Mama’s Backyard

Sitting at my Mama's kitchen table, I look out through her large kitchen window into the backyard. Hanging directly in the middle is her simple oblong, red hummingbird feeder. Radiating outward from there I see the air conditioner surrounded by shrubbery and the edge of the children's play area off to the left. Mama has those special pebbles you're supposed to use underneath swings and slides for children. The wood has long since stained and worn with sun and rain. The back yard stretches out towards the pecan grove with its own pecan trees within our fencing. There's a small shed in the back with a room for Mr. Glenn and then a covered area for the lawn mower and other yard equipment. The pecan grove beyond that is deep and bleeds into the neighbor's pecan grove even further. To the right I can barely make out the ponds, but the pond house is visible. It must be twenty years old by now - having been home to so many in transitory states. Finally, back in the center is Mama's flat stone patio with roses and other flowers framing its edges. The wiry furniture has colorful blue and pink cushions arranged neatly, and the side tables have plants of their own sitting atop them.

Looking out at the yard, I remember all of the different ways it used to look - with our old swing set beyond the den door; the chicken coop where the shed now stands; even the half finished playhouse left standing for years after Daddy died. It warms my heart thinking about all the basketball court sized gardens we used to have and how climbed just about every tree in that yard. A sense of peace comes over me remembering how that back yard was where I found my sanctuary growing up. Even better is what a wonderful place for adventure and imagination it still is for the next generation to enjoy, and reminiscing about that yard helps remind me to pay attention for all the everyday sources of solace and inspiration present in my life today.

Southern Silence

SILENT NIGHTS

I have lived all over the country, spent time overseas and visited nearby and faraway places both. Once I moved out of The South, I spent most of my time in Baltimore, Portland and southern California. The thing I missed the most was the peaceful silence the Southland provides, and the silence isn’t just about quiet nights devoid of the loud busy-ness and eternal lights of the city. Don’t get me wrong. I do appreciate many things about the city – wider food selection, better entertainment choices and a diversity of people, cultures and opinions. It's just...well...every now and then, I just like for everything to slow down and be silent. It's a healthy balance. 

Starting with the mornings, I have always enjoyed waking up to the sounds of birds chirping and the wind blowing through the trees rather than a honking horn or traffic wreck. (I certainly enjoyed it more than waking up to the pager going off over and over again!) On mornings when I don’t have anywhere to rush off to, the soothing sound of a stream or just sitting quietly by the pond is the best meditation I know of. When I was in college, the campus was near a great waterfall coming off the Little River. It’s right up there near Mentone, AL. Actually, there are many waterfalls in that corner connecting Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. They are all beautiful. This one on Little River, though, was my sanctuary. I would make that hour long drive to just sit and listen or to pray or to cry. Whatever was going on, that river calmed me. I always felt better after spending some quiet time there. The only other river that has had that profound effect on me is the one running through a church camp in North Carolina called Living Waters. Anyone who visits that blessed place will immediately understand its appropriate name. Lastly, we also have shoreline in The South. Listening to those rhythmic waves without the extraneous addition of city sounds is like a lullaby as I fall asleep…

Sleeping in The South is blissful. The sounds of crickets chirping and frogs croaking are home to me. It’s especially peaceful while camping. Being out under the night stars – which you can actually see without all the competing big city lights – is gorgeous. Add to that the orchestra of the night sounds, and it’ll put you right into a deep sleep. There’s an underappreciated bonus of the Southern nights, too: the humidity. Yes, I know many people despise humidity and think of it as a downside to The South. I, however, think of it as a big ol’ hug. Those warm Southern nights wrapped in humidity and quiet darkness made me feel completely protected and safe to sleep soundly. When I was growing up, I used to go to our family’s beach house quite often. It’s in a tiny town that doesn’t even have a jiffy station (7/11, convenient store). The lack of bright businesses operating late at night made that beach so clear and beautiful – and silent. I used to walk outside under the stars and moonlight and heard nothing but the waves lapping on the shore. Some of my fondest memories are of those late night walks and when I was actually dedicated enough to get up early enough to walk in the sunrise – again, so peaceful, so quiet.

Of course, speaking of the silent South wouldn’t be complete without mentioning our unwritten rules. While it is true that everybody knows everything about everybody, we don’t talk about it – not publicly anyway. The secrets of The South are infamous – from the hidden passages used during the Civil War to the Underground Railroad. We try to keep some things under wraps – like our favorite fishing hole, a hole-in-the-wall pub where foreigners never appear, and our sweet spots for hunting. When foreigners come on down to visit, we have a way of taking them to places that are fascinating to them and seem like peeking in on the secret lives of Southerners, but we all use the same places and protect the real secrets, silently protecting our history, our treasures, our way of life. And lest I forget, we are taught from a very young age, “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all.”

The heritage of silence in The South goes back at least to when Europeans started colonizing the area. Whether we are protecting secret ingredients in our coveted Southern cuisine or staying silent on private family matters, The South has a culture of keeping its mouth shut about a lot of things. It’s one of my favorite benefits of being down here: the sweet, soulful silence of the Southland.

The Peaceful South

PECAN TREE

I have long searched for peace. I have searched in books, in nature, in church, in meditation, in sleep, in seeking advice from various mentors and pastors and gurus and friends and family and anybody else that would offer a suggestion. So I wondered when in my life have I actually found some peace? My earliest peaceful memory is high up in a pecan tree… I grew up on a farm in South Georgia. We were mainly beef farmers, but we also grew corn and soybeans – and depending on the year and which relative’s farm, sometimes cotton, tobacco, wheat, hay, pigs, chickens, goats…pretty much whatever fancied whichever farmer that year, and almost my entire family – both sides – were involved in farming somehow. Always, though, we had pecan groves. They weren’t as lucrative as the beef cattle, but those same cattle could pasture in between the trees, so it was a two-for-one. When the pecans didn’t sell well, it wasn’t the end of the world because the cattle were well taken care of and sure to bring in some income. When the pecan prices were up, that was a blessed bonus we all appreciated. For a brief time, we even boxed and shipped our own pecans from the small laundry room of our home. I can still remember all those labels – back when a label-maker was a novelty and computers hadn’t yet come to rule the world.

Anyway, I must have been 10 years old or so, and it was spring. Springtime in the South is one of God’s most gorgeous gifts – whether it’s magnolia blooms, dogwoods or cherry blossoms – or the continual smell of sweet Georgia clay and freshly cut grass. It was a great time to be outside. The mosquitoes hadn’t arrived and there was nothing to watch since football was over, baseball was just starting, and none of us cared about the NBA. I once heard someone say that children these days have too many toys, too many distractions, too many electronics, and that there was only one thing he had to play with growing up: OUTSIDE. That’s where we played growing up – OUTSIDE. Don’t get me wrong, we certainly had plenty to play with and were blessed with toys and bikes; a trampoline and our Granddaddy’s pool. Nonetheless, most of our time was definitely spent outside.

One late Spring day – it must’ve been almost summer – I had decided to climb the pecan tree in the front yard to get into the breeze and under the shelter of the leaves. I was up in that tree for hours. Sometimes my siblings would look for me, but, you know, the easy place to hide is Up. Most folks don’t look up – certainly not when searching for something or someone. Everyone looks down, in and under…more on that later…

Anyway…I had a two-by-four with me. We weren’t allowed to build tree houses because it might damage the pecan trees and decrease production. So…I would take short two-by-fours up the tree with me and rig them in the crooks of the limbs making a “gentle” platform, a temporary tree fort, if you will – at least for the time I was up there. With two-by-four in hand, I shinnied up that tree (no small feat for a pecan tree without low limbs or easy places to grasp – it really was half jump, half shinny), and found a good crook between two sturdy branches. Then, I set up my two-by-four so that I could sit down comfortably but also lean back against one of the limbs. And that’s it. I didn’t do anything else. I didn’t play games or try and lure my unsuspecting siblings into some sort of ambush. I just sat there. Sometimes I watched the trucks on the highway; sometimes I watched the tractors in the field across the road. I listened to animal noises that I would have normally tuned out. I felt the breeze as it blew through the trees and thus on and around me – but I actually noticed it this time.

Mostly, I sat in awe of the change in perspective. Whether lying flat on your back or rising high in the sky, everything changes. The new angles with which I viewed my own childhood home, my brother, my sister, our farm… I was mesmerized. And in that moment, all was well. I was ok. I was safe. I had a new view, a new gratitude, a new perspective.

And I was alone.

I don’t know why that seemed peaceful to me, but it did. I relished that separation from the chaos, the hurry.

Don’t get me wrong – I was always an active kid – running and swimming and playing and competing. And yet, this ability, this privilege to just sit – to be still – was such a peaceful blessing. I longed for it. I long for it still. I think I have been looking for that two-by-four and tree all the years of my adult life. There is a right-ness to separating from the noise of this world and just being. It wasn’t meditation – at least not in the conventional sense. Really, it was just being. I heard all the sounds of nature, saw the activity on the highway, and watched the work in the field. I knew where my brother and sister were playing, and I knew when Mama poked her head outside to confirm we were all still within our proper radius. So it wasn’t a deep breathing, tune out the world kind of peace. It was a be-still, be-quiet, and be-fully-in-this-place moment.

That’s hard to find today, but I still search for it all the time…