The Farmer Among the Tombs

Banks/Rogers plot, Columbia Cemetery

The Farmer Among the Tombs

by Wendell Berry

I am oppressed by all the room taken up by the dead, their headstones standing shoulder to shoulder, the bones imprisoned under them.

Plow up the graveyards! Haul off the monuments! Pry open the vaults and the coffins so the dead may nourish their graves 

and go free, their acres traversed all summer

by crop rows and cattle and foraging bees.

Kentucky’s finest author and poet Wendell Berry strikes his note in this short, poignant poem. When I first read it many years ago it made me question the entire busine$$ of death and also the impact of these cemeteries on our precious land. Whether it is burial or cremation, these last rites provide enduring rituals that help to sanctify a person’s life.

It is a deeply personal decision for an individual or family to make. No right or wrong answer exists. As I visit my brother’s grave many times in past months, this poem keeps coming back, even haunting me on some level. If I could talk to Wendell Berry when I'm next in Kentucky, I would tell him that my contemplating this poem over the years reminds me how useful poetry is in my life. Being laid to rest in our family plot in the historic Columbia Cemetery both comforts me and sets my soul free. Regardless of me, the lives of my brother and dad (and other close relatives) are indeed worthy--more than worthy--of a 4 foot by 10 foot piece of land. 

Someday I will tell this farmer genius that he helped lead me to my future grave in a very roundabout way. I’m confident that birds fly, squirrels scamper, and the bees will buzz, nourishing beloved lives no longer in the flesh but rich in meaning and spirit and so much love.

I believe that space, in the chaos of daily living, is real estate used for its highest purpose and grace.

Cold Feet

“The Workshop was founded in September 2010 by Keija Parssinen, an Iowa Writers' Workshop alum, published novelist, and teacher of fiction writing. Inspired by Columbia's vibrant creative scene, Keija wanted to establish a home where area writers could share their work with peers, give and receive feedback on manuscripts, and learn about the craft of fiction and creative non-fiction writing.

Modeled after Brooklyn's Sackett Street Workshop and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, QHWW provides careful instruction from an experienced teacher, thoughtful peer review, and a community of people who value the art of writing and understand its hardships and pleasures.”

For the next 8 Mondays I’ll be joining 8 other writers in the Quarry Heights Writers’ Workshop. My blog posts will decline during this time as my attention turns to a manuscript in its infancy. The positive reception that I received to the All Things Important blog has helped me build the courage and enthusiasm necessary to submerge myself in this creative journey with other writers. Throughout the workshop I will post excerpts from my manuscript to All Things Important. 

This clearly is the biggest “dare” I’ve ever taken as a “writer.”  When my feet feel cold, I remember author and poet Marge Piercy’s words in a letter: 

“The real writer is one who really writes.” 

3 Ice Cube Magic

This is my favorite plant in my sunroom both because orchids are the most beautiful of flowering plants and it was a birthday gift about 8 years ago from my parents. Dad decided that because my orchid bloomed each year, I was a plant whisperer. On the other hand, Mom dubbed my sunroom as the plant hospital, and moi as the doctor, and a perfect place to deposit her ailing plants.

For the past three years, my orchid did not bloom. The roots crawled, the thick leaves remained green. I refused to give up because life clearly existed in that pot, I just didn’t know what to do but wait for life or death.

A family friend gave my Mom a beautiful, delicate orchid in Jim’s memory hoping to soothe my Mom’s aching heart. Knowing the friend’s success with the plant, I asked her what to do. “Just put 2-3 ice cubes on the soil about once a week.” What, I asked? “Just try the ice cube trick and see what happens.”

I took her advice and this morning, on a gloomy Friday day, I saw my beloved orchid in bloom for the first time in years. Additionally, the two orchid plants my mom sent to the “hospital” have buds in the making; perhaps I will have the joy year round thanks to a few ice cubes.

Glory, Glory!

The Rotary Dial

Over the weekend a friend visited and we sprawled on the floor of the sunroom catching up about everything and nothing, enjoying the warmth from the sun, a good friendship. The phone rang and I answered. Being a city council campaign robocall, I bailed quickly.

My friend laughed and laughed hard. I felt perplexed. He asked me what that thing was I just answered. The fifteen-year age difference became very apparent; I replied it was a rotary dial phone--still a blank face. I exclaimed, “You’re acting as if a message just arrived on the Pony Express!”

This rotary dial phone has logged more hours on it than many cell and portable phones combined. Why? Unlike today’s phones they were built to last. My thirty-five-year-old phone works great, never runs out of batteries, and thanks to its two-foot curly cord, is easy to find, always. The phone sounds great and even sports a flower I painted on it years ago in the dorm.

But--should you call me, please don’t expect to press 1 to speak; 2 to leave a message; or 3 to send a text message. 

No can do on the rotary phone.

Interesting Facts:

*The earliest form of the rotary dial used lugs on a finger plate instead of holes and was granted a patent in 1898.
*The “modern” version of the rotary dial entered the Bell System in 1919.
*The touch tone phone was introduced in the early 1960s and largely replaced the rotary dial.
* Oddly, rotary phones still occasionally find important uses. For instance, the anti-drug coalition of the Anacostia section of Washington, D.C., persuaded the phone company to install rotary dials in area pay phones. The goal was to damper the drug trade, since the dials could not be used to call dealers' pagers.

The Importance of Being Cleo



Cleo the Jungle Cat

Cleo is forced to admit to leading a double life. In the wild, the jungle as I call it, she assumes the role of mouser extraordinaire, keeper of the dogs, biter and nipper of all that disrupts, mad dasher around the jungle <aka my house>, and plenty of attitude for the perceived benefit of her family.  Yes, my little girl is “of the jungle.”

But in enters Cleo’s other persona. In the city, which I call my home when visitors come for a meal or a cocktail and talk of politics and poetry, the barn transforms into a lovely parlor. Cleo becomes civilized. Meanwhile, she assumes the identity of an engaging cat that wins hearts.

Living a double life is hard no doubt but Cleo is a winner. It must be the racing stripe running vertical on her face.

“I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.” Ahem Cleo!

So, yes, today I toast “The Importance of Being Cleo.” 

The End.

Cleo the Hostess

We live in deeds, not years

Jim Playing in the Dog Crate as a Young Child

Five months ago today my youngest brother Jim died. I’ll never understand why he left so soon but this poem, read at his memorial service, brings some comfort, some reason, to the unexplainable. Jim loved to joke, laugh, and his eyes twinkled as he told a story or pulled a prank.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He who lives most,
feels the noblest, acts the best.
And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest:
Lives in one hour more than in years do some.

"We Live in Deeds Not Years," Philip James Bailey (1816-1902)

Sporting Reindeer Ears at Christmas Dinner



Hotel Frederick & Glenn's Cafe, Boonville

Corner of High and Main Streets, Boonville

“Remember your room number. Our guests usually return and they get attached to their room. Each room is different.”

Wise words from the maître d’hôtel. 

I wandered the halls before dinner, admiring the old maps and lithographs that lined the walls of this majestic hotel. The maître d’, already my friend, equipped me with an ice cooler and answered a few routine questions with genuine hospitality. Ostensibly in Boonville for the Big Muddy Folk Festival, I was really there as the lucky winner of a Facebook contest for friends of Hotel Frederick. 

Glenn’s Cafe, formerly one of Columbia's most beloved restaurants, moved to Boonville to joint venture with the restored Hotel Frederick, in 2004. Columbians miss Glenn’s. Like visiting an old friend, the menu had changed very little, all my favorites there just for the tasting. It was a busy night; I sat by the kitchen doors and happily watched and listened to the bustling staff and rapidly swinging doors of the kitchen.

Bathroom Door

I returned to the hotel after the concert to savor the fact that I was alone, living in the present, and not reflecting on days past or what the future might bring. A realization took hold that out in the real world all is new each day. 

Laying on my daybed in the front room, I read a bit from Gift from the Sea, a book that bears re-reading at least once a decade. I found my self drifting but in awe of Room 11. From the Persian Gabbeh rugs to the authentic antiques and the magic of the old walls--oh the stories they could tell! And the bathroom: black and white floors, a stained glass door, and colors everywhere.

Daybed

Earlier, I asked the maître d’ if the homemade soap in dishes at the front desk accounted for the lobby's scent. “Yes,” and he told me to look for several complimentary bars in my room. In addition, he mentioned that the staff “washes the sheets with homemade detergent using the same ingredients," which created a mild layering of the smell. When I finally slipped into my sheets the light aroma reminded me that being present really is the only place to live.

This beautiful Gibson ice chest was located
in the Breakfast Room. 

Hotel Frederick offers a morning continental breakfast. A community table promoted conversation with other Hotel Frederickans. It seemed appropriate that a block from the Old Jail (that housed Frank James) I would be striking up conversation with a Jesse James aficionado. This gifted storyteller delighted me with tales ranging from his leaving Columbia “with the posse on his back” in the late night of the late 1970s because his perception of the town’s intolerance for the peace movement to seeing Frank James’s ear nailed to a board in Northfield, Minnesota--the town where my niece attends college (St. Olaf). Several interesting stories continued, one being of “a mean old lady” who claimed to have a cave on her land where Jesse James lived. My new friend said that she sold rocks off the cave and then went to the river and brought more rocks up to the site. "What a fraud," he mumbled.

Room 11 at the Hotel Frederick is my new home away from home.

A few interesting facts:

*Hotel Frederick was built in 1905 for a cost of $40,000.

*It is the best example of Romanesque Revival architecture in the region and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

*From 1901-1964 it operated as a hotel. Following the sale, the building served as a weekend restaurant, a retirement center, and even a Greyhound bus depot.

*When the hotel was purchased in 2004 with the commitment to return it to his former glory, the renovations alone were at least $4 million.