Saturday, January 9, 2010

Winter And Waiting


It's been a strange day. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary except for our ten-thousandth day in a row of below freezing temperatures. I cannot stress hard enough that I'm not asking for sympathy here. That would be ridiculous. I've seen the pictures of the snow where many of you live. I'm only saying that we're not used to this. Not at all. And it's not very interesting, watching our beloved plants die. If it's going to be this cold, we Floridians want something fucking dramatic, okay? We want SNOW or at least sleet. Or...something.

I mean, we're incredibly impressed when water freezes outside.

We're a simple people here in the south. I admit it. Maybe it's because our blood boils in the summer, killing anything that is too complex and only the hardiest of emotions survives. Love, lust, a deep hunger for fried food, growing things in the dirt, anger, wonder at the simplest things like eggs in the nest, a dog that sits and lets us scratch his head, handling snakes in church to prove our faith in God.

Okay. That was painfully stereotypical. I apologize but I don't take it back.

So yes, it was a strange day. I don't know why. Just a Saturday that my mind somehow got confused with a Sunday, the bleakest day of the week. I went to the calender to see if it was the anniversary of anyone's death. It felt like that today- like one of those days when you just feel so damn sad but you don't know why and then you realize it's been X-number of years since so-and-so died. So-and-so whom you loved so very much.

Well, it isn't but it in one week it will be the anniversary of Lynn's death. This time, two years ago, we knew her time was close. We gathered in her room, her friends, her family, to weep, to say good-bye. To sing to her, to hold her hand and be with her while she was still here. She looked so beautiful on that bed, her profile cut like a knife with disease and grace. I guess my body is remembering and then my mind follows. Well, Lynn is free. I remember when my friend Sue died and we were having her wake, an old friend of hers, a fellow who'd always carried a torch for her, said, "She ain't paying rent no more."

And that is a comfort, you know.

Winter is a natural time to think about death. It's all around us. But sometimes, like with my wisteria, what looks like death is only rest. And that's why we look forward to spring when that which has seemed to be dead, sprouts tiny little leaves of green which become bigger and bigger and then, voila! Rebirth!

Well, people who have died don't start sprouting new limbs and don't come back to life but we like to pretend that Jesus did. I don't believe he did. I mean, his disciples didn't even recognize him. "Whoa, dude! Who are you?" they asked.

"I'm Jesus, you assholes," he was reported to say. Or something like that.

Oh, bless our human hearts for wanting to believe we live again. And I don't know that we don't. As I have pointed out before, I don't know shit.
I believe in the human spirit. Don't know about the soul. They may be one and the same. And I believe that energy is neither created nor lost. So- who knows about reincarnation? And I definitely believe in DNA. I carry the genes of all my fore bearers and so do you. And that's real and definite and something to believe in.

And as long as I carry Lynn in my heart, or Sue, they are still alive somehow. And shitfire. Sue wouldn't want me being all sad and downhearted. And Lynn? She'd kiss me and say, Oh honey. Have a yum-rum and dance. It's funny how different Sue and Lynn were from each other. Sue was a Patsy Cline-listening-depressive, a lot like me, while Lynn probably didn't spend an hour of her entire life feeling sorry for herself.
I loved them both and was incredibly lucky to be loved by both of them.

Do you ever feel like I'm just way too southern? Do you? All my talk of magnolias and chickens and death and grandchirren and angel biscuits and hunting and camellias and collard greens and existential sadness and insanity and oak trees and birthin's?

Well. This is who I am. A southern girl. Woman. Whatever. I have my moods. I haven't ended up confined in the attic yet. It could happen. Lord knows, it could happen. Anything could. I live in the south where it's been below freezing for ten thousand days in a row. Where we are boggled that a bottle of water left in a car can freeze solid. Where we mourn our dead with every molecule of our beings and when we throw their ashes into the air we say, Be free! and we wear every bit of wool we have in our closets no matter how old and moth-eaten it is when it gets cold. Where we have strange days and have to remark upon them.

Our blood is thin. We were reared to be slow and sit on the porch and when it's too damn cold to sit on the porch, we go a little crazy and we think of things we've lost and the people we've lost and we weep and we lie in bed and wonder if we've now, finally, lost our minds.
We think maybe we should see a doctor but then our southern-ness kicks in and we get up and make some coffee and go give the chickens some cornbread that we made last week and we mop the bathroom. And we think, "Oh hell. Tomorrow will be a better day. I'll think about all of it tomorrow when I am stronger."


And it will. I swear.
And it will warm up eventually and Lynn and Sue are alive in my heart and I have a candle burning and the heat is on and we have good leftovers to eat and so what if it's been a strange day? I live in the south. We're strange. I'm strange, at least. It's strange that it's so cold and has been for so long. But the azaleas are just resting. Really resting, unlike the dead animals Mr. Moon and I see on the side of the road and remark upon with words like this: "That possum is just taking a nap. Yep. A nice, long nap."

Because we southerners know about naps. And strange days.
I think I just need for my blood to warm up again. Just need to get through the next few months of death-anniversaries.
I may be taking a lot of naps myself in the next few weeks or months. Do what I can to get through these strange days.

Whatever gets you through the night. Or your life. Or winter.

It's all right. It's all right.

23 comments:

  1. my body ALWAYS remembers before my mind. it is my emotional lightening rod, unfortunately for me. so i get that.

    i LOVE the Southern in you, wouldn't want you a stitch different than you are. you have a gift of translating the rhythm of your life into your blog essays, lucky for us.

    xo

    ps
    is that book any good?

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  2. It's been one here too--not a bad day, just 'off' somehow.

    And shit...I grew up in east jesus nowhere Kentucky. Are you too southern? I obviously wouldn't notice :)

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  3. Is the compass. It gets completely crazy in cold and gray days, I should know. Today is a crazy compass day here too. I am trying hard, too hard to pay no attention to the body and I know I am going to pay in spades for it. I am even more southern than you if geographically speaking so I know about the body speaking through the spirit. Darn the knowledge we don't know how to understand as in body knowledge. We just feel it, a note of a song that we cannot even remember from where and the tears flow and we let them, what else can we do with real tears?.

    I am going to bed, too late for a nap, maybe I just turn off the light and see what I can see in the real darkness.

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  4. Maggie May- Gone With The Wind? It's Amazing. Don't read it for history, read it for the story and the romance. It's all there.

    SJ- Probably why you like me.

    Allegra- Sweet dreams, whichever form of sleep you get.

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  5. This cold business has got to go, but it's colder where you are than where I am. Snow flurries here in Orlando though, not cool. The citrus farms here are running scared right now. Relief is in sight though, 70's next weekend!

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  6. You make southern sound like MAGIC

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  7. "Whatever gets you through the night. Or your life. Or winter.

    It's all right. It's all right."

    Poetry. I love those lines so much I want to eat them in a soup.

    I love your Southerness, I love your truth. I love your you.
    Weird that I clicked on a post about Lynn today and was moved to tears reading it.
    Hm.
    I hope your Sunday was today and tomorrow will not be sad.

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  8. All of my favorite writers are Southern. You're on the list.

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  9. Hockeymandad- I remember going to high school in Winter Haven and when it froze, all the guys were excused from school to go fire the groves. I was so jealous. They stayed up all night and stood around fires and drank like men and then got to sleep all the next day. Well, that's what it looked like from where I sat in Trig. But I know- this is serious.

    Michelle- Well, it's weird and tricky. Sometimes it's magic.

    Bethany- I was stealing from John Lennon. Go to Youtube and do a search for "Whatever Gets You Through The Night." It is strange that you clicked on that old post today.

    Nancy C- Dang, girl. I really appreciate that.

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  10. well yah, but I like how you did that, with your lines in there, "or your life. Or winter."
    Perfect.
    'salright.

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  11. Ms. Moon, you know I lived in an Eskimo village near the Arctic Circle and was born & raised in Alaska, but I here in New Orleans suffering the cold snap - I am COLD. My blood has thinned and I eat collards. You feeling cold is oh so valid.

    My pipes froze last night. Love my landlord and his blow torch. I've gone 41 years of living mostly in cold climates and never ONCE have my pipes frozen. and now I can't do laundry because those pipes will be frozen until Wednesday, but it's all good.

    And all the plants I brought inside to protect from the cold? yeah, it's so damn cold in my house that they still died.

    But today, I was thinking about getting a brake tag in July and how it's always so oppressively hot and miserable, and that warmed me up a little. That, or the southern hospitality of friends and their homemade king cake.

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  12. Ice in Florida is just insanity.

    Loved your post.

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  13. I think if you can conceive of a soul, it exists.

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  14. I think this is my new favorite.

    And maybe that's what's wrong with southern Californians, we never get the rest/death of a good winter.

    "we weep and we lie in bed and wonder if we've now, finally, lost our minds."

    And yet, still crazy. My mind has been in a very dark place the last few days.

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  15. Ah, snow would be totally cool, but I draw the line at sleet... I've lived in a place that got sleet and I'm here to tell you, you do NOT want sleet!

    I'll call ya later.

    I hope you feel better today.
    xo ps, I hear in a few days it's going to warm up to about 35! woo hoo!! :-)

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  16. Bethany- Words to live by, huh?

    Glimmer- I know you do.

    Nola- Poor baby. Your blood HAS thinned. You know- greens do have a lot of Vitamin K in them which is a clotting factor so eating them should make our blood thicker but it doesn't seem to work that way, does it? I remember going to NO in 1983 at New Years and that was probably the coldest I've ever been in my life. ALL the pipes in town were frozen. There was no running water. But Lord, I had a good time on that trip.
    Stay as warm as you can, honey.

    Pretty Things- You're so right on the ice in Florida thing. Hey! You have a pretty blog site!

    Elizabeth- I believe that too.

    Steph- Whatever this darkness is, I think it's gotten all of us.

    Ms. Fleur- I know. But at least it would be interesting.

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  17. MAGIC MARY MOON!

    When I got up this morning I had no hot water, and I just decided to live without until Wednesday when it's supposed to warm up. I left the tap on, thinking it might thaw up enough.

    Six hours, nothing.

    But then I come back here and read your comment back to my comment - and right then - I MEAN RIGHT THEN - hot water started gushing from the faucet.

    Your magic touch!

    And that magic touch will also make the gas last longer than expected. It will be a veritable loaves and fishes sort of experience. And Mr. Moon will be amazed, but I'm sure he's accustomed to your magic by now. :)

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  18. no the Sixty Sex or whatever! THAT book! lol

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  19. Maggie May- Well, I wondered why you had never read GWTW. However, Six Please, We're Sixty is not a book, merely a play. If you just read it, you would think it sucked really hard but I think once we get it all together onstage it's going to be funny as hell. Stupid, but funny.

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  20. If that's being Southern, I'm Southern too, in all my Northernness.

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  21. Nola- Ha! I am not magic. Wish I were. I sure am glad your water's back on though.

    Mwa- I can believe that. It's more a state of mind than state of being, I think.

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  22. Hope these days pass by quickly and spring hurries to your doorstep. Naps are heaven sent, just like souls, I believe. And dead of winter days have such a surreal strangeness to them, even if one hasn't lost a loved one on such a day. Blessings to you!

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