- Connie is missing her boy.
Missing
Barn
So? What are you reading?
- Books!
I’ve been so busy with work, personal drama and the garden that I haven’t been reading much. Since books are a great passion of mine, not reading creates a hole in my personal well-being which must be corrected – and soon.
- Books and more books.
I joke that the only thing holding up the barn is my books and bookshelves. At one time, I could brag that I had read every book in the house except for the few in the unread pile next to my bed.
Between the craziness of my life and the fact that I now have a Significant Other who reads even more than I do (and passes his books on to me), I now have, at minimum, 200 unread books in this house. I have one whole bookcase dedicated to the unread, but now they’re spilling over. I’m also pretty sure there’s a passel of unread books in the nook under the stairs that I can’t get to because of the painting supply debris blocking access.
It’s crazy. And I love it.
Beverly Cleary’s Beezus and Ramona and Henry Huggins series were the first books that really rocked my world. However, it was Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy that lit the fire of a passion for good literature.
- Current reading.
My preferred book is fiction, but in the past few years I’ve developed an appreciation for nonfiction. Whatever it is I’m reading, it must show proper respect for the power and beauty of words. No matter how interesting the subject, if it’s not written well, I don’t have the patience to read it.
I read to get lost in the dance of well-chosen words creating worlds of ideas. I do read some pop-lit, but only if the writer is a gifted story teller – King and Grisham, for instance. [Actually, King is a better writer than he gets credit for. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it. Lisey’s Story is a thing of beauty as is The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.]
The past few years, I’ve gone on genre jags. For awhile it was the “quirky” writers – Tom Robbins, Vonnegut, Christopher Moore, Jeannette Winterson. Then it was world literature – writers from Latin America, India, Russia, etc. A couple of summers ago, I completely devoured Susan Howatch’s Church of England series. Right now, I’m mixing it up.
- Bed books.
I’ve got 4 books going at the moment, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s biography, a Paul Auster novel, some nonfiction about writer’s block and creativity, and essays on women writers and their dogs.
Those 4 books have been on my nightstand for more than a month. Normally, they would have been devoured in about a week.
The unread bookcase contains a plethora of marvelous stories – I know this because most of them have been pre-screened by HMOKeefe. For the most part, we agree on what constitutes a good book, but true to his gender, he tends to wax rhapsodic about some truly bad stuff (Moby Dick, for example).
I imagine myself sprawled in the garden with a book, a glass of iced tea, and the lazy drone of bees – a recreation of my childhood out-of-school summers when I could finally read as much as I wanted to without the annoying interruption of school. Please, please, let it be so. (Yes, I will have the annoying interruption of work, but some things can’t be avoided.)
- Two of my favorite things –
Chef Boy ‘R Mine and books.
Chef Boy ‘R Mine and books.
I love talking about books and the ideas they hold. I can drone on and on and on about a book. Once I get going it’s nigh unto impossible to get me to shut up. Moreover, I also think it’s appropriate given my love of them that I use them as the bedrock for home decoration. They’re everywhere (except bathrooms) in bookcases, in stacks, on the floor, on tables, tucked under stairs, next to the exercise bike. Everywhere. And I do read them.
So? What are you reading?
Hate gravel, like rocks, love mountains
I hate gravel.
I hate gravel.
Frank, the guy who built the barn, leveled off a hill, bulldozed it, trucked in gigatons of gravel, and then parked big rigs on it.
Breaking ground for a new garden is unbelievably difficult. Before I can do anything, I have to get the gravel out. This can only be done after drenching rains with the aid of a pick axe, a lot of determination, and hours of time.
Where I could, I made raised beds, but that’s not always possible. When I say Frank leveled the hill, I mean that in a broad sense. My yard is anything but level. If I tried to level it with raised beds, the roses would be level with my roof line.
I hate gravel.
I break ground, usually, in small increments – about 3×3 feet. It can take the better part of a day. The gravel is predictable. First I will have a thin layer of small gravel embedded in leaf debris and the topsoil that has managed to form in 25 years. Below that are huge chunks of gravel – the size of my fist or larger. That layer is a good 8 inches thick. When I get the ground broken enough to get to it, I pry one piece at a time out with the aid of a crow bar. It’s ‘orrible, it is, it is.
After all that, I cart the gravel out and dump it on the road. Then, one 40 lb. of soil at a time, I put earth where there had been geologic atrocities. Conservatively speaking, I have nearly 2 acres of gravel.
It’s ‘orrible, it is, it is.
When we put in the fence, we used a jackhammer. It’s bad. Really bad. I am not exaggerating. [I reserve the right to exaggerate in future stories, but it’s not necessary in this one.]
Souvenir rocks.
To be cursed with this gravel situation is an irony of sorts, because I like rocks. I have rocks scattered all over my house. Instead of tacky seashell wind chimes and t-shirts, I bring home rocks as souvenirs. (I also bring home shells, driftwood, seedpods and other pieces of nature that strike my eye.) They sit on bookcases, dressers, desks, my dashboard, in bowls, and on counters. I like rocks.
A few years ago, you couldn’t go anywhere without encountering a bin of polished rocks with words engraved in them. Man…I love those things. Words and rocks – it doesn’t get any better. I have a whole bag of them plus a bunch of them scattered around the house and one, very precious one, tucked into a medicine bag hanging from my rearview window. I like rocks. I really do, but I quit buying them when I learned whole mountains were being mined to satisfy my wordstone need.
I like rocks.
But more than rocks, I love mountains. I cannot fathom how anyone can defend mountaintop removal mining. They take a beautiful mountain, covered in magnificent trees, teeming with wildlife and reduce it to gravel.
The myth of it being good for the economy is usually cited. Balderdash. Coal companies are hauling far more coal out of here than anytime in history and simultaneously employing far fewer people to do it. And if coal is equivalent to economic prosperity, why are the largest coal-producing counties the poorest. The emperor has no clothes.
In a state that has suffered economic deprivation for generations. I understand the problems that could result should the practice be banned. But at what cost do we annihilate our mountains? When we destroy them, we not only lose them, but we lose our communities, our history, and our culture.
I love mountains.
When my son was born, my (ex)husband and I suffered a radical economic setback. Our goal was to climb from destitute to simply poor. It was another horrible situation. I could have sold the kid and ended the poverty.
I could have. Would I have? Nope. I believe the word is inconceivable.
More knowledgeable people than I have railed on the subject of mountaintop removal mining and I listen to them carefully. I can’t retain the facts and figures. I can’t discuss at any depth all of the issues surrounding the practice. I’m usually good at such things, but in this case I can’t get past the initial shock than anyone could think this is a good idea. All I know is I would no more destroy one of these mountains than I would sell my child.
I hate gravel. I like rocks. I love mountains.
Ancestors
I think I'll name her Emily.
Since it is Memorial Day weekend, I am introducing my Ancestors.
Memorial Day, formerly known as Decoration Day, is a U.S. federal holiday set aside to honor those who died in combat. In the southern states, and Appalachia in particular, the holiday has expanded as a time to remember all of one’s relatives who have passed on.
Because my dad was in the military and for a host of other reasons, I grew up without an extended family – without ancestors, so to speak. My immediate family does not have a cemetery that we can go to this weekend and decorate. We will not be attending any Homecomings (family reunions often held at churches or cemeteries).
While I’m not really all that keen on the idea of spending Monday at a cemetery eating potato salad, I do miss knowing the people that make up the furthest branches of my family tree.
When we moved back here in 1985 and bought “Frank’s old place,” I was often asked, “Who are your people?” That, or some more subtle variation, is a common question and one of the defining characteristics of Appalachian culture. Often the conversation begins with “Where are you from?” The questioner is expecting an answer that names a county or town with more descriptors identifying the family tree. We don’t particularly want to know your occupation (so forget the “so what do you do? question), we want to know who you connect to – how you fit into the quilt of our communities.
My mama's people - the infamous branch.
I explain that I’m not from anywhere as my dad was in the military, but that my great-grandparents were Appalachians who out-migrated around the turn of the century. Consequently, I grew up with hillbilly ways in non-hillbilly places. My people, the ones I’m related to by blood, are scattered around the country and due to different life circumstances, I don’t have a lot of information about the kinfolk much past a few generations. It’s kind of sad.
Dusty cardboard box of ancestors
One day, while perusing stuff in an antique store, I found a bin of old photographs. I was enchanted and appalled. Who? Who, in their right mind, would get rid of old family photos? These people, their individuality permeating sepia, were languishing unloved and unappreciated in a dusty cardboard box in a junk store. The indignity! And then it dawned on me. For $3, I bought the first portrait of my Ancestors. I’ve adopted many Ancestors since then.
The photo below is one of my favorites. I’ve named them the Kinton family and have decided that the photo is of a married couple, the vicious mother-in-law, and the sulking teenage son (who, as you may note, is trying to distance himself from the embarrassment of having to hang out with his parents).
- The Kintons
I’m particularly fond of the noble steeds. Apparently, my extended family eschewed equestrian activities for burro-ian ones. [Note: Now we know where I got my innate sense of dignity in awkward situations.] Of all the Ancestors, this family intrigues me the most and set the tone for my collection. Not all, but many of my Ancestors, are quirky. While I regret not knowing my real family well, I love the freedom of choosing people and creating biographies while simultaneously being pissed off that someone, anyone, would give up such precious photos.
I love the church pew - I'm strange that way.
The Ancestors have been languishing in a dusty cardboard box on my church pew for sometime now. I want a better life for them, buth such things take time and money – precious commodities in my life. My goal is to have them all professionally framed so I can hang them above the church pew to be viewed (and remembered). I will be able to point to “my people” and, as soon as I finish writing biographies for each of them, explain where they lived, what they did and who they loved. [Note: I adore the church pew. Having been raised in a fundamentalist religious tradition, I take a certain amount of contrary pleasure in sitting on the church pew en flagrante déshabillé, smoking a cigarette and sipping wine.]
I’ve spent the morning digging through the ancestors as well as photos of my more immediate family. It’s been a bittersweet time. I’d like to go to a cemetery and sit in green grass and remember them – pull some weeds, plant a rose or two, admire the daisies growing on the hillside. Instead, I will spend this weekend working in the garden that includes many of the plants they gave me or I dug up from their yards after they passed.
Daisies - a really underappreciated flower.
We lost two of my dad’s sisters a couple of months ago. Marvelous women, both of them, we are still grieving. They died two hours and 900 miles apart, some what unexpectedly. I’m planning to go to the nursery and buy their favorite flowers to plant in my garden. I think that will encompass the spirit of things.
In memory of Kathy, and, in particular, Irene, who loved the absurd as much as I. One after one, they endured some of the most horrible events life can offer, yet still managed to laugh. I miss them both.
W. Va. Fur and Root 