Memoir

This is my first blog post since everything has changed. Everything. So where to start? To begin with, today I am not going to talk about the politics of it all. I wanted to lay out the sequence of events so that I can remember them–where I was, what I was doing. Reflections will come later.

In February, we heard the word Wuhan for the first time. I recall Sarah mentioned it in passing, and I remember replying, “Oh, ok, uh-huh,” without stopping what I was doing. Throughout that month and into March, I may or may not have clicked on updates from China that came across my news feed, but since it was not a topic yet related to U.S. politics (my preferred topic), I likely kept scrolling. Then came March.

On March 1, there were 75 confirmed cases in the U.S. On March 9, the day Sarah was to drive to South Florida for a math conference, there were 704. On March 10, we cancelled a cruise we had booked with Sarah’s family and church pals. Then on March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. By March 12, the day she decided to come home early, the number was 1,697 (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ ). By the way, COVID-19 is the specific strain of coronavirus (a general group of viruses); to call it the Chinese coronavirus is not only inaccurate, it’s racist. Yep. You may not care for the Chinese government, but those folks over there got sick like us folks over here. See? 

By mid-March–which sounds and feels like a decade ago as I write it–online news sources had special COVID-19 pages/links, where you could see all news updates related to the virus in one place. The 2020 Democratic primary was affected. Super Tuesday was pretty much overshadowed. Candidates and other politicians–including the president, who thrives on rallys–began cancelling. The last Democratic debate–like all late night shows–were held without live audiences. I must admit I approve of the format for debates–for Stephen Colbert, not so much. As early as Saturday, March 7th, Kennesaw State University had begun to develop a “continuity plan” in the event face-to-face classes were suspended. It was essentially a plan for all courses to go online.

Unexpected issues started cropping up, too. For example, what would students do if dorms and dining halls were closed? What about homeless students (and all universities have them)? What about students who did not have computers or notebooks, but only their smartphones? The news channels began to have question and answer programming where viewers sent in questions for experts to answer. We submitted our plan to the university president by March 10th, and then we waited. It truly felt like a calm before the storm, eerie silence and all. By the evening of Friday the 13th, announcements came that public schools and universities would go online the following week. Church services across the country scrambled to find ways to make virtual worship meaningful. This was also the day that everyone in America went to the grocery stores for toilet paper.

Monday, March 16, was the day the stock market had its worst day since 1987. It was also the day we started setting up our home offices. Sarah had worked all weekend preparing to teach three in-person classes completely online–and have office hours virtually. I brought home monitors and books from the office after having one virtual meeting on my laptop. Honestly, I need the 2 monitors so I can do other things during the meeting, like look for social distancing staples online. You know you do it too, which is why it is on one of the 10,000 blog posts called, “Good Virtual Meeting Etiquette.” I have so far had five virtual meetings this week. It got so bad, one group had trouble finding a time–from home during social distancing!–to schedule our next meeting. A well-meaning colleague suggested meeting early–8:30 or 9:00 am–so that people would be free. I told him it was obscene to start that early. Because we are at home does not mean we are always “on,” which he was NOT suggesting. But it’s something to think about.

So, it is Friday, March 20, and we are caught up with the basics. I have learned how to change my Zoom background and so far have been at the Grassy Knoll, the White House, Graceland, and inside the Tardis. We have cooked more this week. Sarah has started an outdoor garden–so far with mainly carrot tops from our increased vegetable consumption. My office is a thing of beauty, and I am about to run out of diversionary tactics related to rearranging it. I have so far ventured out twice–both times to the office and thrift shop. I took wipes and sanitizer. I have taken a walk. We are ahead of the laundry. I have read Scripture and Sister Joan Chittister’s take on The Rule of Benedict every morning.

The other pandemic task I worked on this week was connecting. I realized that part of my own continuity plan should include staying in contact with people. As an introvert, it’s saying a lot that I should have that as my concern, but I am aware that I self-isolate enough anyway–imagine when it is mandatory! So, I hit the Facebook and made “Friends” with people from all parts of my life: colleagues, church folks, family, old classmates, scholar friends. I paid attention as people started setting up “Hangouts” and various groups and web meet ups. There have also been plenty of news and blogs encouraging people to take precautions to avoid loneliness, which will be very real as this thing goes along. Speaking of blogging, it’s another way I feel connected, and I’m planning on doing it more. There should be plenty to write about. One thought I had this week, during my containment prep, was how aptly named the blog is, Just Keep Swimming. If it was appropriate up to now, it sure is as we move forward. It is, for me, a hope-full idea: hang on, keep going, do the best you can. That’s the plan, anyway. 

I am gaining my weight back. Again. Like just about every person who has ever battled their weight, I have tried every diet plan imaginable. I’ve taken diet pills–over the counter and prescription–and for awhile I took Alli fat blocking pills, which was the grossest diet plan ever. Google that one. I’ve done Weight Watchers, now WW so you will feel like a winner, thank you, Oprah. It’s still Weight Watchers. I’ve exercised for a solid year; that, along with WW, which works if you work it, resulted in my losing the most weight I ever had in my adult life: 70 pounds. It felt so good! I got a complete new wardrobe and felt young again. I was so encouraged this time when I read that if I could keep it off for 3 years, I could keep it off for good. When it started creeping back after about year two–those crisp white shirts and modern-cut pants started feeling snug (a word of terror for fat people)–I looked that factoid up again. It had said five years, not three. I had weighted 168 for exactly 2 days, and as I creeped back up in the 170s, I told myself that my body wanted me to be in that range. Again, if you’ve ever been a weight warrior, you know the feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watched myself outgrow my clothes. Again.

My size 10 Levis were the first item to go, then my pants for going out. I donated my cute pinstripe suit after church one Sunday when a guy jokingly–it’s always jokingly, you know, but there’s truth behind it and it hurts like a sucker punch–said “Hey girl, you trying to show off those biceps?” I looked down at curved stripes on too-tight sleeves. Last year, I bought size 16 Levis, telling myself I still had not reached my highest weight–253, so 16 was okay. I was still under 200 pounds. Then came another holiday season.

I don’t even bother making New Year’s resolutions any more. What is the point? It’s always the same: lose some weight. Weight warriors, familiar? Knowing most people gain a few pounds over the holidays, and also knowing I didn’t have any to gain, I was determined to practice portion control. I didn’t gain during the month-long eat fest, but I began to feel my body change beyond the feel of my clothes. I put out of my mind that the size 16 roomy L.L.Bean pants’ waistband was getting snug. (oh no!). I was out of breath in the shower. I developed a candida fungus under my belly fat. Yes, that is so far the most embarrassing thing that I’ve ever felt about my body. Fat can be fluffy if you tell yourself enough. But a seepy, smelly rash made me feel nothing but shame.

This weekend an interview with Molly Carmel popped up on my newsfeed, and led me to her new book, Breaking Up With Sugar: Divorce the Diets, Drop the Pounds, and Live Your Best Life. I had do decide whether to add another weight loss book to my Kindle. I have books on insulin resistance, carbs, and the keto diet, for example. I know the science, and I know the “secrets” of weight loss. If knowledge were enough, wouldn’t we all be thinner and healthy? That, precisely, is Carmel’s point. I ‘m going to call her Molly, since the tone of her book is friendly and encouraging. I’m reading Breaking Up now, and I’m glad I bought it.

Here’s Molly’s About the Author on Amazon: Molly Carmel has made it her life’s mission to help people find a sustainable solution to the battle of obesity and related eating disorders. After battling her own eating disorder for over 20 years and finding no solution in available treatment, she created The Beacon, where she helps clients recover from similar addictions. Carmel received her Bachelor’s in Social Work from Cornell University and her Master’s from Columbia University’s School of Social Work. She has extensive training in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, addiction, and nutrition.

The chapters support the breakup/divorce/find a healthy relationship theme of the book. I’m on Chapter 3, “The Truth About Your Sweetest Love,” where Molly gives a summary of how sugar is in reality “Suicide on the Installment Plan.” I wanted to include her list of sugar’s lethal capacity here: But Sugar also negatively affects every single part of your body. Some of these harmful effects are more well known than others. Eating sugar has been linked to: inflammation, migraine headaches, anxiety, brain fog, trouble sleeping, weakened eyesight, gum disease, heart disease, increased cholesterol, asthma, suppressed immunity, kidney damage, nonalcoholic fatty liver, overworked pancreas, arthritis, osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome, and leptin resistance. There’s even terrifying research showing that Sugar increases the risk of developing certain cancers. And of course, let us not forget Sugar’s piece de resistance, glucose intolerance and diabetis…

And yet, knowing all of this and having encountered many of the effects on Molly’s list, I keep right on eating sugar and its evil twin flour anyway. I’m going to keep reading, but I’m open to the idea that I think and behave like an addict when it comes to sugar–and I suspect toward food in general. I looked ahead to see whether Molly had made me a shopping list and a suggested meal plan? She had? Ah ha, I thought, but are they easy or complicated? Maybe they were like keto, a list of foods and meals of stuff I really don’t like (how much butter can I eat?). Nah, Molly included good, whole foods. I felt healthier just reading the foods and plans, which are easy and sustainable. I went through her lists of proteins, fats, carbs and made a grocery list.

I’ve already started the self-doubt talk in my mind. I’ve done this before–so many times. What is different about this time? How long will I be able to eat this food, which I’ll get tired of, won’t I? It’ll take too long to lose this much weight, so what’s the point? But Friday is pizza night! You work so hard, don’t you deserve a reward?  Molly, though, has already thought of this–she describes how she herself heard those same voices. Of everything I’ve read so far, this passage has hit me most profoundly was about how rats respond to excessive Sugar–which Molly capitalizes to remind us that we really are in a relationship. After describing sugar DTs, she writes, What’s more, when the rats withdrawing from Sugar were placed in water, they were less likely to swim or climb out, and more likely to passively float. They had lost their will to survive. I’m going to keep reading, Chapter 4 is “Defining Your Relationship: How Bad Is It Really?” There’s even a quiz. I know already; it’s pretty bad. I have a food addiction. I’ll start from there.

I really love my seminary, the McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University. Faculty and staff there are committed to issues of justice and spiritual growth. It is also a place where only about 45% of the students are white. I want to support a place like that and more important, learn from the variety of perspectives and experiences of my classmates. It is a place where I can focus on issues important to me, like being a good ally by attending to my white privilege. I am convinced that my anti-racist work as a white Southern academic should also include theological and religious frameworks. I needed to get in touch with my Jesus.

White Savior Movie

Part of the institution’s commitment to spiritual formation is the annual faculty, staff, and student weekend retreat, which the founding faculty built into the design of the programs. We just recently had one at the Pinnacle Center in the North Georgia mountains, where we spend two days worshiping together and getting to know one another. We build deeper relationships as classmates at a setting like this, where we pray and take communion together. This year, the dean announced he had been working with friends in Union Point, Georgia, to plan a work day at a historic cemetery near the original location of Mercer University. Here’s what he said:

This summer I learned of a neglected African American cemetery located nearby the Penfield cemetery. I have partnered with African American activists and other leaders to help them with a clean-up effort on October 26. I would very much appreciate it if you would join me as we honor this sacred space and practice remembrance.

He noted that enslaved persons were buried there.

Here is what I wish I had thought: Does it make a difference that the dean is a straight, white, cis-male? Were faculty invited to discuss this topic, welcoming voices from faculty of color? Could groundwork have been laid so that the announcement would have had context for the benefit of the students, most of whom were African American? What is motivating me to want to participate?

What I actually did, though, was volunteer to clean up the cemetery.

A few days later, the dean sent a reminder and included additional information that a filmmaker friend and seminary grad would be filming for a documentary. A few days after that, I learned that a group of African American students had submitted a letter to the dean to express concerns about the project. I have not seen this letter, but the seminary grapevine is real. That was the day I discovered the “Savior Barbie” Instagram account. If you haven’t heard about it, below is a Huff Post article, along with 2 examples of Barbie’s posts.

White Savior Barbie Huff Post

White Savior Barbie pokes fun at people who suffer from “White Savior Complex,” the term used to describe the white Westerners who travel to third world countries and make the entire affair an exercise in self-congratulatory sacrifice. (Huff Post). The account owners, who remain anonymous, point out, “We have both struggled with our own realizations and are definitely not claiming innocence here.” “Barbie Savior, we hope, is an entertaining jumping off point for some very real discussions, debates, and resolves.” It isn’t that there is anything inherently wrong with doing volunteer work to help people. WSB targets the idea that Africa needs saving from itself and white people are the ones who can do it. Barbie Savior is there for a photo op, the ultimate selfie. This kind of thinking supported colonialism, conquest, and slavery. It is white supremacy.

Barbie Savior (@barbiesavior)

Let me be clear: I am not suggesting for a minute that the McAfee dean is in error. I have no idea until and unless he discusses it what the process was for bringing this opportunity to the students. For all I know, he brought it to the faculty first for them to unpack together. The letter from students is said to contain references to a diversity strategic plan, which I imagine calls for voice and conversation and inclusion in initiative planning. I have no doubt he is prayerfully and profoundly considering what they have written and will respond appropriately. This is not about him; it is about my own complicity in maintaining racist systems in which the White Savior Complex operates.

So just what was I thinking? My first thought was what a great service project! As a Southern Christian who knows what “Decoration Day” is, I have cleaned old cemeteries for as long as I can remember. My second thought was about the historical significance of the place, for yes, I was in part motivated by it being a very, very old African American cemetery that was the final resting place of former enslaved persons.

My third thought was about my friend Edeltress in Baton Rouge, who had taken me on a detour to her ancestral cemetery one day while we were on a school visit for work. “Do you mind?” she asked me. “It’s been so long since I’ve been here. I was a little girl and my parents brought me.” So we drove to a countryside in Louisiana that I couldn’t find today if I had to. “Here it is,” she said. But looking around, I couldn’t see a graveyard. Just what looked like woods, undergrowth, weeds–way back, about a hundred feet off the side of the road. Edeltress laughed. “Oh, you’re looking for a white cemetery. This is how our cemeteries look.” We tramped around the site, being careful not to step on the graves, and on the way home, she told me stories about her father, who had driven an old broken-down truck so that his white neighbors would not recognize him for a landowner and successful farmer. My people were dangerous. So that is the image I got in my head when the dean asked for volunteers. I thought of paying tribute, in this small way, to my friend.

That is why I am going to acknowledge my white privilege, acknowledge the concerns of my classmates–for they hold us accountable for thinking of and processing these issues before complying–and then go clean up a grave yard. But you won’t see it on Facebook or Twitter. I will not take a selfie with a tombstone. Does this make me admirable? Is this sufficient acknowledgement, or am I assuaging my conscience? Am I asking the right questions? I don’t know, but it gives me something to ponder as I pull weeds.

White supremacy can look like skin heads carrying swastikas; it can look like angry white people wearing red hats. It can be masked by well intentioned white people who secretly voted for Trump. And it can be a white seminary student who fails to do the work of problematizing a workday over the graves of enslaved persons. There is another White Savior resource I find relevant here. White Savior: Racism in the American Church (2019). The film “explores the historic relationship between racism and American Christianity, the ongoing segregation of the church in the US, and the complexities of racial reconciliation” (imdb). I recommend it. The film closes with an African American minister from the Bronx discussing being an ally. “Being an ally,” he said, “means asking ‘What do you need? and sometimes that means just shut up and listen.”

At the end of the day, I believe in a place like McAfee. It exemplifies the complexity of racial reconciling and justice. The messiness of it. It is a place where we can make all the mistakes–and there are many–and learn that the sky doesn’t fall when we make them. It is a place where, sometimes, we can just shut up and listen.

This week I had to check my whiteness two times, first at the ONA Coalition National Gathering and then at the UCC General Synod. The lesson was reinforced for me that, even though I have more than one historically marginalized marker with which I identify (gender and sexuality), that does not mean I am enlightened or evolved in relation to other marginalized populations. It is no fun having to face this in real world situations, but it’s crucial to remember. It also teaches me that in discerning for the ministry, I have a lot to learn. It is God saying, “You’re not there yet.”

The first was during a talk given by a candidate on the slate for a UCC national office. Right after the UMC vote, I had been a little indignant about African delegates being the conservative votes that put the resolution against LGBTQ ordination over the top. Reverend Karen Georgia Thompson pointed out that the African delegates had been heavily lobbied and probably manipulated by conservative (probably Southern) delegates. Of course they had; it created the narrative that benefitted U.S. delegates while reinforcing the stereotype that Black bodies and Black churches were by nature “essentially” conservative. 

The second instance was personal. I had a roommate for Synod, a gifted African American chaplain I’ll call Susan. One night, we went to a late evening reception for Members in Discernment for ordination. It was late, so there weren’t many people in the large Hilton hotel suite. In the corner, engaged in conversation with a conference delegate, sat Reverend Traci Blackmon, a rock star minister, prophet, activist in the UCC. She came on the national scene in helping people from Ferguson, Missouri, respond to the Michael Brown murder in 2014. Naturally, we were both star struck. While helping ourselves to the snacks and wine, Rev. Blackmon walked over and began heating up her leftovers from Maggiano’s. The three of us struck up a conversation about a contentious topic in the last session. She was very gracious and seemed to me to be in the mood to talk. It seemed like she needed to unwind before calling the very long day a night. So the three of us sat down in the living room area of the spacious suite while she ate. Even though it was late, I was energized. Like those cop shows where they have to keep the caller on the line so they can trace the call,  I just wanted her to keep talking. She is a public theological intellectual, and like bell hooks, a treasure.

When we got back our room, I was revved up from the experience. “Traci Blackmon had a conversation with us,” I said. “Well,” said Susan, “she had a conversation with you. I think I may have made one statement.” Screeching halt. She was right. I, in my white academic privilege, had manipulated the conversation so that I could “own” an engagement with this person I admired. I knew how to guide conversation, to interview a subject, and that’s what I had done. My new friend was gracious, and to her great credit, she didn’t excuse or deny it to make me feel better. The irony is that throughout the conversation with Rev. Blackmon I kept telling myself that I was humbled to be in her presence. No I wasn’t; I was proud. Humility is what Susan exhibited, yet I was so blinded by my privilege I did not see it.

I am not suggesting Susan did not have voice–she did, and she could have called me out severely as we debriefed. What I realized was that in this space where justice and covenant were sacred ideals to be put into practice by all Christians, I had performed a microaggression from a place of privilege, so I am glad the space is also one of grace and mercy. Although, like the tools of privilege in my invisible backpack, I do not deserve them.

Today is June 19th, Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when news of Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier finally reached enslaved persons in Texas. It coincides with the National Gathering of the UCC Open & Affirming National Gathering and a Race and Religion course assignment on whether the Lost Cause still exists in the South today. All things work together, and it is fitting.

When I was a kid my parents took my little brother and me to Shiloh National Military Park. This began and strengthened my fascination with the Civil War. Other Southern writers have written about how prominently Civil War lore figured into their childhoods, how it shape their psyches as Southern men. No major battles took place in Alabama like in Virginia and Tennessee, so my parents—who took exactly one vacation in their lives and it was NOT to the beach—hauled us on a day trip to Shiloh. We saw the exhibits with artifacts from the battlefield: bullets, bayonets, buttons. We saw a film that mapped out the two-day fight from April 6-7, 1862, the bloodiest battle until Antietam five months later. It remains the sixth on the top ten list. We walked around sites so horrific they had been named: Hornets Nest and Bloody Pond, water colored red by soldiers’ blood. At the end of the day, my parents took us to the gift shop, where we were each allowed one souvenir. My brother and I  got the same memento—a confederate private’s cap. We did not even consider the Union blue cap of the yankees.

I think perhaps the Lost Cause takes on a different meaning for working class Southerners than it had for the old plantation class that evolved into wealth obtained from industry and later, investment. For us, the Lost Cause equated with the tragic romanticism of the lost war. The South is a contested place; it is a place looked down upon by those outside—and sometimes inside—of it. During the tour, my brother and I cheered for the Shiloh story of Day 1, that went to the confederates. On the second day, Grant’s reinforcements arrived, Albert Sidney Johnston was shot, and the battle went to the Union. The feeling I had then is similar to the physical and emotional drain I feel after the University of Alabama loses a big game to Auburn. It is real disappointment that I feel for the rest of the day. Our land had been invaded and we had lost. That was my lost cause, and its symbols took on religious meanings—the Stars and Bars battle flag, the gallant General Lee upon his steed Traveler (yes, I know the horse’s name), and of course, Dixie, our hymn.

Constructing the Lost Cause narrative so strong that is part of the psyche of Southerners who have no discernable connection to the Old South other than geographic location required a national comprehensive campaign. So the question to consider is, in whose interest was it to create the Lost Cause as an organizing theme? The white plantation class, supported by southern newspapers convinced poor whites that they were whiter than they were poor; thus, they allied with the people who looked like them. We continue to do this today, voting and allying against our economic interests because they are white. Northern and Southern Protestants turned defeated confederates into defeated Christians as the Lost Cause became a vehicle for Southern Redemption—redemption that was religious, social, and political.

Yesterday, I attended a session at the UCC Open and Affirming (ONA) National Gathering in Milwaukee, called Offensive Faith: Queering the Playbook for Religious Engagement. Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart, of the National LGBTQ Task Force stressed the intersectionality present in dismantling systems of gender and sexuality oppression. People of color are disproportionately affected by violence in this country; the same is true for gender violence. One of the pictures she shared prompted my reflections here, connecting religion, the Lost Cause, and racial (and gendered) violence. I look at it now and am offended, yes, but I see it and know that the stirrings of nostalgia I also feel seeing the old black and white photo that could have been taken at Littleville Elementary School, where I grew up a confederate child. My nostalgia is a fruit of white privilege, and so too is offensive.

The second photo Rev. Leapheart shared will likely offend Lost Causers—not only them, it will offend many other white people. I think when we as a people can be offended by both images because they stand for a history of racial violence in which religion has been complicit—then we might hope for redemption.

Please also take time to visit the National LGBTQ Task Force web site and read about their All of Me. All the Time campaign for the Equality Act. They have this description:

The National LGBTQ Task Force educates federal policymakers about the need for non-discrimination protections that ensure the whole person is able to advocate for themselves when discriminated against, wherever that discrimination takes place. We work with a wide range of progressive partner organizations across the country both at the state and federal level, like the National Black Justice Coalition. The Task Force shifts the conversation from a political and technical one to a national and inclusive conversation based on morals and values.

National LGBTQ Task Force

Like all GoT fans, Sarah and I had been awaiting Season 8 for two years. For the last month, we’ve been organizing our weeks around Sunday nights at 9:00. We’ve organized our Sundays around that one hour. This week, for the series finale, we had a minor change to our normal routine of gathering around our tv with tailgating snacks. We were in Orlando for a math conference. No problem~~we’d just watch it on HBO at the hotel. On Friday night, we discovered the LaQuinta provided complimentary Showtime. Not HBO. We had 48 hours.

Saturday was spent researching, me poolside and Sarah from a panel session. We called Buffalo Wild Wings, who was running commercials nationwide showing the Mother of Dragons. This probably meant they were going to have their monitors blaring with the final episode. Nope~~they didn’t have an HBO subscription. Could we live stream through our cable provider? Apparently not unless we were in proximity of our cable box. Did we know anybody who actually 1) lived in Orlando and 2) had HBO? Time was running out!

Thanks to Google, we discovered HBO Go and made plans to stream on our laptop that evening. Since Sarah’s high school friend–an engineer–was hanging out with us, we’d watch in the lobby. It was the best we could do. We started set up early, an hour ahead of time. Putting our heads together to make the most of our viewing environment, we got up our courage to ask the receptionist if she might dim lights and lower the volume of the lobby monitor blasting out Men In Black, which she was clearly watching from the desk. I was elected to ask.

“Lights? No problem!” replied desk clerk Julie to my first request. “I’ll dim what I can.” “Would you like to hook up the computer to our HDMI cable so you can watch it on the big tv?” A viewing event was going to happen after all! We grabbed the engineer and it was ON! Lights dimmed and the three of us planted ourselves on the comfortable LaQuinta lobby furniture just as the announcer began, Previously, on Game of Thrones. 

Then a woman walked by and saw Lord Tyrion walking through the ruins of King’s Landing, above. “Oh my God, it’s ON!” We invited her to join us. She ran down the hall and returned with a hotel pillow. “Hi, I’m Sandy,” she said, not waiting for returned introductions as she snuggled in. Sarah texted her math pal Laurie, also at the LaQuinta, to join us; she appeared, giddy with excitement. The family checking in turned and looked at us and the tv. Their teenage daughter drifted over as her mom said, “Yeah, you can just stay right here and watch.” The teenager took a seat at a table behind us, on the margin. “Come on, join us~~it’s ok!” She took a seat on the couch. Sarah made a mad dash to the room to grab our road trip snacks–grapes, Triscuits, Babybel cheese.

We were, for that hour, persons of a common union, communing around an entertainment event. Sentimental sap that I am, I looked at us, and it felt good, comfortable. We didn’t talk~~except when Sarah’s friend enthusiastically punctuated each scene with a question. Is Lady Brienne pregnant?? Is Jon going to kill her?? I heard there’s a poison chalice!! There’s one in every community, and we love them anyway. Sandy’s phone buzzed non-stop, except when it was ringing. She eventually tucked it under the pillow. And, keep in mind we were in a hotel lobby; I’m heartened to know the Orlando LaQuinta is doing such good business from 9:00-10:00pm on a Sunday night. There was a steady stream of check-ins.

As the last scene faded and the credits started to roll, Julie turned the lights back up. As if on cue, our little viewing community began to stir, turning away from the big screen, where we had–finally–found out who would rule the 7 Kingdoms (sort of, fans will know what I mean) and watched Arya head west of Westeros. The most some of us could utter was, wow. Although some elaborated with expressions of disbelief–or validated predictions, whichever.

Our little band milled around, gathered up our belongings, and began to drift off. “A selfie~~we need a selfie!” Sarah insisted. “Gather around, everybody.” I looked at the teenager, “What’s your name?” “Chelsea,” she grinned.

Communities are like families: they come in different shapes and sizes. Sometimes we don’t get to choose its members. They give us a sense of belonging, if only for an hour in a hotel lobby. They can be chosen, but sometimes they form spontaneously. Sometimes they are temporary, like this one, never to be exactly replicated again. Thinking about it now, my heart is warmed, and its strings are tugged. I hope it happens again and again, random people who share a few moments. I think world peace and reconciliation could happen that way, friendly gatherings. Maybe not over tv; maybe over food or sports. Is that naive? Yes, of course. But there is something child-like in naivety–an openness to wonder and whimsey, to connecting. As a concluding thought, I was going to do as I usually do and end with a well-placed quote from Game of Thrones, but upon checking, I couldn’t find one that captured the spirit of anything other than violent-war-and-slaughter or mockery. So I settled on one of hopefulness and determination and purity of heart and, well, of openness–not unlike the promise of community. Hold the door!

Down home, where they know you by name and treat you like family,
Down home, where a man’s good word and a handshake are all you need.
Folks know when you’re fallin’ on hard times you can fall back on
Those of us raised up—down home. (Alabama, 1985)

Prologue
When my grandmother died, it was April, and the lilacs were in full bloom. I think back on those lilacs now, realizing that they, like the women in whose lives they played such a part, define homeplace for me. I realize that I cling to them, the flowering, decadently-scented lilac that stands at the doorway like the angel at the Garden of Eden, and the women of Big Mama’s. But the angel armed with flaming sword was placed at the Garden’s entrance by God to keep people out, so homeplace, even as it beckons, has its own fiery barriers. I can no more cross the threshold of home guarded by the lilac than Adam and Eve could get past God’s messenger. And yet, just as the searchers have sought the now mythic Eden, Southerners, like me, spend an endless quest yearning for homeplace, trying to go home.

Lilacs by the Front Door

It was around my grandmother’s table that I first learned about homeplace, as she and her 5 remaining daughters, the sisters, recollected the old hard days and made plans to go back. In the same way that bell hooks (1990) contends, “houses belonged to women” (p. 41), for me, home is made by them. On Sundays, over coffee and caramel cake, they lovingly described the house and place where six babies were born. I learned that the old homeplace was a location of enshrined desire. And it is within nostalgia, a yearning for home, that desire and homeplace ideology intersect.

Daddy’s people did not like Mother’s people. My father’s father had finally left the farm, got factory work, and moved inside the town limits. When his son, my father, fell in love with a girl from “the mountain,” it appeared to them like a step backward. My mother’s home was a place of noise and music and laughter and hard liquor—everything that Daddy’s fundamentalist Christian mores denounced as sinful. The pact was made: when they married, she would disavow that lifestyle, stay away from home. I knew very little of my maternal family until I was 12 years old and my mother could not stay away any longer. She took me with her to Sunday coffee at Big Mama’s.

By the time I met them, Big Mama had left her job at the local truck stop, and the sisters had divorced the wild young men who drank and played music on Saturday nights. I returned to a Sunday afternoon matriarchy that had resigned itself to calm. Now the sisters and their daughters returned to sit around the same table, now cluttered with chipped coffee cups rather than bottles of Jack Daniels. Big Mama’s house was not quiet or orderly. The old house creaked and heaved with determination as it enveloped the lives it cradled, including, again, Mother’s, and now, mine.

Some images never leave us. When Big Mama got sick in 1983, the sisters rallied. Nobody was taking care of their mother except them, and they stayed with her around the clock for a year. On a Sunday very different from those spent around the table, I saw death still in the claiming. Big Mama had no appetite and was drinking only a little milk. Mother was at her bedside trying to get her to eat yogurt. I could not bear to go into the dark bedroom, witnessing the scene instead from the next room, as close as I could get but not nearly as far away as I longed to be. My mother coaxed her mother to eat, tiny spoonful by tiny spoonful, cooing to her as she had to my own baby, to me as an infant. She tenderly spoke words of love to her mother, words devoid of joy, words sickeningly rich with heartache. I had never felt so low and empty and sick, and I never have since.

After she died, I was wracked with remorse because I missed so many years. I loved her, and I treasure the time I spent with her. But regret and guilt are old friends who call often; there would be no moving forward. Then I dreamt my dream. She and I were alone in the darkness, and I, grown and helpless, was sitting in her lap. She enveloped me in an old string quilt, soft and comfortable with age. Her words and her body soothed me; I knew that I had known her. And my heart and mind rested easy.

When the sisters finally made the pilgrimage back home, some 50 years after leaving it, they carried with them buckets and tools. They came for artifacts, tangible memories. Each collected cuttings from foliage that remained, now overgrown with scrub bushes and weeds. My mother and her four sisters cut through the wild vines and tall weeds to re-claim their mama’s garden and take it home with them—old plants: mock orange, iris, forsythia (yellow bells), and lilac. Since then, wherever Mother has lived, wherever I have lived, we have dug up a piece of those plants, with good roots so they will live. “They won’t ever even know they’ve been moved,” she tells me. I do this because wherever I live, it comforts me to know there is a lilac by my door.

Mother and Lilacs

Big Mama: Frona Almeda Hooper Fisher

This piece was adapted from an academic paper published as Whitlock, R.U. (2006). Season of lilacs: Nostalgia of place and homeplace(s) of
difference. Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education. Fall-Winter 2005.