Nearest Distant Shore

Happy Poetry Month

I'm in just under the wire, but April has been National Poetry Month.  Pratie (who always has something fun and amazing up at Pratie Place) posted two wonderful poems by poet laureate Billy Collins and that got me thinking about the whole subject of poets and poetry.  I don't read much poetry, much to the chagrin of my sister, who in addition to having a lit degree is a fine poet herownself.  So in celebration of poetry month, I will share two of my favorite poems by Tracy (she of tracyradio fame).  Enjoy!

I am
a poet and a priestess
mother daughter sister whore
a swimmer under water
a fast walker when ashore
pounds of pennies in my pocket
the bluff that never folds
a noticer of beauty
all silver and no gold

a barefoot crone slam dancing
on truth’s fine and hollow edge
going grey in battered blue jeans
singing loudly on the ledge

out of date and still in tune
cause I know all the words
a nesting empty nester
I fence with time’s broadsword

I am
nosy and noisy
obnoxiously opinionated
a silent watcher at the gates
of rain and shadow and snow
and birds in leafless trees
of suns thundering past and the breeze

starry night gleam in my daddy’s halo
crabapple tears from my mama’s eye
metal magnolia blooming every year
the product and sum of all my fears

a mirror measuring too many men
a mockingbird in too many hands
the rocking horse who drank upstream
magic realized and never seen

I am
a timely stitch piercing the side
of the Savior Divine
a wreckage of mended parts
a chip off the chopping block
a rhymer of riddles
with no answers for free
I am
a poet and a priestess
still the home sweet home I plan to be

the summer bobby died

the summer bobby kennedy died
barefoot hippies invaded city lake
to us they seemed as harmless
as the fishing we did there
with our pillsbury biscuit dough bait

i was seven

the summer bobby kennedy died
i almost drowned at the beach
my daddy moved out
it was the summer before the second grade
and i learned to swim

father’s day, first day of vacation
when daddy hauled me out
i was blue and he was damn near dead
aunt dot fetched the lifeguard
everybody thought i was dead too
til i bit his finger

i only remember
swirling in the ocean
screaming for daddy
for mommy
for help
swallowing salt water
with every plea

i wasn’t allowed in the ocean again that year
and when we went home
it was to a new house
and my daddy didn’t live there

he saved my life
and later all he would talk about
was that sonofabitch standing near me
as the wave lifted me up
pointing and saying there she is
but not lifting another finger
to help

nobody saved bobby’s life

and when we asked mommy
when daddy would be home
for dinner
she said
he’s not coming home

she was lying on the couch crying
just a little pregnant
with the little sister
who would bring daddy back

by then
i was in a new school
bobby was dead
and buried with his brother
liberty justice hope
and the democrats

we couldn’t afford the county fair that fall
had to buy a new refrigerator
we blamed it on johnson and high taxes
and we elected nixon
and my daddy got pneumonia
and fell headfirst into the bathtub
gave himself a concussion

one rainy groundhog sunday
after the inauguration
granny took us to see
The Horse In the Grey Flannel Suit
while my sister was being born
by then i was eight
and i could swim

and granny brought over our first phonograph
and 45s of Harper Valley PTA
and Last Train to Clarksville
and i dreamed i was gidget
or a boxcar child
or ben franklin

we moved to a bigger house
and signed petitions to
free Lt. Calley
and lost a second cousin in Vietnam
and daddy’s daddy died
three years
after turning the firehoses on
civil rights marchers

he outlived bobby
and saw johnson fall
and voted for nixon
the first republican
he ever voted for
and the last

they made me kiss him in the casket
and we sang for the love of jesus
in his all white baptist church
and we pledged allegiance
to our almost all white schools
liberty and justice for all like us

and the summer after the summer
bobby kennedy died
i swam in the whites only pool
and my daddy taught us to bodysurf the ocean
then moved out again

the summer after the summer bobby died
it was the summer before the third grade
and i was eight
and i could swim

Friday iTunes Random Ten

Shamelessly stolen from verbatim.  I didn't even cheat and skip the one I don't like.

1. Crazy He Calls Me-Billie Holiday
2. I Can't Turn You Loose-Otis Redding
3. Heavenly Bodies-Earl Thomas Conley
4. Since the Last Time-Lyle Lovett
5. I'll Be Around-the Spinners (my favorite song in 9th grade)
6. Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing-Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell
7. Girl-the Beatles
8. Green Rolling Hills-Emmylou Harris
9. Bernadette-the Four Tops
10. Help Me Make it Through the Night-Willie Nelson

What are you listening to today as the weekend kicks off?

Tarheel Tavern Time

This week's Tarheel Tavern, the North Carolina blog carnival, is being hosted by our favorite lenslinger at Viewfinder Blues.  Stop by and see what my fellow Tarheels are up to this week.  Links to carnivals one through nine can be found at the Tarheel Tavern's homepage.

Music Fun!

This was spotted over at Ficken Chingers:

Copy this list. Leave in the bands you've seen perform live. Delete the ones you haven't and add new ones that you have seen until you reach 25. An asterisk means the previous person had it on their list. Two asterisks means the last two people who did this before you had that band on their list.

1. Aretha!
2. Dave Matthews Band*
3. Willie Nelson
4. Loverboy*
5. Emmylou Harris
6. Bonnie Raitt
7. John Mellencamp
8. Eric Clapton
9. Little Feat
10. Waylon Jennings
11. The Del McCoury Band
12. Alison Krauss and Union Station
13. Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
14. Jimmy Buffett
15. The Allman Brothers Band
16. Steve Earle
17. Wilco
18. Social Distortion
19. KISS
20. Van Halen (with David Lee Roth AND Sammy Hagar; this could count for two)
21. Elton John
22. Dwight Yoakam
23. Little Texas*
24. Corrosion of Conformity
25. Public Enemy

Who made your list?

More Fun with Diabetes

I've always been an insomniac.  Becoming a parent did not improve the condition, but it has given it some new twists.  New babies are not conducive to lots of uninterrupted sleep, but they do nap a lot, so I learned that the tried-and-true advice to "sleep when the baby sleeps" worked well for us.  Many late afternoons would find me fast asleep on the sofa with Liam asleep on my shoulder.

When Liam was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2001, my definition of a good night's sleep was changed forever.  A good night's sleep became a night where I only had to get up once, and Liam's blood sugar was where it needed to be.  Often in those early days that wasn't the case, of course.   We were still tweaking his insulins to make sure he was covered the best he could be, and it was an inexact science at best. 

Middle-of-the-night highs meant a shot.  He was so small that it didn't take much insulin to bring him down, and there were times when we overshot the mark, so to speak.  That meant a fun-filled night of checking his sugar every hour or so to make sure that he didn't crash.  Of course, other nights he was too low, and I would have to get him out of bed and feed him.  Those nights were ugly-he didn't want to eat, he wanted to sleep, and I was the insane person thwarting that.  The next time you want to make sure you don't get any sleep, wake a sleeping toddler and force him to eat peanut butter crackers.  Good times, I tell you.

His most recent insulin regimen has freed me from the tyranny of middle-of-the-night checks.  Now he gets a shot of Lantus at 7:00 AM, Novolog to cover his meals and one last shot, this time of NPH, at around 10:00 PM to cover him through the night.  This is working very well for him right now (knock wood, spit, turn around three times), and it's working just as well for me, because now I can sleep through the night.  Since NPH peaks six to eight hours after injection, that falls right in the time frame when Sweetie is up and getting ready for work.  Everybody wins.

Until last night.  Last night, when I foolishly handed Sweetie a syringe filled with Lantus and he gave Liam his usual morning dose--at 10:00.  And it didn't even register with me until midnight, when it hit me like a freight train and I grabbed a juice box and flew into Liam's room to check him.

In the space of that two hours his previously too-high blood sugar had dropped by 50% and it dropped 50% more within the next two hours, even after drinking a juice box.  My poor little guy had to get up at 2:30 and eat Nabs and drink chocolate milk.  Which, of course, made him swing in the other direction and wake up too high.  Sigh.

I made the Executive Mommy Decision to keep him home today so that I could keep an eye on him, Sweetie decided to take the day, too and since we were all up at 5:30, I sat and chewed my nails until I could talk with my lifeline, his CDE, to confirm my thoughts on how to handle his insulin needs for the next 24 hours. 

M is wonderful-I truly don't know how I would have navigated these treacherous waters for the past 3 1/2 years without her caring help.  Not only is she a fabulous RN-CDE, she's a parent, and she has helped me as much in that capacity as in her professional one, and this morning was no exception.  I know that too much insulin + excessive physical activity = bigass crash, and I was afraid that with all the hoopla at school (today they're having their Field Day) that he could crash before anyone noticed that he was droopy.  So that's the main reason I kept him at home today, even though I felt a little silly and overreactive for doing so.  But M said I did exactly the right thing and that she would have done the same.  Go, me!

She also helped me feel a little less stupid for having mixed up his insulins.  Well, not really.  I still feel stupid, just less alone, now that I know that most parents of children with diabetes have done it at least once.  She said that with this being the first time I've ever done it, I may have even set a record (again, go, me!). 

And thankfully Liam gets the best of all possible outcomes.  He gets a morning spent watching cartoons while playing hookey with his daddy, then he gets to spend the night with his grandparents.  Sometimes things work out just fine, despite my best efforts to screw them up.

Past Life

"I do not know how you feel about it, but you were female in your last earthly incarnation. You were born somewhere around territory of modern Jugoslavia approximately on 1250. Your profession was chemist, alchemist, poison manufacturer.

"Your brief psychological profile in that past life: You were sane practical person, materialist with no spiritual consciousness. Your simple wisdom helped weaker and poor.

"Lesson that your last past life brought to present: Your lesson -- to conquer jealousy and anger in yourself and then in those, who will select you as their guide. You should understand that these weaknesses are caused by fear and self-regret."

Who were you?

Because I Like Kristina

I've seen this floating around for the last couple of weeks and had managed to dodge it til now, but Kristina caught me.  Now y'all will know about my shamefully low-brow reading habits. 

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?  I suppose that I should hang my head in shame, but I've never read it. If this means which book do I want to save, that would be Goodnight, Moon, for all the happy memories it brings me. Liam is six years old, and he still drags it out occasionally for me to read it to him, even though he could very well read it to me (and truly, we can both recite it without looking anyway).

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?  Rhett Butler, of course, was first. Ponyboy Curtis in The Outsiders, which I must have read a million times as a young teenager.  Travis McGee.  Currently I'm pretty fond of JW Jackson, who is the protagonist in Philip R. Craig's Martha's Vineyard series.

The last book you bought is:  I almost never buy books for myself; I'm much too cheap. Honestly, I don't think I've bought a book since Christmas, when I sent my sister Jon Stewart's America (The Book):  A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction.  I did get a gift card for my birthday and I've earmarked it for gods in Alabama if I can ever get my happy ass down to Bristol Books.

The last book you read: Sharyn McCrumb's St. Dale, a wonderfully funny story of a Canterbury Tales-esque pilgrimage, NASCAR style. I saw it at the library and didn't even look at the dust jacket beyond her name, just grabbed it; she's one of my favorite authors.

What are you currently reading? A medical mystery by Neil McMahon called To the Bone. It's very good, and next up I have Robert Crais' newish Elvis Cole, which makes me very happy.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

Boat Building for Dummies, of course

Pat Conroy's love song to the Carolina coast, The Prince of Tides. I read it every spring (and I'm overdue this year).  If you ever think your family is dysfunctional, spend a little time with the Wingos.

The fattest poetry anthology on the planet

Ditto fairytales

A big fat blank book for my own writing

I'm going to skip the last question [Who are you going to pass this stick to (three persons) and why?], because I think I'm the last person in the known universe to have done this meme, but if I'm mistaken about that, take it and run with it and come back and leave a link. 

The Gospel of Sunday Dinner

It's always a happy day here on the Carolina coast when a new Oxford American lands in my mailbox, and this week's arrival of the first-ever OA Southern food issue was no exception (and if you've never heard of OA, you can read where I've previously waxed rhapsodic about its many delights).  I've been taking my time with this one, because now that OA has gone to publishing only quarterly, it's a long time between issues.  But even if another one was coming next week, it would seem wrong to race through this particular issue.  Great writing about great food should be savored like Sunday dinner at Grandma's house, not gulped like a Big Mac eaten in the car on the way to your kid's soccer game.

It's entirely fitting that OA, being "the Southern magazine of good writing," should devote an entire issue to Southern food.  Other than music (and humidity), I can think of nothing else that so clearly defines the South.  I know that in some less enlightened circles it's de rigeur to dismiss Southern food as nothing more than fatback and overcooked vegetables, but that is ignorance, plain and simple.  Even if we were to leave aside the beauty of barbecue (which, no matter what they tell you elsewhere, is ALWAYS pork and has no tomatoes or mustard in the sauce), is there any food in the world that can compare to fried chicken?  Browned and crispy on the outside, moist and tender on the inside, its flavor might just be the very essence of the South. 

I can remember very few Sunday dinners of my childhood that didn't feature a platter of fried chicken in pride of place on the table.  Surrounding it were bowls of freshly-picked vegetables, an amazing array that could include tiny green butterbeans, snap beans; yellow squash sauteed with onions, sweet corn, sliced cucumbers in vinegar, fried okra, field peas, and delicious creamed potatoes, so buttery and creamy that they didn't even need gravy (not that that ever stopped us).  And there was always, always a plate of tomatoes, thickly sliced and still warm from the sun; deviled eggs on a cut-glass egg platter, their tops red with paprika; silver baskets of fresh hot biscuits and gallons of strong, sweet tea served from a Fostoria pitcher.

After all that, there was still dessert.  The warm smooth creaminess of banana pudding, the 'Nilla wafers still retaining a little crunch.  Hot peach cobbler with homemade vanilla ice cream melting on top, all the goodness of summer contained in one bowl.  Lemon pie, its tart coolness hiding under a sky-high cloud of meringue.

In my memory, it's always summertime on those long-ago Sundays.  I can hear the slam of the screen door; the lazy conversation of my uncles sitting around the table, too food-stunned to move; the clear bell tones of my aunts from the kitchen as they moved in the perfectly choreographed ancient dance of putting the kitchen to rights; the laughter and shrieks from my sister and brother and cousins involved in another endless game of tag in the backyard; the creak of the glider on the front porch as I settled in beside my Granny.  That's the soundtrack of my childhood, and I can hear it as clearly as if I were still in the middle of it whenever I hear those two simple words, fried chicken.

Remembering Miss Eudora

I've spent some time this morning trying to write about Eudora Welty, who was born on this date in 1909.  I find that although I have great respect for her as both a writer and photographer, everything that I've written sounds like an overwrought freshman composition.  So instead of inflicting that on the world at large, I'll just direct y'all to go read Mark Childress' wonderful remembrance of her life, written after her death in 2001 at the age of 92.

And if perhaps, due to some inexplicable (and tragic) gap in your literary education, you've never read any of her work, please rectify that situation as quickly as possible.  You can start by reading what is arguably her most famous short story, Why I Live at the P.O., then take yourself off to your local library or independent bookseller (or surf over to Amazon or Powell's or Barnes and Noble, if you must), and choose some of her other books.  Be sure to check out her wonderful autobiography, One Writer's Beginnings, too. 

While I am am a huge admirer of her writing, I find her that her photographs appeal to me even more.  I particularly like the ones like this , which were taken during the Depression when Miss Welty worked for the Works Progress Administration.  In her capacity as a publicity agent for the WPA, she travelled all over the state of Mississippi photographing WPA projects and the people involved with them.  Many of those photos are contained in her book One Time, One Place: Mississippi in the Depression, A Snap-shot Album, published in 1971.

Although she travelled frequently, her home remained the house in Jackson, Mississippi, where she grew up.  Maybe that's what gave her work such a strong sense of place.  Though she had a uniquely Southern sensibility, she was a national treasure; not only one of the best voices of the South, but of America.

Happy Birthday, Miss Eudora.

In Which TL Joins the 21st Century

A couple of weeks ago I had to buy a new computer right.this.minute.  Not only was my monitor was giving me a lot of trouble, but I was on deadline with a dying computer, and I was racing the clock to get everything critical backed up to discs before it just kicked the bucket.  This left me with no time to comparison shop, no time to do the endless research that I do when making any major purchase.  I was Not Happy about this, because even though my computer was six years old and still running Windows 98, I was comfortable with it.

So I took my sad self to Office Depot, where I was unable to decide between what few models offered.  I felt like Goldilocks trying out beds; this one is too hard, this one is too soft, but nothing is just right.  So I went to the evil Big Box Club, where I found something I could live with for not a lot of money, even after I bought a three-year warranty, and I brought it home and set it up and installed that which was critical for the moment and made my deadlines and all was once again well in the land of TL. 

Now, two weeks later, I'm learning all about the way cool stuff that is on this computer that I've never had before.  Like the faster processor, which lets me be up and running and online in about 90 seconds.  Like the nifty little DVD viewer that lets me watch The Sopranos right here in my office, instead of having to try to find a time to watch it when Sweetie and/or Liam aren't in the room where the TV and DVD player live. 

And then there's iTunes.  Oh, how I have fallen for iTunes!  My sister, long a worshipper at the Church of Apple, bought an iPod a couple of years ago and while I thought it was a nifty little gadget, I really couldn't imagine ever wanting one for myself.  Then T started making me CDs full of songs that she was finding on iTunes.  Delfonics!  Chi-Lites!  Persuaders!  All I had to do was ask and if it was available, T would find it for me and put it on a CD with 2 dozen other songs I didn't realize I needed (but I did).

Now I don't have to ask T.  Now I can import my own stuff to my (humongous) hard drive and make my own playlists.  Now I can browse the iTunes store and spend a buck and get my very own (non-vinyl) copy of Everybody Plays the Fool, and I can sit at my computer singing it into my hairbrush, just like I did on the cheerleader bus in 1974.

It's a good thing I'll go back to work in a couple of days.  This addiction could be harder to kick than cigarettes, and besides, I gotta start saving for that iPod.