Common Threads

shorthand, cursive scrawl

envelopes, notescraps, swatches

stained, torn, ripped, dog-eared

/

family relics

recipes from ancestors

hand-written visits

/

ageless breaths, voices

transcending generations

whispers from heaven

/

timeless apron strings

roots of our family tree

stirring presences

/

priceless script heirlooms

iambic kitchen memoirs

eternity’s spoons

/

invisible pasts

emerging in the sauces

delectable worlds

/

I’m cooking tonight

guess who’s coming to dinner?

they’ve already been

/

One of my parents’ favorite things to do in the years before Mom grew too frail with Parkinson’s Disease was walk. St. Simon’s Island, (Go Dawgs!) Georgia offered adventure on every outing – on their familiar street routes through the Spanish moss oak-draped neighborhoods, in the ballpark where I played softball as a child, on the sidewalks of the village and down the pier where our mother taught my brother and me how to crab, and along the beaches.

They found things – mostly coins and an occasional dollar bill, but sometimes they found tourists’ random belongings, too. Mom had a knack for such fortuitous finds- and Dad still takes morning sweeps of the island to see what it’s offering up for grabs these days, no doubt shadowed by her guiding presence. Just as every islander knows, if you walk the beach on an outgoing tide early in the morning, there’s no telling what you might discover that has washed up on shore.

On my 49th birthday in July 2015, my parents gave me a silver St. Simon’s Island bracelet from the St. Simon’s Jewelry Company. It has two intertwining S letters, and whether you’re a native islander or visit St. Simon’s Island for vacation, these bracelets are all the rage. They also have rings, earrings, and pendants to match, but the bracelets are by far the most popular pieces.

I still remember opening my gift at the kitchen table. It came in a navy blue box with silver lettering – St. Simon’s Jewelry Co. It fit perfectly, even on my bigger-boned wrist – the one I broke right there in the neighborhood back in third grade when I fell off a ladder climbing up to the roof of Candy Pruitt’s house. How could a simple silver bracelet evoke such rich memories of the places of my childhood – the trees, the beaches, Neptune Park, church…..back when the world was a safer, simpler place? I carry the island with me every time I wear it. Oh, how I’ve treasured it from the moment I first slipped it on – even before I knew it would be the last birthday gift in my mother’s lifetime.

Then, sometime in the late summer of 2015 as she and Dad were walking on the beach one morning, Mom found a St. Simon’s ring washed up on the shore.

“We’ll give it to Kim,” she told Dad, excited about her serendipitous find, “to match her bracelet!”

She put the ring in a top chest drawer and asked Dad to help her remember to give it to me the next time I came. Since she suffered from Lewy Body Dementia, she was vigilant about sharing her wishes with Dad when she was fully present in the moment so that she could rest assured that he knew what to do when her tomorrows stopped coming.

But her disease progressed much more quickly in the final stages than any of us had predicted. Though I made the five hour trip home several times in the months before she died, the ring was the last thing on Dad’s mind, and Mom was rarely cognizant of much in her final months. She died in December as we held hands around her bed in the very room where the ring still rested in the drawer.

A few months after her funeral, Dad came for a visit. I could tell he had something on his mind.

“I’m not suggesting anything here,” he began, taking the silver ring out of his pocket and placing it on the kitchen counter. He stopped short of finishing his sentence, wringing his hands, wiping his brow, and pausing for a moment before he continued.

“I don’t know how to explain this, Kim, but your mom put this ring in a drawer and asked me to help her remember to give it to you. I haven’t thought of this ring in months, but as I was walking up her wheelchair ramp in the garage, I looked down – – and there it was, right in the middle of the ramp.”

Chill bumps ran across my shoulders. She’d known he was coming to visit me, and she worked from the other side to help him remember to bring the ring. Our eyes misty with tears, I took the ring and placed it on my finger to find it was a perfect fit. Dad shared the story of their walk on the beach the morning she’d found it, how she was so thrilled that I’d have a ring to match the bracelet.

Even more miraculous, perhaps, is that most of my jewelry was stolen in 2021, and only a few pieces remained – among them, my cherished St. Simon’s bracelet and ring.

I’m not suggesting anything here…..but it wouldn’t surprise me if those pieces had actually been among the stolen items…….and that somehow they’d made yet another mysterious, unexplainable journey home to me.

At least that’s what I choose to believe.

I’ve never been much of a shopper.   I’d rather be doing pretty much anything else.

I think new coworkers figure it out quickly – I can see their wheels turning as they look in my direction and wonder whether I’ve got day-of-the-week outfits hanging on a rotation schedule in my closet.

My lackluster shopping habits garner thankful praise from my sweet husband about his “low-maintenance, frugal wife” and her simple ways.

Until it concerns his food. And we were out of yogurt.

When he arrived for Christmas, Dad brought a bag of fruitcake cookies and a Georgia fruitcake for all of us to enjoy here on the Johnson Funny Farm in rural mid-Georgia. My soul was warmed into holiday spirit when I imagined Aunt Sook of Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory announcing: “Oh my…it’s fruitcake weather!” as her breath smoked the windowpane in the frigid kitchen. I wondered if, true to the story, she had ever really sent one of Haha’s whiskey-laden fruitcakes to President Roosevelt, whose Little White House in Warm Springs Dad and I had just visited two days before Christmas. I sliced away merrily, setting out the sticky colorful cherry and orange candied-fruit and nut pieces on a plate.

Trouble is, most folks don’t like fruitcake. You have to have deep, multi-generational Southern roots and some serious value upbringing to ever acquire a taste for it. That’s why I was so proud that my Oklahoma-born/Georgia-raised husband took a quick liking to fruitcake and savored some of the brick. Even still, we had a lot left over. His affinity for it came in handy in the absence of more suitable breakfast groceries.

With gratitude to Felix, today’s Pantoum celebrates our nut-blended Georgia roots!

Go Dawgs!

.

Georgia Fruitcake Pantoum 

I hadn’t bought groceries

we’d run slap out of yogurt ~

Georgia fruitcake…for breakfast?!?

Dad’s script: COFFEE TIME  -SANTA

We’d run slap out of yogurt ~

fruit on the bottom vs. fruit throughout

Dad’s script: COFFEE TIME  -SANTA

Ga. Fruitcake : our nut-blended roots 

fruit on the bottom vs. fruit throughout

only 107.5 calories per ounce! 

Ga. Fruitcake : our nut-blended roots

Santa’s January answer

only 107.5 calories per ounce! 

Georgia fruitcake – for breakfast?!?

Santa’s January answer

I hadn’t bought groceries  

 

 

 

Briar, teaching Boo Radley how to solve a dog treat puzzle – December 2021

Billy Collins, well-loved poet and two-term US Poet Laureate, wrote his poem Fiftieth Birthday Eve, looking at the big 5-0 staring him down from a March midnight years ago.  I’ve linked two of his original poems at the bottom of today’s blog post.  Today, here is a Collins-inspired poem to celebrate Briar’s birthday tomorrow, with an equally enthusiastic nod to pine trees and whales and empty suitcases and dog treat puzzles – and a world of other extraordinary things.

On Your Sixty-First Birthday Eve

61. The figure alone flashes a stick-figure photo of us,

me with the tens-digit rounded bottom,

you standing tall in the thin, skinny ones

I want to daydream here on the Johnson Funny Farm,

of traveling to Europe, to Ireland’s green shores

a place of peaceful solitude, a respite from the world

But I keep picturing 61, seeing us contentedly-rooted

on this rural Georgia pine tree farm, evergreen-forest-moored

our place of peaceful solitude, our respite from the world

I try contemplating the sufferings of our luggage,

longing for more purpose behind the attic door,

lips zipped too tight to yell down their resfeber

But even an adventure to the world’s great places

touted as culture or well-traveled landmarks,

cannot diminish the worlds of wonder here, as

61, standing at the threshold

with a suitcase to home –

our toothbrushes, our worn-soled shoes,

our farm plat a traveler’s vast world map

By evening we’ll rest our feet by our fire

drink coffee, eat leftover brick slices of fruitcake

warmed in a moistened paper towel

in the microwave

thinking nothing particularly notable of the

authentic rural life we live

the most well-traveled journeymen will never know.

And this day, as every day, we set out

with smaller suitcases – daybags, backpacks,

handbags, totes

grocery bags with local foods, souvenirs of home

the most well-traveled journeymen will never see.

It follows tradition – this marked trip around the sun,

the cake and ice cream with candles aflame

the gift with a wrapping, tied with a string

The rest is up to us – to see the wonder in our ordinary –

to celebrate the Whale Days as we do Pine Tree Days and

Empty Suitcase Days and Dog Treat Puzzle Days

ever as ceremoniously as we do birthdays.

Happy Birthday, Briar!

You can read Billy Collins’ Fiftieth Birthday Eve here:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=38216

You can read Billy Collins’ Whale Day here (or listen):

https://www.kwbu.org/post/likely-stories-whale-day-billy-collins-0#stream/0

 

 

I recently Amazoned my dad a copy of Dog Songs to read and share among his dog park friends. What a cherished volume of poetry, full of heartfelt treasures by the beloved master of nature poetry and Pulitzer prize winner herself – the one and only Mary Oliver! My own dog-eared copy lives on a shelf of my top favorites, next to other volumes of her work.  Today’s chained Haiku was inspired by a poem from Dog Songs entitled Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night and my own little soul Schnoodle, Fitz. I’m flooded with warm memories of two years ago, when I led an adventure book club for teachers on Dog Songs, and the art teacher stayed late one afternoon to help us make adorable pottery dog bowls.  We wrote For I Will Consider poems about our own pets and shared them – inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem For I Will Consider My Dog Percy, who was inspired by Christopher Smart’s poem For I will Consider my Cat Jeoffrey. 

Be inspired and write about your pet – I’d love to share your poem here! You can email it to me at kimjohnson66@gmail.com, or post it in the comments below. 

Soul Schnoodle

when my Schnoodle comes

   snuggling, nuzzling, and nudging

     oh, how I listen! 

two little front paws 

    knead on my arm; a tiny 

     face peers up at me

his over-browed eyes 

   lock on mine, pleading to know

     that I still love him 

asking if he’s still 

   my soul spirit, reminding 

     me that I am his 

nosing me to scratch 

 proof of soul spirithood on

  his upturned belly 

when my Schnoodle comes

   snuggling, nuzzling, and nudging

     oh, how I listen! 

From 2019: For I Will Consider My Dog Fitz 

http://drjohnsonscommonthreads.blogspot.com/2019/05/mary-oliver-mashup-month-may-3-mary.html?m=1

From 2019: For I Will Consider My Dog Boo Radley

http://drjohnsonscommonthreads.blogspot.com/2019/04/poetry-challenge-from-travis-crowder_87.html?m=1

Every week, I have the highest privilege of working with a small group of creative writers in middle school.

Since I left the classroom five years ago to serve in Literacy leadership, I seek every opportunity to return to schools and classrooms to write creatively alongside students. It’s the dessert course of my busy week – being able to sit down, share ideas, express ourselves through writing, and guide the process of offering complimentary feedback to each other to empower growth through written expression – with whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles, and a cherry on top. 

Today, we will share our one little word choices for 2022 and begin to construct vision boards using cork squares. We begin with word choice and compose free verse poetry featuring our words. I’ll share today’s poem using my word listen as an example before students begin writing their own poetry as the first one little word vision board project spotlight for 2022. 

Cheers for the journey – for words and thoughts, for pretty papers and fresh journal pages, for glorious pens and pencils and markers, for colorful washi tape and the deep love and pride of a writer’s heart spilled out onto beloved pages of prose and verse. 

A Faint Hush

Listen ~

invisible lips 

murmur a faint hush

of wisdom ~

a barely audible whisper 

lean in 

to the calm stillness 

feel its sheer tranquility 

pure serenity 

be still 

in its ethereal pleasantry 

discern 

its message of blessing

Vision Board Resources:

https://artfulparent.com/make-vision-board-works-10-steps/

https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/a35337269/how-to-make-a-vision-board/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pinterest.com/amp/pin/194921490096193887/

…..and a thousand more on Pinterest! 

This pair of angel wings in Rockport, MA survived the rocky entrance to a small, peaceful wharf in the heart of Bearskin Neck, where I was searching for sea glass. Delicate as they were, they made it to the shore intact. I knew at once how they got there!  I packaged these fragile wings carefully in my suitcase and brought them all the way home with me, where they now rest in the east-facing windowsill of my reading room here on the Johnson Funny Farm in rural Georgia.  I used a Pantoum verse form today to revisit my original post from October 16, 2021.  

 Butterfly Flutters

my mother appeared, unexpected

on White Wharf’s peaceful shore

 from Heaven, on delicate angel wings ~

     a glimmering butterfly kiss 

on White Wharf’s peaceful shore 

shimmering miracle, hug unfurled –

     a glimmering butterfly kiss 

celestial seraph’s feathery wisps

shimmering miracle, hug unfurled –

       eyelash-flutter cheekbone brusher 

 celestial seraph’s feathery wisps

 tender moment, tickling breeze

       eyelash-flutter cheekbone brusher 

 from Heaven, on delicate angel wings ~

 tender moment, tickling breeze

 my mother appeared, unexpected

Rewritten as verse from original post October 16, 2021

Flutters from Heaven:

http://drjohnsonscommonthreads.blogspot.com/search?q=angel+wings

A family friend asked where Mom is buried, and I promised to share the story this week. Peace about her final resting place came in a most surprising way.  As answers still do.  

                     *Photo Credit:  Ken Haynes, Christ Church Cemetery, St. Simon’s Island, Georgia

I Picked the Spot, You Pick the Plot 

December 29, 2015, 322 Magnolia Avenue, St. Simon’s Island, Georgia – 

Time was closing in – God’s arms were cradling closer down from Heaven as Mom’s death rattle increased.  Some would say that she’d been up there since slipping out of consciousness in the days before her last breath, collecting all the dogs she’d ever loved from the Rainbow Bridge to take with her to her mansion. One thing we all knew for sure was that her final resting place needed to be closer to us than a family plot under consideration in Glennville, Georgia.  My brother Ken and I were standing in her future spot in Christ Church Cemetery when the call came.  

“Come home.  She’s down to her last moments. You’ll make it if you hurry.”  

I burst into tears as we sprinted toward the car. Speeding down Frederica Road, we knew divine intervention was occurring – we made it home in record time, moments from her last breath, miraculously with no speeding ticket, on a road that was impossibly tourist-jammed on a normal day.  The mother whose voice still reminds us to put on our seat belts and slow down was remarkably silent as we sped home, parallel to the airport runway with none of the symbolism of takeoff lost on either of us, trying to make it in time. We bolted inside and counted fewer than 20 remaining breaths from the time we arrived until 3:40 p.m., when she took no more.  

Throughout her life, Miriam Jones Haynes’ most fulfilling days were spent on St. Simon’s Island during the years that Dad was pastor of St. Simon’s Island First Baptist Church – in the 1970s and again in the 2010s.  She loved fishing, crabbing, sewing, cooking, sunning at the Beach Club while Ken and I swam in the pool, and running.  There was never a worthwhile thing that she couldn’t do well.  And she had a knack for seeing things others couldn’t and communicating them in the quietest, gentlest ways when someone in the dark needed revelation.  

When the idea of historic Christ Church Cemetery in its idyllic setting under the moss-draped oaks emerged as a possibility for her final resting place, Dad, Ken and I discussed it.  Dad was so exhausted that we could hear it in his voice.  

“The two of you can decide.  I’m fine with whatever you think is best,” he told us.

Several plots in the historic section were available.  I particularly liked those better for two reasons:  1) graves of close friends Ann and Earl Swicord would be nearby, she’d have good casket neighbors; and 2) Eugenia Price’s grave and the Dodge family graves are in the historic section, and there is nothing as moving to me as the order of the Dodge graves as explained at the end of The Beloved Invader.  

Ken pointed out that the new section, not as well-treed at the time, was not threatened by oak roots and had been built up on higher ground.  He liked the new section better. 

I told him, in the most loving sibling compromising banter possible, not unlike the days when we fought over Matchbox cars, “Fine.  I picked the spot.  You pick the plot.”  

So I chose Christ Church Cemetery, and Ken picked the new section.  We arranged for Dad to secure two plots – one for Mom in the coming days, and one for himself hopefully still many years away.  

Later that night, I was overcome with a feeling I couldn’t explain, like when you’re over-tired and nothing is right with the world.  I cried, mostly out of grief of pain and loss of my mother, but also because I was terribly unsettled about the plot and could find no peace.  

At the breakfast table the next morning, before Ken arrived, I shared my feelings with Dad.  

“I’m still wondering if we made the right choice.  You know how much Mom loved those oaks and the history and the beauty of Christ Church Cemetery.  I’m just praying that somehow, she sends us a majestic bird as a sign – something that can soar in the absence of a moss-draped oak tree – that will take our breath away and fill us with all-knowing peace that she likes the place.”  

Dad sipped his coffee, barely looking up, and offered an understanding nod.  

We worked through the other arrangements – from the red suit she’d worn to an interview when she got her job as a flight attendant to the fingernail polish color the young funeral home ladies inquired about, and I’d told them, “Paint them candy apple red to match that suit.  She can angel-glide through the pearly gates fully decked out in her favorite color!” 

Dad already had the service planned.  I asked about the music.  Without pause, he replied, “No question about that.  How Firm a Foundation.”  

Years later, watching the Jane Austin movie Emma with my daughter Ansley in a theater in Griffin, Georgia, I would hear the hymn and burst into tears.  

It’s tempting to resist saying Dad rocked the funeral out of expectation for a bit more reverent vibe, but that’s exactly what he did.  He shared touching stories and happy memories – and prayed her straight into the arms of God for good. He’d officiated at his own mother’s and father’s funerals, too.  And Mom’s parents’ funerals. We somehow made it through that service that seems mostly a blur now, even as I realized at the end of the day that I’d used straight concealer as my foundation that morning – which was probably in all actuality a task guided by the hand of my mother, who knew my sleep deprivation required “a little extra.”  She seemed to be make her guiding presence known, still, in the quietest of ways.  

As we moved from the funeral to the family graveside service, I was still struggling.  Hopefully, I prayed,  my face would not do what it always seemed to find a way to do, despite my best efforts – tell the truth.  I prayed it would not be evident to the three other people who knew my mixed feelings about the plot – Dad, Ken, and Briar. 

As soon as we stepped out of the car, we heard the birds before we ever saw them.  The high-pitched screeching overhead was unmistakable, and Dad froze in his tracks.  

“What have you done?” he asked, as if my prayer had been some magical spell gone sideways, like Aunt Clara casting a spell on an episode of Bewitched before disaster struck. 

The four of us looked overhead, and there – circling where no oak tree would have allowed such a magnificent spiraling aerial show – were three large-wingspan birds.  

Buzzards. 

Offering peace of mind and answers in a way that no hawk or eagle ever could have done. 

Buzzards! I’d been expecting a hawk -which she’d never failed to point out when she spotted one- and holding out hope for an eagle, yet here were three glorious buzzards to calm my troubled heart. 

“She showed up – – and she brought her parents,” Ken chuckled.  We watched as they landed on the branch of a tall tree at the edge of the cemetery, as if taking the back pew for the service, fluffing their wings as they settled in. 

The humor of our mother, who loved all living creatures and whose last coherent words to Dad had been, “You take care of these dogs,” sparked laughter in us even as we grieved.

We still listen for a voice that we only know can only be hers in certain situations – in the silence, in the breeze, in the car when we’ve forgotten our seat belts or need a reminder to slow down.   

We listen for the call of the birds, for the rustling of feathers.  We listen for the humor when we’re taking life too seriously.  

Re-written as prose from verse written May 16, 2020: 

https://drjohnsonscommonthreads.blogspot.com/search?q=family+circle

Listen

Late at night

In early morning

Sunshine or rain, I 

Turn heavenward my

Ears, attentive, ceaselessly

Needing His wisdom

In March 2021, I was so inspired by Fran Haley’s poem “Listen” that I wrote a mirror poem, using her phrase just to listen, and used the repeating word listen throughout my mirror poem.  For National Poetry Month’s #VerseLove celebration in April 2021, I used her poem as the inspiration poem during my day of hosting. The power of a poem, the power of a word, the power of a kinship of writers and readers as we share blesses me tremendously – and that one word listen stayed with me and became my one not so little word for 2022.  Thank you to everyone in my writing groups, and thank you to those who provide opportunities for all of us to share our writing!  I celebrate you all today.  

You can read Fran Haley’s poem Listen here:

https://litbitsandpieces.com/2021/03/12/listen/

My mirror poem Just to Listen is here:

http://drjohnsonscommonthreads.blogspot.com/2021/03/just-to-listen.html?m=1

Our poems during #Verselove 2021 are here:

http://www.ethicalela.com/7-30-mirror-poem/

#listen #olw2022 #sol22

 A very special thank you to Slice of Life, and Happy New Year to everyone!