Tag: stories (Page 1 of 3)

April 5 Through the Family Calendar

April 6, 2024 / jeanne / 4 Comments

April 5, 1947

Mother and Daddy (Yea Yea and Car Car to the Grands and Great Grands) got married in the Fayette County GA jail. yes, really. Granddaddy (Mother’s daddy) was Sheriff, you see, and in those days voters elected the Sheriff and taxpayers got the family – especially the wife – for free to cook, clean, and make sure the prisoners had freshly laundered white shirts and pants with the black strip down the side.

Though I love the story about them getting married in the jail, Mother did not find it charming at all. So 26 years later when The Engineer and I decided to publicly say “I sure will!”, I told Mother to plan and host the wedding she always wanted because all that mattered to me is that I got to spend the rest of my life with this man . . . and that we had watermelon at our reception. Mother went all out, hiring caterers (who brought delicious watermelon, attractively served), planting snapdragons (something she’d always wanted but never could seem to get around to it till she had a big deadline), and her front door – usually ignored by people who preferred to save steps and instead come in through the back door under the carport – got used! At the end of the night, her smile was as big as her exhaustion.

April 5, 1973 (the fourth day anniversary of our engagement)

So there we were ~~necking~~ – I mean SITTING – on the gorgeous blue one-piece L-shaped sofa in the living room, The Engineer and I, talking about plans for the next weekend when I noted that I had to go to a wedding shower for a friend, also noting that as an introvert of the first order, showers are not my favorite type of gathering. “Well,” he said, playfully tapping my nose with his finger, “when we get married, you’ll have to go to lots of showers.”

Caught completely by surprise, I sat upright, leaned away from him, and noted the obvious, “You haven’t asked me yet.” I. just wanted to make sure this Atlanta boy knew the correct order of things. They might, after all, do things differently in the big city, but he was in the country now, and we did not make assumptions about such things as being the lead actors in a wedding.

“I know,” he said, obviously pleased with himself, and taking a better position to see my reaction.

I ~~picked him up~~ met him 8 weeks before when a high school friend and I ventured into the bar where he worked weekends, drawing beer, and I took one look at him in that brown leather floppy-brimmed hat and knew that very night that this is who I wanted to go through life with. I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life ~~necking~~ sitting beside this adorable, funny, brilliant man, but even I hadn’t had time to start planning how the engagement and consequently the wedding would go.

Finally, he slid off the low sofa, got on one knee, took my hands in his and asked, “So will you?”

“Have you asked Daddy?”

“No, I wanted to ask you first.”

“You still have to talk to Daddy, but YES I WILL!!!” I said (and I didn’t cry).

That was March 31, 1973.

On April 1, 1973, we were sitting (not necking this time, just sitting, I promise) in the swing in the backyard when he had another good idea: “Why don’t we promise not to tell anybody just yet?” he asked, an idea that was fine with me because I was sure . . . and not sure. You know? We decided to keep it a secret for a while . . . which turned out to be less than 24 hours!

And the rest, as they say, is 51 years of history.

April 5, 2023

The 8 month anniversary of the day Mother took her last earthly breath. It seems like this morning, and it seems like my whole life ago. Grief still has its boot on my neck. I now cry at the most inane things. Sometimes I don’t even know what broke the dam and allowed the tears to flow.

David Kessler who studied death, dying, and grief alongside Elizabeth Kubler-Ross says the number one need of a person grieving is to have someone bear witness to their grief. I feel that strongly, deeply, near constantly, but i keep my lips zipped because most people are uncomfortable talking about such subjects deemed “sad” and “negative” and what I want to do more than anything is make people smile. So yea, I turtles in soon after that last breath, retreating to my shell and pulling down the black-out curtains. I stay away from social media, talk to only 3 people: a cousin who’s like my Big Sister, my friend Laura, The Engineer, daughter Alison, son Kipp, and daughter-in-law Marnie.

I know that’s more than 3 people – such is the thinking style of a #BrainOnGrief. I’m just glad I caught it here. Usually it’s weeks after before I see some embarrassing goof.

That’s another thing: my brain is mushy.
I can’t seem to find ground under my feet.
I spend more time in bed than ever before. Bed therapy, I call it.
I’m exhausted all the time – and I do mean all the time. Grieving is exhausting.

Even now I’m embarrassed about what I’ve told you and fear I sound like I’m auditioning for one of those tv commercials for insurance where the fella is trying to teach adults how to be young by getting them to cease and desist doing all sorts of things – like telling your life story to complete strangers! (Personally, I think I’d be a shoo-in for that role.) (And several of the other behaviors the dude is trying to eradicate in the name of not embarrassing your children.)

I binge read grief memories, seeking the magic key or password that will allow me to escape. Just last night I started reading a book on happiness. Joy is still way too far out of reach, but happiness? I might one day find my way back there. I have a plan. I’ll tell you more next time. Right now, I feel a bed therapy session coming on. Thanks for being here. Thanks for ~~listening~~ reading.

Happy 50th Engagement Anniversary to Us

April 1, 2023 / jeanne / 1 Comment

A woman with long brunette hair wearing a long green dress with white polka dots stands to the left of a man with brunette hair wearing a brown suite with a red shirt. Both are smiling broadly.

“I don’t like to go to showers,” I (the introvert who, though I may enjoy them, am exhausted by parties and gatherings) told this man I’d known for 64 days and seen a dozen times.

”You’ll have to go to showers when we get married,” he said, touching the end of my nose gently.

“You haven’t asked me to marry you,” I said with breath that was stuck somewhere in my lungs, refusing to come out.

”I know,” he said, then sat back.

”Will you?” he asked after what seemed like hours, weeks, eons. “Will you marry me?”

”YES!” I said on the way to throwing my arms around his neck. It was the easiest, most confident and sure yes I’d ever uttered. “I sure will marry you.”

Later that night, we moved from the mid-century modern one piece L-shaped blue nubby fabric covered sofa with a chunky blue, green, and black resin cylindrical lamp hanging from a gold chain over the teak end table built onto the sofa (Oh how I wish I still had that sofa and lamp!) to the wooden yard swing hanging in the red dirt

yard. The air was cool and quiet. So were we. Keeping the swing moving in a slow sultry back and forth, back and forth, back and forth movement fell to him because my feet wouldn’t touch the ground.

With one arm around me and one hand on the swing chain, he said, “Let’s not tell anybody about our engagement just yet,” something I readily agreed to. Was his question an April Fool’s joke? Was my answer an April Fool’s joke? We’d sleep on it and have the final answer tomorrow.

As the sun stretched open the next day, my phone rang. It was Andy asking if I still wanted to marry him, and my answer was an exact replica of the night before: “Yes, I sure will marry you!”

That proposal happened 50 years ago tonight at my parents’ house. I can’t speak for The Engineer, but I can tell you with absolutely and enthusiastic certainty that I like the answer I gave then, and I’d give it by way of exact quote again today.

(The above photo was taken 6 months later.)

To hear me telling the story in my own voice, here you go . . .

Twenty Years Is Both a Long Time and No Time At All

December 2, 2020 / jeanne / 2 Comments

“In the language of the deaf, the sign for ‘remember’ begins with the sign for ‘know’: the fingertips of the right hand touch the forehead. But merely to know is not enough, so the sign for ‘remain’ follows: the thumbs of each hand touch and, in this joined position, move steadily forward into the future. Thus a knowing that remains, never lost, forever: memory.”
~~~ Myron Uhlberg in Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love

Twenty years.

My daddy died died twenty years ago today, and I still ache with grief, crave one more hug, long to hear him call me Doll just one more time. Every December 2 I become a cauldron of grief – sorrow, anger, pensiveness, no sense of direction. I usually spend the day doing soft, soulful things like writing, remembering, walking, but with the recent fullness of my life, I had no time to pre-plan. My waking thought was to read something written by someone else remembering and grieving for their daddy, and while that felt like a winner of an idea, what, exactly, I would read remained a question mark. Then, as Magic would have it, I went to the bookshelves in my studio this morning in search of another book for another reason, when the book aforementioned book leapt off the shelf and into my hands.

Remembering.
It’s what I do.
It’s who I am.
Stories of remembering are my oxygen.

In August 2000, two weeks after delivering the book I wrote about my father-in-law to each of his children and grandchildren, Bones woke me up whispering, “Write a book about your daddy, and do it now.”

“Are you kidding me?” I countered. “I am exhausted, depleted, worn slap out.” (I kept the father-in-law book a secret even from Andy, which meant much writing at night) The Voice of my Bones was not amused or swayed, and I’ve learned (the hard way) not to argue with Bones, so the following week I began gathering stories, photos, newspaper articles, interviews, whatever I could get my ears and hands on, about my daddy. I wrote. I scanned. I wrote some more, and the Monday before Thanksgiving, off it went to the printer and binder. Everybody in the family would receive a leather-bound copy of this 400+ page book of memories about Daddy.

Four days later – the day after Thanksgiving – Daddy fell, hitting his head. Hard.

The Monday after Thanksgiving, I called Karen, the book binder. “I hear voices, you see, and well, Daddy fell last Friday and the voices I call My Bones tell me I need to get those books back asap. Can you help?” Without a single audible sign of exasperation, Karen said, “I can have one book to you on Saturday and the rest next Monday.”

First-Book-Arrives-Saturday started with all Daddy’s bells and whistles going off, his machine creating a cacophony of alert. I called family members. “If you want to see Daddy alive, you need to get here before noon,” I told them. They came trickling in. Friends followed. Finally, husband Andy and son Kipp walked in, brown package in hand.

In a rather bold move for a Southern girl raised to respect hospitality above (almost) all else, I asked the friends to leave, gathered family around Daddy’s bed, and opened the package. I began reading at 1:05 p.m. A nurse stayed well past her shift’s end, keeping the machines shushed by holding her finger on the quiet button.

We took turns reading, arriving at “The End” at 4:50 p.m.

Daddy took his last breath at 4:55.

Though he never said a word, I know Daddy could hear his life review because from my position to the left of his pillow, I watched tears make their way down his face throughout the afternoon.

Take from this post whatever you will, just please promise me this:
~ If, God forbid, anybody you love should ever be in a coma or otherwise unable to communicate, take it upon yourself to make sure that only positive loving kindness is spoken within those four walls because I know – know to my very core – that they hear everything, and we all know that words are powerful.
~ You’ll take the time to capture your family’s stories. Start today. Record, write, ask, clip, copy, scan – gather and preserve those stories by whatever means available. You can shape them into narrative later, step one is to capture, and let’s face it: we never know. Preserving these stories will change your life (among other things, you will learn a lot about yourself) and future generations will call you good things and be forever grateful. Count on it.

Unclaimed Hallelujah: Katie Belle Wesley Ballard

October 14, 2020 / jeanne / 3 Comments

When the brown paper grocery bag from K. W. McElaney’s corner store was full of fabric scraps, they met in the middle of the road – Mrs. Callaway and my maternal grandmother. After exchanging pleasantries, they swapped bags then returned to their respective homes, spilling the bag’s contents on the kitchen table, marveling at the colors, the patterns, the possibilities. Soon enough, colors were sorted, patterns were chosen, cutting begun. Eventually her Davis treadle machine whirred with life, providing Grandmother the only walls she could lay claim to.

The simple act of me saying “yes” to receiving a garbage bag filled with scraps from an anonymous donor and turning them into quilts made Grandmother smile. I’m sure of it.

When the box arrived, I had no idea what I was going to do. My mind was a blank slate. I finished a few other projects, and with the calendar ticking, I got up one morning and before anything or anyone else could take the reins of my day, I opened the box, removed the garbage bag, then dumped the contents onto my design table. How I do love a beautiful jumble, the chaos of colors, the cacophony of shapes, the nostalgic imaginings of what the fabric had once been used for. Oh, the possibilities.

But still no ideas.

The calendar ticked louder.

I fiddled with the colorful bits of cloth and eventually began to See.

Christmas fabric . . .
Christmas mornings spent in Grandmother’s living room.
Gifts opened only after each of her 14 grandchildren played their two pieces on her black upright piano with the stool that rose and lowered by spinning.
Cousins showing off the 3 Santa gifts we were allowed to bring.
Granddaddy holding up a pair of freshly-unwrapped underwear, hollering across the room
”Katie Belle, are these from you?”
”What William?” she hollers back.
They had big ears – both of them did –
but they were for facial decoration only.
He asks again, “I said Are. These. From. You?”
With a chortle that would not be held back,
Grandmother says, “Oh William, of course they’re new.”

One strip of black and white fabric . . .
88 keys on a piano.
Grandmother’s full-ride scholarship to The Piano Conservatory
an adventure cut short
When her father harrumphed at the end of her first year
That young ladies didn’t need an education
especially in something as frivolous as piano
and declared that she would not be going back
and would instead spend her time in search of a husband.
Even a letter from the Dean
begging him to let Grandmother complete her studies
and telling of her immense talent
could not dissuade her father.
Whether Grandmother’s step-mother influenced the story or not,
we’ll never know.
I doubt anybody thought to ask before now.
She did meet and marry Granddaddy,
and every one of her five children
will tell you without hesitation
that he – Granddaddy –
married up.

Green . . .
How Grandmother enjoyed
cutting grass.
She had her own riding lawn mower
and she used it when the grass needed
cutting
or when she needed the grass to be cut.
Whichever need came first,
she would
strap on her battered straw hat,
take her seat on the mower
and commence to riding.
Another sound
providing her with walls,
a way to close out the world
and giver her space
to create her own.

Flowers . . .
Oh my goodness, flowers.
Grandmother’s entire yard was a flower garden
and how I would love to have just one more
day with her holding my hand,
treating me to a personalized guided tour,
checking on the health of each flowering plant
and telling me the name of the plane
and who gave her the cutting.

The fabric with flames . . .
Even as a teenager
there was nowhere I’d rather be
than at Grandmother’s house.
I stopped by
whenever I wanted.
We all did.
No appointment needed.
Walk-ins welcome.
The back screen door slamming behind me.
Mother forbade it at home,
but it is a sound that didn’t bother
Grandmother at all.

Gray . . .
Color of The South.
She was, after all,
the quintessential Southern Lady
without any of the pretense and subterfuge.

The Jetsons cartoon fabric . . .
Granddaddy died
knowing that Live Atlanta Wrestling
was the real deal
while the man on the moon was
staged.

Sock monkeys . . .
Grandmother always
and I do mean always
had time to stop and play
and talk
and, perhaps most importantly,
listen.

Comfort food could always
be found on Grandmother’s table.
Biscuits made from scratch three times every day.
Leftovers in the center of the table
hidden under a clean tablecloth
always available for snacking
or an impromptu meal.
She entered – and won – cake backing contests.

A rescued tablecloth holds these “scraps”
of memories and love
together
to create the second piece in my new series
called Unclaimed Hallelujahs,
this one a cape honoring
Katie Belle Wesley Ballard.
The woman I call Grandmother.

Rainbows of Gray

May 30, 2020 / jeanne / 0 Comments

ocean breaking on huge, jagged rocks

When her daddy refuses to let her return for the last three years of her full-ride scholarship to The Piano Conservatory saying sternly, “Women need a husband not an education – especially an education in playing the piano,” my grandmother agrees to marry Granddaddy who agrees to let her keep her piano. When we are old enough, Grandmother teaches each one of her grandchildren to play the piano. On our assigned day, Granddaddy picks us up after school in his white and gray Ford F-150 and takes us to their house where he treats it to Co’ Colas (in the small bottle, of course, because they taste better) and ‘cream (vanilla ice cream) before our lesson.

From small bottles of soft drink, I learn about forming relationships over food.

”We weren’t allowed to buy soft drinks at the local store,” he tells me, “but there was one shop owner in town who would sell us a case if nobody was looking. His delivery boy had to carry them to the car, though. We couldn’t risk being seen toting a wooden case of Co’ Colas out of his store because black people didn’t buy enough groceries to keep him in business and white folks, if they saw him selling Co’ Colas to us, would stop shopping there.”

From small bottles of soft drink, he learns about discrimination.

~~~~~~~

”Which bus do I ride home?” the seven-year-old me asks Mother as she drops me off on the first day of second grade.

”Just ride the bus you rode last year,” she tells me, and I do, waking up just as Mr. Dan Phillips pulls the snub-nosed, rounded bus #5 into his barn at the end of his route.

”Mr. Phillips,” I say as he turns the silver upright handle to open the door and let himself out, “am I spending the night with you?”

”Where did you come from Jeanne?” he asks.

I point to the third seat on the row behind him, still rubbing my eyes awake.

”C’mon,” he tells me, chuckling softly. “I’ll take you home.”

”She was sound asleep,” he tells my mother, and she’s so short, I couldn’t see her in the rear view mirror. The routes changed this year. She needs to take bus #2 home now, Robert Storey’s bus.”

From riding a school bus, I learn to ask for help.

As a fourteen year old, he drives a school bus, stretching to make himself big enough to reach the pedals and shift the gears. “We didn’t usually have enough gas to get us through the entire week,” he tells me, “so Friday afternoon I had to zig-zag back and forth across the road to slosh what little gas was still in the tank to keep the engine running and get us all home.”

From driving a school bus, he learns resourcefulness.

~~~~~~~

Harriett Dean, mother of my best friend Dianna, takes us swimming at Lake Spivey. Harriett Dean spreads out a towel and settles herself with a good book while Dianna and I run to the water. Quickly tiring of the pick-up game of Marco Polo and knowing it is too early to get the inevitable grape snow-cone, Dianna gets out of the lake, climbs onto the concrete block wall, grabs her nose, and leaps feet first into the water.

The smile that wraps around her face as she comes to the surface, shaking the excess water from her curls-from-a-box hair tells me this is some fun I want to have, too. I hoist myself up on the wall, walk out to where I think Dianna jumped from, and leap. When I come to the surface, I’m too far out in the dreaded deep end. My feet can’t find the bottom, and every time I try to yell for help, my mouth fills with water leaving no room for sound. Dianna is making her way back out of the lake for another jump. Harriett Dean is laying face down on the towel now, tanning her back. Nobody else knows or notices me. I am going to drown, and I’m not even sure how they’ll find me because this is a lake, not a swimming pool.

Eventually I dog paddle my way to the shallow end. I will need a nap, but I will live.

From swimming, I learn that just because my friend friend can do something doesn’t mean I can do it, too..

They were to jump from the 40-foot platform because that’s roughly the same distance to the pool as the ship’s deck is to the ocean. He wasn’t afraid because he knew how to swim – his mama made sure of that – but he was puzzled when the Navy survival course instructor barked, “Black people can’t swim, so those of you who can swim form a line over here, and those who can’t swim, fall in behind the two black boys.”

Surprised to learn that black people can’t swim – something he’s been doing his whole life – he watches as self-declared non-swimmers fall in line behind him while his friend Austin, the only other black man within sight, takes a place at the front of the Can Swim Line. One man jumps in, comes to the surface, and swims to the side of the pool. Another does the same, and now it’s Austin’s turn. Austin leaps into the water easy enough, but he goes straight to the bottom and stays there. “We have a rock,” the instructor calls out before he and his assistant dive in to pull Austin to the surface.

Sputtering and coughing as one is wont to do after spending unplanned time under water. Austin catches his breath, looks up at the instructor, and asks wryly, “Which one did you say is the line for those who can’t swim?”

From a swimming training session, he learns stereotyping.

~~~~~~~

Excerpts of stories from the memory banks of two people – a black man and a white woman who are roughly the same age and who grew up not too far from each other. I learned a lot about racism, racial inequality, and the power of listening and bearing witness that story-swapping afternoon.

I asked which term I should use: desegregation or integration. He prefers desegregation. Why? Because desegregation brought us together, allowing black to keep their own culture and community. Integration implies they must lose their culture for us to live side by side.

It was the best conversation about race, racism, racial inequality, segregation, and integration I’ve ever had. It happened with a stranger, and it happened because it was true conversation – no attempt or need to convert; no accusations and anger; no finger wagging. Just good old-fashioned back-and-forth conversation, complete with deep listening, bearing witness, and asking questions that rose from a place of curiosity, of sincerely wanting to know more. Chalk one up to the reaffirmation of the power and value of storytelling and good old-fashioned conversation.

Hostage, The Adventure Begins

January 22, 2020 / jeanne / 0 Comments

Vintage boy’s shorts and shirt, vintage embroidered doilie, two red embroidered circles, all appliqués to the top of a small vintage quilt

Till the day he died of natural causes, my daddy talked about the barrel of that shotgun placed against the back of his neck. It was a feeling he never forgot.

Daddy was five years old when bandits came to the house, intending to kidnap Granddaddy and rob the bank. It was a weekend of horror I can scarce imagine. After spending my entire life gathering the stories, photos, and information, I am at last sitting down to write the book about that event that happened in my family on May 5 and 6, 1933. It is a story of many stories woven together, and I will tell them all in books and in quilts.

The red circles represent the double barrel shotgun he felt against the back of his neck when, on Saturday morning May 6, 1933, five year old Crawford Jr. (a.k.a. Daddy) forgot that the bad men were in the house and did what he did first thing every morning: ran for the outhouse.

When I decided to tell the story in quilts as well as words, I went straight to my closet and began culling through all the things I’ve rescued and adopted over the course of more years than I can count. Quilts someone made for their babies; baby clothing that caught my fancy; embroidered doilies or dresser protectors or coasters – not sure what you call them. In less than 2 hours, four quilts were pinned together, using only what I have on hand. That is one of my intentions for this year, you know, using only (okay, mostly) what I have on hand. It’s an idea I got from my talented friend Linda Syverson Guild, who doesn’t buy any fabric the first six months of every year, using instead what she already has. I smile as I weave these storied, already well-loved items into my family’s stories. I also smile feeling grateful that I listened to my Bones and purchased these things, even with that dreaded voice of authority on The Committee of Jeanne booming in the background things like “You don’t need this” or “You have too much stuff already” or “What on earth do you plan to do with that?” (The others who sit on The Committee of Jeanne are saving up for a firing squad.) Score one – a great, big, fat one – for my Bones.

~~~~~~~

If you’re wondering about The 70273 Project, we’re still here. I’ve been regrouping and hatching plans that I’ll share with you here next week. Thanks for stopping by and trekking through these adventures – all of them – with me.

Playing in the Meadow on the Other Side of the Rainbow Bridge

December 1, 2016 / jeanne / 1 Comment

My boy, Kipp, rescued him from a Denver humane society.
It was between the border collie and a Corgi – he couldn’t decide.
Ultimately, Kipp chose well.

Otto was a ~~slightly~~ neurotic dog
afraid of the most, um, unusual things.

He was a mischievous dog,
though you usually only knew
he’d been mischievous
when he had this certain look about him.
Oh, he knew you were smart enough to figure it out eventually,
but he was always hopeful that once – just once –
he’d be wrong about you.

If you couldn’t find Otto,
you could bet your bottom dollar
that something resembling food
(cooked, raw, packaged, unpackaged – no matter)
had been left within, oh, 4′ from the edge of the kitchen counter.

Otto was a dog secure enough in his own manhood
to be prissy on occasion . . .
without apology.

We’re still not quite sure which one
Marnie fell in love with first:
Kipp or Otto,
but no matter.
They were a package deal
and she won both their hearts.

And though they were as nervous
as any first-time parents in the history of the galaxy ever were,
Otto proved to be a good Big Brother
to Calder Ray,
watching over him when others
well
went to sleep on the job.

Though they’ll surely adopt another furry baby
sometime down the road
when their hearts have had time to heal,
one thing is for sure:
the next Chambers canine will have awfully big paws to fill.

R.I.P. Otto.
You were the best Son Dog,
the best Big Brother Dog,
the best Granddog,
the best Great Granddog,
the best Nephew Dog,
the Best Friend
ever.

A Stitch from the Past

October 25, 2016 / jeanne / 2 Comments

gdb5

About 15 years ago, I had this idea: I cut circles from fabric and stitched biographical plates (portraits) of my ancestors. Small projects, easy to tuck into my bag and work on wherever I happened to be. And what did I do after stitching them?

Nothing.

I’d planned to stitch them onto a tablecloth . . . but that never happened. I just tucked them into the scrap suitcase were they lingered (forgotten) until I went to grab bits I might use on The Storyteller’s Apron, #1: Sky Rider. Now the plates will become constellations – or maybe galaxies – as I stitch along with Jude Hill and the #sunmoonstars gang.

gdb4

This is the plate of my maternal granddaddy who was a sheriff in Fayette County, GA who liked to play checkers with his grandchildren and took it upon himself to teach each of us to drink coffee. He’d pull us into his lap, fill a saucer with milk, then add a splash of steaming hot Luzianne coffee – just enough to turn the milk a tan color. We’d blow on it and blow on it and blow on it, sending the steam across the room, sipping from the saucer only when there was no more steam to blow. Me? I took part in the ritual up till the part of sipping the milked-down coffee. That was as far as I could go, and to this day, I’ve never even tried coffee.

Wordless Whispers

March 10, 2016 / jeanne / 0 Comments

In the midst of block for The 70273 Project, a box lands
with a return address from Mary Ellington.
It is filled not with blocks,
but with baby dresses

and baby bonnets

and a special occasion baby’s bib.

There are two adult garments
that motivate me to stick to my diet and exercise
so that i can wear them as dusters one day soon.

“i know you’ll do something magical with them,”
her note says.

i have no image in mind yet,

but the tender clothes
already whisper to me
and oh the stories

their vulnerable lace

and tender tucks

and age-old stains
long to tell.

~~~

Thank you, Mary, for honoring me
with these special, delicate items,
for trusting me
to hear, transcribe, and share
their stories.

Maybe you want to hear their stories
and watch as their personal histories unfold?
And maybe you want to keep your finger on the pulse
of The 70273 Project?
Here’s one way to do just that.

Memories of Makings, part 1

January 9, 2016 / jeanne / 1 Comment

Corallamp

From our front window, I watched Granddaddy’s Ford come up the dirt road – slowly so as not to kick up the dreaded red dust that was bad to seep in and cover everything with a veil of grit – and pull into their driveway. We lived right across the road from them on land Granddaddy and Grandmother gave Daddy as a site for his first house. Their mailbox was a standard issue mailbox on a wooden post that leaned a little to the left and wobbled when mail was put in or taken out, but our mailbox was special. Daddy welded a chain with big, thick black links to stand up straight and hold our mailbox securely. Our mailbox didn’t lean or wobble, and with both men being named Crawford Hewell, I suppose this difference was more than aesthetics.

Because you could pull right up to it, we all used the side door instead of the back or front doors, and when the Ford stopped, Granddaddy turned off the engine, put on the parking brake, and pocketed the keys. But instead of going into the house – even before they took their suitcases out of the boot – Grandmother and Granddaddy headed straight for me – their first granddaughter – and they never once came empty handed.

Having buried four of their five children before I was born, they delighted in me and I in them. Usually it was dresses they brought. Frilly, ruffly shirtwaist dresses with a big sash that tied in the back. Whatever the fabric – plaid, polka dots, dotted swiss – the dresses always came with a petticoat that spread my skirt out big enough to seat six. And I ask you: what dress is complete without patent leather shoes of a color that matched the dress, and fold-down socks with rows and rows of lace? Sometimes there were gloves and a pocketbook. Maybe even a hat. Oh yes, I was well dressed and heavily accessorized.

But after a trip to Florida, they came bearing nothing wearable but a lamp festooned with colorful shells, dyed coral, palm trees, a plastic flamingo or two, and sometimes a seahorse – all set in plaster and celebrated in light when plugged in. I never, not once, slept in the dark thanks to Grandmother and Granddaddy Hewell.

As a child, I had an impressive collection of these lamps, and I adored every one of them. My eyeglass-clad hazel eyes glazed over at the site of these emblems of being cherished. I mean shoot, Grandmother and Granddaddy didn’t bring Mother and Daddy back a souvenir.

Yes, these lamps and these people were special to me, so you can imagine my delight and surprise when I came across another special book on our outing yesterday: Kitschy Crafts: A Celebration of Overlooked 20th-Century Crafts by Jo Parkham & Matt Shay. Just look at that cover, would you!

Bookcover

As a child, I was bad to make things. I turned the pump house into a veritable palace, using bushel baskets for stools at a counter I created from well, I don’t remember what, but something I found laying around. Not only was I out of Mother’s hair as I puttered around bringing order to the chaos of that pump house, my creativity blossomed in the process. I was never happier than when using whatever I had on hand or could lay claim to to create private spaces for myself.

Between the covers of this book are page after page of things I’ve made in my lifetime.

Stringart

Remember string art? I still have the boat I made for my father-in-law. I’ll show it to you next time I head to the attic.

Macramepocketbook

And macrame pocketbooks? As a flat-broke newlywed, my mother-in-law tore an article out of a Southern Living magazine and gave it to me cause she thought I’d like to make a macrame headboard for our bed. She was right. Again.

There’s more, but I’ve gone on way long enough, so I’ll show you more tomorrow.

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I’m preparing to dust off and rev up an online trellis I offered two years ago for folks interested in finally sitting down to pen their life stories. If you’re interested, leave a comment here or on facebook or shoot me a note so I’ll know to let you know when I finish with the details.