Like any one of Tennessee Williams's characters, Mississippi is a complex, brooding, neurotic, conflicted, embracing place of sultry warmth and inimitable hospitality. And in these postcards, I will present Mississippi as I encounter her, as I journey deep into her soul. She has already captured me, and here I intend to seduce you into her embrace.
Fall is my favorite time of year, even though the turning and falling leaves hints at the winter to come. It is also the beginning of the end of the year. And yet, this year, when summer wouldn't end, until it did, fall weather never made it. We've gone right into winter weather that requires the heater being on in the house; temps will plummet when the first arctic blast moves south across the United States by tomorrow. And yet, fall is my favorite time of the year when I want to write and think and read and snuggle down into my house.
I've been on the phone with Cliff in the last couple of days, sharing our ideas on my next writing project, which I finally got around to starting. I usually start with a concept and then I flesh out the ideas as it takes shape as I write. This new book is one of the spin-off novels I've been thinking about from the Common Threads in the Life Series, titled Granny Mack and the Gas Station at the End of the World, Cliff has outlined Part One of the three parts that will be in this book, and once I finish the Prologue, I have some initial research to do all the way back to the 1920's, 30's, 40's, and 50's. Granny Mack made an appearance in Book 5 of the Common Threads series, and since then I've been wanting to create a book around her life story. Stay tuned, I am tentatively setting a time line for sometime in 2020 for this book.
Some of the other writers in the writers group have accomplished projects and here in Columbus, a rather literary city in the Mississippi writers tradition, I attended the first book signing for Jeannette Basson from the group. It was held at the Columbus Arts Council building on the corner of Main and 5 St. from Noon to 2 p.m. Stranded in Alaskais Jeannette's first book, and while she's spending a lot of time promoting her book, she is also keeping her mind on her next book, Thunder Over Missouri. Like Stranded the new book will center around strong female characters, and I look forward to getting snippets of her new work at the Writers Group. The Arts Council building was buzzing with activity, not only for those who came to hear Jeannette read and sign books, but also those who usually drop by whenever there is a new art display on hand. The book signing was a success as people came and went during the two hours. At around 1 p.m. people gathered for her reading. The audience found both humor and suspense in Jeannette's reading, from the Moose that ate the main character's clothes while she was bathing in an inlet of the river near her camp, to returning home and keeping an eye out for the various threats the Alaskan wilderness posed. A lively period of Q and A followed her reading.
Dottie Porter's book, which she finished and published about a month after Jeannette's book came out, is now available, and we hope that we will get a reading from her in the weeks to come. Dottie's book is titled Out from under the Bed Pan into Cyberspace Nursing, which chronicles Dottie's sixty-year career as a Nurse and healer. She now works with women in the jail system in Columbus and doesn't seem to be slowing down even though she is in her 80s.
But just like Jeannette, Dottie is not stopping at this one book. She has promised me that she is already hard at work on her next project. I will continue to urge writers in the group to follow the pioneering lead of Jeannette Basson and Dottie Porter in finally finishing their books. We have a few more truly aspiring authors in the writers group, and now that it's Fall, it is a good time to get some of those more sedate activities into high gear.
As usual, I try to include a video about Columbus or Mississippi. Year round, and not just the fall or spring, there is always something to do in Mississippi.
The last time I posted on this blog was August, in the middle of the oddest summer I have spent here in Columbus, Mississippi. It was my fourth August, counting the first one in 2016, three months into living here. That summer, it was miserably hot and dry and near drought in much of the state. So dry, in fact that the pavement was rising and cracking and I stayed quiet around what few people I knew, afraid that I had brought New Mexico dryness with me.
But in 2019, this summer and now into fall, we've had rain, epic rain, flooding rain, so much rain that the Riverwalk Theater on the west side of Columbus was flooded and stayed that way for days, because there was nowhere for the water to go.
Yes! This is my backyard...er...uh...honest!
But this past August and in fact most of the summer of 2019 was wet and rainy and my back yard became a monster and I haven't tamed it yet, and it's already November. Even by the middle of October it seemed that the summer would never end, and then when it did turn, and I thought we were in for some nice fall weather (my favorite time of the year) it went straight from summer into winter. And the rain has not yet abated, and my backyard is still a monster. I'm having to investigate some real power tools beyond the mower and trimmer—neither are capable of taking down the 10-foot high bushes with 1.5-inch branches that have sprung up this summer. I can't even get out my backyard door! I didn't realize that the bushes had encroached on the house in the northwest el-shape of the house.
I can't hire anyone either, because I'm on a fixed income, and Cliff smiles over the phone when I talk about my home-ownership woes, and he reminds me that home-ownership was something I might not have been too wise about wishing for. Hahaha...he's right, but I love my house and I must, absolutely must, knuckle under and get out there with my elbow-grease-powered hand saw and clippers and pocket knife (?!?) and try to uncover my back porch stoop. And get the vines off the house, which I thought I had under control two years ago—they're ba-a-a-a-ck! But I've settled on a plan. I'll invite friends and relatives to come for a vacation (especially those from the desert who might like a little rain and green and Southern cooking, and I'll get them like Tom Sawyer did to paint my fen—I mean cut my bushes.
But make no mistake. I still love it here. I've only begun to scratch the surface of what it is to live in Mississippi, and alas, but ah-well, now that I'm living by myself with my two calico girls, I'm revamping my stable of books. I have just issued a 30-year-anniversary edition of Common Sons, because it had somehow fallen through the cracks at my publishing partner lists and wasn't available for several months. So I took the opportunity to revamp the format and the look.
And now that I'm aware that my titles are in disarray on the publisher's lists, I'm revamping several others—all to bring them into the new format. I'll no doubt post those new formatted books here for anyone who might be interested. It's interesting here in Columbus, at the writers group I belong to, I'm surrounded by church goers. I think 90 percent of the people in this small Southern city attend churches regularlarly, and even though my work is meant for an LGBT audience, several of the members of the group have gotten copies of my work and when I'm called on to read passages from my projects, I try to find those passages that delve into the deeper aspects of my characters, without subjecting anyone to something a bit lgbtq-ish...if you know what I mean. Being on my own, as it were, I can write and create to my heart's content, and I do, and it's time for me to think about finishing several projects. I am, after all, in Mississippi, the heart of Southern letters!
Here's the Ten Commandments of Writing...at least one author's rules.
I moved to Columbus in May 2016. It is now August 2019—just a little over three years living here. But I believe I've finally become part of this city of 23,000 people. It's bigger than my hometown; it's smaller than Las Cruces, where I lived off and on for many, many years. Probably more years there than anywhere else.
But now I belong in Columbus, MS. I say this because I feel comfortable here, I know people, I am involved in their lives and traditions. One of those friends died recently, and I attended her funeral today, and it got me thinking that nothing makes a person part of a community more than celebrating others in the town and mourning the passing of those whom we know and love. Being part of the community also means that you know people on the street, in the stores, coffee shops, and other places. They recognize you and call you by name. I don't think a big city would be as easy to integrate oneself into. You just remain a shadow in their eyes.
Cliff had to move back to Las Cruces. He did so April 26, 2019. He has now been gone almost four months, and so I'm back to living alone and depending on the town and the people for companionship, for inspiration, and for sharing their lives and they mine. One can't foresee the future, but if I keep doing what I'm doing, I'll end up living here until I die, and be buried here or have my ashes scattered...Cliff has my last will and testament, and he will know what to do. This is not morbid, just a fact that one begins to acknowledge when there are more yesterdays than tomorrows. If I'm buried, he know what goes on my tombstone:
Here I Lie Dead to the World.
* * *
I got my car fixed, finally, through the generosity of a friend in Manhattan. He gave me a fig leaf by creating "a job" for me to do for him, rather than calling it a loan, so that I could "earn" the money I needed to fix my car, or when the time came to rent a car to visit Cliff back in New Mexico. But getting my own car repaired enabled me to get out of town and continue exploring as Cliff and I were doing before he left—Thank you, Johnny! So it was a much better use of that income and had a more permanent solution.
I finally got to go to Greenwood, MS, to visit Turnrow Books. I did not meet the owner and the place was not very busy when I was there, but it was exactly what I expected—a well curated collection of books, along with an art gallery and lunch cafe. And they have events of music and book signings and author visitations there all the time. If I were to create a bookstore here in Columbus it would echo some of the elements of Turnrow books—mainly the curated books about Mississippi, Southern writers, book signings, and community involvement. After browsing and eating a delicious panninni pesto/turkey sandwich, I left the bookstore and just down the street discovered the recently opened Mo Joe Coffee Company, and I must say aside from their great selection of coffees they also offered sumptuous pastries, pies, cakes. I wish them luck in staying in business. Greenwood is a Delta town, situated on the easternmost side of the the Delta, and the drive from Columbus was almost exactly 100 miles.
I also stopped in a town on the way to Greenwood called Eupora. The thing is, Mississippi is a rural and small-town state with over three million people, and you can virtually drive through half a dozen small towns within a fifty-mile radius, and each of them has a history, many of which ended with their destruction by Sherman during the last days of the Civil War, and then their rebirth, some holding onto their past afterwards. King cotton dominated before the civil war and afterwards, but now the majority of catfish farms make up a good slice of Mississippi's "agriculture." The Delta is a land unto itself, and it is no doubt what people who do not know Mississippi associate most strongly with the state. It is the poorest part of the state but also has the richest history in the home of the blues, and the people of Mississippi rightly pride themselves on their long rich history.
And yes, I've become a part of Mississippi, as well. After all, my maternal grandmother was born in Jackson, Mississippi, even though she grew up in East Texas and lived most of her life in Waco, Texas. In fact, we called her "Grandma Waco" which sounds very old West to some people. And she was a pioneer in that vein; she could outshoot any of her three sons, too. So, Grandma Waco, I'm home!
The very bad, horrible, terrible, no good bad year...
This is not going to be a pity party...really. But maybe it's like an unexpected postcard in the past that a family's traveling son might send , beginning with something like this:
"Hi all, wanted to let you know that I was robbed at the bus station on my way from...get back with you soon."
Anyone who might have still been looking for new entries for my blog will have seen that I haven't posted since May of 2018. I'm still kicking and still getting my work done, as well as all other stuff Cliff and I have done. 2018 was a good year for my editing business. But two things completely stopped during 2018—keeping up with yard work and writing my blog.
So' here's the bad, horrible, terrible, no good stuff, beginning with January 2018 and continuing through the year. I discovered that my roof leaked. When I bought the house and negotiated repairs before I closed on it, I said that a leak had to be repaired. In the two years that the house was vacant, a portion of the keeping room ceiling had been ruined from a leak. Long story short, before I closed on the house, it was inspected and I went over the report with a fine-tooth comb, as well as checked with the realtor that the ceiling in the keeping room had been repaired, etc. What was never revealed or discovered was that the roof leak had not been repaired even though the man who was hired to fix it thought he had...hmmm...anyway, when the ceiling in the keeping room began to leak again (big attic over that), I finally made myself climb up into the attic and take a look. There were buckets that had been collecting water from the roof leak and they finally overflowed in January 2018, which is why the keeping room ceiling started a new leak.
Not only that, the roof leak was so chronic it rotted portions of the attic floor; the owner prior to me, the one from whom I bought the house, had to have known about the roof leak and had simply "forgotten" that there was a problem. After all this person had lived in the house for fourteen years! This person is the one who had placed the buckets up there. This person is very rich and would bash me with lawyers.
But that was just the beginning...
My car started failing me. There had been a kind of hesitation in the system when I was running down the road, as if the engine was about to die. Turned out it was a vacuum hose with a hole in it. That was fixed, but then the engine cooling fans started whining before I shut off the engine. One repair shop said that was normal, but I knew it wasn't, so I took it do the dealer, who agreed that I should replace the radiator cooling fan, which they did. After that, the radiator started leaking. I took it to a local person who said that the dealership had not taken the time required to carefully remove the fans and had rushed to get the job done and had consequently gouged a hole in the radiator, and I can say from looking at the tight-fit for the fans and the radiator that there's no room for error. These were not cheap fixes...thousand of dollars.
This was followed by a cold snap, and the next day after that I thought I heard water running. I looked in the lean-to utility room, and sure enough, there was water overflowing from the washing machine. I had to turn off the water at the source and pull out the dryer to get to the washer and then have someone check it out. Some unit in the washer had been frozen (or something???) and allowed the washer to fill with water with no way to shut it off. Both the washer and dryer were old, and Cliff helped me buy a new used pair...hundreds of dollars.
Okay, what you might notice is that the washer/dryer are in this little lean-to pretty tight. The water heater is also in this lean-to. Luckily the outside looks pretty good and not a real mess as this interior is. The "utility room" was obviously an afterthought on this hundred-plus-year-old house. Had I the money, I would have this thing ripped off and a proper utility room added.
We took a trip to Rosebud, Texas, in May 2018 and stayed with Cliff's brother and sister-in-law.
Downtown Rosebud, TX Another nice little town.
It was nice, but I decided to come down with a debilitating cold, and the whole time I was there I developed a hacking cough that would take my breath away. I turned 70 just prior to the trip, and for many years, I had been telling myself, if I could make a carton (ten packs) of cigarettes last for thirty days, and if I hit a significant milestone (turning 70, for example), I would try to quit smoking one last time. They say there's never a good time to quite smoking, but as it turns out, turning 70 and having a severe cough (so severe that I couldn't draw the smoke into my lungs without coughing) was a very good thing. I quit cold turkey, just like my father did when he was in his mid 40s. It is now February 2019 (nine months later) and I am still quit. Anyone want to know what mental trigger I used to avoid picking up another cigarette? I told myself that none of the side-effects one associates with cig-craving would be alleviated with a cigarette. In other words, that "hole" in my stomach would not be filled with smoking a cigarette; those nervous jitters would not go away with a cigarette; that irritability was caused by something else...not needing a cigarette. And it worked. I had a few dreams where I smoked a cigarette, but even in my dreams, I realized what I had done and threw the cigarette down. When I woke up I was relieved it was a dream.
It worked. That was the thing that turned the corner for me on 2018 being a bad year. In fact, the result of the mid-term elections was also a good thing.
The thing is, I endured all the rotten things that went wrong with my house and car and there are still issues I can't yet afford to fix properly, but I've continued with all my other activities and will get back with the yard work come spring or some nice days in the waning days of winter...through March 2019. Already looking at the end of February 2019 and looking March in the face. This was in all a mild winter, with lots of rain. So I'm hoping Spring will be great and energizing.
We had a tornado that did a lot of damage yesterday. A clearer picture of just where it hit and the damage it did is emerging. But I'll leave that as a kind of footnote to this post. A kind of...yes, I had a bad year, but tornados are worse.
I'll leave you with a luscious drone view of one part of Columbus and the S.D. Lee High School that is now being renovated into a shopping center, loft apartments, etc. (multiple use). It cannot be torn down, because it is considered to be architecturally significant as a "Mid-Century Modern" structure. Not my favorite style but I'll be glad to see what they do with it. And it will certainly lift that area of Columbus up a little when it's finished.
