Calm

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 A friend sent a brief message to me last week. It was “a wish for calm.” He knows that I am going through a challenging time as a caregiver and I can think of no better wish than for calm to wash over me and the person I’m assisting. I responded that I perhaps should wish for “stoicism” also.

In times like these, the day-to-day distractions become ever more dear. Keeping the backyard bird feeders filled has become a veritable obsession that pays off, on occasion, with dozens of birds crowding two feeders, the ground, and a birdbath. Hummingbird feeders hang ready but there have only been a few sightings here in mid-April. Docile mourning doves predominate. When I come out to refresh the feeders, I see the doves sitting in the branches of the trees beyond the fence, watching and softly cooing.

The cardinals seem to prefer to visit in early morning and dusk. Two cardinal couples are around daily, and occasionally others will join in.

Spring happened fast this year. Suddenly, everything was green and lush. There has been no time to work in the flower beds, but perennials have popped up and winter pansies are hanging on until warmer weather settles in for the season. Easter came along faster than the Easter lilies this year. My mother has two patches of Easter lilies that look like they don’t plan to bloom for a while. The winter view down into Oxmoor Valley is now hidden by the curtain of green.

My life-long monitoring of the bird activity was heightened by the months of pandemic. Indeed, my whole endurance of another home-bound time of life was prepared, perhaps, by the pandemic experience. One of the few online sites that I follow is “Diary of a Gen-X Traveler” in which a midwestern couple shares their experiences as European travelers – primarily in Greece and Italy. During the pandemic, they shared adventures hiking and walking around places near their home in Iowa. The freshness of those takes on everyday things made the pandemic posts as interesting to me as the spectacular continental sights that they usually shared.

More recently, I look forward to three weekly posts by Garrison Keillor on his “Garrison Keillor and Friends” website. At eighty going on eighty-one, Keillor seems to be awestruck by his age. He has become assertively cheerful in extolling daily life in Manhattan and in his travels for solo performances across the United States. A proud Democrat, he finds common bonds across party lines and beyond the trivia of the “red state / blue state” dichotomy. His is a fresh wisdom nurtured through years of astute empathy and observation and he never fails to make me smile and sometimes laugh heartily.

My endurance of the news of the day has finally waned and whole days go by without the television being turned on. I keep up, more or less, in magazines and online and try to stave off the existential dread that will dominate the rest of the year. Reading is, as always, my favorite escape and even if I read about troubling things, there is solace in sitting with a book or magazine close at hand.

In addition to calm stoicism, I strive also for “comfort and joy” – a favorite phrase from “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” a favorite Christmas song. Really, who could wish for more in their life than to have comfort and joy? Just to be clear, I don’t base my life on upbeat Christmas carol lyrics; another favorite Christmas lyric is Christina Rosetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter,” which paints a cold and grim picture of the nativity.

Today, the tidings of joy make way for the promise of summer and hope for calm, peace, and justice to come.

Searching for Home Waters

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” ‘Poetics of place’ is a phrase used by Michael K. Steinberg in his captivating book, Searching for Home Waters: A Brook Trout Pilgrimage. The phrase references a morning spent on Vermont’s Robert Frost Interpretive Trail, but it applies to Steinberg’s very personal pursuit for habitats of the brook trout on the east coast of North America. His quest encompasses diverse waterways encountered over four years of fishing from the southern Appalachians of north Georgia to Canada’s Labrador region.” 

Steinberg’s book is a pleasurable read whether or not you’re an angler or an environmentalist. My recent review for Alabama Writers’ Forum may whet the appetite for an important and understated search for a special kind of “home.”

Searching for Home Waters

Woke

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The hyacinths in my mother’s flower garden woke last week. The crocuses have almost finished their blooming for the year. The harbingers of daffodils and tulips are beginning to break through and will be fully woke soon.

I added a label to my LinkedIn profile last week. Along with “Essayist | Editor | Retired Educator” I have added “Woke Liberal.” There are state-wide elections here in Alabama, along with the scary presidential election cycle we’re enduring in the United States. As I watch the ads for state-wide elections, it seems that the Republicans are out to extinguish “woke” liberals, etc. so I seem to be in their NRA-loving sights. As they scramble to establish their bona fides with the previous insurrectionist U.S. president, I shudder.

One ad for a candidate for chief justice of the state Supreme Court brags that “If you like Trump’s judges, you’ll love” him. I say Thanks for the warning. Another, by a candidate for a spot on the state school board, features the voice of an apoplectic woman having the vapors because her son came home from school with a Black Lives Matter book. A candidate for reelection to the state’s Public Service Commission makes a thinly-veiled promise to continue her tradition of letting the big utility lobbies have their way with her, including photos of “woke” Hollywood celebrities to, I guess, make her point. Still another says that “Republicans can trust” her; apparently, the rest of us cannot.

Some of these candidates will be elected and their bigotry makes me want to be even more “woke” than I already am. Since the label “woke” began to break into the mainstream as a common adjective for progressively-minded people, I haven’t always been able to fully play along. On occasion, presented with a challenging new idea, I have been known to quip that “I’m not sure that I’m that ‘woke’ yet.” (For example, I am not woke enough to turn down pork barbecue.) Yet, as books get targeted, immigrants get dehumanized, women’s control over their own bodies is increasingly threatened, education is tyrannized, health care is ridiculed, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” is not considered a worthy goal, and Capitol insurrectionists are called “hostages” and “patriots,” I am leaning more than ever to the increasingly saner “woke” points of view.

For a group of politicians that claim to be for “less government,” these politicians seem determined to interfere with our private lives and most personal decisions.

No matter how much we love Alabama, it is our legacy to be regularly embarrassed on the national stage by our elected politicians. The recent atrocity put to paper by the current duly elected chief justice of our Supreme Court is jaw-dropping, even by our standards. Who votes for these people? I’m not aware of many people who do vote for them, but those candidates seem to get elected, anyway. I guess I don’t get around much anymore.

And then there’s Sen. Katie Britt.

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When I named this journal “Professional Southerner” a decade ago, it was intended as a riff on a gibe I received while living in the Midwest in the ‘90s. There, I seemed to be the go-to person for all things Southern. Somebody referred to me as “our professional Southerner.” Those gibers were the ones who breathlessly reported that, as a Southerner, I had to see the new movie Forrest Gump – that I would love it. I did see it; to their dismay, I didn’t love it that much.

I read a book recently that referred to the keepers of the “Lost Cause” mythology as “professional southerners.” Hopefully, anyone who knows me or reads what I have to say knows that I am not an advocate for the “Lost Cause” version of the Civil War. A while ago, I read a quote from Alabama writer Rick Bragg saying, “I never wanted to be a professional Southerner … but at the same time, I’ve never been more proud to be anything but a Southern writer.” I, too, never intend to be a spokesperson for my region – it is too diverse for anyone to take that mantle. But I like to express my views and experiences. And I’m Southern.

Truth be told, “Professional Southerner” was supposed to be an escape from the stressors of everyday life, but events – both personal, social, and political – have made it necessary to speak up on occasion and this current election cycle makes it more urgent than usual to take a stand.

In the meantime, I watch the birds in the backyard feeders, prepare the hummingbird feeders for their impending return, and tend the garden. And I vote. Even if the options are slim pickings, I look for the less threatening, non-Republican choice.

“Woke” is akin to springtime – opening oneself to the clear light of day, to new ideas, to new challenges, to new solutions. “Woke” = Not Asleep at the Wheel.

New Books and Reviews – Poetry and Biography

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Alabama Writers’ Forum has just posted my two latest reviews. Circulation is poet Ken Autrey’s exploration of larger truths beyond familiar surfaces.

Circulation

Odyssey of a Wandering Mind is Jennifer Horne’s biography of Sara Mayfield, a twentieth century writer who overcame significant personal challenges to live a “fully felt and deeply experienced” life.

Odyssey of a Wandering Mind

Tolstoy Park

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 I have long suspected that readers often find the right book at just the right time. I was aware of The Poet of Tolstoy Park (Ballantine Books, 2005) by Sonny Brewer from the time of its publication and just never got around to reading it. I finally read it recently and found it the perfect read at this stage of life. I might not have appreciated it quite as much back in 2005.

The Poet of Tolstoy Park is a contemplative and philosophical novel. In the mid-1920s, a man named Henry Stuart, living in Idaho, learns that he has a short time to live. His doctor tells him that he suffers from an advanced state of non-contagious tuberculosis, suggesting that his final days might be easier if he moves to a more hospitable climate. After considering a move to California, Stuart hears about the utopian single-tax colony of Fairhope, Alabama, divests himself of most of his possessions – including his shoes, and moves sight unseen to ten acres in Montrose, a small community just up the road from Fairhope. His two sons and best friend, left behind in Idaho, think he’s crazy.

Stuart, dying, in his mid-sixties, and alone, embarks on a stoic existence and finds the Fairhope community to be kind and willing to assist. His ten acres have no house, only a barn in disrepair, and Stuart and his new-found Fairhope friend, Peter Stedman, create a suitable room in a corner of the barn. Stuart, inspired by the abodes of Native Americans and the nests of birds, plans to build a small round hut – a masonry dome, really – as his final home. The novel painstakingly describes Stuart’s method of building his house – he insists on doing it alone – as he pours concrete blocks and scavenges bricks from a ruin on the bay.

Brewer’s narrative excels in the quiet moments and the details of a life in nature. His descriptions of Henry Stuart’s methodical thought and process in the construction of his hurricane-proof abode make for reflection and calm, as do the minute details of Stuart’s life. The narrative is deliberate, but I found myself eager to keep reading – to see what would come next. The very decent people that Stuart meets and befriends along the way are finely and distinctly drawn; I hope they are based on real people, each one.

A former seminarian who eschews organized churchgoing, Stuart follows the philosophy of Henry George, who was an influence on many in the early twentieth century, including the founders of Fairhope and the great Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Stuart is an acolyte of the writings of Tolstoy, especially his nonfiction essays, and names his Montrose home “Tolstoy Park” in his honor.

Henry Stuart’s aim is to keep his terminal illness a secret from the Fairhope community, but secrets are hard to keep in a small tight-knit town – especially if the subject is a disheveled, unshaven, barefoot newcomer in his sixties. When Stuart admits to his friend Peter that “I am supposed to die,” Peter’s response is “Well, hell, I reckon so! Me, too.” Henry Stuart has chosen his place and way of dying and living and local gossip makes him withdraw into increased solitude to complete his tasks with minimal intrusion.

Suffice it to say, Mr. Stuart does not die on the doctor’s schedule.

As we used to say in third grade book reports, “If you want to know more, you’ll have to read the book.” I hope you will; it’s a very good one, with valuable lessons for living.

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Henry Stuart was a real person and the basics of Sonny Brewer’s fictional narrative are essentially true. During his time in Fairhope, the retired professor became a fixture in the area, occasionally giving talks to the community – barefoot and sharing his far-reaching interests and philosophies. He welcomed visitors to his “hermit house” over the years; his guest book had well over a thousand signatures. The great civil liberties attorney Clarence Darrow, a regular visitor to Fairhope, reportedly signed the book half a dozen times.

Present-day visitors are still able to sign a guest book in the house that Henry built. The house is still there. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places now, and is surrounded by a parking lot in a nondescript office complex off a busy highway. The rest of Stuart’s ten acres have been developed, but the hut at Tolstoy Park is always open to visitors. Author Sonny Brewer leased the space from the current owner of the property and did repairs. He stayed there while he was writing part of the novel.

It is a strangely efficient round house, fourteen feet in diameter, with an ancient tree standing beside it still, and with no corners to gather clutter. The house is built slightly into the ground and there are a door and six windows. Two skylights are at the top of the dome. The furnishings are simple, with places for writing, reading, and contemplation. There’s a wood stove. To save space, Henry Stuart hung his bed off the ground and used a ladder to crawl up and in. Today, there are mementoes of the original owner scattered about.

It is still a quiet, calm, and spiritual place, despite the encroachment of the growing community around it. When you visit, stand in the middle of the room and hum, or sing, or just say Hallelujah, to take advantage of the sublime acoustics. Take a moment to honor Henry Stuart, and to thank Sonny Brewer for bringing him and his story to a larger audience.

Africatown

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The Clotilda, the last known ship to illegally transport kidnapped and enslaved Africans to American shores, was set afire just above Mobile Bay in 1860. Since the African trans-Atlantic slave trade had been outlawed since 1808, the ship was destroyed so it could not be used as evidence of the illegal crossing. The Africans onboard had been transferred to a riverboat before the abandoned schooner was burned and scuttled. Despite this, the perpetrators of the crime were boastful about the activity, which had been undertaken as part of a bet, and the story of the Clotilda was well-known in the area. The story became legend and, because of the lack of evidence, some considered it a myth.

The Civil War followed and some of the Africans from the Clotilda, who were technically free at the war’s conclusion, eventually founded Africatown on the west bank of the Mobile River. Africatown is distinctive for being founded by Africans who had recently arrived on American shores and maintained their customs, language, and traditions in the running of the community. The African natives were, on occasion, denigrated by the descendants of earlier Africans who had spent their entire lives in America.

Africatown still survives and descendants of the founders remain active there. The community, however, was split by a highway, hemmed in, and poisoned by industrial pollution, and now has about 2,000 residents.

Meanwhile, the remains of the Clotilda lay at the bottom of the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta. Ben Raines, an Alabama environmentalist and journalist with keen knowledge of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, organized expeditions to find the remains of the Clotilda in an area that has the remains of a number of ship wrecks. In 2019, the Alabama Historical Commission confirmed that the remains found by a Raines expedition were those of the Clotilda. After almost 160 years in the waters, some of the ship is still partially intact. There is ongoing research into how best to preserve what is left. Fascinating documentation of the history of the Clotilda and its recent discovery may be found in The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning (Simon and Schuster, 2022) by Ben Raines.

Due in part to Raines’s discovery and to ongoing efforts by Africatown residents and descendants, the Africatown community is attracting attention once again and revitalization plans are in the works. The History Museum of Mobile has opened a fourth space, the Africatown Heritage House, in the community. “Clotilda: The Exhibition” is currently on display at the Heritage House (www.clotilda.com).

I traveled to Africatown for the first time recently. I went to see the powerful exhibit which presents timelines, documentation, and artifacts from the life of the founders of the community. Included are artifacts of their captivity, trans-Atlantic crossing, American enslavement, founding of the community, and a hopeful vision for the future. Among the soundscapes of the exhibit is the sound of water. The sound of lapping waters permeates the exhibition, always there, like the treacherous waters of the Atlantic crossing and the brackish Delta waters that preserved the evidence of the Clotilda and its cargo. The remains of the Clotilda itself are not that far away, still at rest in the Mobile River.

Oluale Kazoola, later known as “Cudjoe Lewis,” was an original inhabitant and landowner of Africatown. It was thought that he was the last living survivor of the captives of the Clotilda, but two other survivors were later located. Writer Zora Neale Hurston spent time in Africatown and with Kazoola, and recorded and filmed him. Her manuscript, Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” documenting her conversations with Kazoola, was finally published in 2018. Snippets of Kazoola’s story, in his own words, are interspersed throughout the exhibition with the audio guide that each visitor carries through the rooms.

After leaving the Heritage House exhibit, a drive around Africatown gives evidence of what is being done, what still needs to be done. Among the houses – vintage or newer, abandoned or proudly occupied, unkempt or carefully maintained, there were two that stood out for me. One was a tiny shotgun house, one of my favorite vernacular styles, and the other was boldly adorned with an image of the African continent against a red, black, and green field. Both appealed to my inner-William Christenberry.

Back at the noisy highway that transects Africatown stands the community’s spiritual center, Union Missionary Baptist Church, with a bust of Kazoola mounted in front. Across the highway, not exempt from the clamor of factory traffic, is the peaceful Africatown cemetery with remains of the original settlers and their descendants. The site of an upcoming Africatown Welcome Center is just across the road.

I knew much of the story of Africatown and the Clotilda from readings and documentaries, but it is an inspiration to actually be in Africatown, the home of such courage. This community, forged by people forcibly removed from their home, illustrates the power and conviction to create a new home in an often hostile foreign land. The community, the Africatown Heritage House, the church, and the burial ground remain as symbols and reminders of an unfaltering spirit.

Ghosts of Evenings Past

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My friends Russell and Janet died recently. But that’s not what this is about. It’s about what we do in life and how we’re remembered by those who know us.

I met Janet Gray and Russell Luke, a couple of theatre professionals, when I took a job at a theatre in Jackson, Mississippi. They were a delightful couple. Janet was lovely and intense, and Russell reminded me of Tennessee Williams, whose plays he loved. He also shared my affinity for Eugene Walter. By the time I moved to Jackson, Janet had already left and was working as a costume designer and professor at a university in South Carolina.

My time in Jackson was brief. Russell, a director and stage manager, moved on to South Carolina to teach and be with Janet. I moved on to a gig at Alabama Shakespeare Festival. In those days, Alabama Shakespeare Festival was a repertory theatre and I would host Janet and Russell when they arrived for a few days each summer to catch the rep.

We also ran into each other every March at the Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC) convention. It was held in a different city each year and we usually managed at least one meal together.  Over time, we formalized our annual meal to a dinner on Saturday, the last night of the convention, finding just the right combination of menu and ambiance in a variety of Southern cities.

Kitty and Patty, my friends from graduate school, also attended the theatre conference annually, representing their college in Florida. We quickly became a group of five and our Saturday night dinners became a cherished tradition that eventually – for me, at least – superseded the week’s other activities.

At each of these meals, Russell would quietly excuse himself toward dinner’s end. He would just as quietly return. A few minutes later, a server would arrive with a tray of five Brandy Alexanders for the table. This was Russell’s annual parting gesture for the group. The evening ended with a toast and a vow to reconvene a year later in another city.

Twice during those years, the convention was held in Mobile. On Saturday night, the five of us piled into my car and headed across Mobile Bay to the Eastern Shore. The first of our Eastern Shore dinners was at the Wash House, a restaurant in Point Clear. The by-now requisite tray of Brandy Alexanders appeared to end the evening.

This tradition went on for years. The last time the five of us gathered together was at the convention in Louisville in 2020. Janet had some health problems, but the prognoses seemed promising. It was a lovely, relaxing evening, culminating in a tray of Brandy Alexanders and a promise to do it again in Memphis in 2021.

The next week, everything shut down for COVID-19.

During the pandemic, there was no 2021 convention. I kept up with Russell about Janet’s health problems. There were challenges but Russell always assured me that they were doing “okay.”

In March 2022, SETC finally had its on-site Memphis convention. Kitty and Patty were unable to come and our group of five became three. I had retired and was rotating off the SETC magazine editorial board and had announced that 2022 would be my final SETC. At the restaurant on Saturday night, Russell did his usual disappearing act, Brandy Alexanders arrived, and we toasted our missing friends, Kitty and Patty. As the dessert course wound down, Russell said he felt like we should order one more round in honor of my last SETC.

After that final SETC, Janet began to have more serious health problems. Russell was dealing with health issues, too, although he never said much about it. In our final communication, in late-spring 2023, Russell said they were preparing to go to a reception in honor of Janet’s retirement and that things were going “as well as can be expected.” SETC will be in Mobile in 2024 and Russell said that he and Janet were discussing coming down if they were able. Since I wouldn’t be attending, he suggested I come down anyway and we could go to the Eastern Shore for dinner on Saturday night. I promised to think about it.

While running errands on November 14, I received word that Russell had died that day and that Janet had preceded him in death on October 18.

When I notified Kitty and Patty, Kitty had the perfect remembrance:

Our Saturday nights at SETC were always so special. Their twinkling wicked wits, dry humor, and genuine warmth made them such good company. I hope they are together teasing, needling and ribbing one another at this very moment. I’ll picture them that way for sure.

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I am in Point Clear this week. I had dinner at the Wash House and ordered a piece of pecan pie and a Brandy Alexander for dessert. Two ladies at a table across from me asked what I was having. The Wash House pecan pie needed no explanation, but I explained that the Brandy Alexander was in honor of a couple of friends who had recently passed away, that we always ended our meals together with a Brandy Alexander and that one of those special meals had been at the Wash House.

“What were their names?” asked one of the ladies. When I told their names, the ladies raised their glasses in unison.

“Here’s to Janet and Russell,” they said. Janet and Russell would be pleased.

AL225: December 2023

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On my annual December retreat to the Grand Hotel in Point Clear on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay, I leave the interstate at the Stockton exit just before the interstate crosses the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta. That exit feeds onto Alabama Route 225 and runs about twenty miles through coastal plain from Stockton to Spanish Fort.

Over the years, that short stretch of Baldwin County road has become one of my favorite roads to drive. There’s nothing spectacular going on, and that’s the point. For the first few miles, the road runs through pine forests and the distinctive December low angle light brushes the trees with a graceful autumnal glow. The fact that you are now “below the Salt Line” is unmistakable. Even on a chilly day, I must roll down the window to catch the air. The road frequently crosses small streams, creeks, and branches and glimpses of water shine through the trees. I frequently feel my body relax. I exhale.

Houses are sparse at first, and the landscape is dotted with mobile homes, ancient farmsteads, and the occasional new construction. Small business districts pop up occasionally and I could swear I spotted two Dollar General stores within a mile of each other. There’s one traffic light at a crossroads.

On my most recent trip, I decided to turn off the main road to see some of the boat launches on the nearby Tensaw River. A short drive on a narrow road on a slow nippy day and suddenly there’s a river rolling softly toward the bay.Back on AL225, I must check out the churches along the way. A small Catholic church in the woods has grown and been renovated since I last photographed it. Steps away is a sweet white Presbyterian chapel. Christmas decorations adorn most houses. A mobile home has a straight row of inflatables proclaiming insistent Christmas cheer; I do not normally approve of inflatables, but the determined neatness of this display makes me smile, as does the bundled-up toddler joyfully dashing in and out between the cheerful Christmas icons. I stop to take a photograph, but I see a fretful mother staring out the door and I think maybe not.

As AL225 gets closer to Spanish Fort and its southern terminus, Buzbee boat launch and fish camp appears to the east. It’s a landmark on this highway. Look to your west from the bridge that goes across at Buzbee and you get a glimpse of Mobile’s skyline across brackish waters. Look back east to the fish camp and you go back in time.

After passing Buzbee and the veterans cemetery, suburban communities begin to appear and Spanish Fort is not far now. Manicured lawns become more prominent and, this time of year, the camellias are in full bloom.  I know, camellias are not native to Alabama. But they are the state flower, like it or not, and I do get a bit of a rush seeing a bush drooping with camellia blooms on a brisk December day. It is traditional, it is expected, and I’m okay with it. In fact, it makes me happy.

AL225 ends at U.S. Highway 31 in Spanish Fort. Take a quick right turn, crossing three lanes of traffic, and there is Mobile Bay, choppy today, before you turn left at the next traffic light and head due south toward Daphne and Fairhope. The prize at the end is a brilliant sunset from my balcony at Point Clear.

I think about that turn all year. It still sends a gush of energy through my soul.