We washed the dishes by hand and talked and listened to one
another, the women, and laughed. I heard
about recipes and canning and superstition.
And when it was done we went out on the porch where the night was vast
and endless with possibility and the crickets chirped and the peepers called
out and we talked more and I listened.
Sometimes my uncle and my grandfather would get out guitars and singing
would start up. Sometimes I would hear
about how things used to be, when my grandfather was young, or when my
grandmother was young. How it was in the
fourties, or in the Great Depression. Or
I would hear stories about the twenties when my great grandmother and my great
aunt where there. I would hear ghost
stories and tales about growing up on farms in the south, and stories about
surviving the Civil War, and Reconstruction.
I would stare out into the darkness, and try to see as far as I could
see and dangle my skinny legs off of the porch, swatting at mosquitoes,
breathing in the smell of honeysuckle and wisteria, and listening to the maple
leaves rustling in the night breeze, knowing I was going to climb that tree
higher than all the boys one day (And I did!).
In the mornings I would get up early and my grandmother and
grandfather would already be out in the garden together, sweat pouring down
their faces, and I awoke with a sense of great excitement with the possibility
that the day afforded. The clotheslines
were already full of sheets for me to run through, and pillows were out to sun,
and I would grab a basket to see what vegetables or fruits I could help to
gather. I would eat grapes until I was sick.
I would pick cherries too early and eat them tart. If he had time, my grandfather might walk me in
the woods to show me herbs or animal tracks, hunt for pawpaws or mayapples, or show
me the old Indian Dam in the Creek, or split open honey locust pods for
me. He could speak to animals, whistle
at the birds and fool them into coming right to him, as if he was a bird
himself, I had seen him talk to a rabbit
and coax it to hop right up to him. He was magic.
My Grandmother might show me different herbs
in her gardens and tell me what they were good for and what her Granny used
them for. Or she would point out a
writing spider and tell me if it wrote my name I might die, and I would let
them crawl on my hands, unafraid. She
would tell me the use of every plant under the sun and the name of it. If there wasn’t any time for these things,
maybe we would have to shuck corn, string beans, or gather and crack pecans on
the porch swings all afternoon or if they were just too busy with things I
couldn’t help with, I was on my own.
Then I would explore the woods, fields and neighboring properties all
day, with my grandmother shouting after me “Don’t you be out in the heat of the
day!” or “It’s coming up a storm!”
My grandmother canned so much food the dining room table
would bow in the middle, due to the weight.
My grandfather would find something to build in the workshop, because it
would get so hot in the house. There
were two refrigerators and two chest freezers.
My grandfather hunted and fished.
This is what I thought life was supposed to be, and when I
went to my mom’s house, or anywhere else. I assumed we had just strayed from
this, and we were meant to find our way back.
My grandparents worked together to be as self sufficient as they could
be, and I understood by all the stories I heard as a child that hard times come
and go, and they will, but family stays and you stick together. You make your family and you are fiercely
loyal and you are a team, a tribe, a clan.
You work hard together and you make your way through whatever, and you
do it naturally and you do it yourselves.
My grandmother is still alive, though, she lives in a
retirement community now. I lived in her
house with my husband and my sons for a few years when we moved back to North
Carolina when he got out of the Army, and I was able to take my children to
explore those woods and revive the gardens (though not to the vast extent that
they grew when I was a child!). I
sat with them on the porch and told them some of the stories I remember from my
childhood, and visited my grandmother every Monday, to re-thread her sewing
machine, as although she is blind now, she still insists on sewing. My sons all got to climb that maple tree.
Now I am in Maryland, and call my grandmother once a week or
so. I have become a Master Herbalist and
a Homesteader. I raise chickens and
ducks, and grow most of my own vegetables and herbs. I’m intent on raising and growing more. I’m happiest working in the gardens and the
woods. I can hunt and fish and
wildcraft. My grandmother sent me home
with her quilts and freezers and sewing machines. I have inherited a clan, tribe, and family
life philosophy that is loving, self sufficient, sustainable, and fiercely
loyal.
You want to be a part of my tribe.
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