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Earlier this week we got word that another member of the generation ahead of me had, in the words of Christian parlance, passed to her eternal rest. In the way of things these days, I was able to subscribe to obituary updates from the funeral home and, as I waited for the email that would tell me where and when my Aunt Jean’s funeral would be held, I found myself recalling all the times that I and my friend Michael, whose office used to be next door to mine, read aloud obituaries to each other. He and I were alternately bemused and amused by the dearly departeds whose families chose to include various nicknames by which they had been known in life. John Robert “Cooter” Smith. Sally Ann “Sister” Jones. Things like that. The fairly recent adoption of the custom of including, along with place of birth, occupation, and church membership, the activities in which the decedent took pleasure can be equally enlightening and/or thought-provoking. “Big Daddy loved quail hunting, NASCAR, and Alabama football. Roll Tide!” “Tiny enjoyed working in the yard and nothing made her happier than cooking for her family.” I don’t recall the obituaries of any of my grandparents including such recitations and, being a traditionalist, I am glad that my grandfather’s love of soap operas and the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes is a part of his story that, at least until now, has stayed with those of us who loved him best. And then there is the question of remembrances. It is difficult to choose, sometimes, among the multitude of suggested organizations to which contributions in memory of the deceased may be made and, having chosen, decide the appropriate amount of said contribution. You can’t write the check for “an amount equal to the cost of a nice spray” and expect the people at the bank to know how much to debit your account . It was so much easier before people learned enough French to include “in lieu of flowers.” Even the standard listing of survivors – spouse, siblings, children, in-laws, grandchildren, and, depending upon the view said survivors have toward paying by the word, great-grandchildren – has changed. We have moved from a simple, “He is survived by ...” to “Left to hold him close in warm memories are his loving wife,” etc.. I keep looking for one in which the enumerated survivors are “loving wife,” “loving daughter,” “loving sister,” “loving brother,” and “son.” Poor son. I am not being disrespectful, staring at my computer screen waiting for my aunt’s obituary to appear and thinking such outrageous thoughts. It’s called dark humor. Black humor. Gallows humor. It is the urge to make jokes about, make fun of, laugh in the face of this thing about which we know the least, this thing that frightens us most. A futile attempt to avoid the unavoidable. The benefit of that futility is that it makes me consider the idea that none of us are survivors, but simply longer-livers. The real survivors of death are the words of kindness and the acts of mercy, the songs of joy and the peals of laughter, the moments of wonder and the expressions of love that any single human offers in any single lifetime, each of them a launched like a rocket ship out into the cosmos to land someplace unknown. Each of them living forever. Copyright 2018

“Look what I found.” The arrowhead my brother is holding between his thumb and index finger is a good two inches long and perfectly whole. It is the color of the flesh of an unripened peach. Its tip is still sharp after eons under sandy soil. Its surface is as smooth as the hundreds of strikes of stone-against-stone that it took to create it allows it to be. It is magical. But not so magical as to create surprise or, worse, doubt. Over the years Keith and Daddy, driving tractors that pull plows and harrows and root rakes, have unearthed hundreds of arrowheads, some smaller, a few larger, some streaked with the colors of sunset. There have been enough to prove that we are not the first people to claim this piece of dirt as our own, that its history goes far beyond the first deed I ever found in the courthouse records, that there are stories buried here that we will never know. Arrowheads are not the only artifacts that turn up on a regular basis. There are also the iron pins used to build the stretch of Register and Glennville Railroad, begun in 1895 as a logging road, eventually becoming a common carrier before being abandoned in 1919. One of them lies on the library case by my front door. It is heavy and flakes of rust are apt to come off in my hands if I roll it back and back as I am wont to do sometimes, just to be reminded that mine were not the first feet to travel these roads. It, too, has a point. It, too, was created to pierce, not flesh as was the arrowhead, but wood, which is, nevertheless, a kind of flesh. There may be other artifacts hidden beneath the fields, buried in the slick mud of the ponds, lost in the impenetrable brambles of the branch that is so close to my back door I can hear rabbits rushing toward their hutches. There may be others, but these are the ones we have found – arrowheads and railroad pins. And what occurs to me, now that I take the time to – in the way of high school essay questions – compare and contrast, is that not only do points pierce, but they, well, point. They show the way. Last Christmas some dear friends gave me the most adorable bird house. It has a tin roof and it is painted a soft aqua color. Around the entrance hole is a tin heart with an arrow shot through a’ la Cupid, the courier of love. The other day, shortly after having seen Keith’s new arrowhead, I was walking around the backyard and checked the bird house to see if I had any tenants (I don’t. Not yet.) and that heart with the arrow got me thinking What if our long-held understanding of Cupid as an archer is all wrong? What if love isn’t supposed to hurt, isn’t supposed to tear muscle from bone like an arrowhead or force a hole in one thing so that it can be attached to another like a railroad pin? What if Cupid isn’t aiming at someone, but, rather, in someone’s direction, showing the way to an otherwise aimless lover? If that is true, then the lesson of the newly-unearthed arrowhead is this: It is likely that the thing, the thought, the person who is going to show you the way may well not be visible to the casual glance. It may be hidden somewhere in the everyday task of work. It may be turned up by the plow of an unexpected encounter. It may look, at first, like a weapon, but if you take the time to hold it, measure it, roll it between your palms, you may well find that you have uncovered a set of directions to lead you home. Copyright 2018

There is still enough light in the sky to make out clouds. They are mauve and smoky violet, muted lavender and the palest of grays. One looks like a dolphin caught in mid-leap. Another like a giant Mickey Mouse hand. Across the way, toward town, a single streak of lightning makes a rip through the sky – heaven to horizon, orange-red like Mercurochrome. Heat lightning or the other kind I can’t tell. It is certainly hot enough for heat lightning; it feels as though I am wearing the air itself. On the other hand, the radar app on my phone is flashing some kind of alert. More rain on the way. The grass is between cuttings. It has grown quickly under the encouragement of daily showers and its too-tall blades slap at my ankles. It reminds me that when things are watered they grow. Not just plants. Everything. Tangible and non. I listen to a lot of podcasts. It is the method I have adopted for curating the information I absorb from the world, a deliberate attempt to keep out the voices that are so loud I can’t hear what they are saying. I like the sense of autonomy, however false it may be, that it gives me, the idea I can decide what topics are important and about which I want to know more, the idea that these thoughtful, articulate people are waiting to engage me in a conversation of sorts. One of the podcasts that I occasionally download is called “The One You Feed.” The host begins each interview by retelling the Native American story in which a grandfather tells his grandson that a good wolf and an evil wolf resides in each person. When the grandson asks which one prevails, the grandfather responds, “The one you feed.” After you’ve heard the story three or four times it loses some of its potency. Maybe that’s why I haven’t listened to that particular podcast in a while. But tonight, in light of my itchy ankles, I find myself reconsidering its hard-sell message. We are always feeding, watering something. Attitudes, relationships, opinions. Dreams, theories, priorities. And they will grow, like grass or wolves, in direct response to what they are fed, how often they are watered. The sky has lost its purpleness now. It has faded into tarnished silver. The clouds are flat and nearly invisible. They hide what little moon, what few stars might otherwise offer a little light to my perambulation. I’m walking by memory mostly. I know the rise and fall of a yard that used to be a field and, 25 years later, still bears the indentations of a plow. One field away is the house my parents built, the one into which we moved when I was still in high school and would have thought that moving to the farm was the worst thing that had ever happened to me had I not been counting down the days until I would leave for college. It reminds me that what we feed and water doesn’t just influence us, but those to whom we are connected as well. I am here, under this particular stretch of sky at this particular moment, because when he was 38 years old my father decided to feed the longing in his heart to return to the land. And because 20 years before that he went to church in Hagan and met my mother, who was singing in the choir, being fed by joyful gospel hymns. And because, a double-handful of generations before that, another Bradley left Ireland, feeding his dream for a new life. Had any of them – or multitudes of other relatives, teachers, or friends – feed or watered the other wolf or another patch of grass I would not be here, under this particular stretch of sky on this almost-Midsummer’s Night. Across the way another streak of lightning zig-zags its way toward earth. The rain is coming. The grass will higher grow. Copyright 2018

Three-plus miles. Eighty-plus degrees. Hot and sweaty in the best possible way. Home to a shower of lavender and well water. It is almost sunset and, cleanliness aside, I can’t resist the urge to go back outside, to squeeze an ounce or two more out of this day that is just a little longer than the day before, this day that is teasing me toward summer. The breeze is beginning to pick up in the branch. It ripples through the leaves in the top of the sycamore tree like an old man ruffling his grandson’s hair. The scent of soap, the angle of the sun, the riff of air across my bare arms ignite a Roman candle of memories. Long day in the front yard with cousins, dirt and grass stains washed away in a bathtub tinctured with Tide to ward off impetigo, front porch in pajamas listening to the grown-ups tell stories. Long day at church camp, little kid smells washed away by water so cold it makes you dance, church service followed by a trip to the concession stand for Milk Duds and a strange concoction of Coke and grape and orange Fanta we called a Suicide. Long day at the beach, sand and sweat washed away by sulfur-scented water from a rusty showerhead, barefoot stroll under a full moon. I stand still for a moment. Let the memories wash over me. Like the water in the bathtub, the water from the showerhead, the waves of the ocean. I am encapsulated in water and memory. In time. I was eight years old when I first experienced anticipation. First understood what it meant to know that something pleasurable was coming and feel the emotion ahead of time. Fourth grade at Mattie Lively. My teacher, Elizabeth Curlin, had made a bulletin board for the month of May that consisted of one single daisy. The center was the size of a steering wheel and it had 31 petals, each one numbered and attached to the center by a single staple. First thing every morning the petal corresponding to that day on the calendar was plucked off by a lucky student chosen by Mrs. Curlin. As the month progressed the daisy grew more and more pitiful. We, conversely, grew more and more enthusiastic. The approach of summer, with its promise of Popsicles, Push Ups, and playing under the water hose, made even the best-behaved of us loud and rambunctious. Anticipation is a powerful drug. And in the stillness, I feel it rising even now. Anticipation. I am tasting tomatoes that have not yet appeared on the vine and sweet corn that has not yet appeared on the stalk. I am watching my legs and arms turn a warmer shade of pink. I am hearing waves crash so loudly that conversation is impossible. Across the field the sun has stained the sky bright pink, deep violet. It is trembling in those last few moments before it disappears for the night. Tomorrow it will stay a little longer. Tomorrow summer will be one day closer. I can hardly wait. Copyright 2018

“Long distance is the next best thing to being there.” That was the advertising slogan of AT&T back when AT&T ruled the telecommunications industry, back when telephones had cords, back when it cost extra to call someone outside your area code. It was also the phrase that my Aunt June repeated over and over again to Grannie as I prepared to leave home for college and go a full 120 miles away. In Grannie’s mind, however, next best was only slightly better than worst. Grannie wanted to see my face, hold my hands in hers. I understand. I generally avoid telephone conversations lasting longer than five minutes. If the purpose of the call is to pass on information, five minutes is a gracious plenty. For anything else, a visit is warranted. Not always possible, but warranted. People need to see each others’ faces. People need to hold each others’ hands. Tonight though, I am willing to break my rule. I walk out onto the porch, cell phone pressed to my ear. It has been raining, off and on, for days and the cloud cover that stretches from one horizon to the other makes the cell reception inside the house, spotty under the best of circumstances, particularly treacherous. Outside, under the sky, the dampness of the night falling lightly on me like a veil, I will hear better. I will listen better. Ignoring the rocking chairs, I sit down at the edge, my back straight against one of the columns. The voice on the other end of the line (though it’s not a line anymore, if it ever really was) is one I know well. I would recognize it anywhere. It is a voice I know at every volume, in every cadence, with every inflection. It is a voice that carries with it more than just words. It is heavy with history. There is no news to speak of, nothing momentous to share. It is not that kind of phone call. It is an “I just wanted to hear your voice” phone call. It is a “Remind me that these things are still true” phone call. So we just talk. Run-on sentences. Phrases without objects. Subjects without verbs. We interrupt. We talk over each other. We pause to breathe. We laugh, we sigh, I – at least – swallow tears. In 1977 the Voyager Spacecraft were launched. Neither had any particular destination. If any “advanced space-faring civilizations,” as Carl Sagan called them, encounter either Voyager I or II (Voyager I should pass within about 1.6 light years of the star Gliese 445 in about 40,000 years.) they will find on board the so-called Golden Records. Included among all the amazing sounds gathered to represent our planet – the sounds of whale songs and the Brandenburg Concerto, the sounds of volcanoes and earthquakes and thunder, the sounds of footsteps, the sound of a kiss – are voices. Human voices making greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, human voices offered as, in the words of President Jimmy Carter, “a present from a small, distant world, a token ... of our thoughts and feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.” Voices as a present. A gift. An offering. I am filling up with amazement. Amazement that a combination of plastic and metal and the imagination that came up with binary code are, this very moment, allowing me to make that gift to, receive that gift from another human being, to be connected in a way that is even better than seeing his face, holding his hand. Amazement that the waxing moon, made invisible by the thick gray clouds, is still illuminating my front yard so well that I can make out fencerows and power lines and my mailbox at the edge of the road. Amazement that Grannie and AT&T may have both been wrong, that long distance may well – sometimes, at least – be better than being there. Copyright 2018

The holly trees have stood at either end of the porch for nearly 15 years. They arrived in black plastic buckets, stubby and unimpressive, veritable runts compared to the proud sentinels they grew to be. I remember the delight with which I cut the first berry-bearing branches, so proud to be able to walk out the front door and gather from them my own Christmas decorations. I have no idea when they grew so tall as to reach the corners of the house, so tall as to scrape the fascia boards when the wind comes roaring across the field rattling their branches. All I know is that they did and one night I went out to replace what I thought was a blown floodlight only to discover that it was flooding light just fine, thank you very much. The problem was the obscuring of said light by the prickly green branches of a holly tree that had grown, silently and unobserved, into a nuisance. When one lives in the country, far from street lights and neon signs and strings of cars that send constant waves and arcs of halogen across the yard and through the windows, darkness becomes less an interference to regular activity and more a companion. Pushing the trash can to the road with no illumination beyond that of the stars becomes a reflection on the vastness of the universe. Walking to the mailbox under the light of a waning moon becomes a reminder of the tenderness of life. But darkness can also be dangerous. One can, for example, turn an ankle in a hole dug by an armadillo while one is walking around after dark listening to the bullfrogs and trying to catch a whiff of lavender. So, after months of putting it off and only after being reminded by someone who was trying to be helpful that, as Charley Pride put it, snakes crawl at night, I had someone come out and trim back the holly trees so that I could actually see where I was going at night. And by trim back I mean cut away everything green, saw off everything except the trunk and main branches leaving something vaguely resembling the silver aluminum Christmas trees that used to adorn the store windows downtown in the 1960s. Not attractive at this point, but with the promise of resurrection and the assurance that I could wander around outside at midnight if I so desired with at least enough illumination to avoid serious bodily harm. The next morning I walked out onto the porch and the first thing I noticed was how quiet it was. The birds that generally greeted me with competitive singing had fallen silent. It took only a couple of seconds to realize why. And another couple of seconds to experience a wave of grief and guilt that nearly knocked me down. It had never occurred to me that in eliminating – even if only temporarily – my own problem I was laying one at the doorstep of my neighbors. Not once did I think about the nests that might be, quite probably were, built in the branches that fell in heaps on the ground. Not once did I think about where the wrens and the swallows would rest, hide, sing. And, yet, even as an apology came rushing out of my mouth, I had another thought, an audible memory. I heard the voice of every flight attendant on every plane in which I’ve ever been a passenger: “Secure your mask on first, and then assist the other person.” You can’t, it is explained, be of help to anyone unless you have first assured your own safety. The trees needed to be cut back. Not just for me, but for them as well. All living things need pruning and shaping eventually. But I still feel guilty. I think the birds have forgive me though. They haven't stopped showing up at the feeders a couple of times a day and they haven't stopped singing. They just do it from perches in other parts of the yard. And I, with the assistance of unobstructed floodlights, am still walking around in the dark. Copyright 2017

It is spring. It is Saturday afternoon. The sun that slants through the living room window is more than enough light for me to do the close and tedious work of replacing a hem that has come undone in one of my favorite dresses. It has unraveled like the string at the top of Owen’s dog food bag and I am just a little exasperated that I have to take even a few minutes of this gloriously warm and bright day to correct the shoddy workmanship of whomever it was who put in these stitches, obviously by machine, not hand. The sewing basket from which I take the needle and thread was my mother’s for many years and she gave it to me, freshly lined with new velvet and satin, when I first learned to sew. It was something like a father passing on his hunting rifle, a recognition that I’d gained enough skill at something that was important to her to be acknowledged and encouraged. When I was growing up, Mama supplemented our family income by – as we used to say – taking in sewing. Day after day, night after night, our kitchen table was draped with fabric, the smell of dye drifting through the house as thick as the scent of pot roast on Sunday. Pinning crinkly, tissue-thin pattern pieces to the cloth like jigsaw pieces with barely an inch between them, she always needed at least a quarter yard less than the pattern envelope indicated. She cut around these pieces with heavy metal scissors that we were not allowed to use for anything else. And then she sat down to the brown Singer whose rhythmic rattle lulled me to sleep on many a summer night as its song drifted in and out of the open windows of our house. When I was ten or twelve, about the time that the sewing basket was passed on, I took on the role of assistant. My job was to steam press the seams of bodices attached to skirts, of fronts attached to backs, of sleeves attached to shoulders, to make sure that each one lay flat and even before it went back under the presser foot of the sewing machine to be sewn to the next piece. I can still feel the heft of the iron in my hand and the heat of the steam escaping from the top. I can still hear the sizzle of the water as I refilled the port. Handwork – hemming, attaching trim, tacking down facings – came later. Only after Mama had watched me press seams for a long time, only after she knew she could trust me with the thing for which she was well-known and which, to her at least, was the signature of a true seamstress. Handwork is simple, but tedious. Make a double knot so that it will not pull through the fabric, but do not double the thread. A single strand is all you need for handwork. Take short, flat stitches. Make sure that they are invisible from the front. This is accomplished by catching a single thread of the fabric with the needle, feeding it through gently. When you are done, if you have done it all correctly, there will be no sign of the needle or the thread. This is the mark of a master seamstress – that there are no marks. The instructions are more than instructions. They are a mantra and it is stored not just in my memory, but in my hands. I knot the thread, take up the dress, and begin. What I know now that I couldn’t have known then is that the confidence Mama showed in handing me that first dress and saying, “Here. Hem this,” wasn’t confidence in my ability. It was confidence in hers. Her ability to teach, to model, to show. It is no small thing to trust. No small thing to hand over something of value – your money, your reputation, your heart – to another human being and say, “Here. Take care of this.” It is always an all-or-nothing gamble. Because the one you have to trust is yourself. Copyright 2018

There are some stories you don’t tell. Ever. Not to anyone. There are some stories you tell all the time, over and over, with such panache and aplomb that you know exactly the moment when the audience will gasp or nod or cover its mouth in the impossible attempt to stifle the inappropriate laugh. And there are some stories you tell, but only rarely. Only when the time is right. When that part of your heart where the most precious things are locked away whispers, “Now.” This is one of those stories. I was back at Wesleyan last weekend for my 40th reunion. About 30 of my classmates joined me. We took a lot of photos, gave and received a lot of hugs, and wore a lot of purple. We talked about the people who weren’t there and gave them heck in absentia. We did a lot of remembering. It was from that remembering, that neurological pump primed by the smiles and laughs that look and sound absolutely no different from the ones I last saw and heard in 1978, that the story rose to the surface like the witches we used to say rose from Foster Lake on Halloween to free the students from class. It is the story of a bright, but naive 17-year-old who visited Wesleyan for a scholarship weekend and went home and told her parents, “I’m going there.” The one who didn’t apply to any other college, so sure was she that somehow, some way Wesleyan would be where she would end up. It’s the story of the girl who was so excited to have seen that optimism rewarded that she wandered around the first week introducing herself to so many people that someone mistook her for a faculty member. And it’s the story of the girl who, having endured – and at the same time, somehow, enjoyed – the juvenile initiation rites inflicted upon her and her classmates by the upperclassmen, found a spot on the grass, far away from the drone of conversation in the dorm, to sit under the honey drip of the setting sun and marvel at her incredible good fortune. Most of my friends from high school were, at that exact moment, living the very different experience of sorority rush. I didn’t know much about the string of invitations and parties beyond the fact that it involved the process of, ultimately, being chosen. Sitting there with my knees pulled up to my chest, looking out over the campus as the street lamps began to come on, I was struck forcefully by what was probably the first truly adult thought I’d ever had, the thought that what I had just been through – the ridiculous outfit, included – was quite the opposite of being chosen and was, in fact, the culmination of my choosing. Choosing and being chosen, it was clear, are very different things. And for this bright, but naive – and did I mention insecure? – 17-year-old it was more than different. It was critical. I would never have had the self-confidence, the assurance, the courage to say, “Pick me.” I would never have believed that anyone would. But I did have the self-confidence and assurance and courage to trust my choice. I did know, from the moment I dragged my trunk into the dorm room that I would share with Kim from Titusville, Florida, that I had found my home. And I have trusted it every moment since. On Saturday night, a couple of hundred yards and nearly 44 years away from that spot of grass, on a patio lit only by paper bag luminaries, we sat – my Wesleyan sisters and I. We talked about the people we loved and the ones we still do. We filled in the gaps in each others’ stories, moving around the patio from one cluster to another, a waltz without accompaniment. We listened and nodded and gave each other permission to be those girls again, the ones who chose. It was chilly for late April. At one point a few drops of rain fell on our heads like a christening. And, too soon, it was time to go. Of all the decisions I have ever made, the one that took me there, that keeps me there even now is the only one that I have never second-guessed. Perhaps I was not as naive, as insecure as I thought. Or perhaps I was simply, even then, listening to my heart say, “Now.” Copyright 2018

Late last night, fueled by the residual adrenaline of a hectic court day and the leftover caffeine from a combination of migraine medicine and sweet tea at supper, I went outside to walk around for a while. There is nothing like darkness, nature’s darkness broken only by distant starlight, to remind a person of her smallness and the smallness of the things and thoughts that cultivate discontent. I moved away from the cones of light cast by the floodlights at the corners of the house, being careful not to step in one of the holes that Owen has dug in the front yard, and made my way toward the edge of the field that will soon be planted with cotton seed. The evening damp settled on my hands and cheeks and in the distance I heard the dull hum that is the relentless rush of traffic on the interstate. In the absence of clouds, the stars were bright enough to create shadows – the light pole a long smudge across my driveway, the places where my brother had turned the tractor wavy lines like rick-rack – and I tilted my head to find the Big Dipper. It is the only constellation I can ever find with any consistency, any accuracy. Locating the large ladle in the endless sky is like placing a push pin on a map. You are here. But the Big Dipper is not what I saw. What I saw was Orion. Clear as day. Exactly like a textbook photo. It’s funny what happens when you see something you don’t expect to see. Something you’ve never seen before. Something you’ve never been able to see before. What happens is that you doubt yourself, your vision. You shake your head and blink your eyes and, when mere blinking doesn’t change what you see, you close them and you count to ten and look again. And when it’s still Orion dangling there in the southwest sky, you take a deep breath and stare in amazement. Motionless, silent amazement. I don’t know how long I stared. How long I stood in the darkness looking up at the light. How long I held my arms around my chest as though to hold in a heart that might explode with astonishment at any moment. It’s funny what happens when you see something you have never seen before. What happens when you choose to believe yourself, your vision. You want to see more, know more. So this morning I went searching. I found that while it was the Greeks who gave the constellation the name Orion, “the hunter,” the Babylonians called it “the heavenly shepherd.” The three stars that are generally described as Orion’s belt are known as The Three Marys in Spain and Latin America and the Lakota Native Americans call it Tayamnicankhu, the spine of a bison. In some Hungarian traditions, it is known as a “judge’s stick.” I smiled when I read that, imagining the judges before whom I appear wielding a stick rather than a gavel. I have a couple of theories as to why I was suddenly able to see Orion when I never had before. The first one has to do with a change in my contact lenses. That theory is a lot less fun than the second, which is that magic still exists and occasionally the necessary ingredients – in this case a cool clear night, caffeine, and a woman with a vivid imagination and an affinity for mystery – come together to cast a spell of enchantment. I’m going with Theory Number Two. Copyright 2018

The lethargy of spring and the lingering weight of pollen in my head and chest have left me, this year, all too comfortable with the vocabulary of Lent. The wind wails across the still-empty fields and I watch with bone-heavy fatigue twisting cones of dust, the dust from which I’ve come and to which I will return. It seems years ago that I stood at the altar and voluntarily accepted the ashes. I didn’t think it would last this long. But it has. And the burden that greets me each morning is not just the cold, but the weariness of impotence and resignation. The reminder that on the same day Valentine’s candy collided with ashes, they were both overlapped by a murderous tragedy in an otherwise ordinary high school. An event that has shadowed every single day of the season in which I and my fellow Christians find ourselves called to repentance. For eighteen years I have given my professional self to the job of prosecuting juvenile offenders in the place I have called home for my entire life. It is a job that forces me to make hard decisions, to ask hard questions, to sometimes disregard the pleas of well-meaning parents. It requires me to take the long view, to look at today’s behavior in light of tomorrow, to utilize whatever resources are available to, in the words of the Juvenile Code, secure “the moral, emotional, mental, and physical welfare” of the children whose lives intersect mine. It is not easy. That is not a request for sympathy or affirmation. It is simply a fact. And, in light of a recent spate of incidents in our own communities in which our children have engaged in making threats against each other and their schools, I have to stop to wonder – not for the first or the second or the hundredth time – what is going on here. Why are children threatening to kill other children? Why are they threatening to blow up their schools? Why are they posting hate-filled racial epithets on social media and then acting perplexed when consequences result? The answer, I think, is one of two things. Either the child has become absolutely numb to the words because of the way culture has appropriated hate speech and profanity as "art" or he lives in an environment where that kind of language is the norm, where the adults in his life suffer from a poverty so great that their only power comes from hating, criticizing, and looking down on others. What that means is that we – the adults who are birthing and rearing and modeling for these children – have failed to teach them the power of words. Whether we have forgotten or we have chosen to ignore that words are the original creator, we can no longer pretend it doesn’t matter. So now it is time to repent. Time to put off the sackcloth and ashes, time to rise from the heap of sorrow and anger and despair, time to stride into the authority that is ours by virtue of having listened to the stories, lived through the struggles, learned what the long view means. Time to stop giving ourselves a pass for the occasional racist or sexist or homophobic remark because we know that we’re basically good people. Time to start using words – every single word – in a thoughtful and respectful way. And when we do, spring will come. New things will grow. Resurrection will be ours. Copyright 2018

They dragged the ditches a few weeks ago. They hauled their big, noisy, mustard yellow machines out to my edge of the county, the imaginary line separating Bulloch from Evans, and set about scooping every imaginable form of detritus from the long, open graves. Once exhumed, the roots and rocks, broken bottles and aluminum cans, plastic bags with faded logos, were tossed into – and left in – the middle of the road. I am not complaining. The cost-benefit analysis that one constantly makes or finds being made on one’s behalf when one chooses to live in the country makes it pretty clear that, between the two choices, dragging the ditches is the lesser of two evils. One option is to allow the ditches to slowly fill with the leaves and vines and fallen branches, a choice which will eventually result in leaving the rain nowhere to drain, no way to reach the creek, and in creating what I like to think of as a combination of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and the Log Jamboree without the expense of a trip to Orlando or Six Flags. The other option is the aforementioned dragging, which leaves the road temporarily lumpy and littered with hazards that, not avoided, can puncture a tire or knock off a muffler and feeling like – to continue with the theme park metaphor – something akin to the Dahlonega Mine Train. And, so, the ditches got dragged. It was a beautiful afternoon, one of those 70-degree days that made us think Gen. Beauregard Lee had, at long last, entered his dotage and couldn’t tell his shadow from a hole in the ground, and Owen and I had ventured well over a mile from home. He kept running on ahead and I kept stopping to examine the items that had been left in our path. The road turned into a veritable archaeological dig – branches longer than my leg and bigger around, with jagged ends that testified to the storms that had ripped them from their trees; big chunks of concrete, the size of a tabletops; and fewer plastic bottles and beer cans than I would have expected, but still too many. For a brief moment, recalling a vague image from HGTV of a walkway made of salvage concrete, I actually considered borrowing Daddy’s truck to haul it home. It would not be the craziest thing for which I’ve borrowed his truck, but I released the idea as I remembered the number of loads of pea gravel that cute couple from Mississippi had needed to finish their project. Still, I moved the biggest pieces to the sides of the road, out of the middle where the cars and trucks and four-wheelers might not see them. The idea I didn’t release, though, the one that followed me home and stuck around was the idea that roads aren’t the only things that need the occasional ditch-dragging, the every-once-in-a-while digging up and tossing aside. I went to visit some friends the other day. It wasn’t a long visit; it didn’t have to be. We ate well, we laughed, and we dragged some ditches. Talked about some things that, over time, have accumulated in dark and damp piles, things that have clogged the water flow. We just threw those things into the middle of the road, the road we still had to walk, and took good long looks at them to decide which ones were harmless enough to leave where they were and which ones needed to be moved. Because there are some logs, some pieces of concrete that are just too dangerous to leave where they are. Because the next time you head down that same road you might be in a hurry or distracted; you might not see the log or the concrete or recognize the bad choice. It’s better then, when you can, to take the time to not just drag the ditch, but clear the road. Copyright 2018

Memory is a funny thing. This is how it works. Or, more accurately, this is how mine works: I brush my teeth twice a day. And every time I pick up my toothbrush – every single time – I think about my friend Jim. Jim was a student in the first class I taught as an adjunct professor at Georgia Southern. He sat on the front row, against the wall of the mobile unit that had been constructed close enough to the baseball field that during those warm spring evenings when we met to talk about business law we could hear the crowds at the baseball stadium roar with enthusiasm when the home team made a great defensive play or hit a homerun. Jim had been in the Marines before coming to school, so he was older than most of the other students. Not by much, but enough. He’d been to war, real war, and, as I would learn later when he came to work for me and became my friend, real war had made its mark. After he graduated from Georgia Southern, he got his MBA at the University of Georgia and accepted a job with Johnson and Johnson, the company that makes baby powder and baby shampoo and baby lotion, Band-Aids and Benadryl and Tylenol. At the time they also made Reach toothbrushes and on one of my visits he presented me with a plastic bagful. Assuming that I followed recommended protocol and changed my toothbrush every three months, that bag lasted about four years. Four years during which Jim changed jobs a couple of times. During which he and I took a trip to New York City – saw the Braves play the Mets at Shea Stadium, ate brunch at Tavern on the Green, hiked all over Central Park, and had a stranger take our photo on top of the Empire State Building. During which the demons with which he had struggled for years tightened their grip on his will and his soul. It’s been over 20 years since Jim and I became friends, over 15 since he gave me the toothbrushes, over four now since he died. Yesterday I was at Walmart looking at toothbrushes, marveling at the vast array of colors and handles and bristles. I was uncharacteristically indecisive. “It shouldn’t be this difficult,” I offered to the woman standing beside me and also staring blankly at the singles, the doubles, the four-packs, “to pick out a toothbrush.” I finally made a decision, based – I have to admit – more on color than on claimed efficacy of tartar-removal, and last night, as I squeezed the toothpaste onto its stiff new bristles, I remembered Jim. As I always do. I know more about Alzheimer’s than I ever wanted to know. I have watched it steal the minds of the two women who loved me most and I have learned in the watching that the connections the brain sometimes makes between totally unrelated objects can be simultaneously uproariously funny and heartbreakingly sad. What I have concluded, however, is that no matter how jolting and disconcerting it might be to me to hear a dog referred to as a chair, there is, to the speaker at least, always some rationale, some logic behind the mis-spoken word, the confused syllables, the misaligned sounds. And on the basis of that conclusion I have further decided that if I, as a result of genetics or too much aspartame or any other vile attacker, succumb to Alzheimer's at some point in the future, I will most likel refer to my toothbrush as Jim. No one should be concerned. I will know what I’m doing. I’ll be remembering. Copyright 2018

Owen is teaching me a lot. It is, of course, in his job description. A person doesn’t take on the responsibility of a puppy without also accepting the unavoidable stretching, even breaking of one’s parameters. I knew this when, on Halloween afternoon, I arrived at home to find him sitting under the carport with an expression on his face that could be read as either, “Where have you been? I’ve been so worried,” or “Where have you been? I can’t believe you kept me waiting.” What I didn’t know was that the elements of the Owen curriculum would be so very different from those of my previous two dogs, the regal and loyal Ginny and the grateful and placid Lily. He is teaching me, for example to look for launching pads. Owen is, as it turns out, a jumper. He never takes the steps, using them instead as the springboard from which he throws himself into a replication of Mary Lou Retton mid-vault and sailing over them a good four feet to land with grace that would move even the Russian judge to award him a 10.0. He turns butterfly chasing into ballet, leaping into the air in tours-de-jete to rival Baryshnikov’s and his favorite parts of the dirt road are the places where the woods on either side are high enough that he can himself over the edge to land somewhere close to my feet. Sometimes he rolls, sometimes he face-plants, but always he gets back up and leaps again. He is teaching me that the ground is always going to be there. Always. He is teaching me that I will never jump and be lost forever in oblivion, but that however far the fall there will always be something upon which I can, however awkwardly, regain my footing. He is also teaching me something about the joy of struggle. He loves toys, all toys, but he especially loves the long knotted rope that I throw and he retrieves, that I throw again and he retrieves again, that I throw again and again and again and he retrieves again and again and again. Until, that is, the moment when he decides that tug-o’-war would be more fun that fetch. The moment when he clamps his teeth down onto the knot and refuses to release it. The moment when I realize that I’m trying and not succeeding in getting the toy out of his mouth. The moment when I start wondering why I don’t just let go. Because, let’s be honest, that is always the first thought. When the effort becomes struggle, the work becomes combat, the attempt becomes conflict, it is always the easiest, quickest, simplest thing to do. Let go. Walk away. Give up. My niece Kate works for a non-profit foundation that recently received a large grant, a grant big enough to do a lot of good for its constituency. She shared with me a part of the letter notifying them of the award and encouraging them in what is not going to be an easy endeavor. “Remember,” the letter read, “you were made for this struggle." I read it through twice, three times, as tears sprang to my eyes. Could that be true? If it is – and there was something in me that said it was – then letting go, walking away, and giving up couldn’t be the only options when the battle engages, when fatigue sets in, when life gets harder than I ever imagined it could. I think about me and Owen in the front yard, on either end of the rope toy. Me grimacing and yanking and sighing with frustration. Him growling and jerking and drooling with joy. With every pull he is trying to take me to a place of playfulness and engagement, trying to get me to see that this, too, is a game. Just a different one. With different rules. And different expectations. If I let go, both games are over. If I hold on I may yet have fun. If I hold on, I may find that I am stronger than I ever thought I could be. If I stay, I may find that the view changes with the season. And if I don’t give up, I may find that not only was I made for this struggle, but that this struggle was made for me. Copyright 2018

I was only six when my family moved from Mikell Street and, yet, it remains, all these years later, my neighborhood. And the people who lived on that street and the one behind it, College Lane, remain, all these years later, my people. So I don’t suppose that the sadness that rose up in me when I heard the news of the death of one of my early playmates should have been totally unexpected. But it was. There was a gang of us in the neighborhood. A dozen or so at the core – the Campbells, the Keys, the Morrisses, my brother, my cousins, and I – who rambled up and down the streets and into and out of each other’s yards with a freedom I can not even imagine for the four- and five-year-olds I know today. We raced our broomstick ponies and played tea party and sat on quilts to eat each other’s birthday cakes. The clotheslines that festooned our backyards with white sheet flags and towel semaphores may have been the boundaries for land lots, but to us they were nothing more than base in our endless games of chase. I locked arms with Debra and Dianne to form an impenetrable bond in Red Rover. I bent to hurry under the London Bridge built by Cathy and Glenda. I joined hands with everybody in Ring Around the Rosie to make a circle with no beginning and no ending. We taught each other how to follow rules, how to play fair, how to make sure everybody got included. We taught each other confidence and security and community. We lived at one end of the block and on the other end was Mr. Newton’s store, a narrow cement block building painted an avocado green color, to which I was allowed to take my brother by one hand and walk all by myself, two nickels clutched in the other hand. With those two nickels I would buy cookies from the big glass jar with the bright red top or a handful of Squirrel Nuts and Mary Janes which Mr. Newton would drop into a tiny brown paper bag. I can still see with great clarity the wooden floor, its shine long gone, scuffed away by the years of neighborhood dwellers shuffling their way in for a loaf of Sunbeam bread stacked on the wire shelves near the door or a bottle of Coca-Cola from the long red cooler. The Campbells lived about halfway between our house and Mr. Newton’s store. Mama and Miss Bonnie were great friends. They were both fine seamstresses and could talk to each other forever, it seemed, about fabric and patterns and notions, a face that allowed for a bit more perceived freedom for my brother Keith and I and Miss Bonnie and Mr. Pete’s children, Phil and Ann. One overcast Saturday afternoon I was at the Campbells’ house to play with Ann and Miss Bonnie decided to make cookies. Miss Bonnie had the first stove I’d ever seen with glass in the door. Ann and I were just tall enough to press our faces up to the glass and watch them rise in the amber light of the oven. It was like being a witness to magic. I have absolutely no memory of the taste of those cookies, but the image of them rising slowing, the heat hovering like a mirage, my friend and I mesmerized by them together in the safety and obliviousness of childhood remains clear and true all these decades later. So, no, I don’t suppose that I should be surprised that seeing Ann’s obituary would trigger a wave of sadness and a waterfall of memories. That the customary string of words and dates and names that are supposed to sum up a life would leave me bewildered and unable to do simple math in my head. That the day’s ordinary noise and activity would fade away as I sat for a while inside my five-year-old self. I had not seen Ann in years and I couldn’t say that I knew much about her life as an adult. She had married, had children. She was a grandmother. And a widow. I read the names of the people left to mourn her passing, the ones I know and the ones I don’t. I tried to get a picture of my childhood friend – the little blonde girl who was quiet and easy among so many of us who were anything but – as a grown woman. It must have been the third time through that I saw it: “Most of her life,” the obituary read, “Ann was a homemaker.” And there I was, back on Mikell Street again. Back with the Campbells, the Keys, the Morrisses, my brother, and my cousins. Back home. And back with the people who made it home and made those homes. The mothers and fathers, the neighbors and Mr. Newton, all the adults who created a place where children felt safe without even knowing it, where children learned to be adults by watching the good ones around them. Copyright 2018