Ashes, Ashes We All Fall Down

Good Ash Wednesday Morning.

 Doan know if y'all Mardi  Gras-ed last night or not, some of y' all
may indeed feel like ashes...


 


 but anyhoo, it bears thinkin' about, no matter if ya' sing the nursery rhyme or go all high brow an' read T.S. Eliot's famous poem, Ash Wednesday or hie thee to church an get yore haid smudged wif' ashes made from burning the palms of last year's Palm Sunday palms.*

(Yore teeth is grittin'? Yep, I agree: task and grace are nouns and  should never be verbed nor should Fat Tuesday)

Flannery O' Connor, that soul of Southern Woman wit, said ours is a generation of "wingless chickens" by which she compared us to them hapless birds that can no longer jump, the better to fatten them fer the slaughter ( fer Fat Tuesday?)  

Wingless chickens lose their sense of up or down, and so has we, say Flannery.  Auntybelle ain't got no quarrel wif' Flannery on that.

 
All this by way of invitin' y'all to come visit Ether Capacious every Friday in Lent fer a looky-see into some famous an' infamous thoughts on man an' his  yearnin' fer infinity. ( or, why some confuse down wif' up)




* from the archives, an Ash Wednesday post or two

** from the archives comments on Ash Wednesday, which will helpo explain Karl's comments to the unitiatiated:

 
'Ya don't know... but I lived in Bay St. Louis for 4 yrs...was re-directed that way when gaming opened, and they fetched me from Reno for managerial experience.

I was raised a Christian, but Southern Baptists as dear as they are to me...(and we had Catholics in TX too...even more in Reno) never celebrated their beliefs like the Cajun Catholics did. We never had no umbrellas, or Jumbalaya, or Dirty Rice, or Napkins flying in the breeze on a dance... Naw...

Naw'Orleans taught me a thing or two about life. Mardi Gras is a thing to experience. But it's more than a parade, it's more than a tit or two flying. It's the whole concept...and a quite logical one at that.

Party your ass off for three weeks, then give a few weeks to the Lord for Lint. Seems like a small gift back for what the Lord has done for us all.

I remember the ashes. I remember the sentiment. I remember "getting it". I miss it all. I am sorry that somehow most of what I loved in that area is blown away by Miss Katrina.

Happy Mardi Gras to you Miss Aunty Belle... I have quite a collection of fancy beads (never showed a tit one to get 'em)... I live in Reno and get taunted and teased a bit each year when I wear them like I did today on Fat Tuesday. I have even raised a few eyebrows by bringing in a King Cake and having someone just be in bewilderment that I would endanger their health by placing a gold baby in a piece of not-so normal food.

I miss the Deep South... Wave a napkin and twirl an umbrella for me girlfriend. Try to be good for Lint... Damn...weeks are a long time :) "

Long Wait

Movie Clip Wednesday is here


They's supposed to move Granny Cracker to a "step down unit" today. Still not stable enough to go to normal room with typical nurse patient ratio, but, we is happy fer any improvement.

Sorry I ain't answered the comments y'all left here on the Mack & Mary post--an' I will git to them I 'spect, when thangs smooth out some.

I'se leavin' the post up so that when I git a moment, I'se gonna respond --

Be back when I can, an' around to yore blogs when I can.
* * * * * * * * * *



She come from Kentucky.

When I met her I knowed we's never gonna be chums: I doan do low slung red Mercedes two seaters.

She wuz 31, newly wed to husband #2. Another strike. An' hubby #2 was still a chile, 29 years old. She navigated through a profession mostly held by men an' made her own money, so it were a marriage of love. She had the car before she had Mack. He needed her. I see that now. He'd already fallen in a rut, single 'til then, he drove a pricey but boxy sedan. He stewed over IRAs, not rain foiling the their weekend plans.

He reminded me of--- me: Seventeen year old Uncle comes up the porch to court 15 year old Aunty who ain't allowed to git off the porch an' date yet. He's holdin' a cigarette. Miss Prissy Prude shrinks back in horror an' gasps, "I doan see boys who smoke!"

"Ya' do now," Uncle replied wif' a wink. "You could go through life all stiff an' bored, or ya' can go wif' me."

Wryly, I recognized why Mr. IRA needed Miss Red Sports Car.

For Blogger's sake, they names be Mack an' Mary.

Mary threw somethin' offbeat an' fun into their dinner parties. She brought sizzle an flair to everythang she done. A budding gourmet, Mary delighted in complicated cookin' challenges. Uncle an' me went to their gatherin's, since this pair turned up on the edges of "our crowd" then moved toward the center. One day I seen a rosary on her car seat an' wuz taken aback: It din't seem to fit her style. They worked through an annulment* process for her, then joined our parish.

Mary's clothes were snazzy, but professional. Her hair wuz a glorious mane of mahogany spillin' loose over her shoulders. A gamine face, a sprinkle of freckles, she would break into a thousand watt smile when she saw a rainbow. An' she could dance. Loved to dance. Mack refused to dance. Uncle loved to dance. Aunty's dancin' din't play second to nobody. On New Year's, big party night, Mary asks Aunty, "How about we share Uncle tonight?" Aunty is amused. "Shure, darlin', he wears me out, I could use the help." A happy dancer mahself, I had pity on a lass wif' a non-dancer mate. "Ya' shoulda put it in yore vows," I told her. "I promise to have an' to hold, to dance for better or for worse."

One drizzly January day' some six months after meeting Mack an' Mary, a call comes early mornin'.



"Do you have time to take me to a doctor's appointment today, Aunty?"

"Yore red slink on the blink, Mary?" I as't her.

"No....I might not be able to drive afterward. Mack's out of town."

They twisted her lovely hair up on her haid, in hopes that the radiation wouldn't cause baldness except jes' at the nape of her neck. She'd had a cough that began in May on their honeymoon an' worsened through the summer. It'd come an'go, but afore Christmas Mack insisted she get a full battery of tests.

Hodgkin s Disease. You'll beat it, the docs told her.

"I'll beat the hell out of it!" Mary told the docs. "I've only put 9000 miles on my car," she told me, an' flashed that electric smile.

Mack cooked. He cleaned. She wretched. He put a chaise out into he back yard for her, tucked a blanket over her, an' trimmed the hedges while she dozed.

When five years passed with no recurrence of her cancer, they began the adoption process. The gang wuz at Aunty an' Uncle's fer a Christmas party when they got the call from a doctor who did private placement. Their baby girl had arrived, an' they could fetch her on Christmas Day. Christmas morin' the whole crew of us'uns showed up to watch as Mack an Mary brought Wee One over the threshold--a tow headed cherub wif' a piercing wail. Mary, instinctively, swaddled her child so tightly that the baby felt secure an' fell instantly asleep. We all stood thar, a quiet realization ballooned over us: Christmas in the flesh.

Two more daughters joined Mack an' Mary over the next three years. She tried to work from home, but her heart wuz in the girls, not the job. Once, the whole crew of us, includin' a favorite priest-buddy, went to Rome. Mary's mother from Kentucky, an' Mack's mama, too, came to shepherd their girls.

I ain't ever gonna fergit a shoppin' foray jes' off the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.



Italian leather is beyond sensuous. All us couples squeezed into a celebrated shop. The menfolk razzed each other about sportin' Eye-talian man purses but each found somethin' that fit his own sense of hisself. An' each fella pretended to be jabbed in the pocket when their sweethearts chose some supple example of the Italian art of leather craft.

Except Mack: "Get real, Mary."

She done slipped into a lipstick red bomber style jacket. It wuz as smooth as her daughter's apple dumpling cheeks. Radiant is the precise word to describe how Mary looked in that jacket.

"Mack, it's so fun!" Mary chirpped. He turned his back to finger some belts, "It's not reasonable," he mumbled.

One of the other fellas twirled Mary around in the jacket an' leaned over her shoulder to leer at Mack, "She might be a fun date in this number," an' gave him an exaggerated wink.

"Take it off, Mary" Mack said.

Mary's smile never lost its shine. She wuz pleased enough to walk out with a pair of lemon colored gloves. That night after dinner, the menfolk left fer a cigar stroll up the village street behind the convent whar' we's all stayin'. One of the men told Mack that iffin' he din't get Mary that red jacket, the rest of them were goin' in together to git it fer her. The jacket wuz purchased-- by Mack-- over the phone the next day an' shipped to Florida. He never seen her in it, but we all did.





Mack had to travel, pulling wagon alone now, he would call from airports in the days afore cell phones, "Do you know where my family is? Nobody is at home." One night when the girls wuz out late fer a dance rehearsal, Mack called Aunty, " I'm whipped, I'm sick of airports, an' nobody is home at my house. What's happening at your house?"

He wuz a fun fella in that way, interested in domestic matters most men brushed away. Mack would remember that one of us tried to locate a certain variety of tree an' call if he came across it. Or, have special coating chocolate sent to ya' from his travels cause last Christmas the grocery store stuff din't cover your truffles smoothly.

"Well, okay, good night. I always call home to say good night, so Aunty, tonight youse home fer me. Tell Mary I did call her, please."

I sighed, "Mack, we wimmen doan often appreciate the sacrifice that a travelin' fella makes. Good night, Sugar."

Headaches and backaches could flatten Mary, literally. A trio of us'uns took turns fillin' in, such that her li'l girls took to callin' us the Fairy Godmothers. She would save her energy an' marshal her strength for the weekend. "Mack doesn't need to come home to a wreck of a woman," she'd lament. Mack loved his girls an' always wanted some fun activity to do wif' 'em fer the weekend."

"I can't repay you," Mary would say to us Fairy Godmothers, "But you might owe me, since I'm making such a good place for you to practice your kindness." We'd laugh because iffin' one of us cried the whole batch would go to squallin'.

One summer Mack came home an' told Mary they's movin' up nawth. He'd been offered a VP position in the company. She din't want to go, of course. Their friends were family. He reminded her that's what planes wuz fer. Besides, as a VP he did not have to travel an' the girls would soon be teens an' Daddy needed to be home at night. She agreed.

Before they left fer tundra-land, Aunty an' Mary an two other of us took a girly trip to Hotlanta.


Mary an' I shared a hotel room. We sat up yakkin' all the night long. The docs had tested an retested an' nuthin' wuz wrong that science could pinpoint. Nuthin' wuz said plain, but in retrospect, I know, now, that Mary had a premonition. We talked that night of serious matters, mostly her regrets.

"Youse a good good woman, Mary. Y'ain't needin' to regret much," I said. "Doan be hard on yoreself.

"Oh," she mused, "no, I'm not. The little things self -appoinnted, self righteous people think are big things? I am not wastin' regret on that."

I wuz glad we had the lights off. Is truth easier to say--or hear--in the dark?

"The heaviness in my heart," she said, "is for Keith. I crushed him. I knew it, but I did not care, not then."

The quiet wuz soft as downy feathers. "Who is Keith?" I whispered.

I heered Mary take a deep breath. "Keith was my first husband, Aunty. A good man. A man I hurt for no true reason. God, but he was good to me. I make myself sick."

I doan know what one says to this. What I done said wuz, "Mary, I'se so sorry."

She laughed in the dark, "That's all, you're sorry? C'mon Straight-Laced Aunty, chastise me for my sins or I'll think you don't love me."

We giggled some at that. The dark rearranged itself around us again, like a cloud.

"Well, mebbe ya need to tell me, Mary, go on-- git it all off yore chest."

And she did. Her daddy died when she wuz jes' 9 years old, her brother only 6 years old. Mary's Mama went to work, held two jobs an' life wuz meager. Thar's wuz very little money left over for toys or teen-cool clothes. Mary had her own first job at 14, a GED at 16, and wuz workin' in a building supply company to help support her mama an' brother. The company's accountant wuz Keith,the 27 year old son of the owner, who took a shine to 16 year old Mary. He admired her hard work an' her sassy spirit.

Mary's mama warned against courtin' a man that much older. Her mama told her not to go that direction . At 18 an' 29 they married. Keith wuz calm, gentle an' a solid practical fella. He provided fer Mary's family so she could go to school. Mary knew he loved her in a very deep, quiet way. But Mary grew bored. She went to work, her horizons grew beyond where Keith wanted to go. She wuz honest with herself; she'd admitted that she married him for safety an' shelter. After ten years Mary asked for a divorce. Keith din't understand, what did she want? She could not say she wuz simply bored, felt stifled. Yes, she loved him--like a big brother.

Within a year of the divorce Mary moved to Florida, leaving Keith, her mother an' brother behind in Kentucky. She sent money to her mama an' brought her down for long visits. For two years Keith called her, checked to see if she wuz OK. Yes, she wuz fine, thank you, jes' fine. Mary always listened to his recounting of his life since the prior call an' encouraged Keith to date.

At 30 Mary met Mack. Theirs wuz a whirlwind courtship. Mack wanted to settle down, have a family an' by then, Mary did too.

Mary took a long breath after her story. I held still. Then, "Mack loves me, and I love him. We love our girls. Life is very good for us, Aunty. Now I will go live up nawth, in a beautiful house, Mack will be home every night, and life will be even better."

Despite the late hour, the soft comfortin' darkness, I wuzn't sleepy a'tall. After Mary told her story, all of it, I jes' kept still. Thar' seemed to more to come.


"So, then, with all this goodness that has come to me, why am I bothered still by Keith? Why am I uncomfortable deep down?"

I sighed, then offered, "Reckon that when we's really happy, the unhappiness we done to others weighs on us a bit. We feel we doan deserve it, mebbe, or that we wish thar' were some way to make amends?"

"No, Aunty," she spoke low, "thar' ain't no way to make amends. I took another's precious life an' used fer mah own purposes. Sickening. When I think on it a awhile I want to get in the shower, but it won't wash away. And the worst part? Mack is Keith. I married the same sort of man again. Mack is practical, calm, deliberate, responsible--all the same qualities that Keith has. And I love Mack for those qualities. Do you see? Only thing different is that I grew up some, worked in the real world and discovered that those "boring" traits are what I most wanted and needed in a husband. If I'd only waited a little bit longer, I would have come to love Keith for his sterling goodness. I had goodness and did not return goodness. For that I am at grave fault."

Now the dark seemed heavy despite the approach of dawn. I wanted to say somethin' soothin' like, No, it's not yore fault Mary, you wuz jes' young an' anxious for your future.

"Oh, Mary, that is very grave. No wonder youse bothered," I whispered. "One thang, though, youse gutsy. Not many of us can look our worst selves in the eye, an' name what we see. I admires ya'.

I heered her rustle an' sit up against the pillows . "Aunty, if I told the others this they would say I was just young and scared when I married Keith, using him as a safe harbor. But I knew it not the right thing to do. Yes, fear motivated me some, but, I know I knew better. I deliberately chose to do wrong. What I really hate about it all is that I didn't really even try to learn to appreciate Keith. I feel as though all my current happiness is at his expense. And it is! "

Dawn seeped under the black-out drapes, li'l fingers of the new day. I felt old but hopeful.

"Mary, doan ya' see? Life is a crooked path. None of us can second guess whar' we'd be iffin' only we had taken a different fork in the road. Life can throw us mercy as well as throw us cancer. I doan pretend to unnerstan' all the whys of it. Pray for Keith's happiness, then git up an put yore red dress on, we's got places to go today."

A year later, in a town far up north, happy an' settled in a new circle of friends, Mary's back gave out--she required surgery if she wuz to walk mor'n a few feet. She faxed me the night before her surgery, a funny little stick figure enterin' the operatin' room on a stretcher, balloon above the head "NOOOOOOooooooo."

Mack an the girls sat wif' her afterward as the post-op stupor wore off. They kissed her goodnight an Mack promised to see her at breakfast time.

As 4 a.m. she pressed the call button. "Something is wrong" she told the nurse. At 4: 16 she wuz gone.

It's been ten years now since Mary died. I still think of her every January. It was a bleak January, 20 somethin' years ago, when a woman I hardly knew called to see if I wuz free to drive her to a radiation treatment. I loved her from that day on--I got over the flippant party- girl facade, the red sports car, the zaney quips, all the un-seriousness that I once thought to be needless frivolity. Thar' weren't nuthin' frivolous about it, it were a great kindness to others to bring happy a moment an' lighthearted mirth wherever possible.

I miss her still.

* annulment