Thirteen Ways of Looking at Twilight—13
Something poignant always accompanies the end of a rich experience. Nostalgia, I guess. Maybe a bit of depression. Or just surrender to the restraints of living in time.
I experienced it a few days ago, leaving the MFA residency in north Georgia that is part of my part-time job every year. Car packed, I eased out the main road toward the exit of campus—I won’t lie, feeling relief to have it done, but also that nostalgia. Every direction I glanced was impregnated with memories. The long days trudging up this or that walk. The dorms, the dining hall, the library, the theater. Intensive interaction with talented people, some of whom you see once a year, most of whom you will never see again.
Distilled into melancholy echoes. Intuitively you know it’s better that way. It is the transience of beautiful things that makes them beautiful. The ache of losing them that gives them value. And you know your future self will be formed by the past selves you hold within you. And you have only a moment to feel the memory before it decays into dream.
Chief among those dreams, for me, are the days in June when our ages were barely double digits. I admit I can no longer feel early summer and its delicious freedoms in the way I did as a child. All of that is gone, irretrievable. I can’t feel—only think of—a hot sweaty June twilight, the air filled with the scent of gardenias and throbbing with insects and frogs. We’ve been outside all day. Wild plums. Crabapples. The creek. The woods. We don’t remember what all we did, because we haven’t reached the age of reflection, and it was all extemporized. And we dread the fall of dark because we have to come inside and try to get out of taking a bath even though we’re so sweaty and filthy we have necklaces of dirt around our necks.
I’m visiting my cousins, and we’ve had a full week—all over the place—in the woods, cruising the neighborhood, walking up to the little store for fireballs and Sugar Babies or whatever else we wanted to spend our quarters on that day. Dairy Queen. The city pool. The Strand movie theater downtown. And now here I am on the bus—a Trailways since Greyhounds don’t go everywhere—on the way out of town, seeing out a bus window the places where we just were! Where we had all the time in the world! And now time’s up, and it’s all drifting by like movie credits.
Leaving you permanently haunted by gardenias.
* * *
Thinking of all this I remembered a little vignette I wrote several years ago that featured my grandfather, Usher Lee Martin. It was part of a larger story I never published, but it stayed with me.
Granddaddy spent his adult life as a small town/country preacher in south Alabama. Those towns are all mythical to me. Perote, Slocomb, Cottonwood, Deatsville, Georgiana, Centreville, Linden, Geneva, Andalusia, Evergreen, Monroeville, Camden, Notasulga, Snowdoun—that’s most of them anyway. Today, some are flourishing, some unchanged, some dying. Like the setting of pretty much everything I’ve written, they’ve all coalesced into a town that is none and all of them.
Granddaddy died in 1986. A significant loss for me—except that, of course, he’s not really lost. He called my grandmother “Mother.” My apologies for inflicting this upon you—but it’s the last of my ways at looking at twilight, and a dream that’s stuck around.
Gardenias.
Look, Mother—they’re all out on the porches, waving.
Who is that? Owen Haines. What you know, Old Timer? And that man—what was his name, Mother?—in Linden—always burning something out behind his house. Remember that smell—that stench? What was his name? Ozdyke! Dirty people. Unclean thoughts. And look! Cathern Bass. She’s waving, Mother—don’t ignore her. Look how young she is. A goodly-shaped woman. What? I’m not saying anything, Mother. Just she’s a goodly-shaped woman, that’s all. And she is.
That scent, that fragrance. Almost makes me want to stay.
What? Oh no, the Pain’s gone, Mother. Been gone. Packed up its bags and left. Bee-bye-bo-bee. It’s way over there—see it? This relief—first I’ve felt, I guess, ever. Art thou weary, art thou troubled? Passeth understanding. Yes, yes, I know what it means. But all is well—it really, really doesn’t matter. All in God’s mind. Like holes in some old quilt, airing on the line.
Edna Wortham! Oh, those days in Geneva. Hard times, Mother. How we ever got through them, I don’t know. Yes, people were good to us—but what would I have done without you? Wouldn’t have made it five minutes. Oh, smell the leaves burning—you always loved October—little cool snip in the mornings. That cane mill—remember that? Those squeezed-out stalks in a big pile—have you ever in your life seen anything like those yellow jackets? Thousands and thousands and thousands—imagine falling over into that.
Ah! Mimosas. Catching the late afternoon light. That scent—light as a thought. More think you smell it than smell it. Summer for me. June. Those long days hiding something in them like a shy child behind its mother. They were certainly real—there’s no question about that. All in the Book now. Can’t change a jot or a tittle. Beersheba to Dan—all done.
Look at the light! The way it catches the wisteria, the madeira vines on the porches. Wave, Mother—you’ll hurt their feelings. It’s like the Lord poured Himself all over this little town. Beyond words. Beyond everything. All glory laud and honor. Don’t you wish you could go down every street, every lane? Oh, that sweet shrub—like Ma had on the side of the house. I know that was real—close to me as breathing. And those mounds of rocks—way way back in the deep woods. Older than those poplar trees growing up through them. Huge. Enormous. Tree like that could tell some tales. Pa said Indians, probably. Each one placing a stone on the grave when he passed. Or somebody trying to farm it, way back—obloberated from the earth—who? Remember that? Well, no, I didn’t know you then. Hadn’t even dreamed of you.
Can’t get over this light. Like something trying to reach you. Like your mother calling you. Look at it—oozing through the breaks in the trees like honey. Golden. Amber. I could melt right into it—the way it calls me, pulls me. But not back. No sir, won’t be going back. Won’t be passing that way again. Just the natural course of things and not scary at all.
Just right sad—all that was and never can be again.
Oh, there’s Mae Pearl! Standing there—wave, Mother—those gourd vines all over her garage. Remember her dipper gourd? Dipping snuff—the way she would drink from it then offer it to you? Or put the worms on all the children’s hooks, all dried up on her fingers, then hand you a sandwich?
Would’t mind a chew myself.
Well now, I knew it. There he is. Scowling. Frowning. Corpulent man. Voluminous. A man of ample girth and proud of it—prosperous Bishop—looks like he just got pulled away from the table. Wearing a bib! Big stain spreading on his chest, like a wound. Something hard as steel in those eyes. What? Something of the fox, the pig.
And Brother Solomon! The Law me alive. If I ever saw the love of God shining in a man’s face, it was his. If some of the white ones I know had a tenth of the Holy Spirit in him—well, anyway—
Here we are, Mother, I believe—the very place right here, remember? No, never been down this street. This lane. Ah, that gardenia again. Remember the way the fan would pull in that smell and the whole house would be full of it? Guess I must have said a long time back that’s what I want to smell when the time comes. Yes, believe I did. Look at that light! An interesting street—a most interesting street. Like a tunnel opening up—shades of green, purple. Tenderly calling.
Ready, Mother?
What? Oh—well, yes, of course you can’t. And yes it’s sad—but only for such a short time. There’ll be a place for you—oh yes, there’ll be a place prepared. The Lord protect you from sicknesssufferingdangerorharm—until we meet again—
Now—can’t tarry—fast falls the eventide.
Will certainly miss it. Whate’er may befall. These shady streets. This light. All the many, many friends. Cathern Bass—her voice as soft as mimosa. Honeysuckle. Sunday morning.
Tune our loftiest song.
Gardenias.
July 2, 2022