GRITS

This entry is dedicated to my good friend Lena and all the other GRITS in my life. For those of you who don’t know, that stands for Girls Raised In The South! Lena and I were once as thick as thieves as they say, although I don’t think we ever “stole” anything, well maybe the laundry cart at Caraway, but that was really Howard, not us. We spent many hours lamenting over the lack of “real men” in Raleigh and why everything we loved to eat was not on the Weight Watchers plan (pre points). Thank God we finally found our men, but I am still a professional weight watcher. How many Snickers bars can I eat and still claim to be on a diet???

Lena is one of the few people I know that loves all kinds of music from bluegrass to Handel, and we covered it all. I still don’t know how those guys got that baby grand in your upstairs apartment! I cherish all those hours we spent singing all our favorite songs. One day we’re gonna do that again, I promise.

We had some great road trips: the beach trip where you got your feet sunburned (you know better!), the catatonic rides on the parkway, and the endless miles we logged without actually leaving Wake County! In fact, we had fun wherever we were. Who can forget my legendary “Sister Act” party? You make a great lounge singer!

Time moves on, but the feelings in our hearts remain, so even though I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age, you are never far from my thoughts. Thanks for putting a song in my heart. Love ya, miss ya, bye.

Carolina in my Mind

Last week I happened to drive through the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on the day the class of 2012 was due to arrive. The early morning sun sparkled on the freshly scrubbed campus streets and dorm windows. The student store stood with overstuffed shelves waiting patiently for the first of the wide eyed faces eager to purchase notebooks, pens, and tee shirts. I was carried back to my first small tentative steps across those brick walkways. Thirty years have passed since my brother dropped me off at the bottom of the hill of Hinton James dorm. After unloading my things he treated me to lunch at Roy Rogers where I had the first of many double “R” bar burgers. Parents with their station wagons and trailers were crowding the drop off circle making parking difficult, so we said our goodbye as quickly as pulling off a band-aid. The sting was no less sharp. I watched through watery eyes as his car disappeared in to the curve of Manning Drive.

My journey to Chapel Hill had started at least a year prior to my arrival. Those steps were sure and swift, a contrast to the tip toes of my first days on campus. Modern young women find our stories hard to believe. I have never thought of myself as a liberated woman, yet I have struggled to maintain my identity as an individual in a world of female stereotypes. The demarcation between traditionalist and feminist was blurry in the seventies. I wanted to be a journalist, but most of all; I wanted to leave my father’s house as quickly as possible. My father thought I should get a job as a clerk at the local Winn Dixie. He felt education was wasted on girls because they should focus on finding husbands and raising children, and he forbade me to pursue college. Self preservation and indignation rose up in a stormy duet surging me to defiance. I would find a way to leave his town, his house, his tyranny. I made my own way, without any help from him. In retrospect, I don’t know from where that strength of character came, but come it did, and I found myself alone, sitting in a tiny dorm room waiting for my roommate and my life to begin.

Was it yesterday or thirty years ago? Every step that I have taken since depended on those first steps toward independence and adulthood. My life is forever tinted “Carolina Blue”.

August 19, 2008
CARPE DIEM
I have no children, nor am I a student, yet today in Target, I was mysteriously drawn to the rows of school supplies. In a flash I had placed a brand new, spiral bound notebook in my cart. So now, I have a red notebook with one hundred sheets of clean, unmarred paper, college ruled at that. I remember the notebooks from my adolescense. Balloon letters announcing my BFF or favorite band decorated the back cover, but somewhere deep inside on one of the cardboard dividers would be the name of my secret crush, usually a name like Chipper or Butch. Who knows where they are now?
An empty notebook holds the tender hopes of a new school year, a chance to make better choices. When the school year is over and the notebook filled, we have a different view. We’ve completed a course, grown a little, sometimes a lot, and we’ve filled the empty pages with life. This notebook will be no different. I have plans for the pages and the days they represent. Some days, like today, I will be serious and moody. Other days, I’ll use the pages to plan vacations and parties, making lists of clothes to pack and recipes to cook.
I need the promises of fresh days that clean pages bring. Recently, a friend of ours killed himself. We have been tangled in inane but necessary details, moving numbly through paperwork, police investigations, and funeral services. Everyday we look at each other and ask “why?”. Sometimes in the afternoon of August 8th, Jeff Cartee chose to leave this world. None of us will ever know why on this side of heaven. He was a great guy, funny, a prankster. Someone who loved life, but recently he had had some health issues—debilitating headaches so severe he was forced to leave his chaplain post and return to civilian duty. At 7:15 am on the morning he died, he sent an email containing his resume to our director of missions. He was considering a pastoral position, but later that day something happened that so overwhelmed him that he simply gave up on life. My heart aches with the heaviness of despair and hopelessness he must have felt. When I see him in heaven, and I will see him, I want to look into his face and say, “Jeff, what were you thinking? We love you, we miss you. Why couldn’t we help?”
So today as I begin to fill the crisp pages of my new red notebook, I am determined to fill my life with people and actions that count. We often never know the physical pain or mental anguish that challenges our friends and family. We must use each day to demonstrate love, to live our lives as if this were our last day on earth. Carpe diem, sieze the day!
Thanks for the memories, Jeff, I’ll see you on the other side!