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As I lay dying – And by dying I mean in the colloquial Southern sense of suffering from a physical malady nowhere close to terminal, but so irritating as to have left one unable to imagine for even a moment the possibility of a world without the present misery. – I was able to muster up enough lucidity and self-pity to remember that the day just broken was, in fact, my birthday and that I could not recall ever having been ill on my birthday and that it was, well, patently unfair to be ill on one’s birthday. As I lay dying – And by dying I mean in the existential sense that we are all, every moment and with every breath, dying. – for what eventually amounted to nearly an entire week, I let go of the self-pity, recognizing that when you’ve had as many birthdays as I have the law of averages is going to catch up with you eventually and you are going to be sick on your birthday and that, as with most things, fairness has absolutely nothing to do with it. So, as I lay dying, there was plenty of time for more than a few quixotic, fanciful, and/or irrational thoughts about everything from toilet paper to television to tenderness. Toilet paper: I have always been just a bit angst-ridden over paying extra for Charmin Ultra-Soft tissue. That angst has now been alleviated. That I still have a nose and that I do not look like W.C. Fields after going through, at last count, nine rolls of Charmin Ultra-Soft (as well as nine packs of pocket tissues which are, let the record show, nowhere nearly as soft as the Charmin), I will never again question the extra expenditure. Television: When I finally broken down and got a satellite dish, I removed the extra television from the bedroom. The expense of connecting said second television to the DirecTV account was simply not justifiable and I can watch only one at the time, right? As I lay dying, I couldn’t read because my eyes were constantly watering and so I was limited, for five days, to National Public Radio. During the annual fall fund drive. The toll-free number is seared onto my memory and I have less desire for a gray hoodie that says, “Public Radio Nerd,” than I would have ever thought possible. I am rethinking that decision about the televsion. Tenderness: I am fortunate to have so many friends and such a wonderful family, many of whom called to wish me a happy birthday. I did not answer their calls because they would not have been able to hear me, but I did – many many hours later – find brief solace as I played back the voice mails, the long string of familiar voices wishing me well without knowing that well is exactly what I desired to be. And beyond the birthday greetings, there were the check-ins, the tentative inquiries as to whether I needed anything, the generous offers to come “take care of” me. A couple of folks offered to drive across the state for that purpose and handled my swift rejections with a sweetness of spirit I might not have managed had I been on the other side of the equation. It was from those offers that ultimately came the only redeeming moment of the days that I lay dying. My niece Kate was one of those checking in. On Day Two she texted me that she had just spoken to her grandparents/my parents and that they were going to come by. “They don’t have to,” I told her. “That’s a useless thing to say.” I could hear her annoyance in the words on the screen. “And you need to stop teaching people to not try to take care of you when you need it.” I felt as though someone had popped my hand as I reached for an extra cookie, as though my favorite teacher had given me a bad grade, as though a photo of sick me was now in the dictionary next to the definition of reprimand. I wanted to pout a little. Except I knew she was right. As much as we talk about extending care and compassion to each other, we resist it being extended to ourselves. Is it pride? Or fear? Or some other equally dark character trait that prompts us to say, “I’m fine,” when we’re not. To say, “No, thank you,” when what we really want to say is, “Yes, please.” To pull away when what we want most of all is to be drawn in, surrounded by, embraced. We need to work on that. All of us. You. Me. We need to be able to say, “I need your help,” and then gracefully accept the help. We need to work on accepting the fact that life isn’t fair and sometimes we’ll be sick on our birthdays, but that, unless we are hell-bent on being stupid, we don’t have to experience it alone. Copyright 2015

I missed the eclipse. Through no fault of my own, I would hasten to point out. My view of the moon being covered by the shadow of the sun was covered by clouds, thick and bulbous and gunmetal gray. I kept going outside, looking up into the eastern sky which is, as it turns out, a rather large general area and while I had a pretty good idea of where the moon was supposed to be – somewhere up and to the right of the grain bins – I never got a single glimpse. I was disappointed. I am old enough now that when things happen that won’t happen again for a period of time to which people refer in something other than numbers – decade, score, century – , I stop to wonder whether I will be around for it. (If it’s true that it will be another twenty years before the super blood moon coincides with the lunar eclipse, I will be on the other side of the three score and ten birthdays mentioned with equal parts gratitude and resignation in the Psalms.) I am also old enough now to recover from disappointments with a fair amount of aplomb. When it became apparent that the thickness was not going to evaporate, that the eerie Jello-like tremble of clouds was not soon to dissipate, that no amount of Linus Van Pelt-level sincerity was going to grant me a glimpse of the big red beach ball of a moon, I gave up. Gave up by carrying myself back across the yard on wet feet, avoiding armadillo holes as best I could, and climbing into bed. Two days later, halfway home from a walk in the damp dusk, I saw the blazing star. One solitary stalk clinging to the cliff edge of the ditch, a spiky iridescent mascara wand of purple, the first of fall. Feeling the need to extend greetings of some sort, I slowed down and turned toward it, only to see not one stem shivering in a breeze so slight I couldn’t feel it, but a patch of twenty, thirty, maybe more. So thin and fine were the flowers, like filaments in an incandescent light bulb, that they blurred into a low haze, arcing over the wiregrass and palmetto scrubbs like a single-color rainbow. I felt my chest rise despite the fact that I had not taken a breath and I realized that my body was filling, not with air, but with gratitude, a singular sensation combining awe and unworthiness with comfort and peacefulness and, most of all, belonging. Two days before, the afternoon of the night on which I did not see the eclipse, the blazing star had not been there. Or, if it had been there, it hadn’t bloomed. Or, if it had bloomed, it had not beckoned to me. Two days before, when I walked the same road, made the same footprints, I had not seen nor been seen by these extravagant heralds of fall, intent as I was to get home, intent as I was to see the eclipse. I missed the eclipse and I almost missed the blazing star. But I didn’t. This summer I read a book about a woman who spent a couple of years of her life chasing phenomenon – the migration of monarch butterflies in Mexico, bioluminescence in Puerto Rico, the aurora borealis in Sweden, the lightning display of Catatumbo, Venezuela. She lives, I noticed, in North Carolina. There is every reason in the world to chase the phenomenal, to seek out the wondrous, to experience creation from as many angles as possible. Every reason in the world to stay up late, get up early, run farther, hike higher in order to see and hear, taste and touch that which is astounding and extraordinary and remarkable. And part of the seeing and hearing and tasting and touching can be feeling disappointment when what you experience is not what you expected. But what is just as important, maybe even a little bit more, is understanding that the phenomenal is not limited to that which is far away or that which occurs only rarely. The phenomenal is everywhere. The phenomenal is here. And now. And no one has to miss that. Copyright 2015

Walking and Talking With Fear Summer has begun to fade and I want to stop the calendar right here, pause the passage of time for some period of time that will allow me to wallow in the sharp angle of light, absorb the clearness of the air, drink in and gnaw on the deliciousness of the moment. The turn of the season, summer to autumn, is right now, this minute, and this minute is not long. In the morning I linger, stand on the deck to stare at the sycamore tree and its leaves, already the green-gold of an old penny; to stare at the sky, empty of everything except birds lifting themselves from their nighttime roosts. They rise with an ease and grace I can’t help but envy, a freedom I cannot imagine, into a blueness so flat and even I find it hard to believe that it can contain their three-dimensional selves. In the evening I amble, take my time down the road and back as I leave my footprints on top of the chevrons embossed into the sand by tractor tires. Cotton blossoms, milky white and cotton candy pink, have folded themselves into prayer hands for the night and the breeze that rustles through the leaves tickles my arms and makes me wish for sleeves. The sun is already behind the trees. The last smear of color, a bleed of florescent pink, has faded and I am walking as much by faith as by sight. I can see the house, can make out the white lines of the rocking chairs on the front porch when I hear an animal sound behind me, a cross between a bark and caw. I search my memory for something to which I can attach the voice. There is nothing. And because there is nothing, into the nothingness springs fright. I stop. Turn. Look back toward the sound. Make sure that there is distance between us. I can tell that it, whatever it is, is seven, eight rows in. All is still and quiet for a moment. Then the cry again. Coyote? Surely not. They do not venture this far out of Jackson Branch Swamp. Bobcat? Raptor of some kind? Whatever it is, I do not want a close encounter in the low light near-night. I turn back and increase my pace. There it is again. This time on the other side of the road. It, whatever it is, has crossed the open space of road behind me, clearly disinterested or, possibly, as spooked by my presence as I am by his. Deep breath. Pace still quickened, I cross the yard and climb the steps. There is distance now between me and my uninvited companion, distance enough to sweep away the unwarranted fear, and I can consider what he might have been saying, what its raspy call was meant to announce. Stepping over the threshold into the warmth of lamplight the translation comes quickly: Fear, sudden and invisible, has a purpose. It pauses your thoughtless progress and makes you think. Forces you to be aware of your surroundings. Demands that you consider what you know and what you don’t. Then it pushes you forward. Out of the darkness, familiar though it may be, into light. I like to think that there is not much of which I am afraid. There are plenty of unavoidable things I would like to ward off as long as possible – the death of people I love, my own infirmity, winter – , but the inevitability of each makes fear, I’ve concluded, a wasteful use of energy and emotion. What I am wondering, after my encounter with what I’m now calling the Invisible Oracle of Twilight, is whether I might be too intrepid, whether I might benefit every now and then from a skirmish with something that makes my heart race, whether I might want to take a few more walks in the dark.

The first time I saw a beautyberry bush, sprouting from the up-side of a ditch not far from Sandhill, I wanted one. Sometime after that, with the help of a friend, I dug one up from another spot along the road and transplanted it to what I thought would be the perfect location in the backyard. It died. I decided not to take it personally and thereafter took the position that, despite its Art Deco shape and pop art colors, the beautyberry bush was not meant for the tameness of yards. It belongs in ditches and on fence rows, in the shadow of pine trees and in the path of gopher tortoises. And every year about this time when I am delightfully surprised by the first poke through the summer underbrush of its fuchsia and chartreuse, I am reminded that wildness is precious. So a few weeks ago when I was pulling grass out of the patch of dirt I call my herb garden, a small square that borders the deck and has turned out to be particularly hospitable to rosemary, sweet mint, peppermint, and lemon balm, I looked twice at what bore a striking resemblance to a beautyberry bush growing under the deck. Looked twice because it’s dark under there. Looked twice because I couldn’t imagine that something that big could have grown there without my noticing it. It was a couple of feet high and the branches splayed out over about four feet. The leaves, even in the dim light, were clearly and eerily chartreuse, but there were no berries and I convinced myself that this plant was just a weedy cousin of my favorite deciduous shrub. A few days later I am back and there is no need for convincing; the tight clusters of berries have popped out up and down the skinny branches. The beautyberry is native to South Georgia and is an important food for two of our iconic wildlife – bobwhite quail, who prefer the berries, and white-tail deer, who tend toward the leaves. It’s not going to be hard for the quail to avail themselves of the buffet now spread under the deck. They can tiptoe right through the pennyroyal and nosh away. The deer, however, are going to have to settle for the saw-tooth oak acorns that have begun falling at the edge of the driveway. In light of the recent snake activity in the vicinity, there is no way I am crawling under there to dig up a bush that, based on my past experience, might not survive transplantation anyway. And since the beautyberry is known to repel mosquitoes, I am thinking that its placement directly under the chair where I like to read and watch the hummingbirds is downright fortuitous. Squatting among the fading stems of mint and staring into the dimness, I can’t help but consider the irony that something I tried so hard to cultivate has appeared on its own, unexpected and undeserved. And maybe, I’m thinking, it is the unexpectedness and the undeservedness that creates the beauty, that turns the ordinary into the extraordinary. That it is never the object itself that is lovely, that is precious, that is holy, but my attitude that makes it so, my amazement at its appearance, my astonishment at its arrival. That it is entirely up to me what beauty comes into my life and what beauty remains. Copyright 2015

The three new boards on the deck are the color of honey. They are planed into barefoot smoothness and stand out against the other boards, the ones that are weathered gray and splintered in places despite my best efforts to keep them water-sealed. Even at dusk, when light and depth perception have faded, the new boards are visible, glowing like wizards’ wands. It was the skinny heel of a pair of dress shoes that alerted me to the danger. Piercing the softened wood, the not-quite-stiletto made a puncture wound twice the size of a ten-penny nail and nearly pitched me down the steps. I caught myself and I wondered how in the world this one spot had rotted and rotted so invisibly. I did not know that there were two other boards on their way to disintegration as well. I called the carpenter. It is what one does when something made of wood is in the need of repair. It is what one does when one recognizes the need and the futility of attempting the repair oneself. I was not at home the day the carpenter came. I suspect that there was a great deal of noise, much heaving and hoisting and hammering, as the nails gave way and the three decaying planks yielded. Force applied to overcome resistance. All I saw was the end result. New boards. Order restored. It is Saturday morning. I do not wake to an alarm. I wake to a breeze that is gentle and sunlight that is warm and I decide to have breakfast on the deck. As I sit down in one of the chairs that circle the table, the chairs that have sat on the deck for close to ten years in sun and rain and, a couple of times, a dusting of snow, I feel it sink uncomfortably beneath my weight. I hear cracking and crunching as the pieces of the metal frame fall into rust-colored shards at my feet. Something else has begun wasting away without my notice. I don’t call anyone this time. Repair is not possible; replacement is the only option. Four chairs find their way into the metal waste bin at the recycling center. Four new chairs find their way into the back of the Escape and home to Sandhill. This has been the summer of necessary maintenance. Porch repaired and repainted. Shrubbery pruned down to nubbins. Dangling closet shelves rehung. And now the deck repaired and the chairs replaced. So much work to keep this place, this house, my home safe and comfortable, a place of solace and consolation. I’d be a fool not to consider the possibility of a message in there somewhere. And, if not a message, then at least a suggestion, a hint, an intimation that maybe this isn’t just about the house. But I am a fool. About many things. I am a very busy fool. Whatever the message, it will have to wait. I stand with my hands on my hips considering placement. I move the table a little further from the rails. I push the chairs in, pull them out, make sure there is enough room. I step back to get the full effect. It is then that I realize that one of the chairs is straddling, front legs on an old board, back legs on a new. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry or sigh or shake my head. This is no whisper, no slight nudge. This is a pronouncement, an edict, the kind of declaration that allows for no ignoring. “You will listen,” the house, the deck, the chair are all saying. And so I stop to hear. Hear the truth that discernment is knowing the difference between what can be repaired and what must be replaced. Hear the truth that necessary maintenance is not just for houses, but for relationships and attitudes and dreams. Hear the truth that I will always be standing with one foot in the past and one in the future, straddling departures and arrivals, my arms stretched to embrace both that which is lost and that which remains. Copyright 2015

The front porch at Sandhill is a room with no walls. I have sat here to watch the sunset blaze with colors from the Crayola 64 box, to watch deer across the way eating their fill of my daddy's peanuts, to listen to the wind chimes call out to someone I can not see. One night I made room for a long table around which friends gathered to share food and celebrate good news. Tonight I have come out hoping to see the moon. And tonight, for the second night in a row, I am disappointed to find the liquid circle of yellow obscured by clouds. They are thick and thin, a vast piece of cotton batting stretched out into an irregular thickness by celestial hands. It is still. The wind chimes hang like weights in a grandfather clock, held in plumb by gravity and humidity, moving not at all. Six empty rocking chairs of slightly different shapes and sizes and states of needing paint sit like sculpture, their long white lines still visible against the falling night. I am reminded of the old parlor game question: If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to a dinner party, who would you choose? I ask myself, If you could have anyone, living or dead, sitting in these six rocking chairs, tonight, under the thick clouds, in the stickiness of midsummer, who would you choose? Names and faces flow through my mind like movie credits. They divide themselves, like sheep and goats, without my conscious thought. Most of them, for totally acceptable reasons like preferring air conditioning, end up with the goats. The ones left, the sheep, are huddled together in a small flock. All of them are people I actually know. No celebrities or politicians. Not even Jesus or Gandhi or Mother Teresa. Some of them have died, a few are still alive. I must narrow them down. There are only six chairs after all. Who do I really want out here with me on this muggy night with no stars and a shrouded moon? Who would want to be out here with me in this room with no walls and a growing number of mosquitoes? Who would be willing to sit in the stillness and let the stillness do all the talking? I struggle with wondering whether they would all get along, whether anyone would ask who else was going to be there, whether there might need to be assigned seating so that any particular two of them don’t end up side by side. Suddenly, without a hint of breeze, the wind chime tones out six notes. Six single notes. They sound like the beginning of an orchestral overture. I wait for more, but there are no more. Six notes. One for each chair. Through the deepening darkness I can still see them and I can almost see the notes flutter and fall into their singular seats. I feel as though I have been rocking, like a chair, planting my feet to move forward, lifting them to fall away. The faces are coming into focus. They have, it turns out, invited themselves. They are, in fact, the people who are always here, always on this porch, always in this wall-less room that is my heart. Copyright 2015

I know these colors so well. These pale and luminous colors of sand and sea and sky. These colors that melt and morph into each other and back again with the rise and fall of the tide, the climb of the moon, the set of the sun. These creamy whites and silvery grays. These liquid blues. I could drown in the colors and never stop breathing. Today the colors are cool. Thin clouds filter out much of the late afternoon sun and we don’t have to squint to see Adam and Jackson, my boy and his boy, frolicking in the shallow waves. Father lifts son onto a boogie board and they wait for the next wave. Belly to the board, two small hands clutching the front end, he is held steady by two large hands at the rear. The wave comes, building and building and building, and, just as it breaks, just as the rolling blue water cracks into white foam, the two large hands let go. With the slightest push, the board flies across the water, floating over the froth like a magic carpet. We cannot hear the shrieks of delight, but we can see the head thrown back, the mouth wide open in a grin. The wave dies on the beach and Jackson stumbles to his feet, turns around, and heads back to Adam, waiting in the breaking surf. The boogie board is a gift from Jackson’s grandmother. She has come to visit from the part of the world where sheiks live and magic carpets are said to ride on wind currents, not waves. She does not have to tell me what she sees. I see it, too. The son reflects the father. Hair the color of corn silk just sprouted, eyes the color of the bluebird nesting in my mailbox. I know these colors, too. This is a place away from time, away from schedules and clocks and artificial rhythms. The grandmother and I have watched Jackson and his little sister Chambless and have not been able to keep ourselves from seeing Adam and his sister Kate. Fearless Chambless is fearless Kate. Thoughtful Jackson is thoughtful Adam. The one who runs for the deep end; the one who eases in from the steps. It is as though there are four children here with us, not two. It is our last afternoon together. The sun is slipping quickly behind the tops of the live oaks and stucco mansions that lie behind the sand dunes. We move our chairs farther and farther up the beach as the waves inch relentlessly toward our bare feet and wet towels. We are chased by the tide and we are chased by time. One will reverse itself and one never will. We came to make memories. And we did. We walked in the village and played under the big tree where my friends got married. We had cannonball contests and picked up shells and, thank the Lord, got the babies’ mama some barbecue at Southern Soul. We laughed and cuddled and told stories. And, then, in the midst of coming home, finding leftover sand in the floorboard and tan marks on my shoulders, I realized it works the other way around, too. We make memories, but memories also make us. Remembering the sweet times makes me kinder, the hard times less trusting. Remembering the victories makes me stronger, the losses not so much. Remembering that the sun rose yesterday and the full moon will show up again next month and the tide is going to be high sometime today makes me hopeful and optimistic, despite all the reasons not to be. Which is why, all evidence to the contrary, I can see myself some summer day with my feet in the sand watching Jackson lift his own son onto a boogie board and push him out into the waves. Copyright 2015

On the Fourth of July, I walk outside and hoist the flag and drive into town to the Farmer’s Market where I buy three fat tomatoes from a man whose accent I can’t quite place but whose tent smells fresh and green and whose tomatoes have just the right amount of mottling so that I can tell for certain they have been ripened to that perfect red firmness on the vine. Having found my Holy Grail, I wander around a few more minutes and end up buying a canteloupe for $3.00 from a little boy who is learning from his father what it means to grow and tend and share and a package of blueberries that I suspect are going to actually taste like blueberries and a jar of hot sauce for my friend’s daddy’s birthday. And then I go to the grocery store and buy a loaf of white bread, Sunbeam Old-Fashioned with the little girl in the blue dress on the package, the first loaf of white bread I’ve bought since the last time I found perfect tomatoes. I stop on the way home to get gas and a Diet Coke at a station where the young man with a broad smile hands me my change and responds to my wish to him for a Happy Fourth with a “Be safe.” And then I drive home and make a tomato sandwich with lots of mayonnaise and lots of salt and I take it out to the front porch which just the day before was repainted with a shiny latex paint that reflects the sunlight almost like a mirror. I sit down on the top step and, balancing my white china plate on my lap, pick up the sandwich, square and dense, with both hands. I pause to say the blessing, that thing I’ve done before every meal from the time I could speak. That thing that I did at first because my parents did it and then because I was showing off my memorization skills and then because it was habit and that I do now, today, because I am looking across the yard, then across the road to rows of peanuts trying to gain a foothold before splaying themselves all over each other into long tangled webs and I am reminded of the essential nature of roots. I am doing it today because I am sitting on a porch without splinters and am reminded that even the sturdiest of sanctuaries needs maintenance. And I am doing it today because I am about to eat a perfect tomato sandwich, because the red juice is going to run down my wrist like blood and I will be reminded, strangely, of communion. The Eucharist. Eucharisteo. To give thanks. Elsewhere on this Independence Day there are fireworks and concerts, parades and baseball games and, much to the joy of my little friend Kate, jumping frog contests. There is celebration rowdy and loud and, perhaps, I think, less than reflective of the occasion than it should be. And in the thought I am gifted with another reminder: “It is right and good and a joyful thing,” we intone in preparation for accepting the bread and wine on Sundays, “always and everywhere to give thanks to you Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” Always and everywhere. Always – at mealtimes, but also during fireworks and concerts. Everywhere – on quiet front porches, but also at parades and baseball games and, most especially, during jumping frog contests. Always and everywhere, give thanks for freedom. Above my head the flag is fluttering in the warm breeze of midday. Red like the tomato. White like the bread. Blue like the sky. I turn my head to take in pine trees and cotton fields, the nearby houses of people I love, my own strong legs. I lift my hands a little higher. “Thank you,” I say, “for this.” Copyright 2015

The first snake skin of the season appeared about six weeks ago, stretched out in a long line across the concrete of the carport in almost exactly the same spot as the one I found last year, the one I measured and looked up in the Audubon Guide to confirm its non-venomous nature. Upon spying this new one, I congratulated myself (since there was no one else there to congratulate me) on what amounted to a non-reaction, i.e., “Oh, look. A snake skin. The skin of a snake. Lying within a few feet of my back door. What a curiosity.” And it was a curiosity, for this reptilian neighbor had been so delicate in his sloughing, had exercised such finesse in his shedding, had demonstrated such expertise in his casting off that the skin was not the least bit scrunched or wrinkled. The very tip of the tail was smooth and round and the head was perfectly shaped, including the eye caps. I bent low to inspect and it was almost as though he could still see me. After taking a couple of photos, I had to decide what to do with the hand-me-downs. Last year’s snake skin got folded up and mailed to Aden, budding herpetologist and the owner of a western hognose named William Snakespeare. I didn’t think he needed another one. I could take it inside and put it in one of the several bowls sitting around the house containing nests and feathers and acorns and seashells, but it occurred to me that some of the geometric grandeur would be lost if the skin were simply rolled into a coil and left to gather dust. Somewhat reluctantly, I threw it into the trash can. Over the next few weeks several live, non-disrobing snakes made their appearance. The first was driven from the cool spot under the hydrangea bushes by the spray of the water hose dangling over the deck railings. I watched from distance and height, with interest but dispassion, as he undulated with enviable speed across the carport to the patch of ivy that grows along its outside wall. A few days later the second was, apparently, startled by the vibration of the car pulling in and darted from the same cool spot up the back steps to a tiny spot where the brick foundation and HardiePlank are less than perfectly flush and slithered his way into crawlspace. This observation was, admittedly, less disinterested and more passionate, but I managed to convince myself that the darkness under my furniture and feet was what the snake wanted and, even if he could find a way through the subfloor, he would choose to remain in an environment more conducive to his survival. I was, by this time, more than just pleased with myself. I was proud. But if there is one thing I remember from all those years of Sunday School it is that whole business about pride and resultant destruction, a haughty spirit and the inevitable fall. I was, obviously, headed for a fall. It was still daylight when I got home. I gathered up my purse and briefcase and made sure I’d picked up my phone from the console of the car. I got to the bottom of the steps and stopped. Frozen still. Dead still. Catatonic still. There on the steps was another snake skin – actually half a snake skin – hanging out of the secret entry into the crawlspace. I couldn’t tell at first if the shedding had been completed, if there might be, in fact, a snake still inside, still wiggling and squirming and rubbing himself against the other side of the brick trying to free himself from the old skin. I couldn’t tell if I was standing within inches of something alive or something dead. It took probably three minutes of absolute stillness to convince me that the creature that had once inhabited the skin was long gone. It took three days before I could make myself get back out there and pull the skin out of the crack. It took three days to figure out what had happened: I’d been perfectly fine with the live snakes that I knew were alive, perfectly fine with the dead skins that I knew were just dead skins. What I had not been perfectly fine with was the uncertainty. Uncertainty had left me paralyzed. It was in the middle place of neither alive nor dead that I found myself powerless. I wish I could say that I’d never been to the middle place, but the truth is that I have. I’ve even set up camp a time or two. But it’s never been so much fun that I wanted to stay. Sooner or later I always figure out whether the snake/relationship/opportunity has a pulse or that what I’m seeing is just a souvenir of what the snake/relationship/opportunity used to be. Sooner or later. And I get to choose. Copyright 2015

Across the field I could hear it coming, like the rustling of a thousand pages, the whispers of a thousand lovers, the lifting of a thousand wings. The rain moved toward me across the broad, flat field, a row at a time. I’d been doubtful, when I left the house, based upon the general dryness and the dust that rose when a single car passed me, that any significant moisture would materialize. Doubtful that the clouds, the color of pewter and thick like cotton batting, held the rain that the rows of short green stems craved. Doubtful that the sky would yield anything other than disappointment. So I had headed out. A drop fell on my bare shoulder, another on my cheek. I watched as three tiny pools collected on the open magazine I was holding just steady enough to read. Then three more. The slick stock puckered and the ink smeared. I kept walking as I measured the time between plops. It was, it occurred to me, the exact reverse of staring at the microwave while the popcorn pops, waiting for the rapid-fire explosions to slow. About halfway up the hill, the pine trees on either side of the road started singing. The wind was sweeping through them like breaths through an oboe, deep notes that somehow float and circle and find resonance in a heartbeat. This was no ruse, no prank. The rain is coming, the trees were telling me. I kept walking. Eventually, though, I tired of trying to turn pages that had stuck together and were curling at the edges. I tired of fighting the wind that snatched at my hair and tried to stuff it in my mouth. I tired of doubting. I closed the magazine and stuck it under my arm. I made sure that my phone was as deep in my pocket as it could be. I sighed and turned around. The thing about getting caught in the rain is that once you’re wet, once your clothes are stuck to your skin, once the tread on your shoes has filled with mud so that any one step could be the one that sends you sliding to the ground, there really isn’t much need to hurry. So I didn’t. I walked slowly, if not carefully, and wondered how I could have so easily presumed that the clouds were empty or, worse, fickle. How I could have been so willing to assume the sky’s offer of rain was nothing more than a meteorological bait-and-switch. Why I didn’t trust the sky. Somewhere in my brain lies the place where lives the strange notion that if I want anything too much I am certain to not get it, the strange notion that equates desire with presumption and presumption with unworthiness. It is a notion that resists the words of great teachers and the comfort of great friends. It is an idea that has no support in science or religion and, yet, it remains, so that on this day, standing on the front porch and considering the sky, I did not dare admit that I wanted very much for the pewter clouds to relieve themselves over the dry and dusty fields. The deepest truths, however, lie not in the brain, but in the heart. And the truth is that I do trust the sky. I trust it far more than I trust myself. I trust it to know far more than I ever will. The struggle is to remember. Back at home, I wipe my feet, I change my clothes, I unroll the magazine so that it can dry. On the kitchen table, I spread it open. Open like my hands at communion, open like the leaves on the short green stems trembling beneath the steady fall of rain, open like a heart that can be trusted and is filled with desire. Copyright 2015

The clouds that teased rain have drifted away to empty themselves elsewhere and I am left to do the watering myself. I have planted strategically so that the hose does not have to be dragged all over the yard. I can, for the most part, stand on the deck and reach every thirsty green thing. The hydrangeas are thriving in the low, shaded spot between the deck and the carport, pale blue heads pushing their way out through the dark leaves on thick stems. Down by the steps the coreopsis is fading as the lantana comes to life and the Mexican petunias are just beginning to bud. The Russian heather is already tall and gangly, moving in the breeze like teen-aged boys shuffling their feet on the edge of the dance floor. On the other side in the corner, the rosemary has been cut back and hasn’t quite recovered from the shock, but the lemon balm and verbena and mint are happily rushing over and around each other. I can’t help pinching a leaf and crushing it between my fingers. The scent is sweet. The three pots on the deck contain a single bright pink Gerbera daisy, a good crop of basil, and a citronella plant. Eventually, I tell myself, I will find the time to come outside after dark, sit back in the reclining chair, and test its powers at repelling mosquitoes. Eventually, but not tonight. Tonight I’m just watering. The dial at the end has somehow been moved to a position between two of the settings. I don’t notice and turn on the water expecting a steady stream in one direction. What I get is an erratic shooting and significant drip. It takes only a couple of seconds to adjust the nozzle, but in that time I can’t help noticing how many choices I have. Jet. Mist. Flat. Cone. Shower. Angle. Center. Plus something called “½ Vert.” A true gardener, someone like my Grandmama Anderson, could probably tell me which one is best for each of my green things. A true gardener, however, I am not. I settle for center which shoots forth water at a rate slower than jet, but faster than shower. Watering, I have found, puts me into a rather meditative state. There’s nothing for me to do except stand there and hold the nozzle steady while water and gravity do the hard work of reaching the invisible and indispensable roots. So I find myself thinking about those settings – jet and mist and flat, cone and shower and angle – and how, at various times and through various experiences, I’ve been watered by every single one. Getting fired from my first job as a lawyer was a jet, a hard fast blast that tore at the ground around my trunk and left me standing in a puddle of mud. The years I spent at Wesleyan were a fine mist, gentle and consistent. The loss of people I’ve loved were hard angles, leaving me off kilter, and realizing my dream of being an author was a shower, a baptism of satisfaction and joy. I push the lever that closes the nozzle. By the time I get to the spigot to turn it off, the water – all of it – has soaked into the ground. I hope that I have been that receptive. I hope that I have absorbed the jet and the mist with identical enthusiasm. I hope that I have allowed the angles and the showers to nourish me equally. I hope that with each watering, whatever its force, my roots have dug deeper into the soil. Copyright 2015

Back in 2004 three hurricanes brought a LOT of water to southeast Georgia in quick succession and, as a result, Sandhill was left with a very leaky roof. I took that opportunity to give her a facelift. Once it was all done, she was still the same girl, just wearing a new dress. That's what a completely redesigned webpage is like. Most of what was here before still is, but the visual presentation is brighter and more interesting. And there are some new things. For a number of years I've hosted a blog on which I've posted my newspaper columns. It finally occurred to me that it made much more sense to combine the blog with the website, so this is where you'll find the columns from now on. The old blog will still be around, but there will be no new posts after June 30. They will be right here. Also right here you'll find occasional posts on topics I don't usually write about in the column. Please take a look at the Community page and, if you like, subscribe to the new quarterly newsletter, The Museflash. That's just one more way to keep in touch and share stories. The Community page also includes an email link. Use it to inquire about appearances at your civic group, book club, church, or other event. And let me know what you're thinking -- about the website or anything else. I love talking to people about books and writing and finding magic in the world and I want this website to be a place to do that with the people who have embraced me and my words, a place where there is a lot of "I feel the same way" and "I know exactly what you mean." I hope you'll join the conversation.