My Little Loquat  January 8, 2017

Today, the earth’s upper crust is frozen, as is the air above it, and the trees, flowers. All growth springing from the mother’s womb stands at attention unable to continue the ease of flow ordinary to life. The leaves on my loquat tree are covered in ice particles left from last evening’s snow flurries that came and went in a way synonymous with the category of white falling flakes.

Enough of a flurry to frost the earth and plants with a glistening reflection reminding this day that yesterday, it snowed. Today, though, the ice remains in play to thwart any mention of fluidity. My loquat tree has grown about as tall as I am but not without a struggle. Today, its leaves are bent with ice. Icicles drip from some, hanging on to the very tip like tears waiting to complete their descent but unable to let loose. Little stalactites bound to relent eventually as one natural pull or another causes their demise. My loquat, too, may have to relent to nature. It’s given life a good shot for about five years. 

Here’s my loquat’s story. She’s a transplant from Montgomery’s slightly warmer and decidedly more humid climate. She sprang from the ground beside her mother on Thorn Place where my mother lived for about fifty years. I spent my formidable years there from age ten to 21 when I married and left home. I have roots there, though. Deep ones, as did my loquat tree.  

The mother tree came from another family home, this one a great deal older. The ancestral mansion, of sorts, was built in 1828 in newly developing Montgomery, Alabama. Fig trees, pomegranate, magnolias, banana shrubs and loquat trees covered the grounds providing not only lush foliage of diverse greens and shapes, but succulent fruits from many. As years passed and  centuries changed, the once lovely wooden home fell into disrepair and the only remaining bastion , my grandmother “Nannie”, was unable to maintain the homestead. It had to be sold. The historic preservationists had little money to offer in the way of compensation if my grandmother chose to donate it for history’s sake. She simply couldn’t afford that option. It had to be sold. It had to be demolished to make way for modern times—a parking lot. Ugh! Nannie moved into my parents’ home on Thorn Place. Some of the old furnishings, portraits, china, silver came with her, but much was disseminated between her offspring and other family members. Needless to say, the day the house went down, so did my grandmother. 

Along with Nannie and a few reminders of the old days and home came some seedlings from the old trees. Among them, three loquat trees, a magnolia, one pomegranate, and one fig. The pomegranate eventually died, but not before producing a bounty of fruit I enthusiastically popped open, eating each red seed with gusto. The after-effect of consistent blackened fingers from the fruit never kept me from one more, and then another. Maybe the sight of the bundled, red seeds in lively clusters from each newly opened fruit gave me as much pleasure as the actual eating of the tart little morsels.  I love them to this day.  The fig tree grew well and produced, but the ubiquitous squirrels and birds feasted on most of the fruit before any human could get to it. The magnolia grew by leaps and bounds and soon filled a corner on the front yard on Thorn Place. The loquats flourished, all three and produced more tangy, small fruits that were a delicacy in my book of favorites. We fought the indigenous wildlife for a small crop each year. Eventually, they quit producing fruit, but held high their heads as they continued branching out and skyward. The three grew side by side. Eventually, my mother, the last inhabitant of Thorn Place, died at age 85.  Thorn Place was sold along with the trees.

Two years passed and I never set foot back on the grounds of my Thorn Place home until one day when I was visiting my brother and his family who happened to live across the street from our family home. The house was vacant again. I decided to walk the familiar path around the house, the path my brothers and I had walked many, many times as children and adolescents. It all felt so familiar: the windows; the mossy bricks of the old patio where I once salted (more appropriately assaulted) slugs as they slowly slimed along leaving behind a silvery trail; the old millstone out back brought from the ancestral home downtown; the loquat trees. Beside the three tall healthy trees were some tiny seedlings  shadowed but trying to find room beneath their parents. I dug up one. It was probably a foot tall, best. I transported her back to Birmingham, knowing her chances of survival were slim in the northern climate a hundred miles north. The loquat, categorized as sub-tropical, originated in China, but has been indigenous to Japan for over 1000 years. It’s often called the Japanese plum. In the 18th century, Europeans brought loquats to the new country from Japan for use as ornamentals. Today, California’s southern coastal plains offer a good climate in the USA, as do parts of Florida. 

The odds were not in my favor. But the desire over-ruled. I planted her in a pot and set her in the sun for her first summer in a new land. She perked right up and began to sprout fresh leaves. The winter rolled around, as usual, and I decided to keep her potted for at least that winter. She thrived indoors placed by a glass-windowed door until spring. By then, she may have reached two-feet. My next big risk—I planted her. Front and center in my yard.  I observed her in awe and appreciation that summer and watched her bloom with vigor. Two new limbs and bountiful leaves all curled open revealing more of the loquat’s characteristic appendages layered with a slight fuzz coating to counteract the severity of long pointed leaves.  By the end of that summer, she was at least 3 feet tall and proudly so. Me too. I loved watching her grow and told her story to any neighbor or friend who cared (or didn’t) to hear.  

Along came another inevitable winter. She was on her own. Out there in the cold. And then a snow was announced. I quickly googled “How to protect a loquat from a freeze” and found enough info to allow some protection for my little tree.  I built a two layered tent out of clothe and plastic and staked it around her. Inside it, I place boiling hot water to keep her warm and moist, and hopefully not frozen.  It worked!  I worked like a farmer protecting his crop from an invasion of locusts. That pan was filled more times than I can remember, but she stayed warm throughout the storm. She made it, save a few burned bottom leaves, through that winter!

Another summer and she grew at least a foot higher and two feet wider.  An another winter came and went and still she flourished.  One more summer and she took off. No fruit, but my loquat tree lived!

Presently, she stands five feet-four, just like me.  Only a few days ago, even though it’s January, I noticed more new leaves curling up from the top of her. She is tenacious from the roots upward. The weather changed drastically two days ago. The temperature dropped to far below freezing. The snow fell. The temperature remains around 15 degrees.  I had no way to protect her from this. It’s make-it or break-it time.  A remnant of snow ices her leaves. She is ever so still. The wind only causes a slight sway from her. She’s a stalwart, but even the strongest can only take so much. She’s given me all I could ask of her, and then some. She has ice in her veins today. That’s not what I would have planned for her, or wanted. All I can do now is wait until the sun shines and the temperatures rise to see if she remains able to continue being my little loquat tree. I’ve loved her tenderly. 5’4 is good enough, though.

Southern Bypass Comes to Life

Recently, my husband had shoulder replacement.
I'd heard the recovery would be tough, long, and would require lots of help from someone, like me. I knew I would be pretty near home and antsy for at least a month as I tended the recovering Don and his new shoulder. What would I do with all that at-home time? The answer was, "Finish your book, Southern Bypass."
 I had let it lie fallow for a year and a half with a copy on a disc and one in my computer. Its destiny was incomplete until I found a way to get it into the hard copy I'd originally planned  in the process of covering these long trails. My goal for my nursing free -time was set. But how?
About the time of the surgery, I happened to be in a group of  friends who gather regularly to discuss life and philosophy. One of the women is a life coach who has just published a book, Inspired and Prosperous. She told me about a self-publisher she had used, one that allowed lots of leeway in editing, assistance if wanted, and at the end,  a hard copy edition made available on Amazon. Create Space is the on-line company I immediately investigated.  I needed that missing piece of the puzzle and there it was, right on time. I had my publisher and way to accomplish my goal. I could get the seven copies I wanted to give my grandchildren and I had the time to do the final editing.
Having said that, I have completed the book and have it on Amazon. It has mistakes. There's a period in the middle of a sentence. There's a period beside an exclamation mark. And I'm sure a myriad more. But it's done and I worked hard to get it to this place. It's been a four year project, maybe five counting the hours I put into dusting letters and sorting documents. Was it worth it?
Yes. For me, yes. Eventually, for my grandchildren and children, maybe. My daughter has read part of it as she helped in proofing a copy and she told me she feels like she knows my grandmother, Nannie, for the first time. And likes her! Nannie would love that, and she would have loved Meriwether.   I had the same reaction as my daughter throughout the unraveling of my ancestors' lives. I got to know them and understand them. So,yes. It was a worthwhile effort if only for me. However, I sense congratulations from the women whose lives I covered in this chronicle. When I pass my great-great grandmother's  portrait,  I'm almost certain I see a slight nod of approval and a tiny wink of an eye.

Dismantling Curio Case

January 1, 2012. I haven't been active on this posting procedure for quite some time. Here I go again with a new year and new perspective. Well, not entirely new. But a re-vision of some things I've learned to accept and now find weariness as an attachment to them. For instance, the curio case of curious objects tethered to me for over 40 years. The thing is, I never wanted to be a curator of antiquities. These curios have been with me in this odd antique make-shift case for my entire adult life. Do we sometimes accept what's with us just because we blindly forget to re-visit if in fact we actually have to continue the relationship? Well, I have done just that with this parcel of curios I've packed, unpacked, packed, unpacked, etc. for way more times than I can count. And the truth is, I don't think I really like much of the stuff at all. They might be museum pieces. I don't want to host a museum in my house. I really want space and freedom from the old stuff. Here in 2012, I'm beginning by packing away the abundance of oddities. The snuff box that belong to my great-grandmother's grandfather, Hugh Dunlap. The eyeglasses, though quaint, stare at me with a longing look to be elsewhere. The broken porcelain pitcher. The lowestoft Chinese importware.The DAR brochures that belonged to my great-great grandmother. The Civil War relics. I know. Keep the old, but embrace the new. One is silver. The other gold. I don't want to throw it all away. I just want it out of my way. Out of my path so I can live more uncluttered in the present. I've been attempting the break for some time now and incrementally have succeeded. I take yet another step in breaking the bonds that, for me, hold me captive to ages past. My interest lies in the present and what each moment therein can teach me, offer me, usher me toward. In not making any specific resolutions for 2012, I have found answers already and unsolicited guidance into a new year. I look forward to the mystery of this year. So I'll pack away, carefully, the items I've cherished and protected for years. I'll save them and hope they won't be a burden to those who find them and might want to place them in another curio case. Perhaps I should rethink the destiny of these treasures before I pass on to my children and grandchildren an inheritance they might one day want to destroy or declare as a plague or menace. Maybe they'll be wiser than I and find a home outside their own home. Or maybe they'll toss these things into a futuristic dumpster and be done. I keep wishing for a voice from above to guide me in the choices I make regarding the future of these antiquities. I'm looking for the old bird who popped down from above and spoke clearly to Groucho Marks with a word of wisdom like,  "Send these to me."  For now, I'll go with the voice that said to me, "pack it in and move on". The space in my hall will be wonderfully, refreshingly empty soon.

Oil on the Road

When I was three or four, my parents began our annual pilgrimage down Highway 331 heading to "the coast", they called it. I've been heading like a lemming back to the beaches along the Gulf coast ever since and have a deep, soulful attachment to them and all they signify and embrace. Through the years, I've rented places in Panama City Destin, Pensacola, Ft. Walton, Navarre, Perdido Key, Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, and Ft. Morgan. I took my children there. They take theirs. I can't count the people I know who have followed 331 or I 65 down to the glorious beach along Alabama's and Florida's coastline.

About ten years ago, my husband to be and I bought a townhome at the very end of the Ft. Morgan peninsula and I considered it my home. We swung back and forth between Birmingham and Ft.  Morgan like yo-yos, but I stayed for longer periods since I could work from there and watch the Gulf and nature thrive before me. The Gulf was spitting distance from our deck and I adored it.

My husband, Don, ritualistically heralded the pelicans with a resounding "Hey Boys!"as they flew in a constant elegance of soaring or death-threatening plummets to catch their daily dose of sustenance. We marveled at their skill, their aim, their success. We watched the gulls salute the wind as they stood in a military formation, the general at the front leading the chorus of adulation to their home. The almost extinct skimmers, usually flying in twos, skimmed the margin of the shore barely allowing their bottom long pointed bill to scrap along the water's edge in search of food.

I danced with the waves, watched them dance in sync to The Nutcracker's Suite. We watched their anger as storms aggravated their normal ebb and flow. We puzzled over the myriad of sand crabs who scooted in rapid side crawls from one hole to the next, stopping only to gaze with their popped eyes on stems at us, the intruders lounging above their labyrinth of tunnels beneath the sand. We wondered how they came back after a hurricane that had left the sand flattened and bare, all holes barred. But they came back as did much of what was destroyed during those storm.

The dolphin never failed to perform in front of our townhome. Because we were near the mouth of the bay, they came and went with a constancy that spoiled us. We watched them circle their young ones tossing the baby dolphin into the air where the acrobat performed like a jubilant kid in a pool.  We saw tandem jumps by the graceful creatures more than we could count. I swam with them. I paddled out on a raft to be near them and I was exhilarated beyond belief or words. My best birthday brought me the gift of double dolphin jumping under a double rainbow. What a gift!

Each time I arrived to that place, my thin space in an arena so full of life, I felt resurrected, washed in the balm of Gilead. From the salt air, to the soft sand, to the gorgeous expanse of water always changing,  each of  those things were elements that welcomed me  home.

How can I not but feel the deepest sadness over what is happening to that sacred place? I am only one voice in a sea of depressed lives, human and otherwise. We are all connected, in my view.
We don't have our place any more but I've missed it like crazy. It's still a part of me. The coast is a part of me. And my soul grieves over this tragedy.

Woodlawn Gains Postive Energy

A segment from my book, Southern Bypass, mentions Woodlawn, a community at the core of Birmingham's earliest days. Once thought to be the residential area on the rise, Woodlawn has crumbled through the years. Poverty is prevalent, schools are disheveled and malfunctioning, and there is little to lift the spirits of the small community's residents.  But the foundation has maintained its integrity, though difficult to see in its decline.

The community is getting attention these days. A thrift store "55th Place" is packed with anything from suitcases to pillows to linens, furniture, and clothes for any size, age, or gender. The vast merchandise is supplied by donations and the store is run by volunteers.

The small Episcopal church in the area, Grace, has a core congregation of people who care and are willing to put their concern to work. Recently, a home next door to the quintessential church building was bought and is being turned into a home for homeless Veterans in the area, some 500 I was told.

A young couple, both writers, have bought an abandoned pharmacy and are converting it into a tutoring center with a tropical flare that should attract passersby to investigate the apparent activities happening inside. Elizabeth and Chip Brantley are also offering their assistance in any possible way to Woodlawn High School and are recruiting volunteers to further their vision of creating a love of writing in students young and old in the area.

Had I not read the letters from a family friend who wrote from Woodlawn in 1889 and spoke about the thriving community with such ardor, I might not have such a keen interest now in the resurrection attempts I see. Where there is this kind of passion, there are sure to be rewards, even if in small increments.  I'm encouraged, and frankly, am interested in jumping on the bandwagon in some capacity. These people who have vision and energy to create new life are the catalyst for the change Woodlawn has needed and deserves.

This is a PS since I'm writing it three days later. It's important, though. The YWCA of Central Alabama has invested $11 million in Woodlawn, building a shelter and renovating a huge apartment building. They are looking for other building to renovate. A local church has opened a Health Center and a private school is expanding into a renovated church building making way for more than the 250 previously enrolled students. People are beginning to opt for housing in the area in hopes of spawning further community growth. These are even bigger signs of the positive energy attempting to divert and disperse the negative lifestyle of a community with a good heartbeat.

The Old Town Lives

Late yesterday afternoon, I sat outside under a large covered dining area with a couple of friends, had a glass of wine listening to an acoustic guitar and pleasant singer, and enjoyed looking across the street at lovely old architecture, cleaned and occupied. There was such life, such energy along the street, people passing, cars looking for spaces to park among the many cars already landed there. A horse driven carriage with plumed horse trotted by. A trolley turned the corner and let people out, and picked up waiting ones. Around the corner on the river, a minor league baseball team played in the state of the arts field where a large crowd of fans gathered. We walked across the street to another new bar, dining area, where my friend showed me "the shot room", photographic in the way the bottles are placed in square cubicles in an icy cold room where shots are served in ice jiggers. This was "The Alley Bar", another popping place for 6 in the evening. Then we strolled down the alley behind the main street and looked at the many lofts with balconies and plants and umbrellas, all tucked on top the old renovated buildings. Another stop at a ZaZa's Pizza for delicious pizza and another full house of others who were enjoying the downtown experience of my hometown.  Yes.  Montgomery.

Montgomery is changing! My brother, Charles, gives a lot of credit to the new mayor, Todd Strange (he went to Montevallo with my good friend, Andrea, and me).

 They now run the trolley between downtown and Old Cloverdale and Maxwell on an hourly basis.  They are "redecorating" the corridor between Maxwell and downtown and the entire downtown is going through a facelift. The same is being done from the Capital Heights corridor to town.  What is so nice is the integrity of what still stands of the old town remains visible and is showcased by the innovations.  You will be totally surprised as I was yesterday when I visited Charles and Sheila. My nephew won a literary award for his essay on Retinitis Pigmentosa, his disease which ultimately leads to blindness. It was just an incredible, unforgettable afternoon and I wanted to share a special time with my old Montgomery friends.

May we meet by the river one day soon.

Missie

Learning from the Past

      Well, I thought I had ended. Seems not.
Soon, though, I’ll embark on my next voyage. Now the women--from Margaret Lynn Lewis, to Jane Strother Lewis, to Elizabeth Lewis Gilmer, to Sophie Gilmer Bibb, to Martha Dandridge Bibb, to Susanna Dunlap Porter Bibb, to Mattie Gilmer Bibb Edmondson, to Deane Jones Edmondson, to me—we all go our separate ways, but we don’t really separate at all. I could be trapped in this intense montage if some degree of exfoliation didn’t occur as a natural process. If I refused to learn from the amazing parade of unleashed spirits how to live better in the present, or how to better appreciate the past, I could be encased in lifeless cells. I opt for renewal.

       Before I do leave, I’ll retire “the box”. Maybe find a new home for all it has held sacred. This should be a wonderful period of relaxation. For now, I’ll pause, feel the inevitable let-down, and simultaneously, milk the satisfaction over completing this meandering journey. Then, I’ll remember how great it was to get us all together to have this heart to heart. After circling and searching for the routes that mattered, for me, for this moment, and for my family, it’s sweet to be home, Alabama. It’s also great to know the Southern Bypass awaits if I choose a rapid exit. Or re-entry.