Sightings on the Edge of the World, #2: Tonight's Sky

The sun had already set when I walked to the cliffs above the ocean tonight, and the crowds had dispersed.  Only a few people lingered, and the path felt empty.  The sky was steel blue and cloudy; the ocean shimmered an even darker blue.   The sand was damp brown.  It was quiet.  And right where the sun had set was a glowing red line.  As I walked along the line of the horizon, the red deepened and broadened and layered up under and through the blue like ripples on water. 

Down on the beach, a little white dog stretched out on the sand, belly down, legs out, as the surf came right up to it.  A few feet in front of the dog, little birds skittered about, following the edge of the water.  The dog's person walked along between them.  A lone surfer was bobbing out in the waves.   Some kind of boat moved further out along the horizon.

A mountain had mysteriously appeared above the ocean, piercing the clouds--a big, solid dark blue mountain where usually there was only sky. 

By the time I turned to go home, a thin layer of opal yellow filtered through marking the line between sea and sky.  Red and blue rippled up through layers of clouds, and the blue mountain stood firm.

Both the beginning and the end of my walk were marked by a most unusual sight:  a young, tall, thin, extremely pale Asian woman wearing a long black duster coat and black unzipped ankle boots with thin white socks and a huge bright red backpack that ran from above her head to the bottom of her hips.  It was the color of the sunset.

On my way out to sea, she was slowly walking in toward the street, and on my way home, she was trotting back out to the cliffs, running almost on tiptoe, with her long coat flapping around her.  Maybe she’s camping out on the sky mountain now.

Missing NYC: Riding Out the Storm

Tonight I miss New York City.  I lived in New York for 14 years, most of the time living on the top floor of a 15-story apartment building in midtown Manhattan with a wide open view of the Empire State Building.  I just moved here to sunny, temperate Del Mar, California, a little over 2 years ago.  A few days ago I received my official California state driver’s license.  The more I settle into California, the more I miss New York, especially at the crucial stepping stones.

It’s 22 degrees in New York City tonight, 57 degrees in Del Mar.  Granted the blizzard turned into a typical winter snow in the city, but still it’s snowing in New York, and I miss the snow, and the cold and the grittiness.  The toughness of it all.  The camaraderie.  The “we’re all in this together” attitude.  The drive and energy.  The charge.

Here, we all walk our individual walks along the cliffs above the ocean at sunset, striding calmly, no worries.  Maybe at most, petting a dog or two, saying “hi” to a person or two.  No big deal. Nothing to stress over.  Nothing to talk about.

I watch the colors of the ocean, the sky, the sand, the flowers, and they take my breath away.  Radiant, translucent, vibrant pastels.  Sweet sage-and-ocean-filled air.

There I checked the colors of the Empire State Building every night, often wondering what they stood for, which ethnic group was being honored, what holiday, sometimes looking up the answers online, and looking out at the lights, listening to the traffic, feeling the buildings all around me, the grid, the movement, “the dance of the charged energy particles,” as my friend Barry would say.

I miss the food.  El Parador, Wild Edibles, La Giara, Cosette, Naya Express, Libretto’s—my neighborhood restaurants.  Each particular taste right on the tip of my tongue.

And I miss the people.  All the people I would never know as we walked past one another.  People I sort of knew, enough to greet.  And people I knew very well, from the inside out and outside in, and who I will always love.

I am glad the storm wasn’t as bad as expected, and the city can go on about its business and be itself in every way again. Thank you New York.  You are a rock.

A Tribute to Billy Causey, Music Minister, First Baptist Church, Zachary, Louisiana: The True Music Man

I grew up in Zachary, Louisiana, as the oldest child of the pastor of First Baptist Church on Main Street in the heart of town.  When we first moved there in 1961, I fell in love with the Minister of Music, Wayne Vincent.  He was my first love, and I would pick bouquets of tiny white flowers from the bushes around the church and give them to him and imagine our wedding.  I was 3 and a half years old, so he didn’t take it too seriously, but I did.  When he left to move to the big city, Baton Rouge, I was crushed.  I couldn’t imagine life at First Baptist Zachary without him. 

Around 1970, when I was 12 or 13 or so, a new music minister arrived, Billy Causey, and I was immediately swept away by his enthusiasm, vitality, good cheer, beautiful voice, trumpet-playing, and all-over love of life.  He came with his sweet wife Judy, the drama teacher, and they soon produced 2 very cute children, Clay and Clacy, who became darlings of the congregation, much like my sister Kim and I had been when we first arrived.  To say, I loved them all is an understatement.  

They brought new, fresh, young energy that revitalized us all, at a critical juncture—the heyday of the 60s, and they were able to ride with the energy of the times and bring it into our little world in a way that expanded it but didn’t overturn it.  My dad probably had a hand in that too, but that’s for another story.  Simply put, Billy and Judy, Clay, and Clacy, provided a nice counterbalance to my dad’s seriousness and authority, and lightened things up considerably, but with real depth of feeling.

Billy was the one who made the youth choir a truly exhilarating experience, giving us music to sing that cheered our hearts and felt contemporary and cool; taking us on tours to Disneyworld, Washington, DC, and points all over the southeast; and most of all, being a true friend and mentor, listening to our heartfelt concerns and caring about each of us.  He did it all with such depth of feeling, genuine love of music and people, openness, kindness, humor, and bonhomie, that we couldn’t help but follow him.  He was the Pied Piper, the Music Man, leading us along paths that expanded our hearts and confidence and helped us sing our hearts out.

Plus he could sing.  He had a beautiful voice that brought out the best in our voices.  And he was funny.  

As I moved away and into my adult life, I longed still to hear Billy sing, and I asked him to sing at my wedding.  I was always cheered, moved, and heartened to hear him and see him when I visited.  He had a way of looking at you that made you feel seen and heard and known.

He died yesterday, January 6, 2015, in  Zachary, still a young man.  Many, many people will miss him, his voice and presence, including me.  Even though, I haven’t lived in Zachary for 38 years, he has shaped and moved me and inspired me all this time and always will.  

Thank you, Billy, for encouraging us to sing and embodying your faith with true devotion, humor, and beautiful, strong music. Sending you many bouquets of tiny white flowers and singing “Softly and Tenderly”….

Low Tide, Blue Skies

The tide is way out today and the sky is clear blue, revealing much that is usually hidden.

For My Mother, Gale Louise Beyette, February 15,1938-August 30, 2014

My mom passed away on Saturday, August 30, 2014, at 11:11 am in Vero Beach, Florida.  She was surrounded by people who loved her, and who she loved:  her brother Kent Beyette, her sons Sharlon and Trevon Barnes, me and her other two daughters, Kimberly Adkins and Leyette Johnson, my friend Mimi Eagleton, her daughter-in-law Lisa Thompson Barnes and Lisa’s brother Noel Thompson, and Lisa’s pastor Dr. G.Timothy Womack, who had visited her every day in the hospital.

Her passing was beautiful, peaceful, and profoundly moving. 

Afterwards at Trevon and Lisa’s home, we received many offerings of food from the wonderful folks of Vero, and Mimi painted all of the women with light touches of gold glitter.  I even received a few sparkles on my finger nails.

The next day we went to Lisa’s church, First Presbyterian of Vero Beach, and had a service of celebration of her life.  Her granddaughter Emily brought one of mom’s famed silk flower arrangements to adorn the space.  Jacob Craig, the music minister, opened the service playing the uilleann pipes. We sang “Be Thou My Vision,” “In the Garden” and “How Great Thou Art.” Lisa’s sister-in-law, Robyn Thompson, sang “Near to the Heart of God/Sweet Hour of Prayer.”  Pastor Tim spoke beautifully—“Words of Memory and Hope.” Kent spoke about growing up with mom and watching her evolve from Gail to Gayle to Gale, the spelling of her name she settled on, and which he said was just right—she was a gale force wind.  All who know her know the truth of her name, and Kent described her perfectly. We closed by choosing stones painted with sweet words the night before by Robyn, and building cairns in her memory. 

On September 20, 2014, the entire family and close friends gathered outside of Houston, Texas, at  Klein Memorial Park in Pinehurst, Texas, to bury my mom’s ashes next to her sister Cecile and close to her parents Eloise and Cecil Beyette, under the beautiful, tall pine trees and in the rich red dirt of East Texas.

Trevon, Kent, and I chose the headstone the morning of the service.  Trevon’s idea was to say “A Welcome Wind.” Mine was “In Beauty I Walk.” We combined them, and Kent approved.  The headstone will be a light silvery grey marble, with a delicate frame of flowers, and inside it will say:

           

            A Welcome Wind

            Gale Louise Beyette

            February 15, 1938

                        To

            August 30, 2014

            In Beauty I Walk

Pastor Tim from Vero came to conduct the service, with my father, Reverend Wayne Barnes, assisting.  My stepmother Joyce Barnes came with my dad and beamed comfort and strength to us all. Three couples from First Baptist Church, Zachary, Louisiana, who had known Mom for many years in her role as preacher’s wife, made the 6-8 hour drive to be there:  Charlie and Juanita Massey, James and Pat McLaurin, and Phil and Mary Stagg, who made delicious loaves of chocolate chip banana bread for all of Mom’s children.  Mom’s cousin June and her husband Al Matchett came from Dallas.  Sonja Beyette came with her husband Wayne, from Beyette Road, in Magnolia, Texas—the only Beyette remaining on the family road.  Joan and Kent Beyette, super-troopers who had been there through it all in Vero, kept on trucking, and brought their joyful presence.  Kent’s son Thomas, who I hadn’t seen since he was 4 years old—he’s now 40—brought his solid, impressive self.  Calm and kind David Covington, Mom’s brother-in-law, and his lively daughter and force of nature herself, my cousin Valerie, drove in from Jackson, Mississippi.  All of my wonderful brothers and sisters and their beautiful families came:  Kim, Court, Danielle, Jared, and Angelica Adkins; Sharlon and Liz Barnes, with Sadie Barnes, and grandchildren Ronan, Mackenzie, and Hayden; Trevon and Lisa Barnes—the Rocks through all this—were there despite hospitalizations and pneumonia along the way.  Trevon’s daughter Emily Barnes and her mother April came.  Leyette, John, Aaron, and Kayla Johnson all brought their gifted selves. 

Many of us stayed at a hotel up the road, and the night before, Emily and Angelica gave themselves facials using Mom’s creams, and exclaimed, “Now we smell like Grandma Gale!”  Surely Mom was laughing and enjoying that as much as we were.  Many of us wore jewelry she had given us.

At the service, John led us all in singing “Amazing Grace.”  We sounded astonishingly good.  Leyette told me after that was because he used the right key—that they had practiced various keys in the car until they found the one that everyone could sing.

After the service, Leyette’s friend Mona from college invited us all over to her beautiful home to eat the best barbecue ever and relax and enjoy one another’s company. Here we are:

At the service, we set up a table with the beautiful wooden box from Mom’s home that held her ashes.  It was a box she had carried with her for many years.  It was a rectangular box with angled sides made of a marled reddish oak and had carved silver feet and a curved handle on top with a wreath on the front side.  My sister Kim had found a large wooden gold G in mom’s home and placed it on the table.  We also put this photo of Mom from her youth—red hair and green dress—in all her vibrant beauty and intelligence. 

We closed the service by building cairns with the same stones from the Vero service.  Afterwards we put some stones in the grave and those who wanted also took a stone.

During the service, Pastor Tim and my father spoke beautifully, and then I spoke. Following is more or less what I said.

“I was lucky enough to arrive at the hospital while Mom was still conscious, and I will never forget the way she looked when I first walked in.  She was sitting in her chair with a tray of mostly eaten food, chewing, and looking up with a big smile and laughing at an old classic Cary Grant movie on the TV.  She turned when I entered and said, “I love this old movie,” and then she realized it was me and gave me a melting look of pure love and hugged me.  That first moment, when she was enthusiastically enjoying the movie and her dinner and oblivious to everything else, like she didn’t have a care in the world, that was classic Mom—and the other look was too, in her way. We’ve all seen both of those looks—the totally absorbed in art/movie/story/furniture/curtains/clothes enthusiast and the present and deeply loving mother.

She was an enthusiastic co-creator in life.  Everything she did, she did with enthusiasm.  She knew how to give herself to something.  And she was a very generous person.

When my friend Mimi walked through her home after Mom was gone, even in the amazingly overwhelmed-with-stuff-state it was in, all she could say was, “Your mom was a creative genius.”  She was that.

The Gospel of John says, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions”…well if that’s so, then God just found himself a great interior decorator, and Mom is having a blast.  Because she had more ideas for rooms and homes than this world could hold.  Her last home is testament to that—it was like an artist’s studio, and you could see all the dreams of homes she ever held in it.  And even with all the clutter and disarray, her brilliance was evident.  Now at last she has enough space to create all she envisions, infinite space, an unlimited budget, and the deepest pockets in the universe.

Mom was extraordinarily beautiful and vibrant, and she loved beauty, and she created beauty everywhere she went.  Recently, I heard a minister urge, “Let beauty be our legacy when we leave.”  Beauty—and love—and an abundance of it! is Mom’s legacy to us all.

Until Mom’s passing, I didn’t really understand how much and how pervasively she loved us all and what an amazing accomplishment it was to bring five such different and rich and vital human beings into the world—all between the ages of 20 and 30—in 10 short years, when she was very, very young.  She was an extraordinary mother in those early years, buying all our food on a shoestring budget and cooking all our meals and imagining and creating most of our clothes, all while being a preacher’s wife right across the street from the church, where her life was an open book to all.  As we grew older and our lives developed in unpredictable ways and Mom’s wild and free nature defied conventional paths, my experience of her love became clouded, and I tended to see her as someone to worry about and to protect myself from.  She was a challenging mom, then, and all I could think was “What’s she going to do next?”

But when I saw her in the hospital that day, all I could see and feel was love—her extraordinary, unconditional, generous love for us, and all the richness she had given us—and all was forgiven, and I was no longer worried about Mom or any of us.

Mom used to love to tell the story of when Trevon was a tiny little boy learning to swim in the kiddie pool in Zachary.  It was a shallow pool only a few inches deep, where the parents watched the little ones splash and play in the water.  Trevon ran up to Mom, “Hey, Mom, watch me jump in,” and as he trotted off, she called out after him, “Be sure to hold your breath!”  Urk! He stopped suddenly, looked at the water, turned to her with a puzzled face, and said, “Where’s my breath?”

Mom’s love was like that breath--pervasive, and there just wasn’t one place to hold it.  And now at last I feel it in a way that’s permanent and everlasting—one of the many blessings she has showered us with in the past few weeks in ways I never expected.

Thank you, Mom, for being such a rich and beautiful and generous and fun and loving and intelligent and wise mother.  I am so happy you are my mother.  I will miss you—I already do.  I miss your voice and your sparkling presence.  I miss your insights. Thanks for leaving us so much beautiful stuff—I feel your love and presence in every piece.  I am so grateful.

Mom loved to read, and way back when she taught high school English, I remember she liked to teach Native American writings, and I know she would like this Navajo prayer:

In beauty may I walk

All day long may I walk

Through the returning seasons may I walk

Beautifully will I possess again

Beautifully birds,

Beautifully joyful birds

On the trail marked with pollen may I walk

With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk

With dew about my feet may I walk

With beauty may I walk

With beauty before me may I walk

With beauty behind me may I walk

With beauty above me may I walk

With beauty all around me may I walk

In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk

In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk

It is finished in beauty.

It is finished in beauty.

Her passing was beautiful and peaceful, and it was a profound blessing to be with her and all of you who were present physically or spiritually with your love and support.

She also loved Kahlil Gibran, and for years had his poems on her bedside.  He wrote, “For what is it to die, but to stand in the sun and melt into the wind?  And when the earth has claimed our limbs, then we shall truly dance.”

I know Mom is walking in beauty now, and dancing in the stars. 

One of her favorite songs was “I Wonder as I Wander,” and she used to sing it around home and in church in her strong, clear, beautiful soprano voice:  “I wonder as I wander out under the stars.” 

She is no longer wandering, but I imagine she will be always wondering, and her presence and my memories of her will always fill me with wonder. 

I think of her every time I hear Coldplay sing, 'Cause you’re a sky, you’re a sky full of stars/Such a heavenly view/You’re such a heavenly view.'  

Thanks, Mom, for showing us the way."

Watermelon

Today I went to the Del Mar farmer’s market and bought a watermelon from Ray’s Subtropical stand.  Ray didn’t know if it would be red or yellow, but he said it would be sweet and it was ripe and ready to eat now.  That was enough for me.  I took it home, and cut it open.  It was yellow.  I prefer red—the color of watermelon in my youth--but it doesn’t matter.  What matters is the texture—crisp and crunchy—and the flavor—sweet with depth, complexity, and fragrance.  It did pretty well on these counts, just not quite as deep and rich as a red can be, and a little more mellow. 

Every time I eat a watermelon, I think of Janie Jones and one spectacularly hot, humid summer Saturday in the country in Mississippi.  Janie Jones was the grandmother of my church when I was growing up.  When we first moved to Zachary, Louisiana, when I was 3, she was already the one who ran things at the church, where my dad was going to now be pastor.  She did the flowers in front of the pulpit every Sunday, and the music minister, Wayne Vincent, lived at her house, where we would go over for dinner at least every week, often on Sundays after service.  She seemed to be the one who did everything at the church, and she knew everyone, and she was old!  She wore old lady dresses and hats to church and had arms with the big wattles and lots of wrinkles in her face, and her eyes shone and twinkled and she smiled all the time, and I loved her.  She was kind and cheery.  I thought Santa Claus would be like her if he were a woman and around all the time. 

I associate her with the color brown—brown hair, brown dresses, brown hats—and brown pecans, delicious lasagna, National geographic magazines, and archery.  She lived in a big old white frame house facing the railroad tracks.  Her house had a big front porch with a deep grassy front yard and a big backyard filled with pecan trees.  We’d go over for dinner after Sunday morning services, and while we waited for the meal to be served, we’d sit in the dark, curtained parlor, with its big soft brown chairs, and browse through stacks and stacks of National Geographic magazines, piled all around the room—the first time I ever saw the magazine or had any exposure to the larger world was there in her small dark cozy parlor.  Then she’d call us in to sit around the big dining table, and serve us lasagna—my first time ever to eat lasagna or even hear the word was at her house, and it was a delicious revelation of cheesy goodness. 

After we’d stuffed ourselves silly, we could run out to play in the yard—hide-and-seek, or even chase or cowboys and Indians, if we could move—and eventually we were given buckets and told to pick pecans.  This was my favorite chore of all time.  The ground was so rich and dark and deep smelling—dark dirt and old leaves—and we could pick for hours and hours and never run out of pecans to find somewhere if we poked around and explored enough. 

On truly special days, Wayne Vincent would set up the archery set in the front yard, and let us shoot his bow and arrow at the target.  I couldn’t think of anything finer that to have my own bow and arrow and be able to practice anytime I wanted.

Plus, Janie Jones had a grandson about my age who would come to visit every now and then.  His name was Ben Jones. He had sandy hair and a nice face, and he was my first true love.  I remember one Wednesday night in particular after church—we were maybe 8 years old.  We were sitting in the dirt outside the church offices waiting for our respective adults and rolling the roly poly bugs around in the dirt, shooting them like marbles, when some bossy older girl came by and told us we shouldn’t hurt the bugs.  I felt so ashamed that we stopped and instead drew in the dirt and watched fireflies and talked about our plans for the future, and pledged our eternal love to each other and decided we would get married.  I was so excited.  I couldn’t wait to tell my mom when I got home, but she just laughed and laughed and said we couldn’t get married now, and I cried and cried and couldn’t understand why.  It seemed so perfect.  But she said we were too young and Ben didn’t live here and was going home soon.

Then one day Wayne Vincent announced he was leaving the church to go to another church in Baton Rouge, and not long after that Janie Jones retired her post as director of everything at the church, sold her house and moved to Mississippi to be with her family.

I was shocked.  I didn’t see how First Baptist Zachary could go on without her, and I couldn’t imagine my own life without her.  My father assured me we would go visit her and see her again.

And we did--once.  One hot, sunny summer day, he piled us all into the car and said we were going to go see Janie Jones.  I was beside myself with joy and excitement.  I hoped Ben would be there too.  We drove for hours and hours and wound up at a farmhouse way out in the country, where he said Mrs. Jones lived with her family.  She came out to greet us and gave me a warm, squeeze-the-life-out-of-you hug, and I wanted to bask in her presence all day, but there were lots of people I didn’t know there, and they all wanted to see my dad and her too.  Ben wasn’t there.    I asked, but they said he couldn’t come, that he lived far away, or something--I was too disappointed to follow what they said. 

We ate a light lunch of finger sandwiches—no lasagna—and the old folks talked awhile and it seemed like the energy just kind of died down.  Then someone said we should go pick some watermelon.  They piled us all in the back of a pick-up truck and away we went out in the fields, bumping along on roads, no roads, out in pasture, and stopped somewhere in the bright sun.  The men picked lots and lots of watermelons, cutting them off the vine, and piling them in the back of the truck, and we drove back to the house.  I’d never seen so many watermelons, and I couldn’t imagine how they expected us to eat them all.

My dad said it was getting late, and we better be going, but I begged and pleaded for some watermelon first.  He seemed to not want to take it, and I couldn’t understand why.  I didn’t learn until much later that they grew those watermelon to sell, and he was concerned about taking away part of their livelihood.  He eventually conceded to a little watermelon, and we ate it—red, hot, sweet, and delicious--and then said our goodbyes. 

I never saw Janie Jones, or Ben Jones again, but I remember her every time I eat watermelon (or, for that matter, have any experience that includes a warm and loving smile, pecans, lasagna, National Geographics, archery sets, roly poly bugs, old lady arms, or the color brown).  Even if the watermelon is yellow.  I am happy to support my local farmer.

Evening at the Beach

Sunset over Del Mar Beach, and immediately after from another perspective.

The earth is beautiful.  May we cherish and protect her.