Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Moving Day and She/it Happens
The clamor of the week had me leaving notes everywhere and I still missed two friends birthdays. I perpetually felt like I was forgetting to do something.
The data usage on our phones was almost over limit, so Don and I were conversing as speed talkers. We had no internet and limited phone service. The earliest install date for internet was 12 days out.
Then.... the car decided to die. There's a point in a cars' life when I feel they are not worthy of further servicing. Mine reached that a year ago. It was truly a fair weather car, moody as all get out. The wiper motor on the passenger side quit working months ago. It failed slowy causing the timing of the sweep to be off, which had the blades literally fighting in mid air during a torrential rain while I was crossing the Daniel Island bridge. Wiper motors $200.00! So, I quit driving in the rain.
Shortly afterwards, it would only change gear speeds on cool days. Car menopause. Finally at any given moment..it would max out in first gear at a top speed of 20 mph.
At this point, let's just say that I didn't affectionately call her the "Old girl" anymore. As if she/it sensed it, she gave up the ghost on the hottest day of the year, humidity levels were at 140%. I have a carload of things to take to new place in the move. It was the beginning of evening traffic on 17 North. She/it hiccupped... her way of saying she wasn't going to drive. I pulled into the Laser car wash and let it cool off. I decided to use the oval car wash drive as a speed test before pulling out, like a seasoned short tract driver I punched it and took a few left turns. After a few laps, it caught second gear and I pulled out onto the highway and then with a slew of traffic behind me and in the middle lane of Hwy 17..nothing. She/it and I limped into a retail parking lot. I waited for a tow truck with my leg stuck out the door, fanning myself with an unopened bill.
I kept feeling like I forgot to do something else. I pondered my various list while I pulled the under wire out of my bra that has decided to poke through at this inopportune moment as well.
Don picked me up before the tow truck came. I was just about ripe by this time. Hotter than Hannah, if you will. I could hardly wait for a shower. When we walked in, Don cut on the faucet to rinse out something. I heard the spit of air..and I remembered what I hadn't done! Transfer the water to our name when we moved. I made a few desperate calls at 5 P.M. to see what I cold do..Nothing. Wait until tomorrow. Unless we have a plumbers tool. Hell we didn't know what that was , but we were outside on the ground removing a man hole cover to see if we had anything to resemble it. Nope.
Resolve settled in. I had two back tanks of clean toilet water that I could boil for a bird bath, and ice cubes for tomorrow mornings coffee. I was feeling a little cocky about my survival skills and learned a fast lesson on what not to do when your water is cut off....Don't eat a soft ripened SC peach. Another bird bath.
Up at the crack of dawn, I melted the ice cubes for coffee and watched the clock tick until the water utility office opened. I get Eric on the line, same guy from last night. What are the odds? "Eric, what's the ETA on the field worker this morning?" Eric told me that it could be anytime between 8 and 5 today. I called back at lunch and got Eric again. Really?????
“Mrs. Brabham, we will have someone there as soon as they are in the area." he says kindly. "Thanks Eric." I reply sheepishly.
2 o'clock I called back. Yes..that's right. Eric again!! I tried to disguise my voice, obviously a fail because Eric says "Hello Mrs. Brabham." while laughing.
"Eric, all of my ice has melted. I know..I know...but, I'm just saying.....don't you have a CB radio.. (Lord help me, CB radio? I can't take it back now) so you could call him?" I plead.
He laughs again. "It won't be long now. Hold on." he says. One hour later..all the faucets spit and hiss and I am counting minutes to a shower and ready to cook. With a clean kitchen, shower and full stomach I pull the cork from a bottle of wine.
There are days when I allow the wine to breathe, and there are days that I consider the pop of the cork breath enough.
Monday, July 15, 2013
This Freedom Thing, It's Complicated
It was Tuesday the week of July 4th, I was downtown on Cannon Street sitting under a brilliant unfurled USA flag. As I watched the stripes snapping in the southern breeze, I thought of the significance of Old Glory and all that was on it. I imagined it with holes ripped from artillery fire, stained in blood. Are we any closer to the freedom it represented when crafted over 300 years ago? The news headlines of the week suggest not. Travon trial, Paula Deen and a ruling on gay rights.
I realized I didn't know where our flag was. What if I don't find it? Am I perceived as unpatriotic?
Is silence an opinion? Quite possibly the loudest and most misunderstood. What do I personally feel about Paula, Travon, Gay marriage? I wave a freedom flag with a closed mouth. It's complicated, I'm confused with the conflicting double speak of most issues.
I watch the world tilt slowy..uber crawling toward some embryonic beginning that I wouldn't classify as change yet.
Confused parents give "reveal" parties to let family and friends know what sex their unborn child is. 18 years later they may "reveal" they were wrong. Gay parents hurt when their sons and daughters are ostracized by society and subjected to hate, gay children hurt because they don't want to disappoint their family.
Families still wring their hands in angst at reunions and weddings knowing the contemptuous views of their matriarch and patriarchs concerning interracial marriages. Do we excuse their archaic views by claiming them to be pre-determined by their formulative years? Do we silently pray that our children choose the route of less pain? Did the slave mother hold her newborn baby girl and pray that would be so beautiful that the plantation owner would fall in love with her and move her to the big house or does she pray that her baby girl is so ugly that she won't be looked upon and taken from her? And which is right? Who am i to say, a white southern girl? It's ludicrous for me to state that I understand the plight of the African American, the gay man or woman.
So, let's say that we could wipe the slate clean and start over. Could the remedy be as simple as teaching and practicing unprejudiced love to our children from the beginning. Emphatically.. Yes! Simple? No! Complicated because another family will NOT teach their children those values and it will be their hate that kills goodness. i.e, Jesus, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, John Lennon, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
So, do I sit quietly on the porch and watch the parade go by? Is it safer to keep my opinion to myself, to silence the strike of these keys right now? Oh... Yes! Ole black water keep on rolling, Mississippi moon wont you keep on shining on me.
But, the world doesn't change with safe. I think of John Mayer's song "Waiting on the world to change." Maybe we shouldn't wait, maybe the hope of change isn't in drawing lines in the sand, maybe it's by erasing them. Maybe it's by allowing each grain of sand to fall where it's creator destined it should be.
We will never be truly free until we unilaterally accept the rights of each other to choose our own freedoms without imposing them on others. I don't have to march in a parade, hold a protest sign or buy a bumper sticker. I simply treat you as I would any member of our human race. Silence is not weakness. Speeches, parades, concerts are all aftermath of what should begin in the quiet recesses of the heart. Usually beginning with truth.
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