On Imagination

My terrarium is a joy. Houseplants that require a drop of water every couple of months can flourish under my care. I’ve managed to keep a peace lily and a Christmas cactus limping along for over a decade, and an aging philodendron languishes in the basement, but they haven’t grown in a while now, and I realize that such existence is not natural. It isn’t that I don’t love my houseplants, for I love most living things (notable exceptions being poison ivy and Japanese beetles). I merely forget to water them.

Forget is not the correct term. I know plants require water and I see them every day. Time races by so fast, however, that when I see the peace lily drooping and gasping, I ask, “Didn’t I just water you day before yesterday?” If I was a planner, I might have a monthly checklist that orders me, “Water houseplants every Tuesday,” and I would cross out the assignment and know if it had been several Tuesdays since the wilting lily and the patient philodendron had a drink.

Unfortunately, I was born with the genetic defect “Planning Deficit Disorder,” or PDD. I cannot accommodate, much less control, future events. Now is all there is. Although PDD mystifies (or more often exasperates) planners around me, the condition is not all bad. One has up-to-the-minute flexibility, and unpleasant tasks and decisions can be delayed indefinitely. Folks with PDD are able to save a lot of time, or at least devote that time to what we want to do now. Once I saw a greeting card that said, “If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do.” I snatched up the card to give to the daughter who inherited the PDD gene from me. She opened it at her birthday party twenty minutes later, and loved it. We often share this truth with frustrated planners who are pressing us for action when it is far too early to be thinking about anything but the problems and opportunities of now. But enough about my PDD- I realize other people’s medical and psychological issues are not nearly as fascinating as one’s own.

In my thriving terrarium, I placed a miniature English cottage- one of those trinkets that someone somewhere probably collects, but in my hands seems to have no origin or purpose. “Where did I get this? What do I do with it?” Too nice to toss in the trash, to useless to give away, this humble bit of clutter found meaning as a fairy house nestled among the succulents.

My favorite six-year-old immediately noticed the addition. “You put a little house in here!”

“Yes, I did!”

“What if a fairy came to live in it?”

“Do you think one might come?”

“No, because she can’t open the door.”

Ah, the yawning chasm between imagination and cold, hard facts. I had a conversation once, when I was about six, with my daddy, the parent from whom I inherited the PDD gene. A kid in the neighborhood had made the outrageous allegation that the tooth fairy was not real. He claimed he had proof. He scoffed at fairies in general and even doubted, (stopping short of complete denial), the existence of Santa Claus. Was his heresy to be believed? Had I been duped? Was the magical world of tiny, laughing, winged girls and boys singing and dancing in the flowers all a lie? It seemed that something rare, fragile, and beautiful, like Tinkerbell, was fading – hovering on the brink of death. I determined to ask my daddy. He was the smartest person I knew, an unfailing bulwark in crisis, and I was sure that he believed in fairies, because he told me stories about them. I was waiting when he pulled in the driveway and opened the door of his pickup truck.

“Are fairies real, Daddy? David says they aren’t. Not even the tooth fairy.”

What does a hard-working father do when he comes home after a long day in the gritty world of the small-town, family-owned home and auto store of the 1960’s- a real, hard world of sales tickets and credit applications, finance plans, accounts payable, and tire changes? He expects a kiss and a hot supper, but instead faces an impossible question from a tender, imaginative child who must inevitably grow up, whether he is ready or not. I am quite certain my father did not plan for this important moment. Now is all there is, you know. He answered from his heart and his own experience.

Kneeling, Daddy looked into my eyes. “Well, Debbie, fairies may be real; and they may not. But isn’t it more fun to think that they are?”

Imagination and hard facts can live happily ever after, with the right amount of water. Too much rots the roots and too little hardens the ground and withers the leaves. A lot of truth can bloom in a story, and the world of imagination is a lovely place to visit, as long as we remember where the boundaries lie and we know when it is time to come home.

“Yes, Daddy, it is more fun. And Zoe, if she can’t open the door to the fairy house, perhaps she could fly in the window.”

A Garden in a Bowl

It’s fun and easy to put together an indoor garden where imagination can play. It’s more fun (but not quite as easy) to invite friends to come over and make it a party. I made my garden at my daughter’s house as part of the entertainment at a birthday celebration. Everybody… adults, children, males, females…liked doing it, and almost a year later, many of the gardens are still alive.

Supplies: 1. Some kind of container. You may already have something that will work great, or pick one up at a craft or home decorating store. (The host of a garden-in-a-bowl party would probably want to ask guests to bring their own containers and doo-dads, but provide the rest of the supplies). 2. Sand, potting soil, pea gravel or other stones, and floral filler moss, or Spanish moss. 3. Succulent plants– many home and garden stores have a selection of interesting succulents. You won’t need many unless you are inviting a lot of people to your garden- in- a- bowl party. 4. Doo-dads to make the garden personal, fanciful and fun.

Make it: Put in a layer of sand and a layer of soil. Plant your succulents. Sprinkle a few stones around for decoration and top with clumps of moss or strands of Spanish moss. Place your doo-dads. Spray or sprinkle with a little water- not too much!

Enjoy it: Be generous with light and stingy with water- and make sure the fairies clean up after themselves.

Hello World!

Entering “Blog-World” feels like taking up residence in a foreign country.

In the ancient civilization where I grew up, interaction with the wide world was slow, limited, and usually written longhand, on paper. A set of World Book Encyclopedias and the telephone book served as our Google. The impossible-to-refold map we picked up at the gas station was our navigation system, and we learned the events of the day by reading the newspaper or watching Walter Cronkite on the console television set, in living color. In those halcyon days of typewriters, instamatic cameras, and rotary telephones, people wrote letters, with practiced penmanship, on carefully chosen stationery. They signed, sealed, and mailed them, and waited patiently for a reply. Our private lives were neither “out there,” nor did we wish them to be.

Those who live long enough find that the world changes. Communication is now constant and instantaneous. Information is infinite, if not always accurate. Thoughts leap “out there,” ready or not- and everyone joins the conversation (posting the picture they snapped a second ago). Blog is a familiar, versatile word- a noun, a verb, and adjective- (though the term is only a few years older than my dog and certainly does not appear in my World Book Encyclopedias), and blogging is something a writer-a blogger– is required to do.

A suspicious few of my generation clutch relics of our fading culture, taking pride in obstinate refusal to budge from comfortable (and therefore right) ways of interaction with the world- disdaining texts, impervious to tweets, and holding hashtags in contempt. Others embrace new technologies, or at least give them a whirl, with various levels of enthusiasm and success. Carried by currents of time, I drifted into the latter category, by increments throwing useless (though beloved) baggage overboard. I read blogs, thinking that blogging would be fun- and I determined to put the scribbling in my college-ruled notebook “out there.”

With rudimentary skill and a credit card, I navigated unfamiliar seas, gazed with fear and wonder on widening horizons, puzzled through unintelligible maps (wait, nobody uses maps anymore- they were tutorials), asked directions from a millennial, and arrived at the harbor of my new domain. Hello, Blog-World! It’s time to step out.

I have chosen to call my new territory “All Uphill.”

Though the name may sound daunting, I don’t intend to lead my friends to a steep trail, load their packs, set a hard pace, and leave them gasping for breath. I like All Uphill for a different set of reasons:

As a hiker, I prefer the uphill track. The upward trail offers possibilities, camaraderie, heart-pounding challenge, unexpected vistas, then…the grandeur of the summit! (And lunch).

As a faith-walker, following Jesus is a journey to the loftiest heights. Although the trail sometimes wanders through barren places and tests endurance, our good Guide assures us that He is leading us “all uphill,” for He is the door to the dwelling place of God.

Long ago, my dad clipped a poem by an unknown author from a newspaper. The words aptly expressed my optimistic, resilient, hard-working father’s philosophy, and I heard him quote it many times.

“There’s a beautiful view from the top of the hill

If you’ve but the will to climb.

There’s always a lift and a rift in the clouds

To disclose the peaks sublime.

The road may be rough, you may blow and puff

But never you mind, you’ll be scaling the bluff.

Then yours is the view from the top of the hill

If you’ve but the will to climb.”

Why settle for lowlands when the pinnacle rises ahead?

When I mentioned to friends and family that I had figured out how to create a blog and was on the cusp of becoming a blogger, some were amazed. Others were amused. A few offered congratulations. Many asked, “What are you going to write about?”

The details of my own existence are not noteworthy, even to me. I have many interests, but merely “piddle” at them. Any attempt to pick one and create a blog around it would be unsustainable and no one would read it except my sweet mother, who still believes that everything I do is remarkable. But I have lived; I have seen and done noble, reckless, creative, exciting, and stupid things- and I have experienced consequences. I enjoy a long, happy marriage, and somehow raised three hard-headed children into thoughtful, kind, super-cool adults. I have loved simple, ordinary folk who are in reality complex, extraordinary immortals, and I treasure years of friendship with compassionate, intelligent, good people. I read books. I go places. I think. I laugh. I can tell a story. So- what am I going to write about? I plan to write about life- you and me- the common trail we share. Who knows what we may encounter around the bend?

Follow the trail with me – through remembrance and imagination, observation and insight, humor and wisdom, muddling through the mundane, and reaching for a dream.

It’s all uphill!

Aunt Ann’s Snuff Box

Exceptional experiences sometimes burst out of ordinary life and leave a story behind. When older ones tell their stories, a window opens to a vanished world, and we get to peek through it with someone who walked there. Lula Byrd Renfroe Fraker, my great-grandmother, was born in 1882 and lived 107 years. On long car rides down to Jekyll Island, I got to hear many of her stories. I wish I had asked for more!

Byrd was the eighth child, and seventh daughter of Henderson and Nancy Renfroe. She was born in a log cabin in a day of tough, uncomplaining self-reliance. Pa wrestled a plow behind a mule to break up red clay, then he planted, hoed, and harvested the food they ate- or he raised and butchered it. Ma milked, churned, gathered, preserved, and cooked over the fire- stoked by logs Pa had split. She sewed all the clothes (and often sheared, washed, carded, spun, wove, and dyed the fabric first). Then she pieced quilts from the scraps. Older children helped, and looked after younger children, with the aid of a good dog, while Pa and Ma labored to keep everyone fed, clothed, and trained up in righteousness. These were days when waste and idleness were reckoned as sin.

Byrd’s sister Zora Celeste, or Zoe, was two years older, and they were a pair. Sometimes Pa sent them to mind cows in the bottoms. Sometimes they helped in the house or garden. Sometimes they played with their dolls. Byrd’s doll had a china head that Pa had bought for five cents, and a cloth body that Ma had sewed and stuffed. They walked to a one-room schoolhouse, when classes met.

Farm life followed a pattern – six days of labor and a Sabbath rest- when the family, scrubbed from a Saturday night bath, piled in the wagon and drove to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, a hub of community life. Evenings, they sat on the porch or by the fire as Pa smoked a corn cob pipe and told his stories, and they listened as Ma read the Bible. When darkness fell, the children climbed into the loft and fell asleep- but not the night Aunt Ann arrived from Texas. Nobody slept that night.

Pa had taken the wagon to fetch Ma’s sister from the train station earlier that afternoon. While he waited, heavy black clouds rolled in. When the train arrived, late, Pa loaded up the passenger, a bit unsteady from long traveling- and her bags. He hurried off, but before they passed the outskirts of town, a pouring rain set in. Deep streams of red mud filled the ruts, and Pa struggled to keep the wagon in the darkening road. His sister-in-law, on the seat beside him, evidently kept herself warm in a different way.

Long after dark, the Renfroe’s cabin door banged open and Ann Stone blew in. Fashionable clothes dripping, showy black hat with red feathers askew, teetering on the threshold, Ann was a sight- as unlike her gentle sister Nancy as anyone could be. Pa drove the horses into the barn and stayed there himself. It was a good decision.

Ann, in her mid-forties, had been married a shocking three times and had thirty thousand dollars on her, tucked here and there and sewn into her petticoats. Where she got that kind of money in 1890, nobody knew; and nobody asked, either- (or at least Byrd never found out). Ann swayed in the doorway and Nancy rushed to get her sister inside before she keeled over, unconscious.

Nancy hoped to get Ann settled before the children woke up and saw her in such a state. Changed into a clean, dry nightgown, tucked under a quilt next to her sister in the big bed, revived, but not much sobered by a cup of black coffee, Ann started singing. So much for Nancy’s hopes and whispered pleas for quiet. Byrd, Zoe, the other girls, and little Thomas, now wide awake, knowing nothing about strong drink, could not imagine what was wrong with this strange relative from far away, but they wished she would hush. Ann sang until the night was mostly gone- then she slept until the morning was mostly gone and the family had been hard at work for hours. As days passed, everyone learned that Aunt Ann had a good appetite and talked a lot, but wasn’t too handy around the farm.

One day, while Nancy and Ann were out for the afternoon, Byrd and Zoe discovered Ann’s snuff box. The more they tried to ignore it, the more curious they became. First they looked at it. Next they touched it. Then they opened it. The sisters knew of women who used snuff, but Ma didn’t think it befit a lady. The girls looked at the forbidden snuff, and then at each other, wondering. They agreed that with Ma away and the cabin empty, nobody would ever know if they tried a pinch. I don’t know if they dipped or sniffed, but the effect was unexpected disaster. Snuff spilled all over the floor. Although they managed to sweep the evidence under the bed, Byrd and Zoe were so sick when their mother returned, there was no doubt what they had been into. Ann thought it hilarious. Nancy did not.

When Ann’s visit ended, she took her snuff box and every penny of her thirty thousand dollars. To thank her sister for her trouble, Ann left her stylish, though now weather-beaten, red-feathered hat for Nancy to wear.

I know what happened to Nancy. Widowed and blind in her later years, she lived to the age of eighty, satisfied with her life and looking forward to the coming kingdom, beloved and tenderly cared for by her children and grandchildren. I can merely wonder what happened to Ann Stone, a gaudy, mysterious, wild bird in the family tree. She flew back to Texas, I suppose, where I hope she eventually came to a good end. How I would have liked to hear the stories of these two sisters who were raised on the same big farm in Monticello, Georgia, but whose girlhoods and expectations were upended by war. They doubtless loved one another, but took divergent paths in the smoking ruins of their young lives, and had little regard for the world the other built.

Almost a century later, Byrd would relate a child’s understanding of her aunt’s memorable visit, ending her story with a smile. “I never wanted snuff again…and Ma never did wear that ugly old hat.”

The Renfroes- 1907. Byrd and Zoe are next to each other in the second row, far left. Byrd is holding her baby. Their husbands (who were brothers) are standing behind them.