Friday, May 3, 2013
Rules of Engagement
I am an observer of earth and its inhabitants. While watching people I picking up on subtle nuances and body language, an astute survival skill. I know when body language suggest you move along... ex.. disingenuous smiles, lack of eye contact, key jingling, repetitive phrases "text me", "call me"
I need to see you to ~read~ you.
Text example
Me: "What do you want for dinner?"
Don: "Whatever"
Me: "Whatever like...you are going to do what you want anyway or Whatever you like sweetheart or Whatever I don't really care. I mean really...is it Whatever :) or Whatever?" Because one of these will determine the mood I am in for dinner now :)
Anyway, for fear of the jingling keys and repetitive phrases of rejection, I found that I wasn't engaging as well. Oh, I could put it all out there in writing and social media, but the majority of my daily conversations collectively sounded like a Macaw. "Hello, goodbye, have a good day, have a good night, call me..text me."
While on my coffee high one morning I vowed to engage myself in conversation with whomever came in my path that day. It was a rather flippant decision, resembling others I make (and break) before 9 a.m. ex...no carbs today, drink water, exercise, pray more, drink less wine tonight.
Well, true to form. I got behind from the beginning, maybe I should nix the vow. Walking to the car, I blew out a flip flop. I drove to Waves store to buy a cheap pair. While in the parking lot my phone rang , I found myself preparing a few one liners to get off of the phone. Realizing my faux pas, I opened the car door, leaned back in the seat and had a 40 minute conversation in the parking lot. I have a trucker tan on my left arm to prove it.
The owner of Waves looked up quizzically as I step-dragged instead of flip flopped past him. He quickly resumed hustling stock to the floor like he was expecting a rush. I dropped my new flip flops on the counter as he came up from his boxes. I remembered the vow. Noticing his fervor in putting up stock and crushing boxes I hesitated at first but continued "That sure is a lot of stock to put up, you need to schedule help on the days that truck comes in."
He hesitates too. Maybe a flippant answer..take her money and get the heck back to the stock. But no, while crushing a box he decides to engage back. "If I let someone come in and do the work for me then I wouldn't be able to keep the girls happy with this physique" he answered in syrupy European laced English. I laughed. "So, how's that going for you? I asked.
"Well, not so good, I was in Miami...the girls ...they think I don't have how you say....the whole package. New York, the same thing and then before I knew it they must have all moved here too. It's too easy these days, it's all about appearances."
I shook my head. "I know people who have been hurt deeply and are alone now." I can't believe I just said that to a complete stranger."
"Tell them don't give up, but being alone is better than being in a shallow relationship." He says while putting my change in my hand.
He heads back to his piles of boxes. I turn around and go back to ask his name. "Daniel, and what is yours?" I tell him my name and goodbye again. Walking out Daniel called out to me and I turned. He tossed me a box of salt water taffy.
I was still grinning when I slid into the car but within seconds I felt behind again. I rushed into the grocery store and tried my best not to make eye contact with the newspaper solicitor. "Free paper" he rings out. "No" I answered and tried to move on. A Pepsi vendor had me temporarily stuck in place. I am considering a grocery store cart trick jump over the pallet jack of carbonation that would make Tony Hawk proud. The crier cried on "Well, why don't you sign up for the free groceries while you are waiting" My eyes plead with him to leave me alone. "Just sign up, worth a shot" I don't want to, but realized that once again, it was an opportunity to show that I had some patience left with mankind and maybe it with me. We ended up talking for 30 minutes. Everything from how he met his wife to where he moved here from to how he lost his business and ended up here. As I left him, I think he felt lighter.
I am now at that point where, whatever needed to be done so urgently today, was just not going happen. As I was leaning over the fresh meat counter, the lady next to me lifts her sunglasses to exclaim. "Oh my gosh...look at the price on this stuff!" At this point, I just laughed. I realized that I was not manipulating this day, it was shaping me. Ok, let's see what happens. I spent another half hour in the grocery store while I engaged with one of the most interesting characters that I have had the pleasure to meet in a long time. I was literally bent over slapping my legs in laughter at this lady. Our meat counter engagement ended with us swapping biz cards and hopefully meeting again.
I mulled over the morning on the way home. Unfruitful in the measurement of a checked off list, but a treasure in participation. And you just can't tweet a day like that.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Old Christ Church..A Not So Gray Day
That sunny forecast wouldn't be today. The skies above the stone and mortar church are gloomy. The church looks depressed. The slabs of gray leaning tombstones echo the sentiment.
I try to imagine it as I would a black and white photo from the year it was built in 1727. I mentally erase the stop light, the fence, the power lines and asphalt. Eerily what I imagined was exactly how it looked in a photo I googled later. http://www.christch.org/#/home/our-history
The light changes and I try to resume speed as a flash of red passed my peripheal. A camelia bush bleeds red into the gray day. I hastily threw on my turn signal while being cursed (I read his lips) from behind. As I pulled into the narrow drive, I chastised myself. None of the circumstances are right. It's gloomy, I don't have anything but my sucky phone camera and last but not least... none of life's circumstances this week warrant a graveyard as a pick me up adventure.
Amidst the silence of lived here - died here's, fat squirrels scurry about confidently in their safe zone. I mean really, if you are gonna bury your nuts..a graveyards the place to do it right?
The church yard was oddly absent of faded plastic grave flowers. Then I realized as I noticed the dates on the leaning markers that you would have had to been an exceptionally good fellow or gal for someone to continue placing flowers on your grave two hundred years later.
No flowers..no problem. Nature takes care of it's own. The sacred grounds are void of grass from the expanse of the angel oaks, but gently ablaze with wild flowers.The Dogwoods bloom beneath the oaks and the burning bush that pulled me in with it's brilliant red blossoms stood before me adjacent of the church.The Camellia bush was full and beautiful amidst it's somber backdrop. It's base however, was carpeted in the befitting crimson decay of it's older blooms.
I tried to peer into the window of the little church, bumble bee's kept me at bay. I walked around the grounds reverently. I am surprised at how calm I felt here. Is it the quiet? The lack of visitors? The absence of all? I didn't figure it out, and that's ok. Somethings are better as mystery. For now I conclude Christ Church grounds is asleep, but not soundly..as spring knocks.
Footnote: As Don walked into the door that evening he hands me an old book. A boy he works with has been filling him in on his family's history in Mt.Pleasant (Villeponteaux). My mouth dropped when I read the gold insignia on front of book ~Christ Church Parish Preservation Society~ History of Mount Pleasant. I grabbed my phone and scrolled through the pictures to show Don pictures of the church I had ironically just left. The mystery continues. I got chills, maybe there's a story from the grave that needs to be told.
Friday, April 12, 2013
First Shots of Civil War ~ Honor in Infamy?
I wrote this on the morning of the 150th anniversary of the first shots of the Civil War. I slipped out the back patio and onto the wooded path with Snowy for her early morning walk. The thick fog quieted the morning. At first I thought it was thunder. But after hearing the consecutive short blast that didn't wander off into the horizon, I knew what it was. It was the sound of the ancient cannons sitting on Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie firing to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the first shots of the Civil War.
It was both exhilarating and scary. I shuddered. The pre-dawn fog, lack of first light, and Spanish Moss hanging like apparitions down the path transcended me to a time that I couldn't know of. I could sense what that morning must have felt like. I tried to imagine what my ancestors were doing the moments they heard these booms. My maternal lineage would have my ancestors farming in a community near the Myrtle Beach area, Conway. They would have not heard the cannons. But were stirred nonetheless by the impending war. Not wealthy by any means. Hardworking farming family. I don't have records of their opinions of the war, but I do have records that show their support. My Great-Great Grandfather was the sixth child of nine children. Five boys and four girls. I can only try to imagine the tears of the mother and sisters, the pride of their fathers as they watched their sons and brothers walk down a dusty dirt road on August 7th, 1961. Walking together to enlist in one of the bloodiest battles we have ever known. The Civil War.
On that day SC 1st Infantry (Greggs Company F) took the handwritten signatures of enlistment of three brothers and two nephews of my family. Leaving behind a brother who enlisted months later in another company and my great-great grandfather who stayed at home for three more years before enlisting in the same company. I wondered if this were a family decision brought about by rules of engagement. I often heard that one son needed to stay at home to care for the needs of the family. Of those boys, five brothers, three were killed. Two killed in action, one sent home with wounds that eventually killed him. My great-great-grandfather came home after the war. I have not located any papers to this time that show they owned any slaves. This is not to say that they didn't. It is probable. I have found papers where my great-great-great grandfather Lowrimore owned 300 acres of a plantation in the Marion County District.
Even though I have the proof of their bravery, battles and death’s on cold gray tombstones...I am left puzzled. What were they fighting for? The question still looms today, why so many conflicting opinions? Some say, we weren't fighting for the right to keep slaves, I believe this to be both true and false. I believe for some, they were indeed fighting for their right to keep slaves. The huge plantation owners would lose everything without their workforce of indigenous peoples. I believe for the majority, they fought for protection from oppression themselves. They weren't going to allow anyone to take away what was rightfully theirs (property, not people). For others it was the blood, guts and glory of war. For some, pure patriotism...remember this was only 85 years after becoming independent from England. Also, there were still Indian battles occurring all over the US.
I don't guess I will ever know the motives of my family. But today...I imagine that if I were the same person I am right now and I were a little girl on a plantation, a farm, a dock...wherever I was on the morning that I heard those booms, I would be scared for myself, my family going off to war and my little black girl slave friend. I know that I would have been just as confused at the motives of this war then as I am today. It is a very weird sense of being, living in Charleston. When your ancestral roots forage deeper into the ground than the oldest live oaks, we innately know which of the motivations of war we sympathized with and that knowledge gives us either enormous pride or painful shame. Or as in my case, both. I honor with all of my heart the memory of those family members and all of their brothers that lost their lives fighting this battle. I hurt for the wrongdoing of others that brought this on by ever trying to control or own a person in the first place. I love the South...I am not ashamed of it one bit. I am ashamed of those few, through greed and in darkness, slipped ships stealthily into our harbors and brought the curse of this war. I am ashamed of the men in fine suits on the foggy docks of our ports that traded money for lives.
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