Côte d’Emeraude (Photo credit: Haute Bretagne)

The prettiest thing I’ve seen today is a cluster of burgundy and orange zinnias.

I think they were zinnias, planted out in the community garden. Such rich autumn colors, so wealthy and regal.

There’s a stirring in my stomach, an uneasy yearning melancholy, because I cannot afford to buy Shalimar, my favorite fragrance.

Shalimar, according to frangrantica.com and Macy’s, was created in 1925 and means “Jewel of the Palace” and signifies the “legendary love story” between Indian Emperor Shah Jahan and his beloved wife, Mumtaz Majal.

Their love apparently flourished in the “Gardens of Shalimar.” The emperor’s wife died before the birth of their 14th child. Jacques Guerlain created the fragrance, touched by this love story, which also inspired the Taj Majal.

“Shalimar” is such a beautiful name. It’s an oriental, or Far Eastern, fragrance, like “Emeraude” by Coty, created in 1921. One of my best friends in high school wore Emeraude, which is also an Oriental fragrance. Shalimar and Emeraude both have notes of citrus and vanilla and other notes.

Maybe I can splurge later, because they still sell Emeraude, which is less expensive than Shalimar, at CVS drugstores. It’s hard not to splurge sometimes, because fragrance, even for yourself, feels peaceful. We feel better when we are fragrant. Perfume is like wearing music.

English: Closeup of inflorescence of a white crepe myrtle tree. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

People never really get over the South, especially on days like today, when the weather is cool and warm and red berries wait for Christmas on dogwood trees and white bouquets of crepe myrtle cling gently to their mothers, like sleeping children. The shade trees and sunlight bow for us in intricate formation, like we are honored guests.

Can anyone anticipate this beauty, the South’s four seasons with long hot summers; blazing brilliant autumns; chilly cozy winters and the dogwood springs, scented with fresh-mown grass and deep red roses cascading down the fences?

How many people have visited Alabama, with its sweet melodic name, the heart of Dixie where stars fell down to kiss the ground? During the school year there, we waited at the bottom of the red dirt driveway for the bus. We went to school where they served chocolate milk or orangeade in little waxy cartons. They served homemade rolls made of light.

We grilled outside; caught honeybees and lightning bugs in jars; played hide and seek; ate fried fish and fowl; played beauty queen; watched football and baseball; joined Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts and went to church, like many Southerners do.

A Southern lady or gentleman will just about kill you for his or her family or friends, but they’ll also cry over Old Glory or a war veteran; a nervous child at a recital or the passing of a friend; a horse breaking free or a magnificent tree cut down before its time.

Southerners often feel one with nature and sometimes with God. We fish and bicycle and run barefoot on beaches and ride inner tubes down whitewater rapids. We dress up for church and proms and dress down for chili suppers and pancake breakfasts. We ride motorcycles and play golf nearly year-round. We like coffee and sweet tea and bacon and butter.

The South can leave you speechless. The South cannot be explained, but only enjoyed or marveled about or maybe even hated. If you stay long enough, the South embeds itself into your heart.

Wherever you go, even across oceans and years, you will feel the magnetic pull of a willow tree’s swaying branches; the reflection of a silvery pond where you saw one elegant black swan gliding past; the sound of water flowing gently over flat rocks; the shiver of a creek so cold it chills watermelons; the trashy colorful flash of a beach city; the Spanish moss hanging solemn from a Savannah tree; the smoky or tangy taste of slow-cooked barbecue; the perfect brown and white rows of cotton bolls; the shimmer of giant lakes and, nearly always, the trusting  hello, firm handshake or the gentle hug of a stranger trying to be your friend in less than a minute.

The South’s fragile force invites you; betrays you; enthralls you; puzzles you; thrills you or maybe misunderstands you. Sometimes she may disappoint you or even love you to death. But she won’t let you forget. The South will stay in your mind, like a shadow behind a door, or like the grace of a breeze, at the very edge of a summer night.

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English: Breakfast with bread, butter, jam, fried eggs, bacon, tomato, orange juice and coffee. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There at the white with red stripe enamel table and red leatherette chairs, our granddaddy sat with us, playing Checkers or Blackjack, never for money and always for fun. Daddy Evans always looked happy.

When I was around nine or 10 years old, he and I were playing Blackjack at that kitchen table one time. I held 19 in my hand. Still, just for fun, I asked for another card, taking that wild child-like chance, to reach the magic number, 21. That time, Daddy Evans dealt out an Ace. We both laughed and smiled.

The little General Electric refrigerator sat behind us, cooling things, like milk in real glass bottles, Meadow Gold, pure, and cold, the way glass bottles keep milk so deliciously cold. That little refrigerator had legs and a rectangular body and something round on top.

It was shaped liked a person, holding many good things, like the milk in glass bottles and real butter. Our granddad liked real butter, not margarine.

Mama Evans, Daddy Evans’ wife (our paternal grandmother) made real homemade bread, in a long oval-shaped wooden bowl. That bowl is still in our family.

It was so warm and inviting, smelling that bread baking. Our favorite time was when the bread was just out of the oven, with the butter softened already, at room temperature. That warm homemade bread with butter melting…just imagine it. It’s almost too good to be true, isn’t it?

But we put the soft real butter on Mama Evans’ homemade bread, just the right texture. Mama Evans cut the bread in thick slices, but not too thick, for the real butter. Such a completely wonderful memory, that warm bread, just out of the oven, with melting butter.

You could sit at the white enamel table with the red stripe and see out the kitchen window, where glorious pine trees stood and the roses Mama Evans loved, in so many colors…in a round garden, when it was spring or summer, years later. I remember the holidays most, when we went to our grandparents’ for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Mama and Daddy Evans loved the wild outdoors and the cultivated outdoors too. Daddy Evans built a miniature log cabin for Mama Evans, near their place. It was our place, too. They loved us. The little cabin was so delicate and pretty and subtle, like our Mama Evans, but strong and sturdy too, like our Daddy Evans.

Mama and Daddy Evans’ home, in Oxford, Alabama, was so wonderful, with knotted-pine paneling in the den and one pale green bedroom, with an eggshell-white, hand-crocheted, bedspread. The Singer sewing machine sat in the pastel yellow bedroom. The sewing machine wasn’t electric. Mama Evans used her foot to make it go. One time, Mama Evans made me a pink corduroy jumper and matching blouse. Another time, she made homemade cookies, when it was my turn to bring cookies to my Brownies (before Girl Scouts) meeting.

Every morning at our grandparent’s home, coffee perked from a shiny silver-like electric coffee pot, so elegant…with a long, curved spout, the aroma of coffee filling the rooms, which had real wood floors. Mama Evans collected elegant teacups.

Daddy Evans liked creamer in his coffee, later. We took turns spooning the powdery creamer into Daddy Evans’ hot coffee, watching that creamer dissolve, into peace and happiness and wild contentment.

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English: Sight from the Southern Highroads Trail in Polk County, TN (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Not too long ago, when it was still summertime, I drove out and parked my car, to look out over the peaceful-looking beauty of Ocoee Dam No. 2 in Polk County, Tennessee.

That day was beautiful, with clear blue skies and not too hot. You could look out over the lake green water or read the plaque about the Ocoee River and the Tennessee Valley Authority and whatever else is on that plaque. The dam holds back the vast green lake water. Three men, maybe in their 40s, rode up and parked their Harley-Davidsons.

Harley-Davidson motorcycles are dangerous machines. Whether you’re male or female, a Harley-Davidson can seduce you. It happened to me in the spring of 1969 at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, which I attended for about a year. My freshman roommate met a young man who rode a Harley-Davidson. He was studying nuclear physics, or some other science. I just remember “nuclear.” This young man had black hair and a black beard. He smoked marijuana. He seduced my roommate.

One time, they asked me to take a motorcycle trip with them. My roommate’s boyfriend asked if I’d ride with his friend, who also rode a Harley-Davidson, and who had very black hair and a very black beard.

Let’s cut to the chase. Eventually, God took me away from dangerous bikes and seductive types for good. God, in His great vast love, is still teaching me (at this late date) about the dangerous seduction of predatory power, with its low sweet sound and empty bitter promises. (Not always on a Harley. Not always with a beard.)

We don’t have to fall for it again, if we give Jesus our whole hearts, above anybody or anything else. If there’s not a whole heart to give, Jesus will take the broken one, to heal it.

While Jesus heals, watch out for that hurtful-lying voice, soft and sleek, or rumbling and wild and gorgeous, with shiny chrome, glimmering there. Whatever its pitch, that lying voice is always low to the ground, like a Big Cat, destined to devour. You can’t trust anything that seductive voice says. (A friend may have to remind you).

That day, while I sat looking out over the lake, trying to calm down from a family fight and a painful memory, those men got back on their Harleys, one with a key and automatic ignition. That unmistakable Harley-Davidson gut-level rumble pounced out from all three bikes.

However, in just a few seconds, maybe nanoseconds, everything went quiet. When I looked back over my shoulder to see what happened, those men and their machines had disappeared around the curve, right behind the solid rock near the edge of the road.

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Frank McCourt at New York City’s Housing Works bookstore for a tribute to recently-deceased Irish poet Benedict Keily. Photographer’s blog post about the death of Frank McCourt and the memory of this photo. The photographer dedicates this portrait to Wikipedia editor Jkelly, who has vastly improved Wikimedia’s photography, and made it a welcoming place for photographers to do their creative commons work. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias sang about all the girls they’ve loved before, but today it’s about all the books I (or we) have loved before.

It won’t all be in order because love is all over the place. Yesterday I thought of one of my favorite books called “Durable Goods” by Elizabeth Berg. She’s one of my favorite writers and anything by Elizabeth Berg promises an excellent story and one you’ll somehow remember, and somehow relate to, and feel involved and real and wiser.

One of my favorite lines from “Durable Goods” is when the little girl was afraid to cross a certain creek, but her granddaddy patiently waited, until his granddaughter found the courage and the strength of will to cross that scary creek. The little girl said her granddaddy was just about the only person in the world who ever loved her enough to make her do something hard. Something like that.

The other day, over at Books-A-Million, there was one copy of “The Prince of Tides” by Pat Conroy. Pat Conroy is also one of my favorite writers. To me, Mr. Conroy is a magnificent writer. When I picked the book off the shelf for a minute or two, and read again what happened to the character Tom Wingo, when he was young and shot an eagle…there I was thinking about that. I’d forgotten how his dad punished him after he shot the eagle. Tom Wingo never shot another eagle.

It’s so magnificent when a writer gets the words just right. “The Prince of Tides” is a magnificent book, but it has one particular scene that’s horrible and heartbreaking, almost too awful to read, with a palpable sense of dread before it. But the scene lets you take part in what some families can survive. Such violence and sorrow and secrets. But there are such peaceful, beautiful, magical scenes in the book too, about the South Carolina low country and love and loyalty and redemption. There are funny scenes too, maybe scenes or feelings that will remind you of something good or funny in your own family. If your family is less-than-perfect—and most families are—you will find something, I think, to relate to in “The Prince of Tides.” You will love this book, I think, if you haven’t already.

There are so many books to love. A good book is too wonderful not to pay forward in some way, and talk or shout about, and keep a person company or keep a person sane or entertained or to keep a person putting one foot in front of the other, because you see that bravery and honesty and love is possible to do, right there in the story. Somebody else made it through that, like “Angela’s Ashes,” by the late Mr. Frank McCourt. Another magnificent book.

One more book for today, one that will probably make you Laugh Out Loud with its funny, honest, poignant, magnificent story. I’m over-using that word, but it’s the only one for now. This book is “Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady” by Florence King. When I lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, my across-the-breezeway neighbor and I loved this book together. We sat on the beautiful carved and heavy-wood bed in her lovely and richly-decorated apartment; she told me she laughed out loud at the ovary story in Florence King’s “Failed Southern Lady” book. There are many more good scenes in that book and if you haven’t read it, I hope you get to read it.

Here’s hoping we can meet again, to talk about books. Maybe you can find a good book and love it to death, and then love it right back to life again, for somebody else. Pay it forward with a good word for that good book. Hope to see you Wednesday!

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Close up of Tiffany confetti style glass (Photo credit: Captain Tenneal)

So, here we are, surrounded by pretty pink roses and white flowers that look like bells taking bows after some wonderful performance. And there are pairs of pink plastic flamingos trying so hard to be friends in a few neighborhood yards. And truly, a little pink house on the way to 25th Street, and blue hydrangeas in the median on North Ocoee Street.

Skipping around…when my only first cousin visited from Florida this past summer, she talked about Dressage, a kind of ballet for horses. My cousin owns many horses in Florida. My cousin is so sensitive, like apparently many horses are, maybe all of them. She named one of her favorite horses “Confetti.” Isn’t that a great name? Don’t you love confetti, the way it floats tiny bits of something happy and sparkly and snazzy and uplifting right down to us?

Anyway, I read about Dressage at “The Art of Natural Dressage,” to make sure the horses don’t get hurt. The website writer said, “A horse does not lie and will tell you when riding hurts. It’s up to us to listen.”

Listening up is a fine art. When people feel heard, confetti floats down to uplift their hearts. Eventually, a person who’s heard will learn to make confetti too, for everybody else.

Isn’t it true? The tiny bits of our broken hearts learn to celebrate the tiniest things, even if they are not our own possessions, like pink roses and blue hydrangeas and little pink houses and warm socks for winter.

The ladies at church thought we might eventually have a Japanese tea ceremony. It was a precise and peaceful thought, to be considered.

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“Selbstvergessen/ self-forgotten” (Photo credit: Aguno)

Let’s try this yet another time here on the 11th anniversary of 9-11. What happened that day changed the United States of America forever and some events do that, they do irreparable harm. But wait! Don’t give up.

Today I’ve been carrying around the heavy burden of Self like an Albatross. Why don’t bookstores carry “Self-Forget” books, to help us carry ourselves around better? Earlier today I drove to the Target store to buy a cheap big black purse to match everything for winter and to be fall-ish too and to fit in all the stuff I carry around, like eyeglasses and a wallet and too many cosmetics.

But when I got to Target, a serious-looking woman was standing out in the big parking lot holding up a sign that said, “Family on Welfare Please Help.” It didn’t make sense, begging for money while standing next to a late-model Ford Expedition.

Things are so messed up now in the USA. We have so many rich and so many poor and some in-between, so we’re never the United States. It almost seems better to me if nearly everybody had to stand in the Bread Line, like in the Great Depression. It’s worse when some people are in the Bread Line and others are not. There’s no unity and it feels so alone.

So, today I found a copy of the Survivor Psalm, from “Gift From Within” by Frank Ochberg, MD, who tries to help soldiers and other survivors of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Here’s part of the Psalm: “I look back with sadness rather than hate. I look forward with hope rather than despair.”

It’s a good reading for September 11, 2012. Hope to see you again Wednesday. Here’s wishing you a peaceful evening in this elegantly Autumn air.

We’ll make it through somehow, one day and one evening at a time. The cool evenings handle us with care and wrap us in midnight blue. It’s good to feel grateful.

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Snow Cat (Photo credit: clickclique)

Once upon a time in Montgomery, Alabama, it tried to snow. It was the 1960s, not sure what year. We lived on National Avenue, after our little brother was born at St. Margaret’s Hospital, when we lived right around the corner from National, on April Street. The whole neighborhood gathered round to see the new baby.

But back to the snow dust, which I remember looking down to see and there was dark hard ground and some white cold crystals, or something, gathered together, but not much. They weren’t really like big snowflakes, but like white thick dust or those small icy white crystals, trying to make real snow.

Whatever it was, that Montgomery snow was not the kind of snow that piles up into glistening drifts, to make the world look peaceful and quiet and pure and whole for a little while. There was no purifying, relieving, unifying warm snow during our whole lives in Alabama—Montgomery, Alabama; Gadsden, Alabama; Bynum, Alabama; Deatsville, Alabama. We moved a lot, following Dad’s work as an electrician and lineman, eventually a lineman for the Tennessee Valley Authority. When we moved to Tennessee for that TVA job (our Mom drove us and a mobile home to one of those jobs by herself one time), then we finally settled down.

It doesn’t snow much in Tennessee either, as a rule. Once in a while, it snows some or it snows too much, like an unnatural disaster. In the South, we’re never prepared with snow plows or snow blowers or barely any snow tires. Usually we don’t need those things in the South, so we’re never prepared.

It’s hard to grow up and live still in the South. It feels restless and relentless, with all the football-playin’ and gun totin’ and family feudin’ and secret lyin’ and then there’s that miserable heavy heat, all the way into September and maybe October and we might even get those untimely flowers and spring in January. Even when it’s supposed to be Autumn, that relentless wet heavy heat never lets anything completely cool off or refreshingly air out or wholly fully heal. That wilting wet heat presses your spirit down day after day after day after day. It’s September and those yellow Irises are still in-our-face-gonna-take-our-place. (Somebody said it). And yet, we Southerners try. Most of us try as hard as an Alabama snowfall.

Who am I, it’s possible to wonder, even when you get old, maybe especially when you get old. Who am I? You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve changed my name, because of marriages, or because I wasn’t sure what to call myself here in the confusing South.

Now I’m 60 years old and both ex-husbands are somewhere else. My children are grown and have their own lives, as it should be. So, who am I? All I know is that I am His. I belong to Jesus. Jesus saved my life. I am His Beloved and Jesus is Mine, oh what a foretaste of glory divine. If you’d like, Jesus will be your Beloved too, and you will be His. Beloved, Jesus says, there will be warm snow soon. I promise you, there will be warm snow soon. Things are lookin’ up:)

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URBAN-HUMAN-3 (Photo credit: Community Photography ‘now & then’)

Urban blight is the run-down area of any city, according to Answers.com. People don’t like to look at urban blight, with its run-down houses and iffy apartments and broken-down businesses and dirty-looking warehouses and sorry-looking people. We hope to develop the city out that way, not this way, not on that side of the tracks. Let’s not look at the other side of the tracks some say, but here the rest of us must dwell.

It happens here in Cleveland, Tennessee. Today I took my old car over to Roy‘s Alternator service on Inman Street, because that 1994 Volvo (the one my friend gave me out of mercy) needed help. Roy’s looks old and worn, but those people were skillful and gracious and fixed my car for a fair price, a price a family member was gracious enough to pay. Besides fixing the car, one mechanic fixed some of my worry. I’d been worried about that old Volvo, but that thoughtful mechanic told me just to keep oil and water in that car and it could last 400,000 miles or so. That gave me hope for the future. A newer car is not something people this side of urban blight can always afford.

That old car with its chipped paint and sad dents and missing parts looks like an urban eyesore, but it helps a person keep a little dignity and a little sense of freedom to at least have a car, even if it’s junky. Not everybody is so lucky, so let’s all give each other an urban break.

It was a good idea to check the water and oil, so I drove to Collins Oil Co. on South Lee Highway, one of the few places in the world that still offers to check the water and oil for customers. The man checked and the oil was okay, but the car needed water, which he poured right in and I gave him $3. Money must flow.

Then the tires needed checking because they are going low again. You know about it. I’m not good at puttin’ air in tires. More air gets out. Over in the parking lot near Pathway Press, I leaned against my old car and thought, where should I go to get somebody to put air in those tires (will I ever get it right?) Who knows? I just got in the car and started driving. I drove over two sets of railroad tracks, which scares me. Maybe they were the same tracks, from different angles. So much of the neighborhoods looked bad, with everything around me looking dirty and old and feeling sticky and miserable, out there in this muggy heat again.

But there it was, right out there in the urban blight, a tire center called Elliot’s. A woman came outside that old-looking building and you learn that wherever there’s a car, there’s some old dirt and tire dust and honest sweat from workin’ people. That gracious lady at Elliott’s heard my story because she listened. She didn’t look at me like I was stupid either. She heard how I cannot afford new tires right now, but I needed air and asked her how much. She said, “We don’t charge for air.” (Some do).

A strong man who’d been workin’ and sweatin’ all day came out and put air in those deflated tires and said, “There you go” real gentle-like. I couldn’t help myself, I gave him a little tip, what I could spare. He said “thank you” and guess where I’ll buy tires if I ever get the money.

Then over at Lee University, a young man stood outside with his cell phone. He encouraged me to get inside the library where it’s cool. He understood about this muggy miserable weather. Sometimes it’s good to stand amazed at the kindness of people. There’s urban blight everywhere, but look again. Right there is a ray of light, piercing the darkness.

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English: Two NYPD cops in a Dunkin Donuts on Houston Street in the East Village. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s Labor Day in the United States of America and some of us are working and some of us are playing and some of us are doing both—and isn’t that amazing, when people work and play together? Here’s hoping you have a good rest of Labor Day, wherever you happen to be or whatever you happen to be doing or not doing too. It’s all good and all not good, but we are making it!

This afternoon over at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, things are humming right along. Today I treated myself by enjoying Dunkin’ Donuts for lunch, with Starbucks “Breakfast Blend” coffee. You can change your opinion for the better, given enough time sometimes. Used to, I thought other doughnuts (how do you spell doughnuts?) were better and many doughnuts are wonderful, but so are Dunkin’ Donuts. In the past, I avoided Starbucks coffee, since it seemed so strong, like it had been burned on a campfire.

And yet, I craved doughnuts today and coffee…with that little snack shop near the Lee library circulation desk just sitting there. So I went upstairs and treated myself to the Starbucks coffee and Dunkin’ Donuts. The very kind lady at the counter suggested I get a cardboard sleeve for that tall super-hot coffee cup. Then she reached into the clear plastic doughnut case, where there were all kinds of Dunkin’ Donuts, with chocolate on top and filling in the middle and pink icing with sprinkles and it was all beautiful to behold, like food art just lined up, waiting for us to gaze and choose. I got two plain glazed Dunkins’ (wonderful name!) because some people are purists, whether it’s a hot dog just with mustard or a Dunkin’ just with glaze. (Those two Dunkin’ Donuts were so delicious, the just-right sweetness and fluffiness, mixed with the just-right strong but not bitter coffee).

Downstairs the people at the Help Desk helped me with something on the computer. The lady upstairs, by the way, told me I could use the microwave to heat up those doughnuts when I asked. “Warm goodness,” she said with such calm grace. Wasn’t that thoughtful of her? She didn’t have to be so friendly and so helpful, and neither did the people at the Help Desk, but they were—extra friendly and extra helpful this Labor Day. Isn’t it warm goodness when people are just plain kind to each other, without any real reason except finding a way to get along better in this old world?

If we could share some coffee and doughnuts here together right now, that would be good. We’ll work from a distance:) Look right there on the tan-colored sack. It says “O grams transfat” and “Dunkin’ Donuts” and “America Runs on Dunkin’.” That tall cardboard coffee cup beckons like a green and white siren call, just for you and just for me and people all over the world. It’s not like we can flirt with coffee and pastries every single day, but flirty food (let’s make sure it’s food:) sure is good once in a while, isn’t it?

It feels so good to be glad and to be grateful and here’s my hope that you can feel glad and grateful about even one little thing today. (It’s understandable if you can’t. Some things are just too painful for a while).

Hopefully, we can all meet here together again tomorrow, Lord willing. On the back of that tan sack, by the way, it says: “Please recycle this bag.” Let’s do that. Let’s do that all together. We can save one little thing somewhere. Happy Labor Day!

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