Irini.
I am a bit fed up with the constant relentless attack on my senses of senseless information. Cyclical stories, which repeat themselves with little variation from day to day endless woes and predictions of conflicts, death and the down fall of Christianity because horror of horrors gay people would want the right to unions that would offer them protections under the law. I am choosing to remember a simpler place in time with the set of diaries that I began last month. And heartfelt thank you to the rescuer of my last dairy Some-people-call-me-the-space-cowboy.
When I was old enough it was my job to sweep the kitchen floor. There were times I would lift the rug that covered the kitchen floor and sweep the trash under it. It was inevitable my mom would lift that kitchen rug and find all the trash I had swept under it. So, Yeah. I spent a great deal of my childhood in trouble for poor decisions on my part. My childhood was not terrible by any means it was a fantastic place where I made the most of all my bad decisions heart-in-my-throat as I knew I would be in trouble later but damn if I wouldn't give it a shot and ventured into places and thoughts that would eventually define me. I was just that kid who could be classified as a festicator. Let me clarify that word “festicator.” It’s a word I made up a long time ago combining and the phrase “to fuck with” and the word “investigate” hence: festicate. The word has multiple variations. It also can be used as various parts of speech. An example of another use is “Rand Paul festicated a few weeks ago during Chuck Hagel’s confirmation vote.” so festicating, festicated, feticator are all legitimate uses of the root festicate. Please feel free adelphé and adelphos to use my made up word in your own musings. I loved to just do things and wonder about whatever as poked along the woods near my home. There have been memories of growing up in Kansas that I have swept under the corner rug in my mind. It just feels like the right time to lift the corner and take a peek.
I grew up Baptist in a brown and red brick church. You could see the steeple rising up the closer you got to the other side of Kansas Avenue Bridge. Just to side of that bridge the comforting baritone sounds of Reverend Brown’s voice lulled me to sleep on warm Sunday mornings while my head lay on Granmas white leather purse. I never have been a polite sleeper as I tend to drool, but I do remember it felt so good getting comfortable on that oh so soft leather as it pressed lines into my sleeping brown face.
“Mama hollered out the backdoor y’all remember to wipe your feet and then she said I got some news this morning from Choctaw Ridge. Today Billie Joe MacAllister Jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge’ And papa said to Mama as he passed around the black-eyed peas Well, ‘Billie Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits please…”
Mom never told us to wipe our feet before coming to dinner. As a single parent, she simply made good on her spoken word and me and my sister never tracked dirt on the carpet or floors of our home. My mom didn't cook often. When she did cook after a hard day’s work I remember a time my sister and I looked each other in the eye daring each other to eat a roast beef she had cooked which sat like an old leather football in a cast iron skillet on the stove. Life such as it was we ate lots of pork and beans and hot-dogs.
Mostly we entertained ourselves as kids. We didn't get to do the tv thing in the summer either. I spent a lot of time walking along the creek that ran perpendicular to our house. A stick in my hand trailing it through the water over turning rocks along the creek bed. I recall even then Billie Joe MacAllister haunted me. The words and music to that song stealing along my little soul knowing there was some greater meaning in that song and I just couldn't figure it out. It haunts me now how the Kansas I knew is gone. Not the easy place that could soothe me, the place where the sky reached down to the land and imprinted the most vivid pictures on your mind during a thunder and lightning storm as they rolled across the plains. I would walk that creek unable to figure out why Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge, feeling destiny pressing me—a premonition really. I would and could do something great. Life has a way of stealing dreams and replacing them with reality. Even after watching the movie I still didn't have a lot of peace about Billie Joe and the Tallahatchie. Did he back himself into some corner of his mind?
“Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge And now Billie Joe MacAllister's jumped off the TallahatcBridge”
I have come to believe choice seems to be the bitch that made him jump. Forgive me for oversimplifying free will to choice but make no mistake it’s still a bitch. We have this capacity as humans to back ourselves into corners that don’t even exist.
That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge And she and Billie Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge
Melody Brown my six-year-old self’s playmate and Reverend Brown’s daughter died under the Kansas Avenue Bridge on the side walk in front of the church. A drunk driver ran over the curb onto the side walk and killed her as she played or stood there knowing she was safe at home in front of the church and the parsons home a couple of steps to the right of the house of worship. I can’t remember if my mom did not let me go the funeral or I just didn't want to go. For a long time afterwards, every time I went to church I would stand there on that side walk staring at the stop sign and concrete in front of it and picture how it happened over and over again in my head even though I wasn't there that day. My family believes in the celebration of life and that is how we were taught to view death. I find a lot of comfort in knowing this principal of science—energy does not cease to exist it simply changes form. My mind has not touched on Melody in many, many years. Growing up in Kansas was a thing of beauty despite the dark places but you can’t have light without the dark.
Irini