“Kirkin’ of the Tartans”

Joy was hard to find amongst the throng of worshipers gathered in the narthex of the church. Standing at 4’11”, in her sensible shoes, and colorful tartan skirt, her painted lips broke into a smile as we rounded the pair of taller men blocking our view. Her arms flew wide in my son’s direction, and he fell into them, as expected. As he pulled away, she retained her hold on his arms, looking him almost eye-to-eye, and exclaimed her delight at seeing him. Turning towards me, she fussed with the vest she’d squeezed beneath her jacket as I complimented her skirt.

She’d seen the pastor’s wife, so she was relatively sure the pastor had arrived as well, but she hadn’t seen the bagpiper. We discussed seating. She hoped it would be alright if we sat near the front. “I can’t sit too far back. It’s hard to hear…”

Three rows from the front, she sidled into a pew, allowing just enough space for our three bodies. Joy likes to touch. I could smell her perfume.

She’d been to the opera since I’d seen her. Rossini was one of her favorite composers, but she’d not seen this performance before. She described it as beautiful, light, and airy. She’d liked it very much.

The pews around us filled as I refreshed my memory of the sanctuary. Fashioned from gracious blonde wood, the ceiling arched high to accommodate and enhance the majesty of organ music, and the builders had preferred graceful curves to corners, giving the room a fluid feel. There was little decoration, save for a table on the rising in front of us, holding a single round of bread and a silver goblet. Behind the table, a three-piece band readied itself for the service, opposite a large, tartan-draped pulpit.

I sat, appreciating the warm simplicity of my surroundings, as my son surveyed the crowd of strangers. I wondered what he was learning. I complied with Joy’s request for a stick of gum.

And the music began…very softly at first, as though far away; a single bagpipe playing a familiar refrain. Placing my hand on his leg, I directed my son’s attention, and we turned to look behind us.

The piper was a sturdily built, older woman dressed in traditional Scottish garb. Heavy, utilitarian boots covered thick woolen socks that met her kilt, the plaid of which was repeated in the sash that partially covered her black woolen jacket. Her reddened cheeks alternately expanded and deflated as she sucked for air between blows, and I was immediately struck by her effort.

Behind her, a stately procession of tartans flowed in on tall poles carried by practiced, stern-faced parishioners. Each pole featured a symbol, and the name of a clan, above their corresponding plaid, and, as they passed, the large swatches of colorful material fluttered at us, gracefully. The music resounded against graceful blonde arches above us, and as the procession continued, my eyes filled with its proud beauty.

The musician took her place to one side of the rising as the tartans flowed in and around her, coming to rest at their designated spots along the thoughtfully curved walls, until we were surrounded by ancestral colors, the haunting strains of a lone bagpiper, and synchronicity.

The speaker, an older man of Scottish descent, and one-time pastor of this church, took the podium, proudly wearing the kilt of his clan. He began his address by explaining Jewish tradition, and, at first, I found myself captivated more by his soft, brogue-enlaced speech, than his message. His focus was on the concept, and importance of, “we, first-person plural…”. He credited early Jewish tradition with introducing the concept, and early Presbyterians with embracing it. He related the history of the “Kirkin’ of the Tartans”, and the prohibitions and ensuing violence that his ancestors had survived. As he spoke, I surveyed the proud plaids lining the walls behind him, and I understood.
We rose, as directed, and I added my voice to the others, as we sang “Amazing Grace” to the accompaniment of a single bagpipe….

As a child, I attended church every Sunday. The car rolled to a stop, and my mother unlocked the doors to let us out. As an adult, I attended for many years until politics monopolized our Sunday school lessons, souring me. World history classes, required by my major, officially debunked most of the Bible, assuring me that my soul was, indeed, in my own hands. Since that time, my attendance in church has been sporadic, and usually socially driven.

My choice to attend today was fueled by a desire to provide, for my son, an experience. The emotion I experienced was unexpected. As I sat in the sanctuary, surrounded by parishioners, and tartans, and history, I came to understand why they were there. I felt their belonging.

The bagpipe began to whine again, announcing a reversed procession. The plaids fluttered in the opposite direction, and I watched through tear-filled eyes. The music faded as the last tartan passed, before growing stronger again, causing me to turn, again, towards the front of the church.

She stood, singularly; framed by double doors. Sunlight rained upon her and the unlikely instrument, and after several minutes, the music continued as she turned, proudly, and walked away.

An Intangible Difference

“No other national election has evoked this kind of emotion.”
As a form of explanation, in the heat of the moment, during a discussion of politics, these words rose to the surface, and sat on my tongue, while I considered their veracity. My mind ticked through previous elections. Images grossly akin to Halloween masks, strolled across my mind’s eye; Reagan, Carter, Ford, Clinton, Bush I and II, and I realized I had felt passion for my candidate during each of these contests, as well. The words remain unsaid. And, still, I consider them…and have come believe the words to be true in an intangibly unsettling way.

In years past, my choice of candidate was usually accompanied by a sure feeling of being “right”. As I considered the men running for President, the decision was a simple one, based on my beliefs and life experience.

“Do you want what’s hiding behind curtain “A” or curtain “B”?” Monty Hall’s face leered under a battered fedora as he spun a shiny black cane.

“Curtain “A”!” My voice rang true with the force of my convictions.

“Is that your final answer?” The question came in the form of endless, expensively produced commercials touting the merits of the one not chosen.

“Yes! That is my final answer!” And it was.

This time around, when asked the question, I find my voice wavering as my eyes search a distant point in the room, and my chest fills with a need for hope. And, therein, lies the difference.

The need for hope; not a full-blown, fist-clenching, flag-waving hope, but a need for hope. A look out the yawning door of an airplane, just before the jump, with the sincere desire that the parachute will function when called upon. That first tentative, pitch-black step away from the side of the bed towards the spot on the carpet where the dog might be sleeping. The catch of breath, when the numbers are called, as the ticket shakes inside a needy hand. The look on the face of one beaten down, afraid to trust an outstretched hand.

As my octogenarian friend frequently laments, “I’ve never seen things this bad.”, I realize it’s no wonder so many of us are uncertain. Nothing in our life experience has prepared us for our current condition, and our beliefs have been challenged by almost a decade of half-truths and outright lies told by those in whom we were forced to rely. We are the ones beaten down, afraid to trust.

On Tuesday, I will stand in line for hours, with hundreds of others in search of hope, and the mere presence of the crowd, as I scan it, will invoke these words:

“In God We Trust.”

Facing the Mirror

I think about that old mirror often.

It was, at least, five feet long, and two feet high at it’s tallest point, which featured painstakingly carved intricate flowers and filigree. Two wooden slats divided the glass into three separate mirrors, and, long ago, someone had burnished the wooden frame golden.

I came upon it while helping my elderly next-door neighbor, Ruby, remove years of flea-market finds, incredible buys, and assorted debris from what was to have been a spare room. Ruby was everything her name implies. She was also a packrat.

As I pulled the awkwardly shaped mirror out from behind a crib mattress Ruby was sure she might need one day, I immediately noticed the craftsmanship. The detail, the inaccuracies, and the aged brown paper, stretched across the back of the frame, proclaimed “hand-crafted”.

Turning it to once again admire the carvings, I caught Ruby’s reflection in one of the panels. She stood behind me, and a little away; and, on her face, a look of adoration, usually reserved for my children.. Glancing at her, I asked the question without words, and she began to tell the story.

The mirror had been in her family as long as she could remember, which was a very long time. It had been the centerpiece of her grandmother’s dining room, and then, later, her mother’s “front room”. She wasn’t clear as to whose hands had done the carving, but she knew he had presented it to the family as a treasured heirloom, and they had treated it as such, for decades. Regret replaced delight as she explained it’s present home.

“I used to have a place to hang such things, but I don’t anymore.”

Coming closer, she raised one gnarled hand towards the apex of the frame and rested it upon the most elaborate of it’s decoration. After several seconds, she used the same hand to retrieve the ever-present tissue from the pocket of her shapeless sweater, and dabbed tobacco juice from one corner of her lined, colorless mouth.

“I want you to have it.”, she proclaimed, and turned back to the box she had been pillaging before my find.

I stared at her bent back for several seconds, before challenging her decision by suggesting she consider making a gift to one of her two daughters.

“Do you see either one of them here today?”, she barked as she rose creakily, turning slanted eyes in my direction. “Huh? Do ya?”

Several seconds passed in uncomfortable silence before she closed, quietly, with “Alright, then.”

I hung the mirror, that evening, over the sofa in my living room, and it was, once again, the centerpiece it was meant to be. It hung there for several years, until the size of my family exhausted the space inside the little house next door to Ruby, forcing us to leave our friend. But, her mirror made the trip. In total, I moved the mirror to three different homes. Ruby would see the mirror hung in all but the last, but, somehow, I’m sure she knew it was there.

During my most recent move, light packing, invoked by emergent situations, left the mirror hanging for the next occupants to admire. And, I hope they did. I hope the decades of love and care stroked into it’s wood demanded the respect it, and she deserved. And, Ruby, who was everything that name implies, understands.

>Facing the Mirror

>
I think about that old mirror often.

“I used to have a place to hang such things, but I don’t anymore.”

“I want you to have it.”, she proclaimed, and turned back to the box she had been pillaging before my find.

I stared at her bent back for several seconds, before challenging her decision by suggesting she consider making a gift to one of her two daughters.

“Do you see either one of them here today?”, she barked as she rose creakily, turning slanted eyes in my direction. “Huh? Do ya?”

Several seconds passed in uncomfortable silence before she closed, quietly, with “Alright, then.”

Playing In The Dirt…

Yesterday, Shane and I went in search of the perfect pansy. He has accompanied me in my hunt every year, so I expected the loud groan and “Oh, Mom….” I heard when I announced the time had come.

“Will it take long?”, he whined.

“Well, that depends. If we’re lucky, they’ll have lots of good ones. If not, we’ll have to look.” My voice was bright in an effort to impart some of the enthusiasm I was feeling, but he didn’t seem to get it as he slumped down the hallway in search of his shoes.

As luck would have it, we encountered flats and flats of gorgeous painted faces in every conceivable color. And today, I got to play in the dirt.

My first task was to remove all the summer flowers, still clinging to life in the warm Georgia sun. This is the part I like the least. I always feel a twinge of guilt at ripping a brave survivor out by the roots, so I grit my teeth, clear my mind, and just start pulling.

And now the fun begins. I don’t use gloves to do this kind of planting, as I like the feel of dirt on my hands. While shoving them, over and over into the aromatic black dirt, I mentally applauded my decision to cancel my manicure appointment on Friday, and a mischevious smile crossed my face as I imagined the reaction of the beautiful, little sprite who tends my hands if she could have seen the way I was treating her handiwork.

I filled all the containers, using bright yellows, purples, and pinks on the patio…

and old-fashioned ruffled pinks next to the house…

And, as I headed to the back of the yard, towards the bench which has long-since been swallowed up by the English Ivy I planted three years ago, I thought back to last summer. My daughter called to say she and a friend were coming for a visit. They arrived in full make-up and skirts with heels, prompting me to wonder at the occasion. My daughter produced a monstrous high-tech/high-end, camera featuring a nearly foot-long snout of a lens, and explained that her friend needed updated photographs of herself for a project she was working on.

“And, I told her we should come here. Your yards are just picturesque!”

It is one of the loveliest compliments she has ever paid me…

And, of course, there was music….

>Playing In The Dirt…

>
Yesterday, Shane and I went in search of the perfect pansy. He has accompanied me in my hunt every year, so I expected the loud groan and “Oh, Mom….” I heard when I announced the time had come.

“Will it take long?”, he whined.

As luck would have it, we encountered flats and flats of gorgeous painted faces in every conceivable color. And today, I got to play in the dirt.

I filled all the containers, using bright yellows, purples, and pinks on the patio…

and old-fashioned ruffled pinks next to the house…

“And, I told her we should come here. Your yards are just picturesque!”

It is one of the loveliest compliments she has ever paid me…

And, of course, there was music….

Drip Castles

I know she had others, but the one I loved best was made of red cotton decorated with tiny, multi-colored flowers; a “two-piece”, it featured boy-shirts that always evoked images of a much earlier time. The color only served to highlight her tan, and I never thought her more beautiful.

My mother loved to sunbathe, and spent most mornings on the beach, supine, on a generous towel, until overwhelming heat forced her into the surf, where she stayed for a few, precious, minutes. Now, as a mother, myself, I realize that having four children attached to her floating limbs probably precipitated her quick exit.

And, sometimes, she built castles.

It started with a hole. As is true about anything worth having, a good sand castle requires work, in the form of a very deep hole. My mother supervised as one of her daughters manned the shovel. Mounds of pristine white sand piled, as the hole was dug, until water began to seep in from the bottom, forming a permanent well.

And then, we dripped. Each of us, in turn, thrust our hands inside the hole, to remove a dripping mass of grayish colored sand. We dripped turrets, we dripped landscaping, we dripped roofing. Tiny, pea-sized mounds of sand, built, one upon the other, as we dripped, and the castle grew higher and higher, and more and more elaborate.

Construction could take hours, but we had no concept of time. For each of us, it was simply one-on-one time with Mom, and we sat there until she gave the sign it was time to stop, as she rose, and strode, purposefully, towards the surf. As she bent to lower her hands into the warm, jade-colored, water, we mimicked her action, until she left us to return to her towel. And, as she lay back against the sand, we broke for our rafts, and the water.

>Drip Castles

>
I know she had others, but the one I loved best was made of red cotton decorated with tiny, multi-colored flowers; a “two-piece”, it featured boy-shirts that always evoked images of a much earlier time. The color only served to highlight her tan, and I never thought her more beautiful.

And, sometimes, she built castles.

Three of a Kind

For Aunt Pat…

My grandmother favored woolen suits, even in summer, over stockings, and low-heeled, sensible pumps. Her perpetually brown hair was styled in a manner that put one in mind of finger waves from the 1920’s, and when she rose in the morning, two sets of crisscrossed aluminum hair clips rode her ears. Upon entering the kitchen, she made a beeline for the large, economy sized vat of orange-flavored Metamucil she had positioned over the sink upon arrival, and downed a glass before turning to pour a cup of strong, always black, coffee.

She visited us almost every Christmas, staying, despite our protestations for more time, exactly one week, unaware that the previous week had been spent in a flurry of cleaning, in anticipation of her arrival. It was the only time my mother did a complete overhaul of our house, from baseboards to ceilings. Despite our efforts, Grandma Eakes brought her own stash of cleaning supplies, with which she scoured the ceramic bathtub, thoroughly, before bathing.

My grandmother was a card shark. Rummy was her game of choice, and my sister and I looked forward to our nightly card games with relish, despite knowing she would, most certainly, win. While she studied the hand she had dealt, we learned about her life, as she spun tales of the “no-good” boyfriend she had dated for years and years, and her “young pup” of a boss in the high-end men’s clothing store where she provided alterations. The hands that dealt the cards had made her living as a seamstress for most of her life, and she would pass that skill on to her daughter, who crafted almost every stitch I wore until I was twelve years old. I, in turn, carried on the tradition, by sewing for my daughter.

Though frugal, she liked to window-shop, and took her granddaughters to the mall every December 26th. As we approached the ladies’ hat department, my sister reached out to touch the soft felt of a dainty black-veiled hat. At Grandma Eakes’ insistence, we began to try them on. As we surveyed our reflections, she came up from behind, “Oh, Laura, you don’t have the face to wear a hat. Now, Stacye….Stacye has the face for a hat. It takes a very plain face to wear a hat.”

The woman spoke her mind. When someone at the dinner table protested that my mother was still minding the stove, my grandmother reminded us that she “didn’t look as though she has missed many meals”.

As she aged, my parents convinced her to move to Atlanta, and procured, for her, a roomy apartment in an assisted living high-rise nearby.

When she forgot where she parked her car, they found it in her usual spot, and immediately sold it. She was in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s.

When the bank called my sister, telling her that Grandmas Eakes had walked across six lanes of traffic to insist they cash, yet another, Publisher’s Clearinghouse check, she piled her children into the back of her Suburban. When she and the bank officers began to relate on a first-name basis, decisions were made.

Everyone, tenants and family members alike, knew what it meant to make the move to the upper floors. Each of us, together and apart, made the trek to her apartment and talked jovially while discarding mountains of plastic grocery bags, armies of carefully-stacked,out-of-date canned goods, and a year’s supply of paper napkins.

We made the move piece-meal. As I clumsily maneuvered a closely-packed, well-worn cardboard box between the yawning doors of the golden-colored elevator, I turned to make sure she was following me, wondering if she knew what was happening. The elevator rose slowly towards her new home, until the doors opened, to reveal a waiting octogenarian who had, apparently, made Grandma Eakes’ acquaintance.

“Well, hello!”, she cried gaily, removing the crumpled wad of tissue in her hand before offering it.

The aged woman on the other side of the doors, took the offering while meeting my gaze.

“Oh!”, Grandma Eakes, began.

“Where are my manners?”, she asked no one in particular, as she turned.

“This is my very best friend from grade school…”, and…

“I’m sorry…what is your name?”

I smiled my reassurance as she wrestled with her memory, unknowing that these would be among the last words I would hear her speak.

Weeks later, in my sister’s basement, I walked through the remnants of my grandmother’s life. The antique, brocade upholstered dining set I had admired while boxing up her life, reminded me of the juxtaposition it had presented inside her apartment, and my vision of her singularity at one end. It now sits in my dining room, well-worn, leaves down, just as she left it. And, a superfluous collection of embroidered handkerchiefs filled one drawer of her over-stuffed, pine-hewn dresser. They now comprise a quilt that, as I draw it over my legs, brings me warmth and draws her closer.

>Three of a Kind

>
For Aunt Pat…