February 25, 2021
As I leave my camp in Gautier, Mississippi, there’s a sign along the road: “Your passion is waiting for your courage to catch up.” Now there is something to ponder. And in the grocery store where I stop to stock up on cabbage and apples, a woman goes by and the back of her blue T-shirt says, “We’re just a small drinking village with a fishing problem.” Then a fellow reaching for the ketchup turns, his shirt says, “My invisible friend thinks I have a real problem.” Wonder what that could be? Might as well announce our quirks.
For the road I bought one of those delicious bottles of sugary Starbucks coffee milk concoctions and opening it for a luncheon treat promptly spilled the entire thing on the upholstered side chair by my bed. So, what with one thing and another I didn’t get out of town as soon as I had planned, mopping up and all. The night before I’d spent at my friends’ in Ocean Springs, and the conversation began as soon I entered the garage with my laundry. “Do you know what a quiddly is?”
“Not sure I do,” I said.
“Well, it’s a word, I can’t remember it now, but it was an eighth grade word and my eighth grade teacher would take my head off now if I couldn’t remember what it means or how to spell it. She was Mrs…..oh, Mrs., I can’t remember her name.”
“Surely, she’s not going to take your head off now, she’s long gone.”
“Quiddly, quitterly? Oh, I hate it when I can’t remember and that teacher she’s, oh, what was her name? Maybe it will pop into my head later.
And so the evening began and while the laundry percolated in the machines, we ate delicious spaghetti carbonara, fresh collard greens and a lovely crisp salad. Our conversation, in the southern style began with Aunt Alice in the spelling bee being stumped by a Q word, “But I can’t remember what it was,” and then us, trying to figure out the Q word something or other and looking it up found the word: quiddity. Why it’s “The inherent nature or essence of someone or something. A distinctive feature, a particularity. As in her quirks and quiddities…” sums up my friend precisely, as she jumps from one topic to the next never missing a beat as her long gone aunts and uncles on the old family farm parade across her mind like piglets behind the sow.
It’s always a jumble to figure out who said what, who chased the alligator from the chicken coop, or got bit by the mule, was it Aunt Charlotte or Lucille? Maybe Uncle Ray, who rocked in his creaky oak rocker while expounding on the state of the legislature. “I was only in the ninth grade or maybe it was the tenth when I had that teacher, oh what was her name, that Uncle Ray told me everything there was to know about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, impeachment and who gets to vote, and I haven’t forgotten a thing since then.”
“Really?” her husband said.
“I know the facts,” she said, “Just because I can’t remember who said what, doesn’t really matter. Now there’s talk in the news, Q something anonymous, I don’t think it’s a good thing.”
We talked about NC Wyeth the painter, Wall Drug in South Dakota, the Prairie Grass museum – still on my list, trips to the coast of Maine, the little town of Honea Path in South Carolina where she once spent idyllic sunlit days, her mother’s taking in two small orphaned nephews who weren’t really orphans or nephews, but they came on the train all by themselves from San Francisco, can you imagine that? And pretty soon, the default themes emerge: the horses, the cousins, the ballet performances, grandmother’s oak desk, all the yesterdays twist and turn, never letting up, the past vibrant and alive. And as she winds down, taking another sip of raw Jack Daniels, her husband recounts his triumphs and disappointments with his career, and the wondering, always the wondering, how come they now to Mississippi, of all places, where to go next, or should we? From a house and garden full of treasures gathered worldwide, who wants these things? And a thin thread of loneliness weaves its way through the familiar tales.
I will miss them when I move on; they have been mighty good friends to me. We’ve known each other forty years, big gaps when we didn’t see each other, but always there, somewhere on the edge. “I always thought you were interesting,” he said once. “I figured you were kind of a mess then, but I didn’t know what it was, it didn’t matter. You are welcome back anytime.”
“You got us through the winter of our pandemic,” she says.
“And you, you got me through my self-contained isolation, with good food and a washing machine.”
“Don’t forget the dryer,” he says waving me off down the road.
I head east on 90, then north to I-10 and just keep going east. I pass Fortress Mausoleums and Tombs, its low cement block building sunk in the ragged dry grass belies its impressive name. One’s heart goes out to the funeral workers….Across the long bridge over the morning hazy bayou, a murky day that could use a good scrubbing and before you know it, it’s Alabama. On the road I often start the day with a dose of Willie Nelson, you never know what will pop up when you say, Hey, Siri. Today Willie says, “We received our education in the cities of the nation.” And that does include the small towns, Ocean Springs, Gautier, Pascagoula, Moss Point.
Rambling on, I stay on the interstate, through all the excitement and momentum of Mobile, semi-trucks and construction, boats zipping white under the bridge. Let’s talk about infrastructure! When was the last time these bridges were really inspected? Down here along the gulf coast the bridges span miles of water, swamps, bayous and bays, in hurricane country. Built long before this heavy traffic, how long will these bridges hold up? All that hot air talk about infrastructure week. Week! it is going to take years - to inspect the thousands of bridges over which we travel, back and forth and back again. Infrastructure week, give me a break. Let’s talk infrastructure two or three decades. How about a big jobs program, like the Civilian Conservation Corps? Let’s do it. Actually, I did read that there might be a plan in the works for a Climate Change Civilian Conservation Corps, the CCCC. Wouldn’t that be a good idea?
There’s a lot to think about when you drive. After a couple hours I enter Florida and see a sign that says, Beaver Approved Water. There you go. I hear the beaver are finally making a comeback and are getting the recognition they need. A K-9 van passes me in a hurry, with their Family Protection Dogs. I see a sign for gas and head off toward a little village. Along the way there is a sign with the words, Military Simulation, spray painted in red with a squiggly arrow pointing into the woodsy brush. A militia movement? I decide to get gas somewhere else, I don’t want to bump into one of those family protection dogs. Back on I-10, passing cleared fields and pine trees, an occasional redbud in bloom, the highway flat and straight. Above and to the east, the white disk of an almost full moon rises above a wide wing of cloud, buff beneath, the color of peach. I set my sights on Jacksonville where I have a friend. Siri helps me telephone her. May I stay in your driveway tonight? Yes, do come, it will be wonderful to see you again.
Our quirks and quiddities: some of us travel in our little campers, some of us stay home, some of us raise rabbits, (like my friend in Jacksonville) some of us none. Some of us spill things and must mop up. Others are always tidy. We share and sup, stray and wander and wonder, will this pandemic pass? These two vaccinations, will they last? We still hope and take good care, wear masks and clean our hands; slowly we move again toward one another. Above, waxing is the moon, the snow, the storm, the hunger moon. We’ve had our polar vortex, have chosen a different route, now after three months on the coast of Mississippi I move east and soon north, north again toward family and the hearth of my home. Safe travels and good health to all of you who wander, or sit in wait.
With special thanks to John and Ginny Dugaw and to Andy Gale and the acting class friends. You made this pandemic winter something magical and delightful.
Comments