Cape Myrtle

When Dad used to tell us stories, he always included a description of the landscape in which the story took place. The woods were very dense, and very dark. There was an english robin who nested in that magnolia tree each year. There were three large crepe myrtle trees on the back of the property.

Crepe Myrtle -- I imagined an old southern lady, named Myrtle, wearing a cape as she rocked in the breeze on her front porch in June. I knew it was "crepe" not "cape", but perhaps Myrtle wore a cape MADE of crepe, which would suit the playfulnees of the breeze. Her crepe cape would wisp up and into those breezes with elegant little puffs, and she would wave a Chinese paper fan across her rose petal skin as she greeted tpassers by.

Myrtle had lived in that plantation styled house for 84 years. She was born there, grew up there, and ,even as frailty started to test her old bones, she was there for the rest of it, the entire rest of it.

Her father had been a captain in the Merchant Marines and spent the better part of each year at sea. Sometimes she went along, but mostly she stayed home and loved her gardens and tended to her studies and friends. She married a dashing sailor at 17, but he died in the War some years later, and she never loved again.

She sat rocking in smart white shoes with dainty strings, and enjoyed the feeling of chiffon on her hosiery. Her hair was radiant silverwhite and perfectly coiffed and she loved this time of night. Neighbors with ice cream crusted children would pass and wave. The final deliveries of groceries and mail and ice always meant a chance for a wink from a hansom horse, or even a nice young man.

That was Myrtle and I have always wondered what happened to her, and I realized recently that I have never actually seen Crepe Myrtle, that is until i walked into one.

Well, drove into one. No, drove past one, in the parking lot of an outlet mall in Orlando. I had never seen one!! Delicate lilac blooms on long thin bowing branches with bright green paintbrush leaves.

Perfect!

That tree did look like my Myrtle after all, face to the sun and arms swaying in the breeze

So now I know what happened to her, and it is a lovely ending.

6 Weeks and 70 Years

Six years into the beginning of the last century, a baby boy was born to a delicate little lady with bright blue eyes and a Captain of the sea. The baby boy grew into a strong man who commanded the ocean himself, and navigated the deep waters that became his life. He loved three woman, and lost the first two before the the third one lost him. Two boys came along, and later, two girls, and we all belonged to him, because he was our Dad.

He told us stories about the first time he saw an electric lightbulb ("Don't look at it son, you will go blind"), and about building a radio out of a 5 cent crystal and an empty container of Quaker Oats. He went to war and sank a Japenese submarine, ran from an angry tribal chief on Papua, New Guinea, was the first to navigate the waters of the China Straits, at night, with nothing but a map from the 1800's. He loved Gunsmoke and always had a garden, he fed the birds and shot squirrels and told great stories and loved us all, each differently, each in a way that only belonged to he and each of us.

I heard a song today called "Closing Time" and part of the lyrics tell us

Closing time
Time for you to go out
To the places you will be from.

Closing time
So finish your whiskey or beer.
Closing time
You don't have to go home
But you can't stay here.

It was closing time in our family, and it closed slowly more than 30 years ago as one by one we went off to the places we are now from. Through the decades we came together in bits and pieces when someone died or another married, but always because of something and not because of us. Some of us raised families and some of us changed families and most of us have found our way and are enjoying the content of our own lives, and as for me, I am struggling a bit, and searching to find something I haven't yet found, but I am looking and I am getting closer, especially after

Last week.

Brother John, the second of the four, was the brilliant creator of a week like none of us has never known. We arrived in Orlando two by two and four by four, and when all were counted there were nearly 30 of us. One of us was 6 weeks old and the oldest almost 70, and in between we were were 2, and 4, and 5, and 7, and in our 20's, 30's 50's and 60's. We poured over Dad's papers and photos, pieced together stories, and remembered things that others had forgotten. We decided the life of Roland should really be told, it should be a book or a movie. I was nominated to take the first crack at this but I am not certain I am up to it, and anyway where would I start?

Maybe I should start with Orlando. We drank wine and swam at night and cooked and dined and laughed and laughed. Big cousins tossing little cousins in the pool, talking about Star Wars and princesses. Sisters and brothers and nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews, meeting for the first time and hugging and smiling. Every day was more fun than the last and every morning the phone would ring and even without caller ID, I knew the person on the other end was someone I loved, some one of my family, and someone I would spend at least part of the day with. And at the end of the day, the family swim in the moonlight brought more stories and songs and conversations about Tom Waitts, faith, and baseball.

And so, we are a family. Most of us have experienced the enormous joy that is a family, but each in his or her own way, with their own kin, but I have not. I have loved them one at a time, but have truly felt for so many years that I really didn't have a family, and felt sad and envious of something missing from my life.

It is not missing any more.

Last week was the perfection of hope realized and the probability of our arms around each other forever. It was comfort and rest, and common blood realizing the spirit of our family.

We are the Blocksoms, and we have finally

Come home.