Why Not Wife?

Up here in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where Trump flags fly next to those honoring the confederacy, I sometimes find myself playing the old familiar pronoun game.  Every gay person of a certain age knows how it works:  “My partner isn’t here now; they will be up next week.” 

It’s not so much the violation of pronoun and antecedent that I mind--although the English professor in me balks at that, too.  It’s the intentional ambiguity, the reluctance to come out to, say, the ladies on my summer golf league. 

When the Ladies Golf Association assembled this year’s directory of members, they asked for the obvious bits of information: address, email, phone number.  But they also wanted my husband’s name; they include them parenthetically in the listing.  Even though I married Liza last year, I left mine blank. 

I would like to take pride in having a wife.  I think of all the newlyweds who beam as they introduce their new spouse: meet my wife, my husband, they say, reaching for the other’s hand.  They are thrilled to be married, to belong to a long-standing tradition that recognizes their union as something beyond that of a relationship, more bound than a simple partnership.

But, out of necessity, gay people have long-used euphemisms.  We speak of our partner, which makes it sound like we’re in the joint business of selling shoes.  We go legal: our significant other.  Back in the 1970s, some more brazenly said, “my lover.”  But of course they didn’t say that to straight people.  Recently, one lesbian comic said she was going to start using “traveling companion.”  I laughed at that, but “I’m here with my traveling companion” sounds no sillier than referring to the love of my life as my partner.  Yet I still do it.

I would like to believe it’s just difficult to break old habits, but I know it’s more than that.  It’s fear.  Yes, marriage has been deemed legal for same-sex couples, but it’s not really accepted.  At best, people are bemused or slightly shocked; at worse, people are disgusted, even revolted.  The public’s adoration of Ellen notwithstanding, it’s still a revolutionary act to be gay.  As the shootings in Orlando remind us, it’s still dangerous to be gay.

I don’t know how long social change will take, how long before marriage isn’t automatically assumed to be the joining of a man and a woman.  Still, surprised to find it legal in my lifetime, I doubt that I’ll live to see it accepted.  But I believe I have to do my part to affect change. In next year’s directory, listed with (Bob), (Albert), (Thomas), and (Henry) will be (Liza).

In Vino Veritas?

It all started with a glass of red wine. 

My sister, Lisa, visited last week, and on Saturday night, we planned a big country supper: barbecued ribs, fried okra, corn on the cob, squash with onions, and cucumber salad.  More than the two of us could eat, I invited my friend Pat, who lives in the cabin up the hill.

Pat and I became close ten years ago when she did a complete makeover on my cabin, painting the living room “Cornstalk” gold and “Indian Pudding” red.  She shopped thrift stores for a drop-leaf table and discarded objets d’art; sawed-off the legs of ladder-back chairs; found fabric to match a painting and made curtains with pinking shears and a glue gun. She spray painted the paper-towel rack, the napkin holder, the clock, and light-switch covers to match the trim.  Brought “doo-dads” from her house to decorate the eaves.  Everything on a thousand-dollar budget.  Walking into the changed space was like being on HGTV.   

During the summer, Pat and I frequently share meals.  If one of us is cooking, it’s understood that the other is invited.  So her inclusion in Saturday night’s feast was a given.

For her contribution, Pat brought an over-sized jug of what the local supermarket calls “economy wine.”  My sister and I were nursing mojitos made from wild mint, so we declined.

After eating all we could, we decided to play cards, a typical way to spend an evening at Pine Log.  By this time, Pat had refilled her wine glass several times, and Lisa and I had switched to beer. The music was playing, the card game was in full swing, the scores neck-and-neck, when it became clear that Pat had crossed a threshold. 

Like many up this way who are strung out on “hillbilly heroin,” Pat relies on pain pills to treat fibromyalgia.  If a doctor tries to cut her off, she goes shopping for a new doctor and seems to have no trouble getting a steady stream of hydrocodone.  To sleep, she swears she needs Xanax.  There are other pills for other ailments; I can’t keep up with them all.  I do know they shouldn’t be mixed with alcohol, but Pat’s 72 years old, hard-headed, even contrary, so I knew she’d scoff at the suggestion she should slow down.

And who am I to say anything?  Just the night before, my sister and I had indulged ourselves, sang along to favorite cd’s, told family stories and laughed uproariously.  Have I ever over-indulged while playing cards?  I can’t count the times.

But Pat was getting nasty, calling me “asshole” and “bitch” when I’d roll my eyes because she couldn’t play her cards correctly, mistaking clubs for spades, dropping her hand on the floor.  It was time to wrap things up for the night, but I couldn’t convince Pat that she’d had enough.  Then she knocked over a newly-filled glass of red wine. Too hammered to clean it up, she ran to the bathroom while Lisa and I sopped up the mess.

Without so much as a “good-night,” Pat staggered out of the bathroom and headed to her car.  Although a walkable distance, it is all uphill, so she often drives down when she knows she’ll be here after dark.  I grabbed a flash light, ran out, and told her it would be better if she walked, that I would walk with her.  “I need my car,” she slurred. 

“I’ll drive you home and walk back,” I said.

Ignoring me, she got in, gunned the engine, spun the wheels, sprayed gravel—her two precious little dogs that go everywhere with her, who are beyond beloved, were skittering to get out of the way—and she bolted up the hill.  As she turned into her driveway, I heard her smack the outdoor light at the end of her drive, heard glass breaking.  Unaware that she’d hit something, she got out and shouted down the hill where I stood watching, “I made it.  See, I made it.” 

The party clearly over, my sister and I turned in, but I had trouble sleeping, worrying whether Pat had made it all the way to bed, worrying that she wouldn’t wake up in the morning, worrying whether I was responsible for letting her drink too much, wondering whether I really am a bitch and an asshole.

Ten or Free

Although it’s North Carolina’s smallest county at 221-square miles, Clay County is not the poorest—but it’s close.  Perhaps that’s why graduates look for ways to move elsewhere and why retirees are flocking this way.

Many of the residents are what they call “half-backs”: people who migrated from the North down to Florida and have moved halfway back.

   

Combine those on fixed incomes with locals, who simply don’t make much money, and you get a fair share of things that are ten-or-free.

Ten dollars will buy a straight-from-the-smoker barbecued pork (or chicken) plate with homemade sides and a sweet tea—sometimes even a slice of pound cake thrown in—at most of the free, and frequent, music festivals around here.  One favorite venue is the monthly concert on the square, where people bring their lawn chairs to sit and listen to local bluegrass bands play in the gazebo on the courthouse lawn.  They close off the street for those who’d like to dance.

 

Ten dollars will buy an all-you-can-eat plate at the Friday-night fish fry at the local VFW, where they hand you a Styrofoam plate and point you toward the steadily-replenished buffet of fish, fries, hushpuppies, and the homemade slaw and baked beans that seem to come with everything here.  Of course, tea is included, but if you’re a big spender, you can get a pitcher of beer for $5.00 more.

 

Ten dollars will buy a week of fresh-from-his-garden produce at Mr. Jimmy’s.  He grows more than he and the wife can eat, so the rest is for sale under the honor system.  Most things are a dollar a pound; some things are cheaper.  There’s a large coffee can glued down with a slit cut in the top to deposit your money.  “What if somebody doesn’t pay?” I asked.  Mr. Jimmy, who is also a Baptist preacher, responded:  “If they need it bad enough to steal it, then they need it worse than I do.” Last week I was looking for some potatoes, but he was sold out.  “If you got a minute,” he said, “I’ll dig you some right quick.”  It doesn’t get fresher than that.

The women’s golf league I play with had their monthly luncheon last Tuesday, yep, ten dollars.  There was a fabulous salad bar that included ham, turkey, and boiled shrimp.  While some stuck with tea, the tables were also plied with frosted glasses and pitchers of beer.  Claudia, who runs the snack bar, also whipped up a delicious chocolate cake.

When folks aren't eating, some are playing cards.  Tables are available at the Senior Center or at most of the golf course club houses.  Depending on which day you can play, there’s bridge, or the local favorite, Hand-and-Foot, a game somewhat like Canasta.

 

And this year, everyone is playing Pickleball, a game that combines badminton, ping-pong, and tennis.  Everyone’s first question seems to be, “Do you play Pickleball?  Want to learn?”  This is quickly followed with, “It’s free.”  I've already ordered my paddle from Amazon.

It’s always been free to walk the winding path atop the Chatuge Dam, or to float in Lake Chatuge’s cool waters, or to simply sit and watch the sunset dip behind the mountains.

 

Tonight, I’m busting the budget a bit.  I’m going to see the local production of Annie at the Peacock Playhouse. Tickets are twenty-bucks apiece.  I guess I’m doing my part to support the local economy. 

Clover and Honeysuckle

Sometimes I wonder why I love spending summers in this raggedy cabin.  Except for the stunning view of the Nantahala—Land of the Noon-Day Sun--there’s little to recommend its shabby 700-square-feet.  Thrown together with plywood and a staple gun, it was designed in the late 1960s by developers looking to make a quick buck off “Floridiots,” who trek to the Blue Ridge Mountains in June, July, and August to escape the heat and humidity. 

Each summer at Pine Log begins with a new bug infestation—this year’s carpenter ants look healthy enough to carry off my screened-in porch on their collective backs; a half-inch layer of pollen lets me know the dogwoods bloomed well even if I wasn’t here to see them, and let’s not even think about the black snake—a “good” snake everyone assures me-- that lives in the basement. 

There is hot water for my shower and a flush toilet.  A refrigerator and stove.  So it’s a cut above camping.  But it lacks many of the comforts of home.  There’s no television or Internet.  There’s no air conditioning.

And I think that’s what I like best about it, the non-conditioned air.

 

When Willis Carrier invented air conditioning in July of 1902, he forever changed life in Florida. Summer in the panhandle, where I live during the school year, means a tightly-sealed house with the a.c. set on 72, errands in air-conditioned cars, and outside activities that must be done very early or very late—oh, and don’t forget the mosquito repellent.  

   

Up here in Warne, North Carolina, the air smells of clover and honeysuckle.  Trips to town—it’s about 30-minutes to anywhere—mean curvy roads that open onto pastures of newly-cut hay, grazing cattle, and red clay plots where husbands and wives hoe weeds between the rows of crook-neck squash, pole beans, and tomatoes.  

Mornings are so cool I need a long-sleeved shirt to throw over my pajamas.  If it does get hot, a box fan, a good book, and something cool to drink will see me through to sunset. 

    

I also like being able to hear summer: the morning-song of cardinals and thrushes, humming birds zooming to the feeder, the distinct laugh of the pileated woodpeckers that nest in the 100-year-old pines.  Yesterday, I heard something moving through the woods and looked out to see a couple of deer making their way down the hill.  Neighbors say that a bear’s been prowling around, too, but I haven’t heard it yet.  When my friend, Pat, leaves to play cards at the senior center, I hear her tires crunching on the gravel road, and I know she’s safely back home when I hear them again.  

I feel more a part of the world here.  When I’m not out walking through the woods, noticing the last few blooms on the Mountain Laurel or the buds swelling on the Rhododendron, I spend my days on the porch, where only a thin layer of screen separates me from towering trees, waves of daisies and Queen Anne’s lace, and a view of the blue rolling hills. In fact, that’s where I’m writing this, fighting to keep my concentration because of the shrill call of a broad-winged hawk.  When it’s finished, I’ll drive to the library in Hayesville to upload it.  I’ll do so with all my windows open.    

Forever 46

If he were still alive, my brother would turn 50 tomorrow.  

My only brother, Scott, loved his birthday falling on Memorial Day weekend as it gave a good excuse for the season’s first big barbecue.  A gifted chef, he was hell on the grill, knowing just when to baste, when to swipe with his secret sauce.  But he was equally good in the kitchen: green beans he’d canned in Mason jars, salsa put up from last year’s tomatoes and peppers, baked beans doctored with brown sugar and bacon, and his favorite corn: Peaches-n-Cream. 

There would also be his red plastic cup filled with bourbon, but busy ripping on ribs, no one begrudged him a drink or two—or three or four. 

 After eating, the next course was fireworks.  Even after shooting a bottle rocket into his eye when he was ten, he didn’t fear the big ones.  He loved being the center of attention as we gathered in lawn chairs to watch him run from the lit fuse before the boom and glitter of stars. 

Then three years ago, just weeks before his birthday, he died in a fiery explosion when he slammed his truck into a tree.

As his drinking got worse, we all feared the day, worrying, as the loved ones of a drunk will do, the word of a crash.  When my sister called to tell me, my first question was whether anyone else had been hurt.  But, no, a single-car collision with a poplar tree on a straight-away less than a mile from his house.  Ironically, he was not drunk when it happened.

He was, however, in terrible health—high blood pressure, heart problems; he’d recently been struggling with abrupt lapses in consciousness.  No one knows what happened.  The trauma was so severe that an autopsy was inconclusive.

Desperate to know something, anything, I walked the route from the place he left the road to the tree; even when he swiped a speed-limit sign that knocked off his side mirror, he didn’t swerve.  I pray there was no pain.

Then he was gone, and I thought of all the things I’d taught him that were gone, too. 

I taught him to cook collard greens.  I taught him to play backgammon.  I taught him to wait for the ashes to turn gray before putting the meat on the grill.  I taught him to play golf.   And I taught him to drink.

He was 18, 19, 20, 21; I was ten years older, and I should have known better.  But I’m no stranger to the bottle’s lure myself.  I was the party sister—or more like the brother he didn’t have.  I’d pop the tops on brews for both of us as we sat around the cabin playing guitar and laughing about our missed shots on the golf course.  I’d pour Jack Daniels over Coke, handing him one after another.  I taught him how to act straight when drunk.  I taught him how to ruin his life.

In the year before his death, I begged him to get help.  “It’s not fun anymore,” he’d say, and I knew exactly what he meant.  But we both kept drinking.

Maybe it’s sad, even pathetic, but I would love one more round of golf, one more game of backgammon, one more plate of ribs, one more beer with my brother. 

If I could change the end, among other things, I would keep him from his car that day.  But I wouldn't change the summers we spent together.  After all, I knew him so much better than most.  I know he cried while watching Independence Day; I know he climbed on top of a golf cart to put a wren back in its nest.  I know the crippling self-loathing behind his jokes.  I know his shame at being an alcoholic. 

But I should have been a better role model; I know that, too.

So what to do this Memorial Day weekend since I won’t be going to a birthday party at my brother’s house?  Maybe I’ll make a little barbecue of my own.  Maybe I’ll dust off the six-string and chord through a few familiar songs.  Maybe I’ll take a celebratory shot from the untouched Jagermeister bottle he left in my freezer four summers ago that I can’t seem to throw away.  Or maybe I’ll drink too much bourbon and cry.    

Summer Travel with an Old Dog

Although the calendar says it's officially a month away, here in the South, we know May is already summer.  The humidity is up, and the thermometer is hovering near 90-degrees on sultry afternoons. So it's time to leave Florida behind and head to my cabin in Warne, North Carolina, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's a place where day breaks slowly, the mist rising through mid-morning, giving way to warm afternoons, then nights that call for a quilt on the bed.

I prepare by packing a box of good books--there's no TV there--and bringing my most comfy jeans for berry picking.  After that, I'm ready to load the dogs in the car and head north.

For one of my dogs, Big, this may be his last summer on Pine Log Road.  He's old, nearly blind, and his legs aren't up to steep, or even shallow, climbs.

The trick is getting him there one more time.  As his name suggests, he's a large fellow, and his quivery hips make leaping in the car impossible.  But like me, Big loves the way the cabin air smells of deer dancing in the woods and newly-mown hay.  It's up to me to figure out how to give him another mountain summer.

So I've developed this list of travel tips:

1.  Make room for his loading ramp.  After every inch of space is taken, you'll still need to find a place for this invaluable bit of dog dignity that folds to the size of a thick card table.  Keep in mind, you'll need easy access to it along the way.

2.  Place his bed beside the air-conditioning vent.  It's a long dusty ride that winds through Alabama before hitting the stop-and-go traffic of Hotlanta.  Even if you need a sweater, he likes the blower on high.

3.  Compromise on music.  While he'd prefer the just-short-of-shrill sounds of Celine Dion or Barbara Streisand, who make his ears twitch with delight, he can also sleep soundly to Norah Jones or Patsy Cline.

4.   If you have to stop, plan to do so twice.  While all you need is a quick fillup, he will need someplace soft and green, a place to puddle into as he struggles to figure out what's happening.

5.  Be patient, trying not to lament lost minutes.  Likely, he will stroll through specimens left by other travelers before finding the right spot to go.  Perhaps he knows he'll never sniff this part of the world again.

6.  If he drinks every drop of water in the make-shift bowl, find the jug and pour him another.  Remember, a cool drink on a hot day is one of life's simple pleasures.

7.  Realize his rheumy eyes will not see that you've set up the ramp on the other side of the car. When possible, try to park so he can come and go from the same door.  If that's not possible, most stubborn refusals can be swayed with Pupperoni.

8.  When you finally arrive, give him time.  Even though he may mosey down the ramp, pausing as if posing for pictures by the papparazi, wait for him to take in the air.  Be his guide dog as he negotiates the steps leading to the cabin door.  Once inside, feed him the good stuff, the stuff from a can.  After all, while all you did was drive eight hours, he's had a really hard day.

Idle Work

I stroll through my tangled garden, lingering over the coned bud of a soon-to-be zinnia, stopping to marvel at the bloom of a New Dawn rose, and encouraging the basil volunteers that returned from last winter's seed.  I brush pollen from a plastic Adirondack and sit, waiting for the fat cardinal and his mate to come share another meal at my feeder.  Unlike me, a mockingbird is hard at work, practicing his latest list of calls.  I sip my second cup of coffee, noticing the higher-than-it-should-be grass of the backyard.  Then the guilt sets in.

I live with a woman who begins each day working backwards from bedtime, filling in her day in fifteen-minute blocks: visit sick friend, buy fish, call the bank about that service charge; there's
something for each space.  Sometimes she looks up from her list-making and asks, "What are you doing today?"

"Um, I'm not sure yet."

After all, the semester just ended Monday, and this is my first week of summer vacation.  I've spent the last nine months walking the middle ground between lecturing and conjoling students who sometimes don't share my enthusiasm for English Composition.  Not to mention all the weekends spent grading, grading, and grading some more, working through stacks of essays, ranging from plagiarized interpretations of Emily Dickinson to the evils of global warming.

But that grass is getting high; the car could stand a wash and wax; my clothes closet is a mish-mash of winter's wool sweaters and summer aloha shirts.  In short, I should get busy.

After all, I'm the daughter of two workaholics.  Each was the oldest child of a large, bitterly poor, family; they were taught how to work rather than taught how to read, an unimportant skill to sharecroppers in East Tennessee of the 1930s.  At fifteen, my mother nabbed a paying job at the local movie theater; my dad worked for a son-less doctor, baling hay and cutting tobacco.  At seventeen, he enlisted in the army for an easier life, taking my mother with him.  Sent to Korea, he led brigade after brigade into battle while my mother picked up work at a local diner, serving breakfast and lunch, searching under plates for a couple of quarters.

When he returned, he supervised the warehouses at New Cumberland Army Depot by day and worked as a bartender at the Officer's Club at night.  My mom worked the service counter at a rent-a-car agency at the airport fulltime and waited tables on the side.  They were great providers if not the best parents.  My sister and I seldom saw them, and we learned early how to survive on TV Dinners and our own self-discipline.

Late in life, crippled from rhuematoid arthritis, my dad told me, "The only thing I miss is working."
True to his words, he spent his last incoherent hours lying in the hospital babbling about "the inventory" and how we needed to "get going."

Oten my idleness seems disrespectful to my dad's legacy. But I don't want to lie on my deathbed with life passing as one big blur of work.

Instead, I want to remember the nervous hop of a bluejay across my weedy lawn, the smell of the confederate jasmine that's overtaking a tree out back.  In the winter of life, I want to still find joy in the way flowers return uninvited each spring.  I want to remember the way my son looks when he plays the piano or runs soaking wet from the waves.  If this is what it means to be idle, I'm willing to work for it.