Family Stories

Family Stories

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Betty Leet Bell is my Dad’s first cousin, which makes her my second cousin, or my first cousin once removed. One thing she is without question is a genealogist. She has spent years researching the births, deaths, marriages and deeds of those who can no longer tell their own stories.

Yesterday we went to visit Betty and she told us about a cousin who danced in the dream sequence of the movie “Carousel,” a great-grandmother (above) who died of the measles after giving birth to her tenth child, and another relative whose pet was a talking crow.

One of Betty’s stories concerned two store-front lots in Lexington. When she was researching the ancestors on her mother’s side, she learned that in the 1790s her great-great grandfather bought these two parcels of land for a hatter’s shop.

A couple years later, when Betty was researching her father’s side of the family, she learned that these were the exact same lots that her dad purchased in the 1930s when he was looking for a place to build his furniture store. One hundred and forty years (and several intervening owners) separated these purchases. It was one of those historical coincidences that Betty says is not that uncommon when she’s digging into the past.

Maybe it was just the commercial potential of these lots that spoke — generations apart — to these two very different men. Or maybe there was something about that spot, the way it looked in the morning light, or smelled after a good, hard rain; maybe there was something about that place that spoke to each of them.

A House, A Photograph, A Story

A House, A Photograph, A Story

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Today I’m in Lexington, about to go for a walk in a neighborhood that is not my own but which has meaning for me because my parents live here. In class the other night we talked about whether you can know a place without knowing its history. The consensus, if there was one, was that a place is shaped by its history, but you don’t necessarily have to know that history in order to be shaped by that place.

This house was where my Great Aunt Sally died more than 80 years ago. We drove by the house the last time I was in Lexington and Dad told the story of going with his father to his Aunt Sally’s wake in this house when he was a little boy. Dad also spoke about a racetrack across the street from the house, a track that preceded Keeneland, Lexington’s current track. I couldn’t resist taking a few photos of the house. It is quite different from all the other houses on the block. It looks like a castle.

A few weeks after my last visit to Kentucky there was an article in the Lexington Herald-Leader about this very house. It was home to Courtney Mathews, an African-American horse trainer who probably trained 1902 Kentucky Derby winner Alan-a-Dale. Mathew’s funeral was held 13 years later in the same house where my Aunt Sally’s took place. It’s a house that may soon be named to the National Register of Historic Places. The same house I photographed on a muggy June day 71 years later.

I guess this shows which side I take in a discussion on history and place.

Route 66

Route 66

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Our road west begins with Route 66. Not the “Route 66” of “Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino,” lines from the song Nat King Cole made popular, the song we sang as kids when we were heading to California the first time. And not the “Route 66” of the iconic 1960s television show, with its haunting theme song. And not the real Route 66, the road that wound through red rock canyons and high pine forests, a road mostly bypassed now but not forgotten.

Our Route 66 runs from D.C. to Front Royal. It passes through Vienna and Oakton and Fair Oaks and Gainesville and Manassas. From it you can reach Great Meadow or Skyline Drive. And rather than seeing the Rockies at its western horizon you can spot the subtle line of the Blue Ridge. Route 66 is our road west. It is a short interstate, and often clogged with traffic. But from its crowded lanes the road west begins. We will take this direction any way we can.

Ghost Flowers

Ghost Flowers

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I can’t walk far these days without seeing one of late summer’s most luscious treats. It is Clematis paniculata, sweet autumn clematis.

Paniculata — what a wonderful word! I say it silently to myself when I’m walking and I swear it speeds me up. It has multisyllabic bounciness. It reminds me, in fact, of another multisyllabic word, Lolita, and of the opening lines of Nabokov’s novel by that name: “Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”

Only with “paniculata” that would be five steps down the palate — Pa. Nic. U. La. Ta.”

Paniculata is a spray of white in a world of tired green. It is a bridal veil, a fountain, a bounty; climbing over fence rows and crowning mailboxes. We had one for many years and then it mysteriously disappeared. A victim of disease or an errant mower? We’ll never know.

Every year I vow to plant another. But every year I forget. Clematis paniculata. Ghost flowers.


Photo: White Flower Farm

Back to Barriers

Back to Barriers

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I write today, as I often do, with Copper curled beside me. Like many dogs, he likes to lie with his back against a barrier. The barrier might be a couch cushion, a bookcase, a cool metal filing cabinet or, in this case, my lap.

There is probably an entire literature on canine sleeping habits, the desire for warmth and closeness bred in pack animals. But from where I sit, it’s simple: I have his back. There is something solid behind him. He will not drop off into the void.

In this context, then, having one’s back against the wall does not mean a lack of choices, a last stand. It means backing, support and protection.

I think about my family, house and neighborhood — the bulwarks I’ve built, the people and places that stand behind me; the people and places I stand behind, too. They are my guard rails, my talisman, my way to fill the void.

500, and Once Again, Topography

500, and Once Again, Topography

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I’ve written 500 posts since I began A Walker in the Suburbs in February 2010. And many of them have been about the land.

I’m thinking again about last week’s flood, because I’ve had a chance to walk the streets that were rivers on Thursday. Though the waters have receded, they have left behind a moraine of gravel, sticks, acorns, matted grass. This effluvia lines our streets, roads and sidewalks. In the woods, a pedestrian bridge heaved up by the fast-moving water fell back down again in a slightly different place. Subtle signs — but signs just the same.

More than other natural occurrences, a flood makes you aware of topography: whether you live on a ridge or in a hollow; whether you live on high ground or low.

In Memoriam

In Memoriam

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I didn’t lose anyone I loved that day — though Tom walked home past a smoldering Pentagon and my brother Phillip glimpsed the first plane flying preternaturally low, saw it moments before it struck the tower.

But I did lose a place that day. We all did. We lost the country that existed up until 8:45 a.m. September 11, 2011. Into its place came another country, less innocent, more anxious, initially united but now fragmented.

To the extent that I can recall any one emotion from that horrible day, that day of clear air and silent skies, it was a sadness and tenderness for my country. It was a feeling I had experienced before only attached to people — a pathos for our achievements, our goodness and even for our mistakes.

On September 12 I went to church. Suzanne, 12 at the time, came with me. The minute we took our seats I was sorry that I had brought her. Everyone was sobbing. None of the lectors could make it through a reading. I vaguely remember hearing the passage about beating swords into ploughshares, but other than that all I recall were the tears.

Suzanne, now 22, said just the other day she was glad she was there. It made her realize the depth of what happened to us. And as I watch the commemorations of this day on television, I see young men and women Suzanne’s age who lost fathers and mothers and brothers. They were children then; they are adults now. They grew up in a different world.

Sodden

Sodden

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Yesterday was an odd day to write about rills. I suppose this week’s steady rainfall was the background music to my choice, the steady patter of drops on grass, a calming, soothing noise.

Until you witness what all those steady drops can bring.

Our part of the world was a swollen, soggy mess yesterday — and dangerous, too. I had to turn around when rushing creek water turned parts of my usual route into a river. An hour or so later, on his way home, Tom saw a fire engine towing a boat. And in fact, a commuter parking lot near us was closed, the cars submerged, after six inches of rain fell in a few hours. Children were stranded at their schools. Things were so bad that people made jokes about seeing animals lined up two by two.

And still today it rains. In the last three weeks we’ve had an earthquake, a hurricane and now torrential rain and flooding. A line from Emily Dickinson comes to mind:

“Nature, like us, is sometimes caught without her diadem.”

Willow Rill

Willow Rill

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The word “rill” has been on my mind. I thought of it one day when I was walking, savored the quaintness of it, the smallness of it; how it sounds like what it is: a small brook or stream, water running quickly across a bed of rocks, mud or beaten grass. The word is linguistically kin to “rivulet” and is also close to “run,” another word for creek in southern places.

We drove past Willow Run in Emmitsburg, Maryland, over the weekend, and I was delighted to see the word in print. Not knowing why I thought about “rill” in the first place, here was a rill in real life. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

But all I could glimpse of Willow Rill was the bridge that led across it. So now I see the creek in my mind’s eye, a stream of clear water flowing beneath a curtain of green, not as raucous as a brook, slower and more meandering, slight-banked. There is a lilt to its passage through the landscape (the word “rill” is mighty close to “trill”). It sings as it courses down the mountain.

Chauffeur No More

Chauffeur No More

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One more post on driving and rites of passage. What ended the other day when Celia got her license was — symbolically at least — my almost 23-year-old job as chauffeur. There is a time in a family’s life when it seems like driving is all you do. Our county is large and congested, and our children have been involved in band, orchestra, cross-country, track, cello lessons, clarinet lessons, voice lessons, ballet, tap and hip-hop, video camp, modeling camp, Girl Scouts, swimming, horseback riding, basketball, volleyball, soccer, rugby, religious education, diocesan work camp, tutoring, academic enrichment programs, volunteering at food banks, jobs in places far away from home and much, much more that I have (blissfully) forgotten.

For a time we did all this driving in our small Saab sedan (which I eulogized in a post in August 2010). It was almost like one of those circus cars where an impossibly large number of clowns clamber out. Somehow we could fit three children, a cello and a string bass in this one vehicle.

Then we switched (reluctantly) to the van, and our official carpooling life began. Because I haven’t even discussed all the other children we’ve driven, all the funny conversations I’ve overheard, the times my heart has been lightened (and yes, the times it has sunk) because of something revealed to me in the car.

The automobile has been an extension of our family kitchen, a part of the house we take with us wherever we go. The girls and I have had serious talks on these drives, have gotten to know each other better during them, and have had a lot of laughs together during them, too.

So even though I won’t miss the rush hour traffic, the last minute dashes to school (and I’ll probably still make some of those), I will miss all the chaos and the fun and the complete indispensability of my role as chauffeur. It is one time you know — beyond all doubts and second-guesses — that you are needed.