Dear Bishop…

This is your last night of life, at least as we know it. The last almost-full moon you’ll see rising over the trees, the last time you and I will head out to the field for a chaotic race through red clay that’s still mucky from recent rains, the last chorus of frogs that you’ll hear cheering you on until you get too close for their comfort and they splash into the pond. And it’s a cold night, so we won’t sit by the picnic table enjoying the breeze or lay on the grass and watch stars. But every time I do those things from now on, I’ll think of you.

Your first–and last–ice cream cone, courtesy of Sonic tonight: Initially you were a bit tentative, but you quickly discovered that you adore ice cream.

There are so many things I could write, memories of you, odd quirks that I hope I never forget: How you used to stand on your hind legs and lace your front legs around your trainer’s arm. The way you put your paws on my shoulders and snuggle under my chin when we’re waiting at the vet. How you LOVE the vet so much I have to diaper you, because in your enthusiasm you pee all over everything. The way you take care of your cats. The way you put your paw into my hand when we’re sitting in your favorite chair together. How this afternoon I crossed the rain-swollen creek on a wooden plank and tried to coax you to run through the water, but then I slipped and fell in and had to change my shoes before heading back to work. The dolphin leaps that expressed your sheer joy on the first day of spring. All the laughter. All the delight. All the enthusiasm. All the love.

I think I’ve known since last summer that we were living on borrowed time. Moving back to Georgia was rough on you, far more difficult than I’d expected or imagined. And your leg, that shoulder you strained years ago, has grown increasingly worse. You have more good days than bad, but on the bad days you can barely walk. And even when I don’t notice you limping, you stumble during our walks, often so badly that you almost crash to the gravel. Still, you’re game. You don’t whine or beg to go back inside. You go as far as I ask; you’d walk with me for miles, your tongue out, your face in a grin, even if you could barely put weight on that leg.

But you can rest now. You can stand down.

When I called the “puppy free to a good home” number from Starbucks eight years ago, I wanted companionship and protection. I was a relatively new homeowner, living in a townhouse with a partially fenced yard. I had an inspiring job and a boss I loved, and I was halfway through a book I would ultimately finish and self-publish, and I could only imagine life getting better.

In retrospect, that seems naive to the point of stupidity. Within six months of adopting you, my job went away and I was transferred into a position I hated. A new vice president made working conditions hellish. I’d been spending 40-hour weeks at the office and coming home to write. Suddenly I was working 60- to 70-hour weeks (with no extra compensation, no appreciation, not even any acknowledgment) and I was too exhausted to do much the rest of the time except take you on walks and read murder mysteries (no vicarious angst there).

You kept me sane. You kept me going. You kept me out of the psych ward when I had what used to be known as a nervous breakdown — I burst into tears at the office one day and sobbed hysterically for hours. I left work early, drove home, and took you to the park. And finally, finally I could breathe again. I have always floated away so easily, and you kept me grounded.

Yummy Sonic burger…You had a bacon double cheeseburger and half of my cheeseburger and then rooted, increasingly frantic, through the leftover veggies and bun seeking more burger.

My office was in an old building in a bad part of town. When I had to work late alone, I’d run home and fetch you so I wasn’t there unguarded. We’d be there, you and me, until 10 or 11 or midnight, and I knew you were protecting me. I wasn’t scared of the ghosts that allegedly haunt that building – I would have welcomed a sighting — but I was scared of the people who lurked on the sidewalk outside, who potentially stood between me and the safety of my car. You kept them away. Your size and your coloring and that vicious, deep bark chased away the human monsters.

Finally I left that job. It was ruining my physical and mental health and everything else good in my life. I took you and the cats and fled across the United States. At a rest stop somewhere — I no longer remember where — a random guy offered me $500 for you. He didn’t know you; he didn’t love you; he didn’t know why you were worth so very much more than that. I could never put a price tag on you.

When I called about adopting you, I wanted companionship. And you have provided that in spades. You were my companion on that cross-country move and two subsequent ones. You have accompanied me to the Gulf Coast (you ran in the mud and played with a hermit crab shell), through a Christmas Eve ice storm in Texas (we–you, me, the cats, the python–spent the night in my Civic at a Love’s truck stop somewhere just west of Dallas, and it’s still one of my favorite memories of that trip), to the Pacific Northwest, through blizzards, through two Colorado summers that saw forest fires ravage the city where we lived, to the mountains, and back to Georgia. You adored snow even when I wanted to curl up and die if another flake fell. When I let you run off leash, you chased crows and magpies and almost caught them. You were with me last spring when I caught tadpoles and brought them home to grow in my kitchen. You helped me find the fairy rings at the park near where we live now.

You have been a more loyal and unconditional friend than anyone could ask.

And you have protected me so, so well–far better than I could have protected myself. You have not only kept the criminals away (a security company sales rep once told me, “I won’t even try to sell you anything, because nothing I have is as good as that dog”), but you have protected me from demons I thought I had vanquished long before you came into my world. You have protected me from insanity. From a depression so abyssal and sticky I almost didn’t find my way out. From utter despair. From grinding insomnia. From suicide. You have literally stood between me and death, not just once but many times, and for months, for years.

Thank you. At least partially because of you, I’m okay now. You did your job with every ounce of your considerable strength and fortitude and determination and energy. You chased away the nightmares and you helped save me from myself.

I accidentally discovered that you loved Chick-fil-A because I once left my meal in the car with you while I got gas (what was I thinking?!). When I got back into the car, of course you had not only eaten all my food but most of the cardboard too. So yesterday I got you a final Chick-fil-A lunch.

Since I talked to the vet on Friday and we set the date and time tomorrow, you have shown me just how weary you are. I think you realized you finally could stop putting up a front for me. You’re worn out, exhausted, and in pain. Often you whimper. Yesterday you groaned for five minutes straight. When I laced up my running shoes — which has always triggered manic enthusiasm on your part, because it signals either a walk or the lawn mower — you looked at me, went into your crate, and lay down. You’re resting in your crate as I type this, after a long, long snuggle in your favorite chair during which you wriggled onto your back so I could scratch your chest. For the last week, you have been showing and telling me that you’re tired, you’re finished, you’re ready to go.

Many, many times I have said to you, “Don’t leave me yet. I don’t know what I’ll do without you.” And now I know, sort of: It will hurt like hell, but I will get through it. I will not keep you here when you’re weary and hurting. And I will not let myself fall back into a depression over losing you, or become morbidly obsessed, or do anything self-destructive. For you, I will experience and endure this pain, and I will come out the other side.

You with your “cousin,” Chief

As I’ve typed this, I’ve been playing “So Far Away” by Avenged Sevenfold on repeat. A few lines that particularly stand out:

A life that healed a broken heart with all that it could…

Sleep tight, I’m not afraid/ The ones that I love are here with me/ Lay away a place for me/ ‘Cause as soon as I’m done, I’ll be on my way to live eternally…

The light you left remained but it’s so hard to stay/ When I have so much to say and you’re so far away.

I love you/ You were ready…Your pain is gone, your hands untied

Tomorrow when sleep comes for you, I will be there, my hand clasped around your paw. I will talk to you and pet you and wash you in love as you pass. If I cry, it will be because I know how much I’ll miss you, not because I am trying to make the passage more difficult for you or keep you here past your time. I hope you go gently into that good night.

I will always love you, Bishop.

Requiescat in pace.

The first day of my Thanksgiving break

Today the Bishop and I headed to George L Smith II State Park.

Dog is my co-pilot. Or at least my seat warmer.

Last year at this time, the park’s bald cypress trees were gloriously orange-needled. This year they’re mostly, well, bald.

But it was still a lovely, sun-soaked afternoon, perfect for relaxing and rambling.

Orbs around the mill! Or maybe I just need to clean the camera lens.

We set out on the three-mile loop, but as I’m directionally challenged and the park’s trailhead maps seem totally illogical to me, I’m not sure how far we actually hiked. That we did a loop and that it was longer than a mile, though, I’m certain.

Thanks to recent rain, the trail smelled of wet pine needles.

This critter accompanied us for a little while.

I love fall colors juxtaposed with sunlit Spanish moss.

And this was a fun surprise along the trail:

After our walk, we had a little rest in the gazebo overlooking the mill pond. I tried to get Bishop to pose, but he wasn’t feeling too photogenic.

Canine eye-roll

***

Much as I’m excited for next week’s break, I’m also nervous. Town empties out, and by Tuesday my local friends will all be gone. I’m going to be on my own, alone, for most of a week. I don’t know whether I’ll love it, as I sometimes do, or feel lonely, abandoned, forgotten. I’m terrified of the latter, of all those spaces between minutes and days, of cracks I might fall into and be lost. There have always been too many of those cracks in my world.

Trying to outrun the sadness

“You had to run with a night like this, so the sadness could not hurt.” –Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

This is not only my new favorite quote, it’s the quote that most perfectly sums up my life lately. It’s so perfect that I want to have it tattooed on my foot.

Because I have been running, literally and metaphorically, through many of these mild autumn nights. I’ve been racking up miles my car can’t handle, spending more than I can afford on gas, taking hours to flee when I need to devote that time to other things. I lose myself on back roads that wind past fields of ripe cotton and stands of pine trees and murky swamps where I imagine alligators and cottonmouths. If there’s no oncoming traffic, I swerve to avoid hitting the frogs that hop across the road. Occasionally an armadillo or a possum snuffles along the shoulder. Sometimes a jacked-up truck with Confederate plates roars up behind me and blinds me with its neon headlights until the driver gets impatient and passes me. Sometimes the air is so humid that moisture hangs in the hollows like fog. I scream along with the songs on my iPod, songs that make me feel invincible and fierce, others that always trigger an ache, reminders of what I’ve never had or what I’ve lost.

Other times I run with my dog, in the park or across the lot at my apartment complex. He’s no longer young, my Bishop, and a life of hard wear on his shoulders shows now in the occasional stumble or limp. But he loves to run. He’s gentler with me than he used to be; he knows I’m dead weight on the end of the leash and he doesn’t go all-out full-tilt anymore. He gallops along with his tongue out, spittle flecking his muzzle, a big old doggy grin on his face.

But occasionally he’ll still go faster than I can keep up with, and there’s this exhilarating, terrifying moment in which I realize that I’m experiencing speed over which I have no control. I’m at the mercy of my dog and my feet, and it’s pure joy and delirious panic and adrenaline.

Tonight we ran because we had to and because this is a night made for running, a windy autumn night with an almost full moon and a cloudy sky and dead leaves fluttering from the trees. Halloween is days away. The time of year I love is dying, and the holiday-filled months that I dread are about to begin–Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, my birthday, Valentine’s Day. All reminders that another year has passed, more time marked off the calendar and lost forever, and too many of my dreams remain unfulfilled, most of my goals unachieved. If I could, I would hibernate from All Saint’s Day to Mardi Gras rather than endure those bleak, hopeless months of winter.

So I run like the devil is chasing me, because he is. The devil, time, the shadow of death. The knowledge that my dog has a finite number of runs left in those greyhound legs. That I have a finite number of runs left in my own legs and feet. That I have a finite number of October nights left to cherish and enjoy, to race through even as I desperately try to slow time.

No matter how okay or even good some parts of my life are now, I live with a constant sadness, a sense of loss and regret and mourning for the things I’ve always wanted and have never had. People who have these things sometimes try to tell me I don’t need them, or they aren’t as wonderful as I think, or I need to square my shoulders and make the best of the life I have and not the life I wish I had. I choose to believe that these people mean well and simply have no clue how devastating and cruel their words are. I understand that your life isn’t perfect either; you have bad days and crises and disappointments and sometimes you just want to scream. But overall it’s a good life. You wouldn’t trade it for mine. So don’t tell me I need to settle for a life that’s a consolation prize.

Almost every night I go through a bad patch. Almost every night my shadows or demons or whatever you want to call them rise up. And that’s why I’ve started driving, because if I get out, at least I’m doing something, at least there’s movement, at least I’m making something happen, even if it’s just making miles of road disappear beneath my tires. Because I can’t force things to work out for me. I can’t force God to cut me any breaks. And sometimes I just can’t stand being in my head.

Tonight Bishop and I ran through the field where we no longer take walks because of the danger of snakes in the high grass. I’ve seen only garter snakes there, although I’ve smelled both cucumbers and musk, and depending whom you ask, that means copperheads and cottonmouths, or cottonmouths and rattlers. I have snakeproof boots, of course, but Bishop does not. So we didn’t run into the grass but only along a gravel wash, and he put on a burst of speed and I felt that dizzying sense of being out of control, and then he spotted one of the feral cats who live back there and swerved away from me. For a second I thought I’d have to let go of the leash or take a hard fall on the stones. I might have screamed a little. But if I did, it was a scream of pure pleasure and insanity and that heady sense of being on the edge.

It was a good night, a beautiful night, a night perfect for running.

The problem with running is that you have to stop. And now that I’ve stopped, the things that stressed me out before are stressing me out again, and the sadness is creeping back around the edges like it always does, and nothing’s really changed, except that Bishop and I have one fewer perfect October night left in our lives.

At least we cherished this one.

A tale of two retail experiences

A few weeks ago, an Ulta store opened in my little town, so when I got paid this week, I decided to check it out. As soon as I walked inside, a sales associate greeted me and asked if I needed help. I said I wanted to browse on my own for a bit. As I continued to the back of the store, I was approached twice more by employees who welcomed me and offered assistance. It was almost obnoxious, but I also was glad to know that people were available to answer if I had questions.

Sure enough, I quickly became overwhelmed by all the options and decided that I did indeed want help. I immediately was able to find one of the women who had spoken to me. She was stocking a shelf but stopped her work, listened to what I wanted, and walked me to another part of the store, where she introduced me to a colleague who she said would help me.

This colleague was wonderful. She was sweet, seemed very genuine, and basically played tour guide for the rest of my visit, helping me find products that I liked and that fit my budget. She didn’t pressure me to buy anything and even made a few suggestions for less expensive brands that she said she uses herself in lieu of pricier options. I ended up spending more than I would have if I’d felt like I was being bulldozed or manipulated, and more importantly, I walked out of the store with a big grin, feeling fantastic about myself and the experience. I will absolutely visit Ulta again.

Today I went to a small, locally owned shop that I had visited once before. On that visit, the owner was sitting behind the cash register. When I asked about a product, he didn’t even get up, although I was the only customer in the shop and he had been staring at the wall when I walked in. He just pointed and then verbally directed me as I navigated the store. Today, I decided that I wasn’t going to ask for help; if the place wasn’t busy and the staff still didn’t bother to help, I’d just leave and buy my stuff elsewhere. I again was the only customer there. The owner again was sitting behind the cash register. Another employee was sweeping the floor. Neither of them greeted me, offered assistance, or even made eye contact. I spent ten very uncomfortable minutes trying to figure out how the place was organized and find the items on my short shopping list. At some point, the owner got up and went to the back part of the store. When I was ready to check out, I stood by the cash register. I could see both men, but they didn’t acknowledge me. If either of them had said, “We’ll be right with you,” it would have been fine. As it was, I felt so awkward and irritated that I decided that if they were going to keep ignoring me, I’d just leave. So I did. And I posted a negative review on their Facebook page. And the response was, “If you decide to come back and politely ask for help, we’ll be happy to ring up your purchases.” That kind of makes it all worse. I’m the only customer in the store, you can’t even be bothered to say “Hi,” and yet you make it incumbent on me to “politely ask” for basic customer service? You’re lucky that I didn’t impolitely tell you to go f— yourself.

I’m a reasonable person, and I’ve worked retail. If you’re busy and have to finish a task before you can help me, I understand. But not even acknowledging me? And then blaming me for your lack of service? Come on. I wanted to support a local business, but the reality is, I can drive 45 minutes to a chain store that has a better selection for less money — and employees who are cheerful and happy to help. You’ve just given me the perfect reason to take my business to the greedy corporation that’s pushing stores like you out of existence.

I hope you think about that next time someone walks into your store and you consider whether to greet or ignore them.

Cape Fear Serpentarium

A few highlights from my latest visit to the Cape Fear Serpentarium (no close encounters with loose puff adders this time, but a black monitor was strolling through the crowd, dead rat clamped firmly in mouth, when I arrived):

Close up with a Nile crocodile. Open up and say, “AAAAH!”

Requisite Gaboon viper shot, because this is my absolute favorite snake:

Matamata (South American aquatic turtle):

Green iguana:

Bushmaster:

Saltwater croc:

Alligator snapping turtle (weird angle, but I love the detail):

Green mamba:

Black mamba:

All photos copyright 2015 by Monique Bos. Unless you are an official representative of the Cape Fear Serpentarium, you may not use them without permission.

In defense of Anna Duggar (sort of)

When I first read about Josh Duggar’s Ashley Madison account, I felt the same schadenfreude as just about everyone else who was angered, offended, and/or amused by the irony. A guy pulling down six figures to defend “traditional marriage” actively seeks to violate his own marriage vows? The most virulent anti-Duggar in the world couldn’t have written a better denouement.

Coming just a few months after Josh’s molestation scandal effectively ended not just his career but his family’s multimillion-dollar media empire (at least until they write their redemption narrative and cash in further), this scandal makes it clear that the guy has serious sexual problems. At least he has publicly acknowledged his hypocrisy. But this time around, will he get the help he obviously needs? Or will his parents continue to think they can cure whatever ails him through their weird blend of denial, blind faith, and prayer?

What troubles me — and what, frankly, makes me feel a tiny bit of compassion for Josh — is that there is no evidence whatsoever that the senior Duggars have learned anything from what’s transpired over the past several months. They seem never to have comprehended that there’s a disconnect between their failure to protect their own daughters from a predator within their family, and Michelle Duggar’s robocalls implying that transgendered women will molest your daughters in public bathrooms. They have some sort of profound cognitive dissonance that enables them to hold up their family as a model for everyone else (albeit paying lip service to the idea that of course they aren’t perfect) while sweeping egregious crimes under the rug. Allegedly, Jim Bob and Michelle honestly couldn’t understand why people were upset that Josh had molested his sisters. The family had moved past it, so why couldn’t everyone else? (Whether the girls really have moved past it, or have been allowed the emotional, psychological, spiritual, and mental space to even process it, is a whole other issue.) They evidently see no incongruity in promoting “family values” their own family can’t follow, nor any hypocrisy in trying to force those values onto everyone else while knowing, but not publicly admitting, their serious failures in that arena.

According to a “source with ties to the family” (so take that for what it’s worth), their response to this latest news is to be “absolutely baffled by how this could have been possible.” Well, part of how it could have been possible is that you had a teenage boy acting out sexually, and you figured that sending him away to help remodel a friend’s house would cure all his problems. According to what the source tells People, the Duggars are praying a lot and relying on their faith. Which is all well and good, but maybe they also need to look at their own role in their son’s dysfunction: refusing to get him help as a teenager, raising him in a patriarchal culture where women are relegated to baby makers and sex objects, and modeling grotesque sexual behaviors. They keep responding like passive victims, rather than taking a long, hard look at themselves, their parenting, and their belief system.

I think Josh is a cretin. But here’s why I also feel a little sorry for him: He was raised in a narrow, sexist, legalistic cult. When he molested his sisters, his parents seem to have acted without any genuine compassion for him or the girls. They blocked the legal investigation and sent him away from home for hard physical labor. They apparently thought it was enough to punish and “forgive” — meaning gloss over his sins and put locks on the girls’ bedroom doors — without addressing the cause of the problem. (Blaming it on Satan or fallen human nature or whatever is a convenient way to avoid accepting any responsibility themselves.)

He was sheltered and taught to repress his sexual feelings, yet as soon as he said, “I do,” he was expected to start fathering prodigious amounts of children just like Good Old Dad. He was homeschooled and had limited contact with people who didn’t view the world in exactly the same way as his parents. He operated on a “buddy system” that grants an older child far too much power over and responsibility for a younger sibling. His sex education appears to have consisted of watching his very creepy father hump his mother and hearing his mother advise young wives to give their husbands sex whenever the men want it, except for strictly proscribed times during menstruation and after childbirth.

How in the world could he have developed a healthy view of sexuality — his own or anyone else’s — in this environment?

Yes, he is now an adult. Yes, he took an obscene amount of money for a job based on promoting a very narrow definition of family that he himself was not, despite appearances, upholding and that hurts other people. Yes, he is a hypocrite. He deserves to be called out and held responsible.

But he is also a 27-year-old guy who never went to college, got married at 20, and had his first child within 13 months. He did not have much opportunity to explore the world, figure things out on his own, formulate his own beliefs, make mistakes and learn from them, or go through other character-forming experiences that many young adults get to have. He didn’t get a Rumspringa.

Surely Josh has faced incredible pressure. The eyes of the world, or at least a certain segment of the U.S., have been on him. His courtship and marriage had to validate the way he was raised. He has had more power and visibility than many people his age, but it has been predicated on following a very specific set of principles, associating with specific people (Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, et al), and espousing a set of beliefs that he may or may not actually agree with or find reasonable.

I am not excusing his hypocrisy or the damage he has done. I am trying to understand, because I’m fascinated by what goes on in the brains of people like him who have such a profound disconnect between their public and private personas. I think it would have been incredibly difficult and required deep wells of strength and/or rebellion — the kind his upbringing is designed to squelch from infanthood — to risk everything and publicly say, “My family’s beliefs are not mine; they don’t define who I am or how I perceive the world. And now I’m going to go be a sex-hungry hedonist for awhile.”

***

His former employer, the SPLC-designated hate group Family Research Council, is not standing by their man (really, how could they at this point?). But his wife may not have that option — and she is the one, next to his kids, for whom I feel most sorry.

Take Josh’s sheltered upbringing and lack of education, the legalistic expectations that have always been imposed on him, and the public scrutiny. Add to that the idea that you’re responsible for keeping your husband happy in bed so he doesn’t stray, all while having as many babies as your body can conceive, and the pressure from both your parents and your in-laws to view your husband’s transgressions as God’s test of your own faith.

I have been bothered by some of the internet comments criticizing Anna Duggar for not already leaving Josh. Granted, she too is an adult. She potentially is putting her own children in harm’s way by staying with an admitted child molester, and that is absolutely, utterly inexcusable. But I don’t think many people understand just how deeply ingrained the habits of obedience and submission must be in her, nor how much she has been brainwashed throughout her life, nor how much strength it would take for her to strike out on her own now — an uneducated woman with four children.

People‘s source claims that everyone in her world will “support” her in staying with Josh and trying to make her marriage work. “Pressure” might be a better word than “support.” This is not unconditional love. This is not, “The people around her have her back regardless of what she decides.” This is someone else telling her that her husband’s transgressions are God’s way of testing her, and only by responding in one specific way — sticking with him — will she pass the test. On the other hand, because of her husband’s past predilections and the fact that they have small children, the stakes of her decision are potentially much higher than anyone in that circle seems willing to publicly acknowledge.

Cults convince you that if you leave, you’ll go to hell. You only leave a cult when you realize that hell can’t be any worse than what you’re living with every day. Whether Anna Duggar reaches this point remains to be seen. For her sake and her children’s, though, I hope she does reach it, and soon.

August 24 update: It looks like at least one person in Anna Duggar’s life not only wants her to leave Josh, but is willing to offer financial support if she chooses to do so.

Women

I haven’t blogged in months. I’ve had numerous experiences this summer that I wanted and planned to write about, but life — teaching, traveling, taking long drives through green countryside, and less glamorous activities like laundry and carpet cleaning and insomnia — intervened.

Tonight, though, I’m thinking about how this, for me, has been a summer of experiencing the best parts of being a woman: finding unexpected moments of sisterhood and unity; exploring unfamiliar traditions and ways of being female; building supportive friendships with beautiful, strong women who encourage and want the best for each other. This is on my mind because I spent the evening with one of those friends, watching Mad Max: Fury Road, which (as she’d promised) turned out to be pretty awesome and inspiring. Afterward, wiping away tears, we had a great conversation about being women, the strong female and male characters in the film, and the unexpectedly sweet love story.

All of which led me to decide that it was time to break my blogging silence and write about this one day in June.

Oyotunji African Village has been on my bucket list since I lived in Savannah. When I checked the upcoming events on their website early this summer and read about the Yemoja Festival (“We celebrate and venerate the primordial feminine energy”), I decided to book my visit for that weekend.

After spending the night in a fleabag motel (okay, there were no bedbugs, but the AC was so loud I could barely sleep, the TV remote control and volume button didn’t work, some random guy rattled my doorknob, and the smell of mildew permeated the room), I drove to Oyotunji in the morning. I did not get breakfast first, mostly because the Denny’s where I planned to eat was mobbed with a post-church crowd and I thought I could buy food at Oyotunji. This matters in a little while.

When you arrive in the parking lot after driving down a rutted little road, you see a sign announcing that you are leaving the United States and entering the sovereign Yoruba kingdom. The village has its own king, who was appointed by the Yoruba king in Benin. His father, the village founder, studied Santeria in Cuba, and residents practice African vodoun (in a much more authentic form than I realized, it turned out; I had been expecting something more akin to New Orleans’ tourist-friendly French Quarter voodoo). Their veneration of orishas and ancestors governs every aspect of their lives.

Note: I requested and received permission from my guide, one of the Oyotunji residents, to take photographs. I do not have photos from the Yemoja ceremony itself, during part of which we were asked to refrain from taking pictures and video.

I was ushered to the Yemoja temple, where preparations for the ceremony were underway. The women involved all wore white, including head coverings, except one, who had on a dress with blue and white swirls. Yemoja’s colors are blue and white; she’s the orisha of the ocean.

This shrine in the wall enclosing the Yemoja temple grounds honors the female ancestors. The fountain has a seahorse design.

The king also wore white. When villagers approached him, they would kneel to do obeisance, but what surprised me was the familiar, affectionate way he laughed and joked with them as they were prostrating themselves before him. I learned during my tour later that while he makes major decisions for the community (no air conditioning in homes; transitioning to a wholly sustainable, off-the-grid model by 2017), he doesn’t sit in a cool throne room all day. He’s out there digging irrigation ditches in the fields with everyone else. He nixed AC because he doesn’t want villagers living in “air-conditioned coffins”; he says the point of community is to be out with other people, not isolated in your comfortable house. It’s a philosophy and a way of life I admire but would loathe in practice.

The king had an umbrella bearer, a fan, and a footstool.

The level of authenticity in the ceremony surprised me in two aspects. First, there was sacrifice of a dozen or so birds — chickens, a duck, roosters, others I couldn’t identify — and a goat. I forced myself to watch, and I was surprised not to be upset. After all, the animals didn’t appear to suffer; the duck was swimming in a nearby pond until just before its demise, and the goat had a pretty delicious-looking last meal, and their deaths came quickly. Still, it was a bit surreal and wholly outside my experience; I kept thinking, “I’m sitting here watching someone sacrifice a goat. How do I even begin to process that?” (Maybe I’ll write another post about how it affected my view of death.)

The second aspect that surprised me was that partway through the ceremony, all the female celebrants took off their head coverings and bared their breasts. This was the point at which we were all asked to put away cameras, I suspect for the participants’ privacy. The women, who ranged from probably mid-teens to eighties, danced and chanted without any self-consciousness. I looked at some of the older women, whose breasts sagged below their waists, and thought about the years of life experience etched on their bodies: lovers taken, pregnancies, babies born and nourished, hard physical labor, scars, graceful age. Every one of them was beautiful. They exhibited a freedom, joy, and comfort in their own bodies that is unlike anything I’ve ever before observed, certainly unlike anything I’ve experienced.

During my tour after the ceremony, I learned that all the women in Oyotunji belong to a secret society. When a girl begins to menstruate, she joins this society, which meets in Yemoja’s temple. The women of the community tell her “everything she needs to know” about becoming a woman and guide her through her adolescence, which I think is a beautiful concept. She isn’t left on her own to make her way as best she can though the quagmire of high school. Instead, she is surrounded and supported by every other woman in her village. Ultimately, she must perform a series of tasks designed to help her be a fully contributing (and, ironically, self-sufficient) member of the community: everything from sewing traditional African outfits and identifying local herbs to changing oil in a car, chopping down a tree, and excelling on the firing range. When she accomplishes all this, she is initiated as a woman and declared ready for marriage, which is entirely voluntary and, according to my guide, free of gendered power dynamics. A woman can take multiple husbands, and a man multiple wives; every adult has his or her own house, so no one lives together, and sex and love are low on the list of reasons for marriage.

My guide told me there would be a feast later, but no one had begun cooking yet. By this time it was around 3 p.m., I still hadn’t eaten, and I was ravenous. So, somewhat reluctantly but also feeling like an interloper in a world that barely touched the edges of mine, I left.

Next to the Point South Subway where I ate lunch was Frampton Plantation, a free visitor center. Since I was still trying to wrap my head around Oyotunji and had no pressing need to return to Statesboro, I decided to stop and ramble around the grounds. Inside is a museum, which means that a few exhibits of historic items are scattered throughout the multi-room gift shop. As I was browsing, a woman came in and began talking to the two women at the counter.

“I just got out of church, and I was driving by here, and the Lord told me to stop,” she explained. “I’ve driven past dozens of times and never been in, but today the Lord said I needed to come in here and talk to you.” I missed part of the conversation, but I think one of the women at the counter must have mentioned that she was single and looking for a man, because I heard the visitor say, “What you need to do is, you tell God you’re ready for a man, and you think of a phrase. Don’t say it out loud, because the devil will hear it and give it to the wrong man to trick you. But you just put that phrase in your head and God will know. Then, when you meet the right man, he will say that phrase, and that’s how you know God sent him to you.”

I wondered whether that kind of folk practice actually works. Maybe if you sincerely believe it? If so, I envy the people for whom it works. Religious formulas have never held true for me. My belief lacks certainty.

The woman continued. She talked about how many beautiful, strong, smart women diminish themselves in order to be with a man, and how damaging this is to everyone — women and men alike. I was standing at the top of the stairs, studying paintings by local artists, and she looked up at me. “Are you hearing this? God wants you to hear this, too,” she said to me. “Don’t settle for a man who is less than you are. And never become less than you are for a man.” (This is a powerful contrast to the dating advice my grandmother once gave me: “You must never let a man know how smart you are.”)

As I left, I asked this woman — this total stranger, who had dispensed both odd folklore and profound insight — if she would hug me. She did, and then she held my shoulders and looked into my eyes and said, “I pronounce a blessing on you. I will pray with you and for you.” It was the most personal, intimate benediction I have ever received. And I don’t even know her name.

Springtime in Georgia

Today I took the guilty pleasure of a real day off, my first in a month or so. I finished a short story I’ve been struggling with for two and a half months, lingered over a cheeseburger and a book that made me laugh, and went for a walk at the botanical garden. (There was also vacuuming, laundry, drain cleaning, dishes, and an abortive burner-cleaning attempt that ended when I burned my fingers because I forgot I’d boiled a pot of water on that burner less than five minutes earlier.)

Before I get to the flower photos, some gratuitous pet shots:

They’re gargoyles on the bookshelf! But Zuli is a pill; whenever she’s doing something cute and I get the camera out, she runs away. This is why I do not have any bookshelf closeups or pictures of her foray into a fabric shopping bag tonight.

And now to Sunday afternoon at the Garden of the Coastal Plain:

The air smells like wisteria right now.

I need to buy a guide to learn all the flower and tree names. Unless they have little identifying signs, I’m lost.

Not sure what these red leaves are, but they’re lovely.

This stunning tree is Eastern bluestar (which I know only because of the helpful sign at the base).

Here’s a furled leaf, with the green tip barely peeking out (it looks like a frog, but it isn’t; of course I checked):

I love camellias, but they seem to be past their peak.

For my mom, azaleas (okay, those I knew without a sign; I did live in Savannah for seven years):

Canna lilies:

Swamp azalea:

There are sculptures scattered throughout the garden, but unfortunately there don’t appear to be identifying plaques, so I cannot credit the artist:

Of course I have to include at least one dying flower. I often find dead and dying flowers as beautiful, in their own way, as those at the peak of their bloom. (And when I photograph them, I usually catch myself singing The Sisters of Mercy’s “Flood I”: I’ll be picking up your petals in another few hours/ In the metal and blood, in the scent and mascara/ On a backcloth of lashes and stars/ in a flood of your tears. Perfect song for going home in the rain after a bad night at a bar. Sometimes I miss those.)

There’s a stand of longleaf pine, which need fire to reproduce. Garden staff must have held a controlled burn recently; the smell of woodsmoke lingers in the air, but a few green shoots are poking out of the ground. The swamp azalea were brilliant across the burned area.

The swamp azaleas are draped with longleaf pine needles. It’s quite a beautiful effect.

Lately I have been obsessed with the Afghan Whigs song “Faded.” I’ve been playing the entire Black Love album on constant repeat, in fact. Faded, this I feel/ Behind the blue clouds I remain concealed/ Lord, lift me out of the night/ Come on, look down and see the mess I’m in tonight.

But.

Gardens in springtime always bring to mind The The’s song “Love Is Stronger than Death,” five words I am someday going to have tattooed on my wrist where I can look at them every time I need a reminder, the many times every day that I think about death.

Here come the blue skies/ Here comes springtime/ When the rivers run high and the tears run dry/ When everything that dies shall rise/ Love is stronger than death.

This is what, on good days, I hold.

Today’s internet pet peeve: tl;dr

I have grown to loathe tl;dr.

Look, if it’s too long for you to read, don’t read it. You don’t need to be snarky because someone took time to write more words than you care to absorb. You don’t need to take pride in the fact that you have the attention span and/or reading comprehension of a manic gnat (thank you, Twitter). You don’t need to snipe at them because you’re lazy. Just skip whatever they wrote. I do it all the time.

If you feel the need to respond without reading their full comment, then do so, but don’t admit to not reading it. If you aren’t sure whether they addressed your point in their comment because “tl;dr,” that’s your problem, not theirs.

As verbose as I can be, I’ve only been tl;dr-ed once, and that was long ago, on a blog I later stopped reading because the comment section is like a snakepit (a comparison I cringe to make, since I think snakepits are actually pretty fascinating; OTOH, I wouldn’t wade into the middle of one wearing flip-flops, and this was the psychological equivalent).

This week, I read a very long blog post about a painful situation in someone’s life. Some of the responses were also quite long, but the narratives were compelling. People were sharing experiences of rape and other violence, cyber-stalking, death threats, and PTSD. Most responses were compassionate and respectful, but then there were the “tl;dr”s. And those floored me. How dare you tell someone who is opening up about a traumatic event, to a bunch of strangers on the Internet no less, that her story is too long for you to bother reading? Don’t read it. But at least have the decency not to silence her further by scolding her for boring you.

Because “tl” is a criticism of the writer, not the reader. It says, “What you wrote is too long/ too rambling/ too complex/ too uninteresting to hold my attention. So I’m not going to read it. But I want to add my words to this conversation; I want to be heard.” In expecting others to read your words when you refuse to read theirs, you are saying that yours are more important than theirs, that you deserve to be heard — for no better reason, apparently, than that you can be brief, which in your case, “didn’t-read”er, probably stems from a lack of complexity and substance — where they do not.

Well, in my own tiny and perhaps meaningless way, I am resisting. I no longer read comments that begin with “tl;dr.” Anything those comments have to say is now “tl;dr” for me.

2014 in review: Abundant reptiles

At least things happened in 2014, to me, I mean. Here are some highlights:

I ushered in the New Year with my friends Lisa and Aaron in Denver–friends I’ve known for more than a decade but saw only a couple of times during my recent years-long stint in Colorado. That’s mostly my fault; I developed a weird aversion to Denver for reasons I don’t quite understand, other than not having good memories of living there. As is so often the case, I have been a far lousier friend than people deserve. I’m glad, though, that I got to spend New Year’s Eve with them and their boys.

In May, I took a (very spontaneous) road trip with my nephews, niece, and sister-in-law to visit her family in Indiana. I like her relatives–they were very warm and welcoming. Plus, she’s one of my favorite people, so it was fun to share this adventure!My book club in Colorado rocked. They kept me sane.

Family friend Kendra came out for part of the summer. We had a really great talk by Nymph Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park (and watched a garter snake swimming around) over the Fourth of July weekend.

In July, I saw my friend Marianne for the first time since grad school and met her husband, Mark. The days with them were relaxing and gentle–no WiFi, just books, pelicans, and the beach. And a serpentarium, because Marianne is cool. We especially enjoyed watching employees extract venom from rattlesnakes and copperheads (and saw a rattlesnake treated for a mouth infection, shown).

Then I visited my sister and brother-in-law and made my first quilt. We also went to the beach, I visited the Cape Fear Museum and the Cape Fear Serpentarium, and all three of us went to the aquarium and butterfly house.Then I visited my friends Kate and Gordon and their daughters in Savannah. I couldn’t believe it had been three years since I’d seen them. I also caught up with some friends from my years in Savannah, one of whom, Beth, e-mailed me a month later about a potential job about an hour away.

And now I’m back in Georgia!