For Sale

My recurring naked dream invariably finds me amid the rush of university life, heading to class on one of the old buses that ran from one college apartment complex to the next down Nicholson Drive, toward campus. Students fill the seats and then the aisle but I am already sitting on one of the side-facing benches behind the driver. With an audible breath I notice my bare feet resting on the ridges of the bus floor, my toe nails a blazing fire engine red. My full nakedness shocks and embarrasses me and, unable to meet the gaze of the crowd of students around me, I stare at the stack of textbooks that weigh heavily on my bare lap. The bus jostles benignly down Nicholson with abrupt starts and stops while I ponder my predicament. What am I to do? I have a geology final in minutes. I have no choice but to ride on to campus, take the exam and then rush home to dress.

Once familiar in the landscape of my dreams, I can't remember the last time I woke, still panicked, but clothed in a wave of relief and pajamas. Placing our house on the market initiated as similar a feeling of exposure as that bizarre dream. A home that physically contained so much of our family's joy and proved so comfortable and appropriate for me now resides in a catalog of MLS listings while we wait with bated breath for another family to pronounce it a desirable back drop for their own inner-workings.

I do nostalgia. Read my blog. Ask my siblings, my children, Craig. As we move swiftly to complete the finishing touches on a project that lingered and evolved for over fourteen years, the entire process unfolds before me in vivid snapshots. Craig, with his characteristic enthusiasm but without the grey hair, stands knee deep in plaster and lathe from the ceiling and walls. Sledgehammer still in hand, he removes a mask to reveal a dirty, chalky face. "We can't change our minds now," he grins wide enough for his eyes to crinkle at the corners.

A few months later we painted the living room a paint color that has since ceased to find its way on those cards of paint samples. We bring the formula for Pronghorn with us now when we buy paint for the house. Pronghorn is to us what Whale Ivory was to my parents back in the eighties. Seven or eight months pregnant, I slowly moved around the room with the paint and a roller while Craig edged the walls from on top of a ladder. The rosin paper that covered the newly finished floor beneath our feet boasted a carpet of artwork as Miren drew picture after picture with handfuls of crayons when we worked. I momentarily feared that Miren would continue to express herself artistically on the newly painted walls or on the bare floors but she didn't.

The studio came as a study Craig wanted to do in the use of a grid based on the size of building materials that would minimize cost and material waste. We stood from across each other at the inception of implementation and smiled at the relative ease the two-man auger between us provided in digging the first of eight footings. And then we tried to lift the auger out of the hole. We managed but only after adopting more cantankerous dispositions. Our energy outlasted the daylight and often our children in those days. Lise appears, her round toddler self, in a sundress and white leather sandals, sprawled asleep on the plywood sub floor as Craig and I frame the walls around her. She doesn't even flinch with the pounding of nails.

Mom and Dad often supplied manpower and babysitting as one project led to another. I think Craig preferred my Dad's help even over mine because of his willingness to do Craig's bidding without question and, after a few projects of his own through his life, his ability to anticipate the next step. I see them both intertwined in the framing of the twelve on twelve pitch of the studio roof. Mom pushed the girls on swings in the yard while Miren sang and Mom met my gaze from time to time as she surveyed the steep fall of the yard from the studio to the house. Craig hopped down for more nails and whispered his concern.

"Your dad makes me nervous up there," he confessed, nodding toward the steep pitch. I agreed and continued cleaning the construction debris.

Dad climbed from the roof. "Craig makes me nervous up there," he confided as we looked for the level. I agreed.

After lugging sixteen foot, treated two by twelves up the driveway to where Craig formed the stretch of deck from the studio to the house, I stood exhausted, hands on my hips to catch my breath. Craig wiped the sweat from his face with the back of a rough, yellow work glove, his shirt front soaked.

"Honey," he said from across the board. "I think this is the last of our house projects." It seemed that we'd taken all of the available space at 41 McDade Street. We didn't. The house expanded up and out with our family's own expansion a couple of years later.

Rem follows Craig with his own tools, hammering the floor or the wall near where Craig works. He hides the tape measure and runs from the air compressor and nail gun. He climbs the ladder and calls us all to witness his bravery. One of us asks him where he's going and he shouts "Massachusetts" in his over-articulate, gravelly manner.

Winding Rivers

I sat in the quiet, super clean waiting area of a popular downtown tire center intrigued by the continuous stream of business that the holiday week-end did not deter. Only the matriarch of the establishment was missing from the familiar pleasant faces administering the great service synonymous with the business. After quickly finishing a collection of Lydia Davis short stories I started reading a few days before, I sat enjoyably distracted by the customers and workers while my van towered above me in the bay beyond the storefront, useless. The pungent smell of new rubber emanated from the neat rows of display tires that filled most of the room where I sat.

We used to tube down the Tickfaw sometime during mid-summer, when the days stretched endlessly into the thick heat of a Louisiana July. Tubing was not the fast-paced, out of control run down mountain streams that we learned to love in the Smoky Mountains. We did not hike up long trails for quick, cold rides through rapids on rented tubes with wooden bottoms that protected soft bottoms from ragged rocks and boulders. I grew up with a more southern bent to tubing that consisted of languid drifting down quiet flows of murky waters.

While Mom and Dad busied themselves tying ice chests filled with soft drinks, snacks and a picnic lunch into large black inner tubes, we kids waded our old tennis shoe-clad feet into the cool waters of the river. We splashed water refreshingly onto our bodies, our swimsuits already damp with sweat under our old shorts. Tall pine trees along the edges of the banks rounded the curves as the river wound its way out of sight. My brothers took off with their tubes amid a torrent of splashing, pushing each other off and paddling with their hands. As they disappeared my mother shouted for them to stay close and to watch for sunning snakes falling out of the trees into the water.

My sisters and I plopped into our tubes, our bums submerged and our limbs splayed over the warm rubber that required, as the day grew hotter, an occasional dousing to keep the smooth black surface cool. Our faces turned upward to the tops of pines and oaks, where the sun hadn't yet reached and submitted to the slow moving water that would carry us downstream. My parents, and in the early days, the youngest of us, took up the rear in a wide makeshift raft of tubes tied together with twine indulgently transporting the load of supplies my family of eight needed for a day on the river.

Although I am floating somewhere between the swift rush of Deep Creek and the slow crawl of the Tickfaw with no idea of the curves and drops ahead, I do now know where the trip will end. A part of me, already eager to be in the Boston area, wants to paddle ahead, my hands churning up the water around me and propelling me to the destination. At other times, I want to lean back against the rubber tube, studying the scenery that I know I won't be back to enjoy (for a long time, anyway).

I try to adhere to a deliberate, observant approach to activities that may be our last in Asheville, not unlike the way I tried to manipulate time when Rem was born.

"Look," I told Craig over the tiny head of black hair of our swaddled infant, "we know he'll talk and walk and won't go to school in diapers. Let's just be in every moment without looking ahead, without expectation and maybe it won't go by so quickly."

Miren and Lise by that time had already shed the last remnants of babyhood, alluding more to the grown up versions of themselves that they would be. Of course all of the strategizing proved fruitless as Rem is speeding through life at the same rapid rate as his sisters.

The five of us spent our last Thanksgiving in Asheville with calculated purpose as we tried to relive the best of Thanksgiving pasts into this last one. (Four of us, anyway. Rem was disappointed that the turkey had no head and bore no resemblance to the turkeys in Mrs. Rogers' yard. He was the only one on our walk not to pause for mental snapshots of the leaf-strewn park, the empty swimming pool, the quiet neighborhood.)

My attempt to preserve the end of the Asheville chapter in the Chenevert book of life has proven faulty. Often, when things have slowed down enough for me to ponder the gravity of the moment, the moment isn't so grave. I slipped out of the house during the holiday week-end while Craig worked madly to finish our house to purchase much needed tires for the van.

"This is probably the last time I will be here," I told myself, soaking in the surroundings. My inner voice exhibited great dramatic flair as I took in the framed pictures of old race cars and recognition from various local charities.

"Well, it better be," the more practical me answered, thinking of the cost of tires and knowing that a return trip could only mean a tire-blow out or accident. I could hear the hum of power tools through the glass and looked up at my van. It needed washing.

"I hope I have luck finding a place like this in Boston. But who am I kidding? That's all on Craig." I almost laughed at myself but the whole conversation began to make me uncomfortable and self conscious so I started to pay attention to the happenings in the store.

The patriarch of the business ushered an older woman into the store. She wore white Reeboks and grey sweat pants and her loud, demanding voice, rang through the open room. Her quick speech and repetitive comments released traces of anger that sent the volume of her voice louder before returning to the more controlled banter. Apparently, she had spoken with three employees on the phone and two of them smiled in recognition once she began talking. She really had no intention of using them for anything other than bringing their fair quote to the crooked dealership that was handling the repairs on her car. The dealership was taking advantage of her and robbing her blind.

"Let's see if we can help," the business owner answered, his tall frame bent towards the woman with his head cocked slightly to her face. He stood calm and attentive, patient as she sped through unconnected pieces of her story. His stylish glasses rested near the tip of his nose. I imagined that he stood this way often, listening to his constituents as they made requests for city assistance or criticized city actions while getting their cars serviced. He remained, as expected, level headed and gentle and responded to the woman with respect. He could have been a priest. If he had been I probably would have gone to confession more.

The woman rattled on about the cost of repairs that the dealership quoted that included two new wheels and tires and an alignment that by itself cost over one thousand dollars. She didn't even know what that was and if it was necessary. The gentleman took the quote from her hands and quietly began explaining each item and the associated cost. It appeared that while the estimate was a little high, as dealerships often are, the quote seemed pretty reasonable. The woman continued to fume and the gentleman excused himself to go and look at her car.

The woman stood helplessly and then began to complain to the employees about being taken advantage of.

"I'm not even paying for it. My insurance is but fifteen hundred dollars is a large sum of money. They are just trying to get everything out of me that they can." She paced around the store. "I was in an accident," she explained loudly to no one in particular. "My insurance company will pay for the repairs."

I noticed that her silvery white hair sat in pressed tufts against the back of her head, as though a chair or a pillow left a permanent stamp of loneliness on her. She turned as the gentleman returned and I saw that the hair around her face fell neatly around the heavy make-up and wrinkles. While she listened to the extent of damages on the car I counted the safety pins that dangled from the key chain in her hand.

"I was in an accident," she began to explain again. "I almost hit a boy on a bike. He was riding on one of those things on the road and there he was. I swerved and ran up on the curb and into the thing and I could have hit that boy. "

I wondered what all of the things were that she mentioned.

Suddenly I understood the woman's fury. She was angry at herself. Angry for almost hitting a boy on a bike; angry for damaging her car; angry for understanding nothing about the repairs; angry for having to deal with everything alone.

I left the woman without resolution but clearly in capable hands and headed back home. Pisgah and the rat rose regally beyond the Patton Avenue Bridge, erasing the unattractive sprawl of strip malls and parking lots between the view and me. Rem hasn't made the steep, rocky climb to the top of Pisgah yet. I want to look ahead but the mountains get in the way.

Happy Halloween!

Recollections

Craig decided, some years ago, that we would take up tennis. I am reminded of this because of an obnoxious blue that emanates from the warm, transitional colors of autumn in the park across the street. The tennis courts, as a result of the city's recent resurfacing project, traded its worn, innocuous green for magic marker blue. A child's rendering of a swimming pool comes to mind each time I walk down the driveway, glance out of the living room windows or attempt to bask in the seasonal colors on the front porch. The day-glo view is blinding and I end up watching the casual tennis that gets played on these courts, reducing the matches to comical displays much like Boise State football games.

All of Craig's hobbies start out the same way. He decides to take something on and then inundates himself with knowledge, gear and persistence until he becomes the model fly-fisherman, backpacker, carpenter. My track record with competitive sports was no secret. The time spent debating which team would be stuck with me at family gatherings did not cease when Craig came around. He even participated (more than once) in the gentle ejections that siblings and in-laws alike subjected me to. Craig played racket ball once a week for a couple of years with friends and long ago dabbled at tennis but he insisted that we would learn together.

Santa brought tennis rackets and multiple containers of tennis balls that year and Craig brought home videos from the library for us to watch and mimic. The girls, at the top and the bottom rungs of toddler hood at the time, excitedly wheeled around on primary-colored bikes and riding toys on the empty side of the gated courts while Craig and I, in the dead of winter, took up tennis. My abilities did not advance with Craig's. They did not advance at all. The girls began hanging out behind me to collect all of the missed balls.

The session that killed our tennis phase also confirmed the limits of Craig's patience. He stood in position to serve as he tried to go through the motions of actual tennis. My only objective was to hit the ball over the net (with the racket). Sometimes, when the ball came my way at an unexpected angle or my racket sent the ball up rather than out, I covered my head with my hands, afraid I might get struck. This may seem irrational and un-tennis like. It drove Craig insane (temporarily). Craig served the ball and I swung the racket, incorrectly. Even I could tell. I suspected that the ball flew straight up and waited, head covered, for a few seconds for the ball to crash down on me. Nothing. I looked up. No ball. I looked over at Craig.

"Did you see where it went?" I asked, still expecting the ball to drop at any second, anywhere. Craig stared at me, frustration filling out his narrow face.

"Did you?" I asked again. Maybe we'd have to scour the treetops to find the landing spot.

"Look at your racket!" Craig ordered, unamused.

The ball sat wedged between the racket face and the handle of the racket in my hand. The discovery was too much for me and I fell onto the court in helpless laughter. Tears found their way to the corner of my eyes and reminded me of the chill temperatures that even a mild day in mid-winter can bring. Craig didn't laugh. Maybe he did, a little, later, after a glass of wine, but I found the debauchery a wonderful summary of my foray into competitive sports.

No one else thought the story very funny (so don't feel bad if you don't find this at all humorous). So I stopped telling the story. Only my sister, Kami, recognized the same hilarity of the moment as I did, laughing with zeal when I recounted the events over the phone for the first time. Every now and then, deep into the night and a bottle of wine on a summer evening at our parents' home, Kami will beg me to tell her the tennis tale or the big ass lamp anecdote and together we laugh with a shared sense of humor that appears to be ours exclusively. She will recall a mishap with a boyfriend or her part in Jonathan Livingston Seagull and we will fall deeper into our laughter sending anyone that tried to linger through our bout of goofiness away. The tears and loss of speech usually climax with the shared memory of inappropriate behavior through a long ago holiday mass.

We are two sisters quite unlike each other. She, full of beauty and adventure, free-spirited and unreserved, continuously expressing herself and her art, unmindful of the outcome. I am more domestic, reserved. We do, though, share a love of many things. We connect through books and writing. And laughter.

Autumn Flights

Autumn is dipping its toes in the water, not quite ready for a full plunge but satisfyingly wet in Asheville. The sourwoods’ burgeoning reds and the creeping yellow emerging on the tulips poplars dot the mountainsides and neighborhoods with color. Our park, too, blushes among the green. I love October and its characteristic blue skies that beckon to be faced full on and I find myself on my back along a bench, against the leaf-littered grass, on soccer turf, my face yielding completely to sky and sun. The intermittent clouds seem to sit against a glass floor, pressed flat into the same plane below and typically cumulus above. They gather in small groups, if at all, and my teenager find this curious, “as though,” she remarks, “they’ve all been invited to the same party.” (My teenager, while accommodatingly miserable and angst ridden on facebook is surprisingly charming and enjoyable at home.)

Even the night skies seem especially clear and star-laden despite the electricity-infused glow from the earth. As the kids prepared to camp together at my brother’s home, I found myself gazing toward the heavens from the Atlanta backyard and following the busy traffic that moved among the stars. I grew envious of the travelers shooting across the wide, sparkling sky over the world below with its vast expanse of dark and over bustling pockets of artificial glimmer. The girls settled into sleeping bags, searching for another bite of favorite family camping trips that age like wine over time into rich, full-bodied memories of togetherness and the outdoors, unmarred by recollections of unceasing rain and leaking tents or bug-obstructed views. Although the day had been warm enough for the kids to swim in the creek where we picnicked for Miren’s birthday, the night quickly turned cold and I left Lise, Lauren and Miren for the warmer house.

The temperatures plunge even deeper in Asheville and the night’s chill lingers in the rooms and settles on the leather couch where Rem and I snuggle under a fleece throw while I sip through a rather large mug of coffee and he, still smelling like sleep, finishes waking. Unlike summer’s bright, glaring illumination of dog hair and dust bunnies, the autumn sunlight casts an amber glow through the house that is diffused and inviting. Inviting also to our winged friends.

Our ambient lighting is killing birds. Doves, orioles, robins. Suddenly, the birds want our dining room door to serve as a portal to the opposite side of the house rather than fuss above or around the back of our home. Alas, the door serves as a portal of death as birds slam into the glass leaving a round smudge like a giant finger print before falling. Broken-necked birds lie on the deck below, the pose unnatural but otherwise the bodies strangely serene and intact. I jump at the quick, staccato thump of the late-morning death flights but Rem rushes excitedly to the door. “No dead birds this time,” he announces, somewhat disappointed, as he returns to play. Not all attempts result in death but enough do to make the three-year old’s shrill description of the lifeless creatures at the back door send a chill up my spine.

Putting Out Fires

A long standing fixture in Craig’s office accoutrements is an oversized poster of Frank Lloyd Wright standing imperially amid the construction of the Guggenheim. Although near the end of his long life and his hair wispy and white underneath his porkpie hat his figure remains imposing. The photograph, in black and white, lends to the striking representation of architectural genius. I never liked this poster and its prominence in Craig’s workspace. My dislike has nothing to do with the genius. A print of one of Wright’s renderings of Fallingwater has lived harmoniously in my home for years. And I match Craig’s enthusiasm on our explorations of Wright’s Usonian houses. I did my duty to Wright. I read the Natural House. I watched the PBS documentary and poured over a number of biographies and architectural criticisms spanning his long career.
Am I allowed to draw a line?

Perhaps my dislike grew out of the transient nature of the poster. One day Frank Lloyd Wright glared from Craig’s drafting table. Another day he loomed above Craig, sunlight streaming around the edges like an illustration of a saint from a children’s book. Craig loved working under the scrutiny of Wright. He drove him, urged him to reflect on his own work and blocked the sun at key times in the office.

Wright resembles a disapproving uncle, smug as he is with the hat and cane obviously aware of his own genius and the certainty that no one will quite live up to the bar that he raised. I can hear his voice, the flippant remarks he made over the years to journalists, the condescension to everyone in his stare, the chagrinned smile. Could there be any one more severe than Wright’s intimidating presence in the office?

Perhaps not but his match now has a prominent position in the studio. James Montgomery Flagg’s forest ranger (think of his iconic Uncle Sam but with a full-length body and forest service uniform) points admonishingly at the blazing forest behind him but gazes intently out (at me). The poster’s message only underscores the ranger’s expression: Your Forests - YOUR FAULT – Your Loss! Added to the burden of being without genius of my own is the weight of human carelessness in regard to our natural resources and my uselessness in all of it.

Anyone who knows Craig also knows that he does nothing casually. He does not dabble. He dives in wholly and unequivocally. And his offspring, “Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.” (Pied Piper of Hamelin, Robert Browning)

Currently, under the tutelage of this piper-like parent, my children fanatically seek to prevent forest fires and work fervently to spread the message of fire safety to anyone who will listen. Of course, like their father, they must also look the part. Smokey the Bear tattoos gaze from offspring forearms and full-length miniatures peek, at times, from navel regions. Little Smokey the Bears dangle from key chains on school bags and stickers decorate notebooks warning of every individual’s culpability in forest fires. Even Rem peddles through parks with a cautionary bumper sticker on the back of his bike reminding other tikes that Smokey is counting on them.

Rangers in far-reaching offices around the region unknowingly send my family into a Mardi Gras- like frenzy when they hand Craig a few dated trinkets or a handful of bookmarks and stickers. Craig doles out loot to the new forest service spokespeople and spins tales told to him about the ins and outs of protecting and managing land. Unnoticed, I swipe a tiny Smokey flashlight/keychain and head upstairs.

A Week-end Away

Craig and I took the kids camping over the holiday week-end after a long hiatus. Despite our secret wishes that bad weather or some other obstacle would prove insurmountable and force a cancellation, nothing stood in our way.  Nothing, that is, other than our own reluctance to drag the camping boxes up from our basement, plan and shop for a week-end in the woods and load the van.  Eager children willing to help and accommodating in every way dissipated our dread along with surprisingly organized camping gear and magnificent weather. We drove to an old favorite camping spot on the Tennessee side of the national park and the family quickly acclimated to life in the woods.

We allowed the three-year old to set our pace for the week-end  and after some exploration around the campground we found ourselves drawn to Cosby Creek and joined the sun already at play with the water and boulders.  Lise moved quickly up the creek, overturning rocks in a hunt for salamanders while Miren followed with the camera, rock-hopping and searching for photo ops. Rem, stick in hand, soon clamored to the top of a boulder and loudly challenged each of us to a duel as the water swirled below him. Craig tried to oblige them all as he wielded a stick towards Rem, assisted Miren in composing photographs and exclaimed over Lise's successes. I found a comfortable rock near Rem and, moving a sycamore leaf so that I might sit, searched for the tree that the leaf  had once belonged to.

Among the poplars and maples I discovered the sycamore tree, its base thick as it rose from the boulders at the creek's edge.  A blanket of moss united the boulders and trunk where it bent toward the water in accommodation of a stump or a trunk long missing.  Beyond the void, the trunk rose into two towers until, reaching above the canopy of rhododendron and dying hemlocks, it stretched again as one in a mass of intertwined branches. Curled sheets of bark, an even shade of brown, lay discarded on the forest floor and in the rock crevices in the creek below.  Substantial leaves, still green, sat sprinkled among the dried leaves, spent acorns and bare sticks of seasons past.  Raised veins ran across the back of the leaves, solid skeletons against  seemingly fragile fabric.  I played with the leaf in my hand, traced the veins with my finger, and flipped it over against my palm to enjoy the satisfying ornamental and symmetrical characteristics.

In the afternoons the campground grows quiet.  Only the occasional rustle of leaves where a squirrel or a bird searches the ground and the faint, constant drone of insects penetrate the stillness that settles in the shady dense woods of loop B.  Earlier, in the morning, the place buzzed with activity.  Rem and I walked the road soon after waking and watched as people loaded cars and set off to continue journeys while others revived fires and settled around them with mugs and plates piled with eggs and bacon.  We followed a group searching for the Low Gap trail head, ready for a day's hike, their full water bottles bulging from side pockets of packs.  Someone snored loudly from an orange tent.

Rem shouted greetings to those who wandered past our campsite, his face stained from the hot chocolate he drank while waiting for his breakfast.  His feet were propped on a flat rock close to his little blue folding chair.  Craig returned from filling water bottles to comment on the snoring from the orange tent and we began preparing breakfast on the plastic red and white checkered tablecloth.  The occasional bark from a dog (not Tam) or the stuttered start of an old car periodically drowned out the morning bustle.  Lise reluctantly emerged from the tent an hour before her more reluctant sister but after a hot breakfast and some movement to counter the cool morning chill we headed out.

The campground activity dispersed along trails and creek beds, even into the nearby towns and a comfortable quiet settled onto the empty tents and smoky fire rings.  We returned from exploring an old cemetery and playing in the creek for a leisure lunch. Before long, Craig took the girls off on another hike while I read read Hemingway to a sleepy toddler until he fell asleep.  The tent zipper noisily pierced the air as I left Rem snug in a sleeping bag to return to a chair under the maples and oaks. I continued with Hemingway under a magnificent blue sky that drew my gaze often from the stories of Nick Adams, Africa and war. The filtered sun cast shadows over the book and marked the passing of time along with the turning of pages.

Slowly, the campground stepped out of its hushed state as campers returned from their wanderings to light fires and start dinners. Craig appeared with Miren and Lise, all of them soaking wet from an excursion in the creek.  I closed the book as their rush of stories filled the spaces of our site and the girls, famished, found snacks and expectantly fantasized about dinner.

Summer Bounty

The stalls that I frequent at the farmer's market near my home burst with color and abundance typical at this time of year. Bushels of ripe peaches, not quite ready to make way for apples, line the paths of the market floor. The intoxicating scent boasts a mix of sweet fruits, pungent onions and the distinct garden smell of vegetables newly released from plants. Yesterday, I found a pretty pile of bright green okra that looked both supple and tender.  While I gathered enough for a favorite summer dinner of smothered okra, Rem quietly bagged enough peaches for a dozen pies.  With some encouragement, he relinquished much of his harvest and helped pick out tomatoes to accompany the okra. 

"Soon," I explained to Rem, "all of the open-air stalls will be filled with pumpkins and apples."  Rem took my hand and peered to where I motioned.  The mountains, still thick with green, rose above the market toward the bright blue sky.

"And I will be a spooky ghost!" Already excited about Halloween, Rem teeters between wanting to be a ghost and a beautiful butterfly with wings.  Everyone in our household encourages him to embrace the ghost. We like our Halloweens scary.

A battle also wages in my head with this place that for now marks difficulty and uncertainty. I wake up done with it, wishing to make a fresh start somewhere else and then, on long morning walks with Rem and Tam, as the smoky fog gives way to clear blue skies and the day's initial chill lingers I am once again struck by the beauty of this place. The neighborhood rises and falls beneath canopies of hardwoods that will soon transform into brilliant yellow and red umbrellas before giving way, bare-branched to glimpses of the mountains beyond.  Beyond the sidewalks, the last colors of summer, highlighted by morning glories and black-eyed susans rise above the grassy yards and the spent blossoms that bowed to August's heat. 

Rem shouts from his cushy stroller seat an enthusiastic good morning to everyone we meet on our walks. His greetings are returned with equal enthusiasm from neighbors, other dog-walkers, even construction workers (many homes that rested on generous lots now sit squeezed between new construction that seems to rise instantly on the over-divided green spaces).  Dogs bark from houses and back yards and Rem fusses Tam for not wishing her friends a good-morning in return.

My children received the most amazing musical gifts this week and I am struck yet again. The beauty of the people within my small circle surpasses the exquisite landscapes that stretch beyond; a bounty as prolific and colorful as the market stalls. 

Reality Takes a Foothold

Yesterday I dragged out an old computer I had saved with the intention of retrieving the files that marked that particular era of our lives but never got around to actually performing the seemingly simple task. Eager to rid the house of the excess clutter that builds quietly and then looms glaringly from every room, I heaved the heavy, dated monitor onto the dining room table and began plugging the various cords and wires into the components of the computer. Sitting, untouched, for years had little effect as, before long, the family huddled around the unwieldy time capsule and uncovered long lost family moments with the click of the mouse. The girls marveled at carefully crafted birthday invitations and storybooks that they composed for cousins. We laughed at all of the pictures where the two of them appeared in various costumes, enacting the tales.


I spent too much time pouring over the rather large volume of abandoned writings marked with both naiveté and promise and drove the family away as I scrolled through page after page of forgotten ideas. Craig returned later and made valiant attempts to rescue our files without success. The computer could not read a flash drive. Although it could read a CD, it did not have the capability to burn files to a CD. I left Craig trying to connect a portable hard drive to the computer and started dinner in the next room. Overcome by frustration, Craig started perusing his old drawing files. He found his drawings from the very first renovations to our home, the studio design sited in a different location than where it stands and a benched trellis that we never built.

Lise, intrigued by her father’s exclamations as he uncovered each design, joined him and listened as Craig walked her through framing plans and finish schedules. They soon happened upon the design for a doll house that Santa gave the girls many years ago. Lise, at ten, knew about the suspicious nature of Santa Claus. Talk at school and every made for TV Christmas movie plants doubt into the minds of otherwise eager believers in the wonderful idea and generosity of Santa Claus. Lise knew but this was the first time she heard the words spoken unequivocally with clear supporting evidence on the monitor in front of her.

The last vestiges of magical worlds intersecting her own fell in the quiet tears Lise shed as her mind converted all of her memories into the point of view of this spoken truth. I remember Miren’s similar experience with the same pain I felt with Lise. We were in the car and she asked if I was the tooth fairy. Caught off-guard, I looked at her through the rearview mirror and mumbled something about helping the tooth fairy. She didn’t buy it and so I explained my role as tooth taker. I glanced at her again and watched the tears fall as she connected the tooth fairy to the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. A sob escaped as she realized amid the ruins of crumbled fantasy worlds that the notes she often sent to Peter Pan in balloons to Neverland merely drifted through the sky, directionless.

Craig and I faced another of those moments recently. Even as adults, hearing the words that confirm growing suspicions send us staggering for a moment as we readjust our reality. Craig responds as a stalwart sailor in stormy seas while I struggle to get my sea legs. I am reminded of a book once lent to me about a journey at sea, from Europe to South America. The author describes the journey exquisitely and then excruciatingly as the unrelenting weather elongates the trip and his yearning for the sight of land grows into desperation that is passed onto the reader. I am that passenger. (by the way, if you were the one to lend me this book, know of the title or author please let me know – I’m driving myself crazy trying to remember)

The computer still sits on the table, both accessible and not. Lise continues to play through Christmas memories but with some humor. “Oh I get why you’re bummed when we’re not excited,” she said throwing her arms around me as we passed in the kitchen. “And a play station? Really? That’s so not like you,” she referenced a gift from some years ago. Rem interrupts by insisting that I brush his teeth. He’s been hearing the tooth fairy at night, well the buzzing of her wings, and he knows that she won’t take rotten teeth when the time comes (he doesn’t realize he has years to go before he starts losing his teeth). I’m happy that Rem keeps us connected to the possibilities of other worlds.

Summer Fun in the Smokies

Walking in Jean Lafitte's Footsteps

The BP oil spill has slid into all of the spaces once held exclusively by Katrina here in Louisiana. Area newspapers fill pages with stories of human, economic and ecologic despair in a region weary yet passionate about the impact that the continuous gushing of oil on the ocean floor has and will have on Louisiana. Local television fills in the gaps left by national coverage, illustrating how intertwined the land and water, the people and wildlife, culture, industry and tradition here are, like the water ways that relinquish Louisiana to the Gulf.

About an hour from Mom and Dad’s, through the city, across the river and beyond the scattering of Westbank towns lies an area of swamp and marshlands that form the Barataria Preserve, one of six designated areas that comprise the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve. The preserve eases into Barataria Bay, familiar now to anyone keeping up with BP oil spill coverage, as a line of barges sit vigil across the narrow channel that connects the bay to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, hoping to protect the bay, vital to the shrimping industry from the sinewy encroachment of oil.

The beauty of the preserve, teeming with wildlife quickly diverted our attention away from the heat as Mom, Melanie and I took the kids on a walk through the swamp and marsh. Despite the ranger’s skepticism that we would see any wildlife at all, the slow approach of thunderstorms must have lured some of the creatures away from cool mud baths and sheltering vegetation. Noisy from bugs and thick with foliage it is easy to see why the Pirate Jean Lafitte and his band of pirates were able to remain hidden in the area. Two steps off of the path and the children would be instantly lost to us. Luckily (?) the steady presence of large spiders adorning webs along both sides of the boardwalk kept the children from wandering off.

Besides the aforementioned arachnid excess, the children soon began to spy an assortment of wetland inhabitants. Kate spotted colorful frogs that she and Rem, hoping for closer looks, would chase back to more protective spaces. Koby and Lise learned to focus on small areas where the overabundance of greens would suddenly reveal the coiled lengths of snakes. We followed their voices as they took turns calling us to them and pointing out the various reptiles and amphibians that they found. Lauren lagged with Mel to photograph the wide variety of spiders but caught up with the others at the first sighting of alligators. I moved them along when two gators began swimming straight at them.

“They can’t get up here, can they?” Miren asked pointing to the narrow boardwalk under her feet that didn’t even have a lip at its edge.

“This isn’t the zoo,” I answered. “Of course they could.” All of the children quickened their pace away from the ancient looking creatures.

A family of Common Moorhens noisily enjoyed the afternoon and from a footbridge we marveled at their bright red beaks and slick black feathers as they pecked in an open area of marsh grass. Layers upon layers of plant life filled the spaces before us. Huge swathes of Spanish moss draped from trees above us and palmettos fanned suggestively below. Cypress knees and duckweed dotted the wetter spaces along with cattails. Lightning flashes began to accompany the rhythmic rolling thunder as storms loomed and we raced them back to the car.

Leaving feels akin to the last visits we had with the old people of my family. I’d tell the kids to listen to the stories, take in the feel and smell of their great-grandparents and be sure to say “I love you” because it may be the last visit they had. “Remember everything you saw today,” I tell them as they fall asleep in the car, their attentions already turned to the promised ice-cream in the city.

Summer Welcomes the Cheneverts

Summer becomes official only after Miren and Lise have placed their favorite flip flops featuring bright colored toes over the threshold at Hidden Oaks and school pushed that moment further into June then ever before.  Last Friday, however, did finally mark the end of school and our house subsequently filled with a school year's worth of accumulation: prized papers, weathered art supplies and dingy gym clothes. Miren shed a few tears, reluctant to let go of a fantastic year and Lise spent a few hours in a manic phase of bad TV but their attention quickly turned to the necessary preparations to pack for our trip to Louisiana.

A blanket of lush greens, still bright and lively, slowly relinquished their hold as the van climbed up and out of the lap of our mountains and in and out of batches of fog, deeper and deeper into hot temperatures, humidity and the flat lands that lead to the Gulf of Mexico.  We made the trip under an expanse of bright blue sky with enough cumulus clouds to distract the three year old as he searched for images of dragons and giant dogs but posing no threat of rain in any of the states that we traversed.  Adding a cousin to our passenger list in Atlanta helped to pass the time along the longest stretch of our route that offered little to entertain beyond pine trees and the undulating grasses of the interstate median.

Welcomed by the differentiated insect calls that pierce the air thick with moisture and heat in waves, we stepped out of the van to an intense dampness that gathered on the backs of our necks and sprung in droplets on our upper lips. The girls, greeted by open-armed grandparents stepped into the house where the thermostat is set to erase the most recent memories of staggering heat and sighed loud enough for me to hear as I entered the house behind them.  Summer had begun.  Rem spun in and out of arms and rooms, deliriously happy to be released from the car seat and with blind faith jumped onto his sisters' bandwagon that designates this place as Utopia.

I, too, settled into a state of bliss, a more quiet, relaxed bliss void of urgency and chores and any mom or work related duties as Mom and Dad jumped in immediately and Rem tested them with non-stop requests with no boundaries.

We spent our first day complaining of the heat, with unfounded surprise at the effects of the humidity percentages that match the temperatures.  The kids additionally tried to relive their favorite recollections of summers past in this first "real" day of the season. I took to my childhood bedroom with a stack of books that my parents have accumulated since Christmas and savored a few moments of my favorite recollections of summer days marked by chapters read.

A quick afternoon with nearby cousins and a couple of beignets eaten between retrieving my sister and a blinding sheet of rain that cut short our day in the city punctuated our initial fervor.  Settled now into our holiday routine, the next couple of weeks unfold before us with childlike expectations (appropriate for all of the children involved but the almost forty-year old?) I hope Mom and Dad have the stamina to fulfill the summer fantasies that consist mostly of laughter, time together and good food.

Birthdays

Rem woke yesterday morning with a sense of purpose and importance, arriving as he did, to the grown up world of three. He presented the rest of the family with an evening of much needed amusement as he exclaimed with joy and appreciation at each dollar item his sisters had chosen for him from the bins at Target. He entertained us by singing one of his Kindermusik favorites, “Bumping Up and Down in my Little Red Wagon” as he relaxed in said wagon sent from Slidell wearing a plush robe and doing his best Hugh Heffner impersonation as each of us took turns taking him from room to room in the house. The cake he fantasized over for weeks met his expectations and he proudly pointed to the worms he made that sat curled in the dirt cake bearing a remarkable resemblance to the dead worms in the driveway that he suggested we use as models for the marzipan.


Rem’s savory birthday moments played alongside my vivid memories of that sunny day in May three years or a moment ago. Passed, unaware from sister to sister and grandmother to grandfather, back to father and again to mother, that little thing, folding in on himself and with a head full of dark hair, sleepily passed the first hours of life in the unabashed glow of a mother’s high. Those early minutes, as full as a Pollack painting and as equally difficult to label, indelibly pressed themselves into the limitless memory of my motherhood.

The more birthdays my children celebrate the more apparent it becomes to me that while parties and presents may be special to the celebrant, birthdays truly belong to parents. Whether carefully planned or surprisingly spontaneous, the consequential moment of birth forever etches into each parent an expression of the best of them together.

We travel from those moments, parents do, quickly, whether we want to or not. We travel in an out of busy schedules, trying parenting moments and the frustrations of unchartered waters. We race through precious family snapshots as we sing at the piano, hover around board games, jump from rocks in the frigid pools of mountain streams, celebrate triumphant bike rides. The quiet embraces as limbs grow longer than can be contained feel as fleeting as when those unwieldy limbs were swaddled in a baby blanket. Mothers, though always amazed at the speed of life, the passing of time, record life meticulously. I remember being awed as women easily recalled the births of their children, an anecdote brought to mind in the presence of a new born. My grandmother, while holding my babies, spoke of the births of her children as though they had just happened. Even friends whose children were older than me, recalled the moments with unusually fresh details. I understand, now, how present those memories are in the fabric of ourselves, wrapped about us no matter how far from those days we venture.

I am at the other end of the birthday reverie in early January of every year. I never can recall the exact time I was born but I know it was in the morning and when the phone rings I smile, knowing that my parents waited until that time, my actual birth moment, to call me. I thank them for having me but only they can relive my introduction to the world. Although I was fourth, they reminisce with alacrity and, if I ask, Mom will tell me which bed jacket she wore, what antics Dad played out to the oblivious baby and who came to see me in the hospital.

Birthdays belong to parents. We can stage dramatic parties to try to reciprocate the unbridled joy our children give to us or as they grow and take control, we happily turn our house over to large gatherings of girls for the night. But as parents, we claim forever, the source of those celebrations.

Three, it's a Magic Number

Yes, I've borrowed a phrase from Blind Melon's version of the School House Rock song that sometimes falls into the play list of lullabies I sing to Rem and used to be a dance number with the girls.  Before Lise came along, Craig and I often eyed each other over the bobbing head of blond curls dancing between us to smile knowingly as we sang, "a man and a woman had a little baby, there were three in the family, and it's a magic number". Later, Craig would walk in the door at the end of a rainy day to find his three girls still in pajamas, dancing and shouting, "Three, six, nine.  Twelve, fifteen eighteen..." And three, again, achieved significance in our family when Rem came along.  Craig attributes the birth of our third child with the fall of our parental empire.

"We knew victory," he explains, "when we battled in man to man combat. But," he laments," now that we have to resort to a zone defense under attack we are consistently defeated."

I do know that our children have shown us that we possess an incredible capacity for love.  They may not come wrapped and bedecked in ribbons but they will be my favorite gifts on Sunday, gifts that keep on giving as they take their place in the world.  Already, I see their magic spreading beyond the boundaries of our home leaving trails of pixie dust in their wake.  Luckily, the children also keep me grounded.

Rem approaches three (that number again) with an abundance of precociousness and dramatic flare. Opinionated (to the extreme) and stubborn (also to the extreme), Rem lives a one-man show as he wrestles in a constant tug-of-war between babyhood and childhood. He doesn't quite fit into his over sized emotions resulting in bouts of hilarity and uncontrollable laughter as well as bouts of anger and inconsolable sobbing. The two preceding personalities of my intimate acquaintance warned me of Rem's impending actions to keep me from romanticizing my role and effectiveness as mother: parental pauses.

Miren, once she first strung more than two words together, never stopped talking.  She continues to hone this skill only now, when she pauses, she sings.  Her toddler days were filled with unceasing questions, comments and stories with an uncanny ability, amidst the unrelenting chatter, to absorb everything around her. Each interaction left her with an intense hunger for more.

Miren's constant conversation proved a nice diversion that helped pass the time on long rides without other adults.  We wandered from subject to subject as we drove along familiar roads to visit family while Lise slept as long as the car stayed in motion. One trip to Atlanta found us talking about the story of Moses. I continued past the story of the baby in the reeds and into the story of the exodus.  Miren stopped me in mid-sentence, demanding an explanation of slavery. Carefully, I supplied her with the basics that I thought appropriate for a three year-old: forcing people to do work without pay and without choice, telling people where they could live, what they could eat, etc.

"Wow," Miren sighed, soaking it all in.  I think I felt proud of myself and of her in that brief sigh until she announced that she was a slave.  After a long parental pause I responded.

"No," I emphasized deflated. "You are not a slave."

"You make me do things I don't want to do. You make me work. You tell me what I can eat."

"What you do has nothing to do with slavery and everything to do with being part of a family. Everyone in a family works to keep the family running.  You're lucky to be able to be a part of a family."

Miren didn't answer.  The car slowed in Atlanta traffic and I put in a CD for Lise.
"I'm a slave," Miren snapped just loud enough for me to hear before singing happily along to the music.

Lise, a realist from birth developed the art of dead pan delivery by age two. We sat in our Kindermusik circle and watched Anne demonstrate how to turn the socks we brought from home for the activity into ducks. Soon, little quacking ducks joined Anne's but Lise refused to slip her hand into her sock.

"It's not a duck," she said when I asked her to try to make a quacking motion with her hands. "I don't want a sock on my hand." I slipped my hand into the sock and quacked along with the others.

When the activity ended Lise looked at the group.  "Those weren't ducks," she admonished. "You just had socks on your hands."

I also belonged to a playgroup in those days where mothers gathered on park benches for some essential adult contact while toddlers swarmed around the playground equipment and babies bounced from lap to lap. Lise, her face flushed from running, leaned against me between two other mothers and drank from a water bottle.  One of the women bemoaned the laborious job of mothering, the constant work that she struggled to get through each day that ended only to begin all over again.  The other woman concurred, wishing that she could have two minutes to herself on any given day. Lise looked up at both of the women and licked the water droplets that dribbled on her lips. "How hard can it be?" she asked, handing me the water bottle.  "All you do is sit around reading books all day."  I avoided the eyes of the two women as another of my long parental pauses ensued and watched Lise run across the playground to join her friends.

Rem is not as direct.  He uses a backdoor approach to cast his critical eye on my parenting abilities. He bides his time carefully and then pounces. The occasional quiet evening at home, our own pleasant, tranquil domestic scene, evokes a contentedness that outlasts the brevity of the moment. Smug in this rare, relaxed moment of togetherness that actually matches the image of family life I keep in my head, I sit savoring the sweet picture the children make in the warm glow of the living room.

Rem pushes a dump truck amid a pile of wooden blocks on the living room floor to simulate a demolition site. He looks thoughtfully my way and I move towards him to participate in his play. He decides to disrupt the happy mood with yet another reference to his other, more colorful family. He invites me to visit him at his black house where he realizes he'd rather be. He misses his blue mom. He loves her so much that he might just have to go back to his black house to live.

I smile with inappropriate jealousy and thank him. We’ve already been subjected to a host of adventures that Rem shares with his other, more colorful family. Rem interrupted stories of soccer and school at the dinner table to share his own stories of camping with his blue mom, black dad and green brother. Rem failed to remember any of the various activities he and I participated in together and instead, spun tall tales of adventures and devotion to the apparently more deserving relatives.

Over spaghetti, Rem spoke with relish of an airplane trip that ended with his green brother saving the day (he loves the term, “saved the day”) and safely landing his family in the driveway. “My brother loves to fly,” he announced, beaming with pride for his green brother, Poddah.  Rem’s colorful family is constantly being thrown in our faces. They are more perfect than we can imagine and involved in everything that we have done only in better, more successful, more exciting ways.


“I guess my black house is too far away to go now,” Rem laments as I later lead him to bed in the house that he shares with us. He pauses in the doorway to his bedroom, disappointment filling his face.

“Mommy will read books,” I offer cheerily.

“My blue mom has the best books,” Rem answers, reconciled to a lesser bedtime routine due to the inadequate selection of books. I hoped it would end there but it was not to be so. My endearing son sighed heavily when I began to sing our ritual songs. It seems that Poddah sings all of the songs I know better than I can and has a repertoire that far surpasses mine. The evening ended with Rem wishing again that he was at his black house sleeping in his red bunk bed with Poddah.  My parental pause lingered while I listened to the heavy breathing of a sleeping child beside me.

"Pack your bags," I shamelessly told him (and shamefully now recall) after a long tale about the swimming  pool at his other house that has made swimming lessons at the pool in our park unnecessary this summer. I didn't wait for the end of the story about the special kid-sized diving board that Poddah used to teach him to dive but told him to pack his bags and I'd take him to his other house.

"No," he answered, wide-eyed and speculative.  "I like living here. I think I'll stay with this family."  Long parental smile.

A Pretty Busy Spring

May knocks on summer's door loudly but with hesitation.  The yard unabashedly revels in a bright new wardrobe, puffing pink, white and red plumage as conceitedly as the birds pausing on the fence amid frenzied courting rituals. The dogwoods and red buds, fully leafed out, offer canopies of shade that filter the impact of the hardworking sun's rays as it cajoles the well-rested earth back to life.

  

Soft, small bursts of delight drift from the park into the open windows of the house along with the occasional steady beat of a tennis match in the court across the street.  Unlike the busy activity of summer, the park's tempered buzz reflects the more scheduled days of spring.

And while conversation often turns  toward the desire-laden, suggestive talk of summer, my attention remains focused on the spring calendar.  My pen still hovers near the top of the to-do list.  Elementary school drama production (all 4 performances). Check. Final Claxton showcase. Check. Middle school chorus concert. Check. The piano recital will soon follow along with two end-of-the-season soccer tournaments. Rem will receive his Kindermusik certificate while Pomp and Circumstance plays in the background.  The fourth grade trip, soccer tryouts, fall commitments and registrations will complete the list and then on to the blissful, carefree days of summer.

The pictures from top to bottom: Tam relaxing at the office door; the backyard in bloom; Lise in her school production; Miren celebrating spring at the Maddix's bed and breakfast; Rem in the backyard; Rem smelling backyard flowers

My Small Town America

About halfway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans along the east bank of the Mississippi River in St. James Parish lies a string of towns that will forever resonate in my memory the ideal notion of small town America.  A mix of sugarcane fields, swampland and oil and chemical refineries that light up the rural landscape at night, this storied setting of my father's childhood surges in and out of my consciousness like the rippling wake that passing ships send lapping at the levee.  Generations of families with fun names like LeBlanc and Bourgeois, Duhe' and Zeringue, live among each other intertwined by history, marriage and Catholic roots.  Schexnayders, too, speckle the landscape in numbers that represent the large families that spread the name from sons to sons.  My grandfather dug his heels deep into his ancestral land throughout his long life, dying within ten miles of the tobacco shed where he was born in Grand Point.  Memory resides alive and accessible in this place namely because of the resistance of its people to leave and the sense of community they feel for each other. My father slipped through the region's influential grasp on its progeny without cutting loose the strings that tied him there allowing me to experience the bond, palpable as a roaring bonfire, between people and place, that even a young child could sense.  The adult child continues to bear witness with awe even if an excess of fantasy infuses her station as an outsider looking in.

My father grew up in the town of Gramercy, a scattering of narrow streets compressed between the river and Main Street, in the shadows of the Colonial Sugar Refinery.  The McKim, Meade and White powerhouse rose majestically near the river on the site of the old Golden Grove plantation with a garden of distinguished company housing spilling along the grounds along with a company pool that opened its cooling waters to the locals in summer.

The Gramercy of Dad's childhood remains vivid in his memory and during long visits in Asheville, mornings on the front porch of my home pass idly as we sip coffee and cover an array of topics from current events to the lastest in grandchildren entertainment.  Our slow, thoughtful conversation always turns toward Gramercy, a setting both familiar and foreign to me. Dad weaves stories in the same house where I crowded with cousins around the same clawfoot table where he sat with siblings and passed around the same mouth watering home grown vegetables but from a time and place I can't quite conjure. The narrow street didn't always have a name and began as a path where Dad took turns with his brothers bringing the family cow to the levee to graze for the day and then bringing her back home again for the night. Dad's descriptions of the house always include a cistern and sometimes an outhouse. He explains the process of making and maintaining the mattresses they crafted with Spanish moss for the bed that he shared with his brother in a crowded room. I can't help but envision my Dad and my uncles as their adult selves sleeping together in the small, middle bedroom, telling jokes.  (Dad and some of his brothers are pictured here.  A short visit  with them together and it will soon be evident that they believe the only people funnier than each other are themselves.)

 

The Gramercy of my childhood centered around my grandparents' house. The porch swing where I'd sit with my siblings resembled the porch swing that my grandfather made that sits on my deck. We'd wait for aunts, uncles and cousins to pour from cars for Sunday dinner.  Relatives arrived in droves, kissing and posing unanswerable questions before heading inside to greet the older folks.  The kitchen, warm from the busy stove and oven emitted an intoxicating scent of cypress and Memere's cooking that wafted to the porch each time the door opened.  Aunts and great aunts along with a few uncles kept my grandmother company as she prepared meals for dozens and their heavy Cajun French accents filled the room with a flowing conversation. The scene could have been any one of a thousand Sunday afternoons at that house where the numbers increased to twenty nine grandchildren and then to even more as they began to marry and start families.  I envied the close proximity my cousins had with each other, making the hour and a half long drive from our house a cross-country trek. My aunts ran into each other at the grocery and the beauty parlor.  My cousins attended school and played sports together and my uncles helped to build each other's houses. They all saw each other at church on Sundays. And they seemed to know everyone else that lived there.

As a child I walked up the street where all of the houses faced the river instead of the road holding my Dad's hand.  The promise of climbing to the top of the levee that loomed like a mountain beyond us compelled me to accompany him as he visited with all of the old relatives who happened to be home. Aunt Inez and Aunt Ida remain vague images that dance in my head upon mention.  Dad prefers to reminisce about earlier times and the people who lived on the street during his childhood like Uncle Ben, Ta Tante and the grandfather who lived in the house on the River Road and fussed loudly in French whenever he saw Dad.

I followed my grandfather, tall and broad, still carrying vestiges of the ruggedly handsome man of his youth, through the rich, black rows of river silt as his large, gnarled hands filled brown paper grocery bags with creole tomatoes and firm, robust eggplants while my grandmother stood watch over large pots of snap beans with new potatoes and fresh butterbeans with shrimp in the kitchen.  Reluctant in later years to relinquish the feel of his fingers in the dirt, my grandfather would lean his cane against the fence and tend to the rows that my uncles mostly worked on his hands and knees. He'd thrust a grocery bag at me and encourage me to fill it with whatever I wanted to take home with me when I'd take the long way home from LSU to visit him. The house sat hauntingly empty  after my grandmother's recent death and neither of us wanted to be inside.

Dad recalls the countless adventures of his paper route that included out of the way customers in places that no longer exist where women sat shirtless on small front porches to cool off on hot summer days. I trace the inception of his dislike for dogs in stories that took him past long stretches of fields where clusters of houses now stand. Dad marvels at the distance he covered each day with the responsibility and freedom the paper route gave him.  He moves on to his time at the picture show, odd jobs he did for Old Lady Caire at the drummer's hotel, work at the Winn Dixie and his one hundred straight nights of work one summer at the sugar refinery that helped put him through college.

My mind navigates the area from the south where I grew up, and  follows the Mississippi River from the mouth to its source.  The river relinquishes New Orleans slowly and then intersects parishes with spiritual namesakes like St. John the Baptist, St. James and Ascension on its way to Baton Rouge. The sugar refinery, now Dixie Crystals, and the new bridge spanning the river announce the town of Gramercy in St. James Parish that spills into the town of Lutcher that spills into Paulina and so forth all of the way to Baton Rouge along the River Road. The series of small towns that line both sides of the river mingle with the oil and chemical plants whose structures extend tentacles to the river to signify a shipping industry still at work. Shell, Marathon, Kaiser Aluminum are some of the places that provided livings to generations of my family and are also possibly responsible for the health problems of the people who live  in "Cancer Alley", the area between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. 

Behind St. Joseph Church in Paulina lies a quiet village of its own, a silent testament to the area's past. A walk through the maze of grassy paths among whitewashed tombs, old marble markers and new granite ones reveal the same French and German names that might be found in a local classroom.  Occasionally on my visits home, Mom and Dad take me and the children to visit my aunts and uncles.  We can't pass the church without stopping. My children search for angels and centuries-old dates while I call on relatives with my father.  We find my grandparents, my godmother, my cousin and great-grandparents.  Dad points to his old football coach and relatives I never met.  I try to imagine him in the school yard playing or in his white First Communion suit as a pallbearer for a baby girl.  The day grows hot and we seek the comfort of air-conditioning.  The children, flushed and damp wonder if they'll die of heat stroke.  We are, after all, mountain people.