Chapter 7
I still have that little table and chairs you used to sit at to color, or to make your paper fortune tellers.
Do you remember how you used to put some bad fortunes in there sometimes?
“A truck will mow you down” was one. I told you once you ought not to do that, and didn’t you look me straight in the eye and say, Life is not all fun and games, Flo.
What were you, eight or nine? I nearly busted out laughing, but instead I just nodded and said I guess not, but I’m going to hope I don’t get a fortune like that too often!
And you patted my hand and said, Now, Flo, you won’t.
I hope you won’t throw away that table and chairs, Ruthie. I’m sure some child can use them, and you know children are always so pleased when furniture fits them.
Don’t throw away my cast-iron skillet, either.
It is so well seasoned now, everything you cook in it tastes good.
My daddy used it for fried chicken that made you want to beat your fists on the table.
I saw how he made it, but mine never turned out as good as his so that is one recipe I will not be giving you.
But if you can eat in heaven guess what I’m ordering to accompany my mound of mashed potatoes big as Mount Kilimanjaro and two ears of corn plucked straight from the field.
Do you know the best way to cook corn on the cob? Put it in a pan of cold water with a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of sugar. Bring it to a boil and let it go two minutes, then turn off the flame and let it set for ten. Bingo.
I’ll tell you what, there’s nothing wrong with serving just corn on the cob and sliced tomatoes for dinner in summertime. Go out to Dairy Queen afterward and sit at their picnic table and eat your ice cream and watch everybody else eat theirs and you will have had yourself a day.
Speaking of eating, I just remembered a time I watched you eat a tablespoon of dirt, and when I asked you what in the world you were doing you said you were seeing how it tasted plus you were not afraid of germs. You must have been about seven, sitting out in my front yard under the Miss Kim lilacs, which was one of your favorite places where you sometimes made little houses complete with crops, which were red berries you lined up straight in rows.
That day you ate dirt, you had one eye squinted against the sun and you were wearing the cutest yellow sundress with spaghetti straps that I figured you’d begged your mother for but then had sullied by nine that morning—jelly stains and mud and butterfly dust. What a fierce little girl you were, fierce and gentle all at the same time.
I had a good laugh remembering your eating dirt.
I woke up today to a rose-gold-colored morning and it was the prettiest day, the kind where the world seems washed, everything about as crystal clear as it gets, even to these old eyes.
The lines of the roof on the house across the street, the little bend of the twig on the tree when a bird landed on it, so sure of himself and looking around in that proprietary way birds can have.
Well, I got dressed and went out on the porch and sat down on my wicker chair with the cushions so old I don’t remember how old, but they are comfortable, they know me and my bones.
I sat there and I had the sharpest feeling of sorrow that I would be leaving all this soon, the common wonders of the world.
And then you know, I just got afraid. I got afraid in that way of when you might look all right on the outside but on the inside you feel the trembling.
And I got up and despite the glory of the day I got back in bed and lay real still.
I was thinking, What can I do, what can I do?
I closed my eyes and pulled my breath seems like down to my toes, and I said to myself, I shall be released.
Only problem with that is I don’t want to be released, not today, not with the sun carving out a living painting right before my eyes.
Not with the way I want to help my new friend Teresa.
It seemed like I was going to go into a panic, maybe crying and thrashing around and the like, and there I was all dressed with even my shoes on.
Well, I got up and I straightened the bed and I went outside again fast as I could, went around to the backyard, where I stood beside the clothesline pole and I asked myself this question: Do you want to hang out yet another load of laundry when you can’t hardly lift a towel?
Haven’t you hung out enough wash in all your years?
Here came the answer whooshing into my heart: No.
I wouldn’t mind a bit hanging up a few more loads, and if you’re one of those never saw the point in hanging out pillowcases, I’ll hang yours for you, and when they’re dry I’ll deliver them to you come twilight and say rest your head on these when you go to bed and smell the sunshine, even with the darkness come and the wind blowing.
Close your eyes and turn your face to that smell and you will feel cared for like when your momma yanked your blankets clean up to your chin and planted a kiss on your forehead that you will forever long for.
And someone else can kiss you on the forehead but it’s not the same, lovely as it might be, it’s not the same.
Well, now look how I am going on about that, I wonder if I am plum going to lose my mind.
I hope not. I got to sniff and center here, and that’s what I did out in my backyard, finally, I did sniff and center, it’s something I’ve done forever to calm down.
I close my eyes and take long breaths and go down into myself deep and still.
And on that day I also closed my eyes and made cups of my hands and I prayed to Jesus to fill me with light and help me not to be afraid.
And it worked. Lot of people don’t ask Jesus for anything, thinking He has got a long checklist and they don’t hardly figure in it.
But I don’t believe that’s how it works, to me Jesus just waits for us to call on Him, and then it’s just as likely as not He’ll gather you in His arms and your prayer will be answered.
It happens! Naturally I don’t mean He really gathers you in His arms, you just feel like that, cared for, and heard.
Terrence never did buy any of that religion stuff (he called it crap, which always made me so fearful that here would come a lightning bolt for us both), but he never tried to take my faith from me.
He would shake his head gentle, but he never said one unkind word about my beliefs.
Terrence was just more practical. For him, life was in and out.
In and out. I suppose if you keep that in your head, it offers a certain strength. But Ruthie, the light this morning.
Let me move on. Here is something I am right embarrassed about.
In the top drawer of my breakfront in my dining room you will find just about a million candles.
Over and over again I would splurge on long, elegant tapers and then I would find them too pretty to burn.
Oh, I used candles, but only the cheap ones.
The pretty ones stayed in the drawer where no one could see them.
Now, a candle’s flame is pretty no matter what, but I hope you will use those long candles.
Maybe you could do like in romantic movies and burn them all at once. Wouldn’t that be pretty?
Now, the china I did use. But I was nervous, doing it. Something could break. And you know what? Nothing ever broke. Nothing. And what if it had?
Long as I’m doing embarrassing confessions, I want to tell you about a certain cake stand I have. It is green and has a floral imprint pattern and I used it for cake when company came.
I used to get right nervous when company came, and I never could overcome that demon.
I would fuss about everything, it like to drove Terrence out of the house every time we were having people over for dinner.
I wouldn’t let him help, you see. I would say JUST LET ME DO IT!
mean as a snapping turtle. So he’d maybe run some errands or go out on the porch and I’d fuss and fuss.
And I’d put the cake I made on the stand and sometimes I even lined flowers around the edge and still it didn’t make me happy because I worried were the flowers okay.
I tell you, it was awful, for years I was that way!
Most of my life I was that way! I wanted to invite my dear friends over, and I would visualize us all around the table, talking and laughing and everyone enjoying their food.
But when the day came it all seemed like too much work for me, my blood felt like sludge in my veins, and I would wish I could go away and send in my double to take the reins.
She could take the reins and I could set out on the porch and listen to the birds sing.
The reason I am telling you this is to say if you are like this you’d best try to stop now while you are still young.
Don’t say, Oh, I wonder if they will say something bad if I sprinkle a bit of sugar on the sliced tomatoes.
You just go ahead and sprinkle the sugar.
It’s your house. They’ve come for dinner.
Enjoy them. And enjoy yourself. You might could use that cake stand.
It does set things off. And there wasn’t a one didn’t remark on how pretty the flowers looked when I did up the cake that way.
Honestly. The years we spend worrying about not much.
It’s truly years. Decades! I wonder why when we get to the end, we so often pull all the years we’ve lived through up close for a look-see and then like to smack our foreheads.
The saving grace is all the things we do right.
Taking a hand needs holding. Offering an apology when one is sorely needed.
Stopping to watch or listen or be steeped in gratitude, oh you know how that can happen, I once watched a toddler go in and out of a playground fountain with her little pink swimming suit on, ruffles at the butt.
And her diaper hanging low. And she was a little afraid but mostly exhilarated.
I had to sit on the bench and watch a while.
And all the way home, I felt like watching that child had let me build a little chapel inside myself, and I’d watched that little girl like she was a living prayer. Maybe she was.
Well, I’m fixing to make dinner and I guess I’ll have me some hard-boiled eggs. Which reminds me of something else I want to tell you about.