I see him in you sometimes.
He lives in yours eyes,
behind your brow,
and in the bridge of your nose where it crinkles when you grin.
He comes with joy.
I’m not one to complain about the weather. Why would I? What difference would it make? It’s like when you ask someone…usually an older someone…and often a male someone…how he’s doing. Sometimes he’ll answer, “Can’t complain.”, and a voice inside my head adds, “And it wouldn’t do any good if you did.”
Despite my physical aversion to colder weather, I never complained when spring took her time getting here. I adapted instead. I looked upon the situation as an excuse to purchase a few more sweaters with three-quarter-length sleeves. I love sweaters with three-quarter-length sleeves. They are some of my favorite things. I especially love them if they are made from cashmere.
One of my friends was particularly irritated by people complaining about having to wear shoes in Atlanta in April. As it happens, she was born in South Dakota. I don’t think she’s lived in Georgia very long which would explain why she isn’t aware that, by April, most southerners are organizing their flip-flops according to outfit and/or occasion. She took to Facebook, warning anyone bemoaning cooler temperatures that they had better not complain about sweating in July or she’d be there to remind them they’d gotten just what they’d asked for. I’m guessing she hasn’t had to make good on that promise. Not because she’s a particularly scary person. And, not because people finally realized that complaining about the heat doesn’t cool things off.
My friend hasn’t had to remind anyone how they wished for Atlanta heat because Atlanta hasn’t gotten hot yet…not really hot…not Atlanta hot. Atlanta hasn’t gotten hot yet because during the month of June we received 9 1/2 inches of rain. And, since that time, it’s rained every day in July. So far this year we’ve accumulated almost 42 inches of rain which is more than we had for the entire year last year.
Sometime around the middle of June people began to complain. Often, mine was the lone voice of dissent. As the minder of a garden, I didn’t dare complain. For years I watched my garden literally burn to the ground because of lack of rain. There’s no way I would complain now…unless it is to bemoan missing melons. I planted melons, you see, and something ate them. I assumed the culprits to be rabbits until I spotted a pair of deer strolling casually through a neighbor’s yard. They stopped, on their way down the street, to nibble on roses.
Back then, in the middle of June, when only about 30 inches of rain had fallen, melons seemed like a good idea. Thirty inches of rain is enough water to fill lots of watermelons. Now though, some twelve inches later, I’ve begun to see that too much of a good thing really is too much. A melon, you see, begins as a blossom. A bee spies the blossom, and then he sees another one, and another one, and so on, and so on, and before you know it…mini-melons! But bees don’t like rain. Even in a light rain, a bee can’t leave its nest. And a blossom without a bee is just a flower.
So much water in such a short time changes things.
The chicken pen is under water. Seeing their ugly little toes disappear into the muck time after time as they rush to greet me reminded me of jungle rot, a podiatric malady soldiers in Vietnam often battled. Last weekend I put down boards for them to walk on. My chickens haven’t had as much as a sniffle in six years. Its bad enough they’ve had to learn to eat off a dinner plate. I can’t take a chance with jungle rot.
My flowers are drowning.
My floors are muddy.
My dogs are smelly.
And, don’t even get me started on my hair.
I’m willing to concede that, aside from the health of my hens, most of my worries are negligible.
And then I read about the snakes.
It makes perfect sense when you think it through, which I never would have done if I hadn’t read that a local newscaster was hospitalized with a snake bite. The sequence goes something like this: many bugs don’t do rain which means things that eat bugs are forced to forage. Foraging, as it happens, often requires travel outside of one’s usual hunting grounds and, thus, increased time outside of the nest. Guess what eats the things that would eat bugs but are now having to hunt?
Snakes.
And, here’s another twist. Just like my chickens who now spend ninety percent of their time inside the henhouse, snakes are tired of being wet. Only they don’t have a house of their own, so guess what? That’s right! They’re not picky! They’ll use yours. Right now, in Atlanta, the average wait time to have a pest control company out to your house to remove rain weary vermin is two weeks; two weeks of sharing your house with something that slithers. No. Way.
My seventh grade teacher, Mrs. White, marched with Martin Luther King. She played guitar and taught us folk songs and regaled us with stories from her past. One story involved a snake. It’s the one I remember.
She’d gotten up in the middle of the night to pee. For whatever reason, she didn’t turn on the light in the bathroom until after she’d done her business. That’s when she saw the snake, coiled around and around and around the inside of the toilet bowl. Having carried this image around in my head lo these many years, you can believe I toilet with the lights on, and only after careful inspection. And there’s no loitering. When I was a kid, my father’s bathroom always smelled like newsprint. He obviously hadn’t heard the story.
Yesterday the rain held off until rush hour. This is not unusual. In fact, yesterday was the second time I’ve sat in traffic and watched marble-sized hail gather on my windshield wipers before being swooshed off to ping the car in the lane next to mine.
By the time I arrived home, hail had given way to torrential rain and pounding thunder. My dogs don’t care for storms. Usually they’re too nervous to eat. But when it rains every day for weeks, something’s got to give. Murphy, my boxer, followed me into the sunroom willingly enough but minutes later, after I’d gone back inside, I heard his super-sized claws hit the industrial strength screen we installed to protect the French door from just that type of abuse. He gave a jerk of his head when I opened the door; our signal that he wanted company. I sank into one of the rocking chairs I’d drug in off the patio during an earlier storm, and immediately wished I’d grabbed my Iphone. For a few seconds, I considered going back in to get it. I could play a word, check in on Facebook, or read an email. The sound of rain hitting the roof called me back. I realized this was an opportunity to just be, and I don’t get enough of those.
I give the rocking chair a push and fold my arms over my lower abdomen, appreciating the softness of a little extra padding. Looking around, I realize I never really see this room. I’d forgotten, for example, about the funky wine bottles and vintage tin signs I sat on shelves next to the ceiling. I’ve downsized from a plethora of plants to a table covered in cactuses and hung, above them, twinkle lights encased in aluminum stars separated by wind chimes. I’ve left my mark here.
The sound of azalea branches scraping windowpanes turns my attention outside the room. The wind is blowing. The sky is unnaturally bright. Maybe the sun, too, has had to adjust; taking any opportunity to shine.
I wonder how the chickens are faring. It’s cooler now, after the hail.
When did my head tilt to one side…ever so slightly…the way it does just before a nap?
When did my eyes close?
The rocking has slowed.
Sleep could come.
Would he be disappointed if I slept through dinner?
There were enough breaks in the clouds to remind us there could be sun. Rain didn’t fall as much as spurt from the sky, intermittently, and with little power behind it. But it was enough to soak the picnic benches, prompting several of us to muscle the tables further under the shelter and away from the fireplace where Josh built a fire. Lush green grass and blooming trees aside, you’d never have guessed it was April in Atlanta.
In my usual state of rebellion, I’d worn flip-flops under my blue jeans and hoodie. Within minutes of arriving, I was grateful I listened when a voice of reason couched in loving kindness urged me to throw a pair of shoes in the car “just in case”. It was tricky business switching out my footwear without getting my socks wet, but I managed. As I perched inside the door on the backseat of my car, a steady stream of soggy guests passed on the other side.
By the time I emerged, the party was well under way. A large, multi-colored balloon bouquet swayed languidly over a chocolate birthday cake. The smell of grilling meat billowed from a flume on one side of the grill, an array of chips and desserts filled one of the tables, and a football sailed, occasionally, over the heads of laughing children. Hoods were on heads, hands were in pockets, and breath floated like conversation bubbles over the heads of guests, happy to see each other. Things would have been very nearly perfect if only Trey could have been there. For the second time, we celebrated his birth after his death.
In the days leading up to the party, I marveled at how well I was handling things. There had been no crying jags or heavy sighs. I wasn’t sleeping particularly well but, as a woman of a certain age, there were any number of possible explanations for that.
And then, someone mentioned ketchup. Which made me think of mustard. Which made me think of mayonnaise, and cheese, and relish, and trash bags, and streamers, and noise-makers, and all the other incidentals that would normally come without thinking when planning a birthday cook-out. Except that nothing was normal. Normal hadn’t happened yet. Perhaps it never will. And, if it ever does, it won’t be on that day. That day, Trey’s birthday, will never be normal again.
I didn’t realize until I got there how much I hadn’t wanted to come, or how little I’d done to prepare. Luckily a store down the street stocked most of what I’d forgotten and, by the time the burgers were done, we had everything we needed.
People attended the party for different reasons. Some, like me, came out of a sense of obligation. Some came to celebrate the life of a friend. At least one came for the company, and a few came for the food. I realized though, as I looked over the crowd, that despite our personal motivations, we were all there for the same reason.
We were collateral damage.
Tonight, at 10:36 pm, exactly one year will have passed since I received the news that my son, Trey, was dead.
Within minutes I had my first conversation with a county coroner.
Within the hour, two policemen stood on my front porch. I’d never had policemen on my front porch before.
Two days later I wrote my first obituary.
And, the next day I designed a funeral program for the first time.
Five days after the call came in, I greeted the first guests to arrive at the first funeral I’d ever arranged for one of my children.
Despite never having done so before, my brother-in-law led the service beautifully.
Afterwards I hosted my first wake.
Friends and family, anxious to express their sympathy, appeared at my door; some for the first time.
Eight days after my son died, I returned to work from bereavement leave. I’d never taken bereavement leave before. I’d never been so bereaved.
A couple of days later I made my first request for a copy of my son’s death certificate.
The following Wednesday, my oldest son visited the sheriff’s department for the first time to collect his brothers “personal effects”.
Easter was the first family gathering that didn’t include Trey.
Several weeks later, we maintained our tradition of having a combined birthday party for both Trey and his older brother. For the first time, Trey didn’t attend.
Not since before my youngest was born had I celebrated Mother’s Day with just three children.
On September 1st, I spent my birthday knowing that, for the first time, I could never have the only thing I really wanted.
For the first time in decades, I served Thanksgiving dinner without having to answer the question, “Are there any onions in here?”
As Christmas neared, I realized that for the first time in years I wouldn’t need to order that expensive chili water from Hawaii. I hadn’t anyone to give it to.
For the first time since 1997, I placed Christmas gifts for only three children under our tree and, during our Christmas party, no one visited the dessert table before dinner was served.
This past Sunday I didn’t watch The Oscars on television. It was the first time I’d missed watching since I was a kid. The last time I watched, I had to pause the show to answer the telephone. It was February 26th at 10:36 pm.
Today is the one year anniversary of my son’s death.
There will never be another one year anniversary.
There will be another first.
This is the Last First.
My mother never asked why I always wanted to ride when she went to pick up Mrs. Jordan. She never asked, so I never told her.
It was because of the way she smelled.
Mrs. Jordan was our baby sitter, most of the time. Occasionally, we were subjected to Mrs. Holiday…she of the over-sized, plastic-rimmed eyeglasses, and mess of frosted hair which only added to the air of “Unfinished” she brought to a room.
Mrs. Jordan, on the other hand, had a place for every hair and every hair in its place. Short in stature, she was a study in cotton…cotton dress, cotton sweater, thick cotton stockings draped about the tops of her black orthopedic shoes. She favored pastels and Jergens’ hand lotion.
Thus the smell.
I don’t remember when I figured it out. I can’t cite the specific moment when I realized that the waft I lived for, as I perched expectantly on the backseat of my mother’s wood-paneled station wagon, emanated from a bottle of hand lotion. But I can say that, ever since I’ve known, I can’t pass a bottle without at least giving it a sniff. Usually I buy it. Today I brought a bottle to the office. It has a pump dispenser, making it easy to use while on the telephone…which I am…most of the time.
For some reason, I’ve always equated the scent of Jergens’ with femininity. I imagine a perfectly proportioned young woman wearing a slip, an old-fashioned slip, the kind with plastic adjustors on the straps. She sits on the side of a bed, languidly rubbing Jergens’ into her hands and forearms.
It wasn’t until this afternoon that I realized the error in my imagery.
Jergens’ isn’t used by perfectly proportioned young women. Young women don’t generally slather themselves with lotion and they don’t wear slips either.
As a young woman, the only time I applied lotion was after a bath…to smell good…especially if someone else was going to smell me.
I still do that, but it doesn’t stop at that. I have a lotion for my feet, a special lotion with special feet stuff in it. I have a lotion for my face. I have a lotion for my neck that I also use on my face when I run out of the other lotion I have for my face. I have a lotion for my eyes and one for my hands. I even have a lotion for my cuticles.
Having looked at it, there is no denying it. There’s a direct correlation between the number of years a woman has lived and the amount of lotion she uses.
I sat with that for a minute…and I’m okay with it.
Whatever else she was, Mrs. Jordan was a woman who smelled good and who, by her very presence, imbued that scent with a sense of femininity…orthopedic shoes and all…
There’s hope for the rest of us…
© Copyright 2007-2013 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved
Inspiration for Domestication
Noun doyenne: The senior or eldest female member of a group, especially one who is most or highly respected. A woman who is highly experienced and knowledgeable in a particular field, subject, or line of work; expert Synonym: grande dame
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