summons to memphis

yesterday's book club - wrap-up of Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor -

When George Carver was born, the bells rang out and guns saluted welcoming the heir to a wealthy Nashville landowner in the early 1900’s. That sense of entitlement ran wild in his veins until his last breath.

A charmer from the first, his life flowed through gilded paths. He married a belle of Nashville’s social echelons, sired  four promising children, achieved business  partnership  with the charismatic Lewis Shackleford – what more could one ask for?

Alas, Mr. Shackleford was a bit too quietly ambitious and the company collapsed in financial ruin. Rather than face the Nashville music, Mr. George Carver decided to wipe clean the whole slate of his life to that point and move the family to Memphis, a city regarded as culturally inferior in every way to Nashville. Unfortunately, the move distorted the fabric of the family and like the child’s game of upset-the-fruit basket, each one ended up in a different,  disquieting position. 

 Always a man whose thumb was firmly on the control button, George seemed to ratchet up his need for dominance in this new situation by snuffing out the wills of each family member, particularly in the realm of relationships as he jealously winnowed suitors from the scene. The original family circle, with the exception of young George who escaped to his death in the war, remained magnetized in an unhealthy love-hate dynamic. The sisters molted into a bizarrely adolescence state, set up housekeeping on their own and flaunted their status by inappropriate dress and behavior while never missing a chance for of patriarchal revenge. Philip also went to war and on to New York City upon his return. All remained unmarried and when, later in life, George has a chance at re-marriage, the familial chickens come home to roost with a cackling vengeance.

The narrator of the story, Philip, through a journal-like account, attempts to assure us of his ascendance over family problems and particularly his father’s manipulation, by showing us how he has escaped it all moving to New York City and establishing his own antique book business and live-in companion. But like a tightly-stretched rubber band, he keeps zinging back to Memphis at every “summons” of his sisters. And upon return, the good intentions of forgiveness melt away at the first glimpse of his father waving on the tarmac – perhaps greeting, perhaps guiding the plane and his soul into submission.

It is a Southern tale of land, wealth, bondage, manners, dress and social standing. It moves from the acclamation of church bells to total humiliation. It embraces hope, revenge, forgiveness and disingenuous acceptance. Yet through it all the reader recognizes abruptly that from the best of intentions, humans strive and fail and strive again – loving all the while with heady blends of adoration and revulsion. And through the view from Memphis, Mr. Taylor summons us all to look into that internal mirror of past, present and imperfect tense.

 

close but no cigar

If politicians were as tenacious as courting titmice, all our problems would be solved before the week's up! Their duets seem to persist from my waking moments until well into the day.

A royal swath of crocuses popped up in a sunny niche on my morning walks, assuring me that the sunny warmth of the day wasn't a total fluke.

Lake Anne is free of ice and the geese are giddy!

The brown looped branches that I brought in ten days ago and placed all over the house have burst into yellow! Each day we watched the promise bloom. Admittedly, an orchestrated promise, but no less a miracle.

Hoodie replaced jacket, gloves and scarf for early morning.

And now, snow.

Sigh.

For the past 14 years I have led a book club at the library where I work.

 For the past several years I have written a "wrap-up" of the book after our discussion.

 I think I will start to share some of them on-line. Today's contribution is Cat's Table.


According to Ondaatje, in 1954 a young boy set off from Colombo to England, on a boat named the Oronsay, to meet his mother after an absence of 4 or 5 years. The boy’s name was Michael, known as Mynah to his friends because of his attentive observations and mimicry of his surroundings.

 The ship was filled with passengers, but the ones of immediate interest to Michael were the fellow diners at the Cat’s Table – the lowliest table as far away as possible from the Capitan’s Table. Included in its’ occupants were his two mates, Ramadhin and Cassius. In the three weeks that followed, the trio roamed the ship, exploring dark cavities, skulking on the edges of rendezvous, listening in on conversations, swimming in the first class pool and snatching breakfast before the first class world awoke, crouching at night near the manacled prisoner who was being transported, watching, absorbing, testing, experimenting in all the adult behaviors they witnessed around them.

Though formal supervision was non-existent, they were befriended by Mr. Daniel the botanist who was transporting a garden of exotic plants housed in the gloom of the hold; Mr. Fonseka, a lover of literature who conveyed to them the beauty of language and classic literature; and Mr. Mazappa who taught them jazz and bawdy lyrics. In addition a garish array of characters extended the boys’ education by teaching them how to break and enter, chew and smoke exotic substances, cheat at cards, and in general how to grease their way through sticky situations!

Though Michael entered the ship “trained into cautiousness” from boarding school’s inequities of authority and punishment, nothing had prepared him for the sexual, psychological and emotional onslaught provided by the parade of passengers – each with his own personal murky whirlpools. He learned that despite all levels of class and their incumbent barriers, “what is interesting and important happens mostly in secret.” Against the backdrop of the wild grey  sea, cultures flare and dance with color, but underneath there is heartbreak and even death….  but also humor - for if Miss Lasqueti’s paperback annoys her she simply flings it overboard!

Walled in by the sea, the boys stalk life. The nine occupants of the Cat’s Table who all seemed non-descript at first glance, unfold petal by petal into glorious, but sometimes, deadly blooms.

The voyage of Oronsay took permanent form within the eleven year old Michael. And as the years passed he recalled what he learned on board from Mr. Nevil, the destroyer of ships, “In a breaker’s yard you discover anything can have a new life, be reborn as part of a car or railway, carriage or a shovel blade. You take that older life and you link it to a stranger.”

And so do we as we silently sit at the Cat’s Table and partake of Ondaatje’s exquisite sustenance.

white and brown

Today, by the path, a snowdrop slowly unfolding against the brown earth,- a startling touch of soft white. What a burden that little flower bears.... for on it's fragile petals rests the weight of our winter fatigue!

I remember as a child, walks to look for spring flowers were always glorious. Down through muddy fields we tramped seeing who could first  spy the spring beauties, snowdrops, May apples, Solomon's seal. Horrified as I am to admit it I think we picked some! But we didn't know.

We didn't know.

How often we are hearing that phrase lately. Often the disclaimer has to do with a racist context. Now as children in the 40's that we didn't know not to pick the rare flowers is understandable. As a person who is alive in 2015 and doesn't know a racial slur when they hear it.... ah, well, that is indeed a horse of a different color - words Mr. Shakespeare's was first to use, apparently

If snowdrops rise against a melting freeze might there hope for a rebirth of civility as well?

let it be

minty March sunshine
slips through a
slightly open window.
tagged by a snow-sun breeze
delighting my wintered soul 
like cool white wine.

from the hand to hand

The other day as I was walking around the lake I had a vision of eating an apple dumpling! And as I was alone in the house when I returned, I made a single apple dumpling complete with butter, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and flaky pastry - all which melted deliciously in my mouth, each morsel a delight...and as the commercial said, I couldn't believe I ate the whole thing! I had noble intentions of having it last at least two days. But there it was - gone in the first seating!

But as I was scrubbing out the little tin pie plate that had come from Mother many years ago, I remembered how, as she was busily preparing the Sunday desserts, she would take the left-over scraps from her pastry and put them in this small pie plate and bake them for us. When done she would sprinkle sugar over them and let us eat then warm from the oven.... um.

But even better than the remembered taste was the fact that here I was, in my own kitchen, 65 years later, holding the same pie tin that my mother had baked in, washed and put away, just like I was doing today.

History is a lovely thing.

finding the right piece

Jig-saw puzzles have always been a part of my life. From my earliest memories when the first serious  flakes of snow started swirling, that was a call to the kitchen table to start on a jig-saw puzzle. My father owned a small business and he usually closed shop and joined us as well. And as the snow piled up, the kitchen noise grew! Dad commanded the bottom edge of the puzzle and Mother the top and we kids filled in. The family joke that resurfaced with every puzzle occasion centered in my brother's taking a bunch of pieces - over to the kitchen counter or somewhere, quietly working on his own, and suddenly he brought back a whole assembled portion! It was some historic scene puzzle that had an American flag waving proudly - and while it was a good-sized portion of the puzzle we always called the obvious, easy part of any puzzle "making flag" and of course scorned the achievement!

But what happens with putting puzzles together? A whole bunch of things! There are judgments concerning color, shape, size of course, but that's just the beginning. The assessing, rejecting, regrouping, organization - its all good for your brain! Especially your aging brain! Synapses  cartwheels!

But beyond the mental gymnastics, the shared moments around the table shine with a quiet light.

Violets for Ellie

Yesterday at the library I was using the seat of a chair as a dolly  to push a heavy box of books to the delivery bin and my mind flew back to childhood and our occasional visits to an "old peoples' home" - a term so scandalously un-pc these days!

My parents had a family friend, Ellie, whom we would visit from time to time at said institution above. In the spring we children would gather the first smattering of deep purple violets, put them in an old white pitcher and take them in to Ellie. The long brick building was fronted by a large lawn dotted with trees and double swings, swaying back and forth with elderly residents. As we entered and the door squeezed shut behind us, the breezy sunshine of the day was replaced by the sharp smell of medicine, disinfectant and floor polish.

Reaching the second floor Room 277, the door opened to our friend
Ellie, She was scarcely as tall as me, and chuckled quietly all the time and said, "my , my, my." I stretched to place the pitcher of violets on her dresser amid medicine bottles, dusty plastic flowers and framed pictures of babies. Ellie sat primly on her patchwork chair in the corner, while Mother fanned and fanned in the over-heated room. We children lined up on the edge of the bed, legs swinging in quiet boredom.

Finally we were granted permission to roam... and roam we did! We looked for our "favorite" people. There was Lizzie who was always needing to "fetch the cows" and must never be given scissors, Mother said. And Fannie whose chin seemed to be attached to her neck. And an unknown person who pushed a chair before her always. We always tried to peer surreptitiously and were faultlessly polite.

When at last the visit was done, we waited for the grand finale. Ellie, our sweet little friend, who could not bear to face the world full on, backed down the stairs! Carefully. When she reached the bottom, she turned around, still chuckling and said, "My, my, I haven't been down here since last fall."

To the our sun-shot world of running, jumping, climbing, swinging, playing endlessly, it was truly awesome - when the word still meant something!