drill to tighten the screws on the crank plate and got the machine in good working order. Then she and I washed and quartered apples while Carolyn fed them into the grinder and Ruth turned the roller that crushed them into the basket below. Sandy cranked the press. We continued for a couple of hours, rotating jobs till the apples were gone. And, while it takes lots of apples to make a modest amount of juice, it is delicious, rich and round as an apple. It tastes just like what it is: the juice of fresh, never-sprayed apples not far from the tree. This year, we each got about a quart, but for next year...we've got a plan.

I took home the pulp (see above,) added water and cooked it down. So now what?...