I remember last week, we were pulling out of Uncle B.’s driveway. Mom and I were both clean, showered, and shorn, but already drenched to the bone with Georgia humidity. “Oh, Passion flowers, you should get a picture of those,” Mom said. I tried to peer over the edge of the Benz window to see what she was talking about. Low and flat to the ground were these starbursts of purple, the likes I had never seen before. Passion flower. The leaves around them were a broad, deep green, providing a little yoga mat for their luscious blooms. I hopped right out of the car with my Canon.
Mom waited while I took a few shots. I found myself wanting to spend most of the time in Georgia inside in the air conditioning of cars, motel rooms, and my uncle’s new home on Clarks Hill Lake. But the trip demanded that I experience the dogged heat of July in Georgia. I wonder if those dog day afternoons come from the way animals lie in the shade or drape over anything cool they can find so they don’t have to move. That’s the way I felt most of the time we spent outside in the Deep South.
Except by the Atlantic on St. Simons Island. We spent only one day on the beach, two on the island. Mom sat on a blanket high on the sand while Liz and I rolled up our pant legs and traipsed around in ankle deep salt water. It was low tide and all the beachcombers were searching for shells. Liz happened to find the most beautiful conch shell (she’s lucky that way) and pulled it up for all to see. A young girl about 12 came over to see what we had found. Her dad was quick to tell us that we’d have to boil the critter who was living in it out of the shell or it would stink to high heaven.
He also said there were very few shells on St. Simons so Liz was lucky to find one so beautiful with not a crack or chip in sight. After running the shell up to show Mom, we decided to return the conch to the sea. Liz wandered out a ways from shore and dropped her back under. Later that night, we ate at 4th of May on a little shopping strip street that runs into the pier. Afterwards, we took the pier walk and checked out the lighthouse. The salt air was blowing across the Atlantic. It was the coolest I had felt in days.
It felt good to travel somewhere new, to get out of my own environment and drop into Summer. The next night, my second cousin came down to St. Simons from Midway. Mom had not seen her in something like 40 years. I turned on the tape recorder while the two of them talked about family history. Some I was too young to remember. But I had seen the photographs. Their perspectives on my great grandmother varied with their childhoods. One’s ceiling, the other’s floor. I was fascinated. We whipped out the queen-sized family tree I printed out before we left Pennsylvania. And Liz talked to my second cousin’s husband about the sci-fi book he was writing.
I kept thinking about how different our experiences are, even in the same family. I thought of my brother and everything he was going through in Pennsylvania, the stress on him, the stress on the family. I thought of the cool 92 degrees in Minnesota, the home I had left a week before. I thought of the rural drive through small towns in Georgia, the Claxton Fruit Cake people, the record breaking catfish caught by a local Georgia angler. I asked Liz if she liked catfish. “I don’t like to eat bottom feeders,” she said. I thought about the huge carp my step-dad caught when I must have been only 8 or 9.
Was he in Yamasee with my grandfather? Or fishing Clarks Hill Lake where he swears he once saw an alligator. After that, when Liz and I were sitting on the dock, reading Flannery O’Connor’s letters, The Habit Of Being, I could swear she was keeping one eye open for gators. It did make me a little leery of dipping my pinky into the lake. But the kids jumped in headfirst. They are fearless. A water moccasin once swam by me when I was about 10, swimming in Clarks Hill Lake. I was paddling along shore while Mom was out waterskiing. I guess I used to be fearless, too.
I have noticed how much more fearful we get as the bones move up in years. But Passion flowers keep blooming, alligators keep snapping, conch shells still swim the 7 seas, and I can’t change the history of the past. I can only learn to know it. Keep writing it all down. My interpretation. Another layer of cracked clay and burnt orange sediment at the bottom of a life.
-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, August 9th, 2008
-related to Topic post: WRITING TOPIC – SUMMER
QM, Wow! Both you & ybonesy take us with you on your summer writing practice & then hit us hard with the last paragraphs. I read yb’s first & then this. you say “and I can’t change the history of the past. I can only learn to know it.”
Those are some very powerful words. I guess my own personal addition to that statement would be “and accept it for what it was.” So, yes, please keep writing it down.
BTW, tell Liz that I don’t eat bottom feeders either. And the conch shell. She must be lucky. My Grandmother was lucky at that also. I’m glad to hear that it was released back to the sea.
I hadn’t heard of the cousin that came to St. Simons. It must have been so interesting to hear them speak of the past & their different perspective of events. Fascinating!
D
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QM, I’m enjoying your posts, and you are so descriptive, that I can just feel what you were experiencing, even the emotions. I am looking forward to reading your memoir one of these days!! Your last sentence, where you refer to the clay and sediment is so powerful, although its heaviness could denote a sadnesss, and I hope this is not the case. I could see a book title there, with some tweaking…hmmm.
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beautiful ending, a lovely, evocative write. I lived in Hong Kong for five years, so can relate to that heat.
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QM, I agree with oo on that last sentence. I almost added my thoughts to comment#1. It gave me a feeling of sadness, but with my state of mind these days, I thought perhaps it was just my perspective of the clay & sediment. After all, I am still riding that emotional roller-coaster.
I am reminded of the words of Henry Drummond:
“You will find, as you look back on your life, that the moments when you really lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.”
And this prayer, that begins with “Dear God, I never thought that orange went with purple until I saw the sunset that you created last Tuesday.” So, today, I think I will wear purple & orange together! Love you! D
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[…] to posts: WRITING TOPIC – NAMES OF FLOWERS, PRACTICE – Summer – 20min, haiku […]
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That heat, there’s no escaping it. Today in Atlanta, and yesterday too, I felt grateful for a slight breeze.
Generous of Liz to through back the conch. Fitting too, from all the posts I’ve read here.
I don’t eat bottom feeders either. My mother used to serve catfish, but I couldn’t make myself put the meat in my mouth.
Love this line, poetry in prose:
Another layer of cracked clay and burnt orange sediment at the bottom of a life.
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[…] to posts: PRACTICE – Summer – 20min, Thunder Moon haiku (July) Possibly related posts: (automatically […]
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Thanks for all of your comments. I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather the last few days and am just getting to responding.
diddy, thanks. Yes, Mom and I talked to two second cousins on this trip (my 2nd, Mom’s 1st cousins). One was on Granddaddy’s side. And the other on Grandmama’s side. The contrasts were astounding. And the different memories were so rich. Completely different people and different family histories. Really time well-spent.
oliverowl, thank you for your kind comment. That last line — there is a heaviness, a sadness in this write. I have been feeling kind of heavy since I returned from the trip. It will lift in time. But for now, lots of processing going on. Feeling very internal. I sure appreciate your comment.
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jo, it must have been amazing to live in Hong Kong for five years. I don’t know much about the climate there but it sounds similar to the American South. And also the way Bob describes Missouri in ybonesy’s Summer practice. Stifling and oppressive. I couldn’t live that far South again in the summer. But there is the snowbird possibility. 8)
Christine, yeah, I know you know how hot it is down there. You are in the thick of it in Georgia. About the catfish — I ate it as a kid in my Granddaddy’s catfish stew and I really liked it (except for those tiny, tiny bones). But I’ve developed an allergy to fish as an adult and can’t eat it anymore. I can only eat shellfish. Backwards, I know!
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