Am I the only person who has infrequent yet regular interactions with someone simply to pretend to be annoyed? A few weeks ago, a man in a blue sedan was going at least twice the speed limit down the hill toward the Scull Creek bridge. I had more than enough time to cross the street, so I did. The man in the car stopped very quickly considering the speed he was going. He backed up a little and put his window down. I will call him Chad. I calculate there is a 1 in 74 chance that is his actual name.
“Hey, you need to be more careful,” he hollered at me.
“I’m not sure that caution will help me with low flying blue aircraft like the one you are piloting.”
He couldn’t help himself. The irritation disappeared from his face. “Fair enough. You should use the crosswalk.”
“And you should watch for low power lines,” I fired back at him. Both of us were smiling at this point. He waved, put his window up, and sped away.
A couple of weeks ago, he saw me standing by the bridge. He slowed down and put down his passenger window.
“Still running your insurance scam?”
I laughed. “Yes, because your mom says I don’t make enough at my job to support us both.”
He laughed, waved, and drove away.
Today, I saw him coming from the other direction for once. He put down his window as he slowed. There was a car behind him.
“Mom asked me to tell you to bring home a loaf of bread on the way,” he said, obviously remembering my last joke.
Because of the car behind him, I didn’t want to hold him up so I gave him two thumbs up and laughed. He laughed too, as he drove away.
When we are firing back and forth at each other with commentary, it feels exactly like a hidden camera sitcom.
The interactions make me feel literal joy. Maybe because it all started with a flash of irritation. But now I’m on the hook for clever comebacks. I guess I’ll ask his mom while she is cooking us dinner tonight.
I got up before the storm started early this morning. The erratic lightning caused some of my solar light bottles to flicker like fireflies accidentally using Morse code. But it was my newest acrylic solar light vase that caught my eye. The couple of hundred fairy lights permanently embedded in the hardened acrylic shone like maniscule stars. Trying to capture the colors in a photo appeared fruitless. That’s okay. It’s like trying to describe a moment of beauty to someone who didn’t witness it. X .
One of two surprises given to me for taking care of a sweet dog and cat a couple of weeks ago. The other one I will hold in reserve for a bit of shenanigans. In two weeks when it stops raining, perhaps this one will reveal its polychromatic sunlit spectacle.
“Tomorrow is the bastard child of our imagination. It presumes certainty wherein none can be found, even by the most expert and capable amongst us. This is no exhortation to whisper to yourself, ‘Carpe diem.’ All the things that worry you are illusions. The time you have is not even borrowed. It’s yours. If you cannot find it in yourself to detach from the self-imposed blueprint of identity and ambition long enough to comprehend this, there is no question that you’re probably wasting the only resource that matters: time. In the time it took to read this, 105 souls have moved on to whatever awaits them. That nebulous visitor in your thoughts? The one that tickles your discomfort. It is a primeval instinct of awareness and reminder. Distractions only dampen it. Don’t seize the day. Seize the moments that are in front of you. Although you probably won’t practice it until you’re older, don’t let the words ‘later’ or ‘tommorow’ pass casually from your lips. These words are vanity in a nutshell.”
There are some things that only the early risers can experience. When the moon is full, there are a couple of spots along the road where I live where the world loses its shadows and becomes a dark rainbow. .
Earlier in the week, someone complained that we don’t actually own anything. Their focus was on taxes. I didn’t say it out loud, but I wanted to point out that ownership is an illusion. I wanted to point out that their frustration couldn’t possibly change how things are. Even the core of identity, our body and brain, is governed by expiration. It’s not the type of comment that most people enjoy during a conversation. Certainly, we hold things for a few decades if we are lucky. There’s no doubt that everything is borrowed while we’re walking around on this planet.
Almost all of us, no matter what we do or strive for, might end up as a footnote on a Wikipedia page. Once the people we affect are gone, all we can hope for is an echo effect; moments, pieces of our love, wit, or presence that infected others for the right reasons. While I am not a religious person, this sort of thinking always makes me think of Ecclesiastes.
We spend our lives chasing security and possession. Strictly speaking, obtaining either is an illusion. Security is momentary and based on temporary variables that we don’t control. If it can be owned, it can also be taken or lost.
I was told to relearn the lesson of all this. Jumping out of a plane helped. Watching people chase things that give them the feeling of control also reminds me that learned detachment is about the only means to let go of all the musts, shoulds, and nonsense we’ve accumulated.
I’ve been practicing more to remind myself that worry and anxiety are largely based on the desire for control or certainty. Both steal your allotted energy to take in what happens for what it is.
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.” Captain Picard. I come back to this quote often. Lord knows I am not guilty of doing everything right.
When I went skydiving recently, I signed many waivers, ones that consistently reminded me that I was giving away all control. The back of my parachute harness made this clear; almost anything can happen when you jump out of an airplane. Not just human error but a million mechanical or environmental things. The universe is not a safe place. The truth is that almost anything can happen when you’re on the ground, too. Your organs can spontaneously fail, an invisible aneurysm can surrender, or a vehicle can come from nowhere and turn out the lights without warning. You can wake up to find someone you love has departed, whether through the door or into the unknown place that waits for each of us. A plane can fall from the sky, even if it is piloted by the most expert of those who chose the job or avocation. You can trip on the sidewalk and break your neck, even on a beautiful sunlight-filled day.
I knew in real time when I leaned out of the open plane into the sky that THIS was the moment I’d waited for. Not the 30 seconds of freefall, nor the minutes of floating down with the parachute, watching how everything looks different from such a height. Don’t get me wrong. When the instructor asked me how it was to jump out once we were floating, I enthusiastically shouted, “Holy f@ck!” It was already over by the time I struggled to hold the harness on my chest and keep my arms and head tucked safely. The unspoken thing about skydiving is that you’re going to get back to the ground – one way or another. Likewise, you’re going to end up somewhere in life, even if you don’t make conscious choices.
The next part is tough to admit. I jumped out of selfishness. The day I was in the tree, watching a plane go over, I just knew I had to jump. I waited to be nervous or afraid, even on the long ride up into the beautiful afternoon sky. The only moment that I really wanted was to experience leaning out the door and knowing I had to let go. The moments during and after were window dressing and distractions from wanting to KNOW what would go through my head. It wasn’t fear because it didn’t feel real in the way that we think about reality. It was surrender.
Even if fear had overwhelmed me, I still would have fallen out. Oversimplifying it, the result is the same. There is a lesson in there. The result for each of us is the same, ultimately. It’s the in-between and how we either enjoy the moments or are dismayed by them. Overthinkers and anxious people spend too much time concerned with appearances, control, and things beyond our control. Your face, mind, and body are the ones you have; work with what you have, change what you can, and release the rest of the nonsense into the void. I can preach it because although I understand it, I don’t consistently practice what I preach. That pisses me off.
When you are prone to anxiety or worry, you’re really not seeing that you are trying to be in control of things that aren’t in your domain to do so. Both anxiety and worry take energy and focus away from what it is. Cognitively, I get it. But if you can accept the idea that although you live your life perfectly, the results are not going to be perfect. So why do we expect things to go moderately well when we know we aren’t doing things correctly? There’s nothing you can do about it. This sort of visceral understanding can either mobilize you to action or it can freeze you in your tracks, maybe forever.
I say I jumped out of selfishness because it’s true. I’m hoping that the moment of looking out into the sky clogs my head with the absurdity of worrying about the infinite list of things that cannot be controlled. I’ve been in the headspace before where I was completely detached. It’s liberating, but it is also dangerous.
Friday at noon, I climbed 30 feet into the trees near the creek. Saturday, I climbed 10,000+ feet into the sky, leaned out into the nothingness, and let go. The one second I spent hanging out of the plane, looking down at Northwest Arkansas with the sun on the horizon on such a beautiful day, is something I will be thinking about for a while. The 15-20 minute plane ride to get the right altitude was gorgeous, too, even though we were cramped into a very confined space. If you are prone to nervousness or overthinking, this part would be your downfall. The 30 seconds of freefall was an adventure, but nothing could top the loud roar of the plane and the wind going silent in my head and fading away in that one single second. I kept waiting for the nervousness to hit me; it didn’t seem real. It was more of a hassle waiting on the process to get on the small plane. Erika accompanied me to the site but, surprisingly, wasn’t interested in jumping out of a perfectly good washing machine disguised as an airplane. Just letting go and falling, knowing everything was beyond my control. Once the parachute deployed, it was live tv with the world at my feet. Trees won’t feel the same to me now. The only real danger of jumping is the landing. It went perfectly as I slid across a few yards of clover and came to a stop. Back to the real world, with the memories of allowing myself to let go and jump into the sky.
I didn’t have much time and maybe that’s why the urge to ascend seemed reasonable. I jumped across the gap between the trees. Had I missed, I would have taken a swim. Up I went, for some reason confidently and quickly. Because I was near the trail, I got a good laugh because two bike cops rolled past. Both of them did a long double take, probably to confirm they were in fact looking at a middle-aged man dressed in blue rapidly climbing a tree that didn’t look like it should be climbed. I expected them to turn around and at least ask me questions out of curiosity. They didn’t, so I continued to climb. I didn’t risk the long step over to the adjacent tree, one of those in the pictures. But I did perch up there high enough to feel the amazing breeze. I wonder what these same trees might look like from 10,000 feet. There’s only one way to find out. And that makes me secretly smile too.
I sat to write words of memory this afternoon. No matter how I tried, I kept returning to the places surrounding the person who departed Monroe County, Arkansas, yesterday. Though she lived in Memphis for a time, she came back to Holly Grove and lived a long life. She had the iron in her bones to outlive her husband, Poor Bob. She shared that almost indomitable spirit with my Grandma Nellie. I could write a volume about how much I misunderstood my aunt when I was younger. My childhood was both an enclave and a firestorm. When I was very young, she stood ready to voice her opinions loudly. Her gaze unnerved me. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized how fierce her sense of humor was. She needed it to do battle with my mom. My aunt was a hard worker and had iron in her hands that my mom didn’t.
Monroe County no longer exists, but it’s still on the map. Citizens still dot the places within with their presence. But it is a place largely holding its breath and studiously peering away from its dwindling ranks. From 2010 until 2022, it lost 19.3% of its population. In that same time frame, it lost 1/3 of its 35-49 age group. Brinkley, Roe, Clarendon, Fargo, Holly Grove, Indian Bay, Blackton, Smales, Pine Ridge, Dixon, and Keevil; all these places sit in careful silence, awaiting their turn to be memories and names of places once filled with people living their lives. They’ll survive as census notes. I’ve learned more about them as an adult than I ever did as a child living there or as an adult returning to visit.
I did not appreciate the beauty of those small places until much later. To me, Monroe County was where my grandparents lived. Truthfully, Monroe County could have been almost anywhere in the delta, on either side of the Great River. Most of the places share a similar heartbeat and footprint. The odd asphalt roads, the infinite number of dusty dirt roads, miles of telephone wire stretching lazily across the flat land, interrupted by crops, mosquitoes, swamps, and irrigation ditches. Community was everywhere, regardless of the distance between neighbors.
Although I better understand it now, the prejudices seemed disconnected. I didn’t know that the same small town that held my aunt in its embrace was also the crucible for a sister that I hadn’t known for almost five decades. Now, Monroe County has a citizenship rate of almost 100% and no household reported being secondarily English-speaking. Monroe is not a place to go to; rather, it is a place to leave or retire and await one’s fate. For those who love the places of Monroe County, they feel it in their bones and wish their bones to rest there.
I cannot observe a storm without recalling the austere beauty of watching the weather move in across the open spaces, the towers of lightning and clouds visible for miles. I cannot sit on a swing without remembering summer nights. Nostalgia mostly erases the agony and buzz of mosquitoes.
Now? The last of those in my family who followed the beacon of Monroe County have gone to visit other places, ones to which we cannot tread. Not yet, anyway.
Monroe County now has one less to claim as a citizen.
But if you tally her voice and character, it lost something precious in her that is hard to define. People might be easy to come by, but there are so few remaining who, upon hearing them speak, evoke in us the spine and vitality of the places that are becoming shadows.
I can’t return to my hometown of Brinkley or Monroe County, which holds a place in my head. The same winds blow, and the same crops withstand the blistering sun. There is some wisdom that only older age can provide. Among that knowledge is that you carry some places so deeply inside you that you can’t quite identify what’s missing until you take the place of your ancestors, remembering what once was.
You can return and stand next to a recently plowed field. Or up to your knees in growing cotton. The only thing that has changed is everything.
One less.
With some, we lose more than one with their passing.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 