Autofocus

Sometimes it is better to view life without artifice or filter in order to understand its true beauty.


I took a drive to Sullivan's island SC this morning - the sun was just rising as I crossed the inlet.  Of course, I stopped to get a photo.  I went to see the more modern version of Fort Moultrie - and took a few more pictures.  Throughout the course of the next few hours, I took a number of photos, watch others pose for race pictures or selfies, and generally milled about waiting for our event.  It was all well documented, from the water stop to the finish line.


After the race, I drove down to the Sullivans Island Cast Guard Station and shot a few more pics.  As I started for the beach, I opted to leave the camera behind.  What a remarkable difference in my experience there!


As I crossed the dunes, I saw some mother torturing her 5 hear old because she wanted a cute, posed picture, and he wanted to play with the dead horseshoe crab.   Several  sun bathers were texting or talking, while others walked with headphones on.  No one was paying attention to the beach!


As I walked farther, I began to remember why I loved the beach so much -  it was not for the pictures or the walking soundtrack we keep in our cellphones, but for the sounds, sights and smells of the beach.  Kids really get it.

Happy birthday

Tomorrow is your birthday.
Facebook asks if I would like to schedule you a gift.

What would I wish for you?
Another walk along the Gloucester shore.
Another frolic with Gordie on the beach at Hatteras.
Another race in the Mystic River;
Another day fishing.
Another day on this earth without pain and suffering.
And another day to just tell you
How much I love you.

Instead, I can only wish you
eternal peace, forever love,
and the hope that we will meet again some day.

Happy birthday, my seestor.

Madrid, New Mexico 1993

It was as though we had fallen into a sinkhole of time. This clapboard and stucco town caught my heart as soon as I stepped into the tavern and saw the tiny stage set for melodrama and mayhem. The moneyed wallpaper, signed with notes from well-wishers from around the world, framed a bar layered with the smoke and dust of time.

A burly-bearded watchdog extended a cautious greeting as we walked into the saloon. Heads turned and the soft chatter ceased as we walked past each table - artists, con men, seekers of sanctuary... these were the faces staring back out of the dim light. Even the local canines sniffed cautiously before accepting a friendly ruffling of scruffy heads. Hundreds had visited this hamlet with doors that shouted its history and demise.

One solitary road ambled through, beckoning the traveler to wander off onto dirt paths and rocky gutted trails. Shop windows blinked and stared blankly through eccentricities and closed signs. Locals stretched lazily on the steps or lingered in the dirt streets. The center cafe was silent as shaggy dogs with shaggy children played in the empty lot next door.

Keeper of Lost Hearts

To the keeper of lost hearts, I extend this line -
Please show me to this heart of mine.

Today I watched the desert fade
as I mourned the childish plans I’d made
to live in solitude,
and play along the dusky Milky Way
of lost dreams and hidden fears –
all too often lost in tears
of frustration and of despair.
I’d planned someday to tarry there.

To the keeper of lost ways, I send this verse.
Though not meaning to be terse,
I wish to find my way back to the solitude I thought I knew -
the peace of heart and strength of mind
which only the childlike heart can find.

Keeper of lost hearts and ways,
Return us to our youthful days.

Unmemories

Old photo albums
Carefully and lovingly packed away
Stored in the closet protected
From dust and life

I pulled them out expectantly
Waiting for memories to flood the room
When I opened the covers
I was met with unmemories
Pictures of places I don’t recall
People who no longer exist

Time and tide have pulled them from my reach
No longer part of the mental archive I cling to
So many miles… so many faces.
They are all becoming unmemories.
How many more will I lose?

Lies, more lies, and half-truths

Mendacium vivit.  I awoke this morning to the realization that many of the memories I have of my childhood are fabrications.  I was not the victim of some nefarious gaslighting scheme, nor did I stumble upon a box of incriminating letters that had been secreted away. Instead, I was the willing captive of my own mind.  All of the things I had ever believed are now in question, thanks to the bizarre chemistry locked inside my brain. 

The dysthymic mind is a toxic cocktail of chemicals that ebb and flow, causing emotional waves and troughs.  But it also manifests as a small voice - alternately devil and angel, that whispers lies and half truths in our ears.  Somewhere in the middle lies the reality of life - simple, heartbreaking, or glorious, depending upon the day.

This morning, when my cat tore into me at 4 am trying to play, I called him a little tiger.  Flashback to my childhood and the pet names my father had given us as children.  Pigeon for my sister, Tiger for me.  I am sure that I was a little hellion in my youth, and Dad had found it worthy of a fierce nickname - one that I used to cherish.  Many years later, he called me a warrior - high praise from a man who had spent his entire life in some sort of war.   Yet for the past few years, all I seem to remember were the slights, the whippings, the cruel things he said.  That was not the reality of my youth, or not all of it.  It was the part that my sick mind wanted to remember to justify using my father as a scapegoat.  My excuse for not succeeding.  My Achilles heel.

I used to think that my father was this tyrannical, cruel, and unstable fellow who beat me mercilessly and called me cruel names.  Perhaps he was, but I never gave him credit for being kind or loving. The reality is that Dad was also sick, and had his own issues.  But he did pretty well under the circumstances.  He kept a job and supported a family of four.  He taught my sister and me to do the things he knew how to do - play football, throw a baseball, play golf.  He showed me how to plow and plant a garden.  How to be creative in the kitchen - very creative at times, with recipes such as gravy cakes, lemon cornbread, and ice cream cake.  Not all were successful, as you could imagine.

Dad was good at so many things.  He taught me chess, and gave me the gift of music.  He was a  prolific photographer, and had a keen legal mind.  He made sure I could change a tire and change the oil and parallel park.  All of this from the man who I once thought never loved me.

I won't deny that there were hard times.  Dad was also suffering from some sort of imbalance, and he chose to self-medicate with pain pills and alcohol.  But that was not the whole of his existence, and I would do well to remember all of him. It might help me be kinder to myself at times.  He could be a good and generous man.  His friends spoke well of him.  His enemies feared him.  He was tenacious when he thought something needed to be fixed, whether it was an old car, or a failing government.  We was himself a warrior, often choosing quixotic causes and rearing up at windmills, but fierce and unfailing in his quest.  The cool thing was that in his battles, he very often made a difference in the greater world.  That is part of his legacy.

The frightening thing is that on any given day, my memory of my own life is also wrapped up in half-truths.  I have difficulty separating the facts from the beliefs.  I have books of letters and affidavits lauding the contributions I made while I was in the Navy, but I only remember the failures, the days spent weeping in some bathroom stall or wandering in a gray fog due to depression. I have forgotten that I, too, was a fierce contender, tilting at my own windmills. Where is the warrior that my father saw?  Who else knew about that tiger within?  On my best days, I shone bright as a copper penny.  Those days, too, deserve a place on my mental shelf, along with the trophies and disappointments that come with living.

Reeley's Inn

Not all of us can be rich, or famous, or even notorious. The great majority of the world is comprised of people who go about their daily lives quietly and discreetly. Yet, it is those lives which are most noteworthy. For these are the people who keep things going - the mill workers and carpenters and restaurant owners who serve the rest of the world. My grandparents were just such people. While not completely selfless, they were generous and loving, and managed to keep a whole family together through some rough times.

My grandfather was affectionately known by his grandchildren as "Pappap," was a tall, lanky man of at least 5'10". He worked in the Savage cotton mill as a carpenter, fixing looms. His wife, "Rosie" also worked in the mill in Savage in the 1920s and 1930s. Rosie was fun and rather sassy in her youth - there is apicture of her wearing her brother's uniform (World War I), arms akimbo, hat cocked slightly to one side - whe was brilliant. The two started their life together in Savage, following in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents to had also worked in the mill.

In 1937 Rosie was involved in a loom shuttle accident, which shattered the orbit of her left eye. After several surgeries, doctors were able to reconstruct the eye socket enough that she could wear an artificial eye. The accident resulted in her termination from the factory. She received a compensation check, which she and Clarence used to buy a restaurant and a small plot of land on Rte 1 in Savage. The restaurant, known as "Reeley's Inn" was a bar and restaurant, serving seafood, etc. to the local crowd.

The restaurant closed in the 1950s, at which time Rosie and Clarence moved to Foxwells, Virginia and bought a large white Victorian house on 20 acres on the road to Windmill Point. The house was on an inlet between the Rappahannock Rover and the Chesapeake Bay, and was a wonderful place for fishing, crabbling, and oystering. In the years before the red tide fouled the waters of the Bay, the rivers yielded oysters as long as your thumb, blue crabs 8-10 inches in width. There were flounder, perch, and sugartoads - a sweet toadfish which was as rich a fish as you ever swallowed. The men would go out in the morning and bring in a boatful of fish or crabs, while Rosie and her daughters would prepare the rest of the meal...picking vegetables, cleaning and preparing them, kneading the bread - especially the "pullcakes" for which Rosie was famous in our family. Pullcakes were only made when there were plenty of fresh mashed potatoes which could be used for the dough.

Pappap grew an wonderful garden. Used to work the ground with a huge rotor tiller which he could barely handle in his later years. He let each of us as grandchildren think that we had our own garden there - a little plot which was child sized, which had radishes, carrots, and potatoes - somtimes peas and beans - and always he cared for them while we were away so that they would be ready whenever we came back. The ground near his little boat house grew wild asparagus, which could be cut and steamed and eaten each spring.

The table at the Reeley's house was always filled to the edge with all manner of food - fresh corn and peas and lima beans from the garden - hot bread, fresh fish. Even in the winter, there was plenty of food, as the summers were spent canning vegetables - bread and butter pickles, sweet catsup, succotash. "Pappap's" garden was pure heaven - sweet melons, plum and peach trees, and rows of beans, peas and corn. Dark purple grapes hung from the fence, while mulberry and black cherry trees stained more than one section of the yard. Pappap had added a fertilizer to the black sandy soil, and in the process, created a sweetness which could not be duplicated anywhere in the Tidewater area.

Little things I remember about them... I remember my grandmother's arthritic hands reaching in the pantry for a small jar of home made preserves to put on hot, fresh bread. She made sweet catsup which was blood red and always had the snap of vinegar. Pappap smoked cigars, and always had a bowl of peppermint candies next to his recliner. His little white long-haired dog, Lady, used to walk with him everywhere, and would sit in his recliner next to him - even as he watched Lawrence Welk every Saturday night. When he was happy, he sang - little silly songs, like ,"Yes We Have No Bananas" and "You Say Potato and I say Patata...you say Tomato and I say Tamata..." - songs to make us laugh as children. He was always tinkering in his garage - which had a huge old ShopSmith in it and always smelled of gasoline from the machinery.

I remember my grandmother always seemed to be in the kitchen - cooking or baking or washing - there was so much work to be done. She always had a bag of beans or peas that needed to be dealt with. She kept her cereal in the oven, because the pilot light kept the humidity down. She had aluminum drinking glasses and these amazing mugs that were thick and indestructible. I always thought of her house as kid proof.

While Mamaw's domain was the house, Pappap's was the garden and the water. In the little flat bottomed boat, he and my father taught me how to fish and crab, how to catch minnows, how to bait a crab pot, and how to tong for oysters. They used to pole through shallow waters to get to the deserted island on the Bay, where we would walk for hours looking for driftwood and seashells. On the way back, we would all have to duck really low to get inder the little bridge that spanned the road between the islands. Under that bridge were the most delicate softshell crabs ever eaten, or so I have heard - never having eaten one myself.

The old house was sold in the 1970s - money was needed to pay for hospital bills. Mamaw and Pappap died, and were buried in the family cemetery in Savage, near their parents and grandparents. The house is still in good shape, but the boathouse got painted a shocking shade of pink a few years back. I always imagined my grandfather rolling over in his grave at the thought of that. For me, the farm will always be as it was when my grandfather was alive - and I will see him walking the long stretch between the house and the boathouse, fishing pole in his hand.

Walking in their footsteps

We are our parents. Not in a literal sense, but in the way that we inherit their aspirations and talents. Even when we are not aware of it, we reflect their silent wishes, and make decisions based on their hopes. I recently discovered how many of my own dreams and desires are really based on those of the generations that went before me.
My paternal grandfather always wanted a Nash automobile. It was the 1930s, and in his mind, the Nash was THE car to own. Because of the Great Depression, he never had the chance to buy one, but when my father grew up, he purchased a Nash – because it was what his father wanted.

Grandfather also wanted to be a chess champion, but his lack of ability to play chess was an obstacle he never overcame. My own father eventually learned to play chess rather well, studying the moves of chess masters the word over. He taught my sister and I to play the game, improving our strategic abilities, and improving our logical mind. The dreams of our grandfather helped to shape us in ways he could never have envisioned.

We adopt the "sense of place" borne by our parents. My grandfather was always moving – he must have been part gypsy, I think. He worked on the railroad – even built the train system inside the Radford Army Arsenal. (See "Larger then Life," below). And like his father, my Dad traveled when he was a young man – Alaska, Louisiana, and California. He traveled to the Pacific in World War II and saw the horrifying reality of war. At the age of 42, Dad went around the world – an accomplishment in anyone’s book. When he retired, he went to work on the railroad - like his father.

Now, I have taken up the baton and continued the familial race to some unknown record. I have had 56 addresses in my 51 years. I have traveled to 12% of the world, lived on 3 continents (and 2 islands), and would rather travel by train than perhaps any other conveyance. The sense of wanderlust was there from the day I took my first breath.... a genetic predisposition to roam, a built-in compass, and a sense of adventure.

Through it all, there is a part of my mother as well - My mother always seemed to seek a place of refuge as her home. I have found mine on the side of mountains, nears rivers and lakes, in the woods of New England, making each place that I live a sanctuary - somewhere to get away from the world. There is still so much of the world I want to see; but when I get home, I want to get away from it. It is sometimes difficult to find balance in the disparity between my parents' viewpoints as I walk through each day of my own life.

The hopes of our parents are somehow infused into us; we can find ourselves striving to achieve a goal without knowing the source of that desire. My father wanted to graduate from college – in particular, he wanted to be a lawyer like his uncle, Ernest Williams. He took law courses, and was a police officer for many years, but the degree eluded him. When I grew up, I went to the best school we could afford, and graduated – then went on to get more degrees, just because it was what I wanted to do. Yet it’s as though my father wished so hard for something that it transferred into my genetic makeup. I often wonder where his dreams stop and my own desires begin.

Our inner voice can also come from our parents. My mother loved poetry, and read it to us when we were kids. I often find myself writing down my thoughts in prose or free verse - because it somehow makes it more soothing. My father is a song writer – and I have his talent for creating whimsical lyrics that poke fun at the world around us. My father and grandmother were both gifted musicians, and Dad could play any instrument he attempted. My sister Andrea accepted that gift – and has touched countless lives with her music.

My mother is a healer, and has a highly developed intuitive ability. I watched her cure the woes of stray dogs, dying plants and ailing family members. Her natural sense of balance and kindness of spirit drove her to find the life spirit in each being. She has managed to stay healthy without many medications - a miracle in this pill-driven society. Both my sister and I found our way into the medical field at one time or another, and when it came time to heal our afflictions, we sought both traditional and modern techniques to cure them. Our mother's touch can soothe and cure, and we aspire to do the same in our own lives.

So - we continue to walk in the footsteps of our parents and grandparents. We buy their cars, graduate from the college of their dreams, live in their ideal house, and impart their wisdom. If we are lucky, they only wished for the best in life. Or at the very least, that they dreamed of something more.

Larger than Life

I never knew my grandfather - he died years before I was born; but Philip Dexter Hudgins, was apparently someone who was colorful, exhuberant, larger than life.

"Deck," was born in 1891, most likely in Montgomery County, VA. In April of 1914, he eloped with 17 year old Lucy Williams, of Newport News. There was a huge scandal when they married - Deck and Lucy had tried to elope once before and were caught. The second time, the two arranged to have a car waiting for them at a designated, and Lucy snuck out the back door of a public building. When they eloped, Lucy's aunt called the police. There was a story in the newspaper the next day.

Deck was a man of many talents. He spent a few years with the railroad - Norfolk and Western - odd jobs, coaling, working the rails, etc. Depression hit before he could get hired as an engineer. During the Depression, Deck and Lu moved to be with family in Salem. The Hudgins family lived a number of places. At one time they were living on the Showalter or Beemer farm around 10 miles outside of Roanoke. Deck and Lu worked on the radio station, WDBJ, where Lucy played the piano and Deck told jokes. The same radio station had Lester Flatt as a regular on Charlie's Harmonizers from 1935 to 1939, about the same time that Deck and Lu had their show. They had a half an hour show where Lucy played the piano and Deck told jokes. It was sponsored by the Orange Crush bottling Company (Big Boy?). Dexter and Lucy also spent a little time as traveling salesmen, selling gold and other items as they could.

Around 1939-40, Deck went to work for Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Radford, VA. It was operated under contract with Hercules Powder Company and was build by the New York firm of Mason and Hanger. It was a newly constructed powder plant, where Deck designed the rail system inside the plant for delivery of goods along the assembly line. There are pictures of the plant and a good story of the plant in th Roanoke Times of 1941.

Finally in 1943, he got offered a job with the Maritime Commission in Baltimore. His daughter remembers him in Baltimore, sitting behind the home plate at Orioles games and getting rowdy with the umpire. He also had a reputation for being a drinker and a fighting man. Dexter Hudgins was passionate about life in many ways. In 1945 that passion left him when he died of a heart attack, leaving behind a wife and five children.

Noonday diner

“Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone.”

Noonday diner, lunchtime crowd.

Under talking and laughing
Bill Withers sings the blues

“It’s not warm when she’s away”

A hush falls over rows of black men
Sitting at faded yellow and white Formica tables
Standing in line, waiting for their food

“Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone.”

It starts as a murmur, a prayer

One man in the corner
begins to hum along

“And she’s always gone too long.”

Remembering some past pain,

The lost loves,  the missing friends
They begin to mouth words…
Eyes closed, head nodding.

“Any time she goes away”

Like cicadas chanting

On a southern night ,
The room begins to throb
With the chorus

“I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
Oh I know, I know, I know, I know, I know”

Collective wisdom, recognized pain

A weary prayer.
As the song changes
The men go back to
Their sweet tea and memories.

~

Asking for it

At the age of 19, I was sexually assaulted.
Rape sounds so much nicer when you word it that way.
There I was, a clueless, socially inept,
affection-starved girl
who accepted a date from the wrong guy -
A friend...a colleague...it didn't matter

I got a little drunk
He got a little aggressive
I don't remember the rest. 
Maybe I blocked it out
Maybe I passed out.

I was not asking for it,
But the shame of it clouded my spirit
For a dozen years or more.
It had to be my fault. 
I was the woman.
This was the South.
Even though I said no
Even though I told them to stop
I was somehow culpable because of my gender.
When does it stop?

Past Life

Childhood memories -
scattered and disparate
pieces of life.
Goldilocks and pet rocks…
Charles DeGaulle in a box.
Unrelated parcels
in a memory warehouse
with no windows or doors,...
just the random extractions
through Freudian dreams,
or Jungian shadows.

We hide the boxes
we want to forget:
The beating, cheating
always repeating horrors of our youth.
They’re locked away
in the Do Not Enter zone
Everyone is looking for a key, but it’s gone –
Tossed into the night,
never to be found.