Goin' "Home"

Why do even grown adults of all ages who've lived years away from the place they grew up call a trip there "going home"?

I honestly don't know.

But that's what I did today.

And I meandered with a stop just down the mountain in Sherwood to poke around Epiphany Mission Episcopal Church, crumbling in some ways, radiant in others.

 After wandering and wondering, I suddenly realized I'd be late if I didn't skedaddle. So I did.

Arrived noon.

Ate a sandwich.

Went with nephew to the Pig to buy can-shaped pint glasses. (They are, unfortunately, still in Birmingham.)

Picked up his mother-in-law.

Drove to Cahaba Brewing where we left the car.

Uber-ed to the Civic Center.

Got there early, so I took pictures while the others chatted and organized.

Met niece inside.

Grabbed our seats,

Saw Birmingham Ballet performance of Cinderella with two great-nieces and many others (including seven! professional men).

Nephew's father-in-law drove us to Cahaba Brewing, where I had a flight of four dark beers. (The best part was the wooden state of Alabama on which they were served the beer.

Went to The Garage for a better beer -- Samuel Smith Chocolate Stout. (I impressed the nephew when I said I knew all about The Garage. Then I reminded him that it's old.) [Also: I must find the Samuel Smith here.]

Ate dinner at Hot and Hot Fish Club, a delicious treat. My nephew knows how to treat his aunt well.

Went home.

Chatted and recovered. Watched an hour documentary about wild places and learned that lead bullets have practically killed off all the condors. Seventy-two living condors at the time of the film. (A sobering fact given the new Secretary of the Interior's re-introduction of lead bullets in national parks.)

Saw the Greats for about 15 minutes before we all went to bed.

One full. One exhausting. Day.

Uh-huh

Nothing, absolutely nothing, can be better than this

unless it's this

After the Drive

like the stacked stone
just-right flowers
wood bowl of shells
slow-burning green wood
my niece's house
radiates more warmth
than even Christmas

Those Who Know Me Well

know I love cats and Smith's Variety. Witness: my first Christmas gift from my nephew, niece-in-law, and two great-nieces.

First, I have to clean my car well.

Second, I have to choose which stickers to use.

And third, I must decide where to put them.

These are first-world problems (with a sense of humor).

A Family Affair

Tomorrow, I'll see the Mutt-cracker, but today I read my nephew's blog post and felt as I did when he made his first grand debut many years ago.

To read "Dancing in the Nutcracker with My Daughters and My Dog," click this link. You'll be glad you did!

The Lost Week (October 12-16)

An actual vacation: what a blessing. And in New York, no less. Good thing I've been there quite a lot. Good thing I spent a semester there in college. Good thing my only agenda was to visit family.

Day 1: To avoid an early morning drive to the airport (i.e. 3:15 am), I took the shuttle from Monteagle to Nashville to spend the night. The hotel puzzled me and other guests, as I discovered when four other people and I couldn't figure out how to operate the elevator. (Insert key card, then select floor, finally elevator moves.)

Day 2: Flight to New York. Uneventful in the best way: sleep. Once there, I had great difficulty understanding the fellow driving the hire car. His Indian accent was so thick and the noise at the airport so great that I couldn't understand a word he said. Not only that, but the woman I originally contacted told me to cross two islands (only one was correct), but fortunately, I finally located the driver, a traffic lane away.

Even my brother, whom I visited, was a bit impatient, given the driver's reluctance to stop in front of his building and his poor choice of a traffic route (an hour to get from LaGuardia to midtown). 

But.

I had arrived.

A lovely afternoon of clear skies, Japanese ramen, chatting, a niece-kitty cuddle, settling in at the Airbnb, napping, and Netflix splurging.

Day 3: A morning stroll along Fifth Avenue and into Central Park, a happy sit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art fountain, where I saw more people in one hour than live in Sewanee. Then a lovely luncheon and an even more spectacular stroll (my choice, said my art historian brother) through American art, the rooftop garden, and modern art, culminating in long contemplation of a beautiful new installation of an important Thomas Hart Benton mural.

A lovely Indian dinner downtown with new friends, one of whom gave me a first-edition E. B. White Here Is New York capped off a full day of pleasure.

Day 4: A short walk to Hale & Hearty on Lexington for a satisfying sandwich, followed by another ramble through Central Park, including a black squirrel, a mouse, beautiful gardens, and the model sailing pond (where photogenic ducks swam). All before I headed to the Duke mansion, home of NYU's Institute of Fine Arts for my brother's class (he teaches PhD students). On the way to his apartment, I couldn't resist a visit to Lady M, a high-style pastry shop. If only I could have brought home an endless supply of Caramel Miroir, a delicious way to celebrate a day much enjoyed.  

Day 5: Departure at 9:45 am in another hire car, this one driven by a competent immigrant (15 minutes to La Guardia), a long stand in the TSA line (in front of a companionable chat with a father and daughter and her husband), and, an hour later, immediate boarding. One of my seatmates took this photograph of NYC on the prettiest day of my visit and was kind enough to email it to me. 

At home, Friday evening on my weekly movie "date," I described my visit to my elderly friend Boo, who said, "You're the only person I have ever known [keep in mind that she is 93] who ever had a relaxing holiday in New York."

Yes, I did.

And I enjoyed every minute.

Throwback Thursday

Facebook loves TBT. I rarely participate, but today I couldn't resist posting a photo of the man for whom I am named.

He has been much in mind since reading a chapter in Sally Mann's Hold Still last night. Titled "The Munger System," she writes about our mutual ancestor, a great-grandfather to her and a great-step-grandfather to me, Robert Sylvester Munger. A fascinating, generous man whom my father adored, Mr. Munger cast a long shadow in Birmingham, my childhood home. He was loved for his charitable works and admired for his inventions and industry.

While I already knew much of the information in the chapter, other parts are startlingly new, especially a private letter Mr. Munger wrote to three of his four sons, one of them the man in the photograph above, my step-grandfather.

Because both Mr. Munger and his son died before I was born, I have always been curious about them and about why my father adored them so. Gentleness of spirit, I gather, and kindness. But Mr. Munger reveals something else, something far less admirable in my step-grandfather. He wrote,

We, Mama and I, feel like we can and should get away from home now . . . to regain some of the youth and vigor that we have lost in thinking and worrying over our children's affairs . . . and we are hoping and looking forward to the time soon when they will do something for us, instead of our working or worrying over them --

We can then direct our energies into channels more for the good of our Community, our Country and our Church and in fact the wide world -- Even while away down here we see opportunities and think of the great good we could do if we could just turn ourselves loose for the rest of our lives --

. . .

Now will you do it?

You can if you will. But you can only do it by one way, and that is by "Work".

All three of you are gifted with everything necessary to assure success in anything you might undertake except one thing, and that one thing you all three lack and that one thing is spelled by four little letters -- e.i. -- W-O-R-K --

Well I would enjoy a few lines from all of you --

Your Affectionate Papa

R. Munger 

Ironically, my grandmother divorced my father's biological father for what I have heard whispered amounts to the same complaint: he just couldn't get started. Oddly, my step-grandfather is chastised by his father for similar listlessness or laziness.

I am struck by the forthrightness and honesty in Mr. Munger's letter, something I doubt many fathers could write or say to their wastrel sons today.

I am also struck by the loving plea that they live up their promise.

And I am more than a bit stunned to see my own father, second from left on the first row, staring out from page 304, in a family photograph, printed in another person's book. (Mann's father is next to my father, the first boy on the left.)

For Sally Mann's research and thoughtfulness and beautiful writing, I am grateful, and to my parents I am grateful for the family name I bear, and for all that it represents, especially the love.

Family Stories

Over lunch, shopping, cocktails, dinner, and afterwards, my youngest first-cousin and I talked, and talked, and talked, and we kept returning to family, specifically, our shared one.

I dizzied from new news and old news, fact and innuendo, difference and similarity, shared and separate sorrows, as if sliding sweatily like condensation down a slippery glass or circling madly round the ribs of a glowing lantern.

What a strange thing, family: missed, missing, messy.

Personal History

William Faulkner was right: "The past is never dead. It's not even dead."

I grew up on tales of my grandmother's family's escape northward into South Carolina as Sherman stormed into Atlanta. The one family member left behind, my great-something grandfather, continued doctoring and served as the model for Dr. Meade in cousin-something-removed Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, a book my mother made me read (reluctantly) and which I hated.

Even as a child, I knew the novel's history wasn't history.

My grandmother's inherited bespoke secretary, now my brother's, bears the doctor forebear's name, stamped into the wood by the maker, and I could join as she did the Colonial Dames, the first Families of Maryland, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Daughters of the Confederacy, if I wanted to.

The South is in my blood -- on her side (my mother's side) from the 17th century on, and on my father's side from 18th century on.

So it's natural I sang Dixie as a child and sunbathed on a battle flag towel. My father even jokingly dressed in a rebel costume, complete with spirit-gummed goatee, and presented himself as Colonel Billy Hood at national paint conventions. His northern friends loved the fake money he handed out with his own picture in the middle and the company's name and logo.

One Christmas, Daddy gave us each a book he had written: the front cover said The War Between the States and, flipped over, the back cover said The Civil War. Inside all the pages were blank.

Today, I remembered these tidbits and others when I read Gary Leva's "Gone with the Wind & My Southern Education" in The Bitter Southerner. You might wish to read it too, especially if you're one of us who know the past isn't even past.

selfie in the cemetery of the University of the South

.

The Family That Dances Together

makes lifetime memories. 

As my nephew (father of two daughters) said,

before he became Mother Ginger,

"It's their football. We all love it!"

V as a Party Girl and D as Mother Ginger (daughter and father)

E going up as Jack Frost

Drosselmeyer and Jack Frost accepting congratulations

Not photographed, J (sewing mistress of the best Russian costumes ever!) and the family dog Betsy Ross, one of many canines in The Mutt-cracker.

New Times in an Old Place

Once, as my brother told his story of a summer camp summer hiking trip many years ago, an old man came wandering up to our campfire in the woods. He sat down and told us stories, played his guitar and sang songs with us.

He left as quietly as he came.

He was Carl Sandburg whose Flat Rock farm, Connemara, was famous for him and for his wife's goats. 

My brother's daughter and family visited the farm the day after Thanksgiving, where the children made friends with the chickens, goats, and cat.

 I don't think they even noticed the bluebirds.

I couldn't help feeling nostalgic for a place I myself knew many years ago from many camp summers nearby, for singing around a campfire, and for a meeting with a man I knew only through his words and voice.

Generosity

My niece welcomed all to the Thanksgiving table: her family, his family, and the family cat.

She knows a good thing when she sees it.

Anticipation

I love driving. By myself.

No music or loud music. My choice.

I especially love driving on back roads, winding along back roads, moving through beautiful scenery, mountains and vistas.

But mostly I love driving to people I want to see.

It's good to go to family at Thanksgiving.

Saturday and Sunday: Three Good Things about One Quick Birmingham Overnight

I

An unexpected historical marker at the largest and most beautiful welcome center in Alabama.

History at a rest stop. Who knew?

II

Family gathered on a new front porch to meet me upon arrival, Halloween decorations in evidence.

III

A sleepy bee on lantana, which clung to the dog's tail when Betsy (the dog) was a bit too enthusiastic about seeing it.

Cue laughter.

Another Year to Celebrate!

My first great-niece celebrates her birthday again. It's hard to believe that just eleven years ago she joined the family.

May she always love and be loved!

Happy birthday, E!

A Half Dozen Pleasures in One Day

1. A plethora of cooperative Odonates.

2. A package of old photographs, featuring my blood family and my might-as-well-be-blood family.

3. An ice cream cone with a friend.

4. An email from a cousin.

5. Fresh corn.

6. Two fat cats in one lap.

The Lesson I've Never Learned

All my life, I have been told, "Calm down" and "Lower your voice."

In the first week of first grade, I was sent to the hall for talking out of turn. When my brother's class walked by on the way to the cafeteria, he said, "There's my stupid sister." That's me, the stupid sister, I thought, and shrank into the wall.

An aunt once told me to "Quiet down" during a Christmas celebration. My niece and nephew stared at me, open-mouthed. I spoke not another word in her presence all night.

A brother used to tell me and his wife, "You don't have to shout," at the dinner table. Neither of us was shouting.

In college, the only time when my natural volume, resonance, and enthusiasm were accepted as a natural part of me -- and a good part, at that -- my friend Charley and I used to have a "projection contest" during theatre rehearsal breaks. We'd stand on the stage apron and speak toward the back wall of the audience. Both of our voices resounded, without effort, without shouting.

I thought about Charlie today and my own "intensity" when I saw this mushroom burning in the forest.

I suppose I should apologize.

But I can't: I am who I am.

Day 38: Another Day That Changed My Life

He took one look at my niece, said "I'm going to marry her." (Ask his mother.)

I've saved one message on my answering machine: he says, "Hello Aunt Robley! I'm just calling to say I love you." 

O's a keeper. 

Day 37: Another Day That Changed My Life

At their rehearsal dinner, my nephew said, "I love J because she makes me a better person."  

J knows how to fix anything, find the bargain, sew a costume, mother her girls, and make a small family large with love.

Day 35: Another Day That Changed My Life

First cousins long removed by time and space, I still like E and she still likes me. Shared memories of a grandmother's egg cup or an uncle's eccentricities bring the joy of belonging to a tribe, not just a self.