Hear Jim’s podcast on youtube:  https://youtu.be/ipW_Ks6M0tQ

Life, actually…

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COMINGS AND GOINGS IN THE DEEP SOUTH

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Unfettered thermometers exceed the 90 mark on this gloriously brilliant sunshine day.

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A covered-dish family reunion is taking shape in the foothills of Appalachia, and I am here to bask.

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Relatives I haven’t seen in years exit the heat. They suddenly glory in the air conditioned environment of an immaculate countryside building where communion and comradeship are taking place.

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Kinfolk I can’t name mingle with longtime familiar faces. As each family lays out victuals to share and compare, laughter and tears combine. People I can identify only by sight welcome me as one of this sweet tribe. People I know from childhood grin and comfort me as I pass among them. Hugs are offered and accepted.

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This reunion is a sharing of memory and expectation. Invisible ghosts of people no longer here, wend their way through the crowd as we share stories and anecdotes about them. We miss them, but we are happy that they no longer feel the pain and sadness of departure.

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We pay close attention to those of us still present and accounted for.

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We take our time listening and sympathizing. We talk and signify.

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The long table of gifted food is aswirl with homemade dishes, freshly plucked fruits and vegetables, carry-out goodies, thawed-out casseroles, steaming tasties and chilled crunchies and shockingly addictive desserts.

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We honor the toddlers and revere the nonagenarians and compare, always compare.

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This is our way of seeing live and in person the people we are slowly beginning to age like, our way of remembering how beautiful life felt when we were young and thankfully clueless.

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We are all having such a good experience being suspended in time that we don’t want to leave. And we re-experience the trademark of our tribe: the long, long goodbyes.

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Each farewell takes as much as an hour as we attempt to hold and fist-bump and shake hands without leaving anybody out.

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In memory, the long long goodbyes will have to last till this time next year, when once again we aim our vehicles toward the sacred gathering place where familiar souls commune

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Jim Reed © 2021 A.D.

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WEBSITE

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Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

Life, actually…

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AIRING OUT THE UNNOTICEABLES 

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Paying attention to the normally unnoticeable is my favorite pastime. It’s a way to avoid dealing with the harsher realities. It is deeply satisfying at times when nothing else is.

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Paying attention to the villages and villagers around me keeps me in touch with the textures of being alive.

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For instance:

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The Wandering Woman shows up everywhere I go. She is always on foot. She is forever on her way to someplace else. Her lanky, serious trek is all-consuming. I see her in the ‘burbs, in the town centers, in the in-between alleys and roadways. You can watch for her, too. She’s the woman whose scarf hides her hair, or the lack thereof.

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I pass by a brilliantly-red fire engine and the firefighters who make it sparkle. I wonder, Why is a fire station called a Fire Station? Why not Life-Endangering Conflagration Abolition Central or Department of De-Flamation or Fahrenheit 451 Control? Or even Douse That Fire Headquarters?

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I cruise the asphalted lanes piercing the villages. My wife asks, Why does the interstate highway sign read Downtown Exit? Why isn’t it called Entrance, since the turn lane leads into the City, not out of it?

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I espy the homemade signs, both mysterious and misleading. The best sign I ever saw: EARS PIERCED WHILE YOU WAIT. No kidding. Just two blocks from my shop.

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One thrift store has a large hand-lettered sign: DO NOT PLAY WITH TOYS. So…what else would they like for me to do with them? It would be more poetic to say: DO NOT TOY WITH TOYS.

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I just drove past an elevator service repair company, located in a one-story building. Think on this for a moment.

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A large metal sign at the Power Company instructs, “To provide faster service a bill stub will be required at the drive thru beginning January 1, 1997.” This means a lot if you’re still living in 1996.

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It’s 96 degrees outside. On the sidewalk a hot dog is eating a discarded hot dog.

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They say two plus two equal four. They never specify four what. Does this apply to everything?

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See what I mean? Paying attention to the unnoticeable takes my mind away from crises both real and feared. My paying attention gifts marginalized people with status they don’t even know they have.

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Paying attention makes me feel I am not wasting my time in these climes. Not everything has to be political, not every observation has to be a critique.

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Indeed, paying attention helps me look life and you in the eye. It keeps me in touch with the gentle beauty of all the firmament I am privileged to inhabit.

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Come join me in taking notes and paying homage to all that might otherwise be missed

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Jim Reed © 2021 A.D.

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WEBSITE

*.*.*.

Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast here: https://youtu.be/q3keoh8eUFc

or read his transcript below:

Life, actually…

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FIREWORKS GO BOOM BOOM

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In the muggy summer twilight heat of our Deep South village, you can feel excitement and anticipation rising in the heavy air.

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It’s another Fourth of July here. Like so many other Fourths of July, we are all peering out doors and windows to see who will join us in the streets for the annual fireworks display.

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Just above us on a ridge called Red Mountain, the world’s largest cast iron statue hovers on its pedestal, anvil and spear in place, ever prepared for whatever the Village offers.

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Visiting strangers mingle with locals, glancing and re-glancing at the sculpture as if the big show might be missed in a blink. Soon, above the head of this icon, there will be bursts and outbursts, booming loudness and applause, as the sky is illuminated one  second at a time.

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But right now, all is quiet except for gurgling babies and yippy dogs and laughing gossipers and nervous run-amok children.

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The impending show is free to all, so the price of admission is just right, for paupers and millionaires alike.

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As if the war-level volume isn’t enough, radios are turned up full blast with patriotic music, and expensive amateur explosives polka-dot the lawns.

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While all this is going on, I prepare myself for watching and observing all the goings-on. Once the crackling and earth-shaking begins, I will walk among the throngs and watch the watchers. Fireworks I have seen before. What I enjoy most is the expressions on people’s faces as they thrill to the show.

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All gaze upward from blankets spread and lawn chairs unfolded, from hoods of cars and open windows, from strollers and porches and truck beds and fence posts, from tree limbs and stalled scooters and frozen skateboards.

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Here it comes. The boom-boom crack-crack bang-bang swish-swish heaven-painting display of wartime munitions converted into jolly, peacetime entertainment.

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And here I go, watching confused babes and hunkered-down birds and camouflaged cats and hands-over-ears fretters, each a party to this strange and wonderful and dangerously enjoyable twenty-minute outburst.

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For these all-too-few moments, everybody forgets politics and tribe and beliefs and animosities. Everybody suddenly merges as one tribe to gaze in awe at the volcanic fire and smoke above.

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I watch as faces are transported into a never-for-long land of simple joy, simple enjoyment. I marvel at how we all get along during times like this. I marvel always at the fact that this feeling is not sustainable all the time.

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And, of course, I marvel at how in the not-too-distant, not-soon-enough future we will again find a way to harmoniously focus side-by-side on the simple act of being excited and satisfied with life as it is, life as it could be

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Jim Reed © 2021 A.D.

*.*.*.

WEBSITE

*.*.*.

Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY