Tag: Yeah Write

Story In a Box

jamieahughes8 Comments

Finally, after three plus years, all our stuff is under the same roof again. After fetching the last few boxes from my in-laws’ attic, we spent the better part of last Saturday unpacking and strolling down memory lane—looking at old photos, combing through band memorabilia to see who had the most superior medals, and (in my case) wearing every single piece of graduation bling I ever earned.

Graduating like a boss since 1996!
Graduating like a boss since 1996!

We found fun things like a scrapbook full of photos from our last vacation in 2004 (Yes, it’s been that long!), a Nintendo system we bought on whim off of Ebay because we had a hankering to play Zelda and Battle of Olympus, our old letterman jackets, some useless gewgaws from my days as a high school teacher, and even an ill-advised Halloween costume that I kept for some reason. However, it wasn’t until tonight when I was breaking down the boxes to take them out with the trash that I noticed this.

box1

Don’t worry. This isn’t Schrödinger’s box or anything. Nothing nefarious happened in it. In fact, it’s never held anything more harmful than a few silk flowers and is now as hollowed out as Miley Cyrus’ sense of self-worth. (Too soon?!?) But it’s not what was in the box that matters. It’s the flimsy cardboard itself.

This box was filled with, as the label says, “China Hutch Stuff.” We haven’t owned that hutch since 2003, when we lived in our last home in Valdosta. I lost my job teaching in Echols County due to budget cuts, and rather than stay, we chose to move to Florida where the sun is always shining and there are only two seasons: summer and January. I packed that box when I was 25 years old and (as we say in the South) was feeling fine as a frog hair split three ways. Back then, two men I love (my grandfather and my great uncle James) were still alive. We had yet to make the mistakes that would send our lives on an entirely different trajectory. Even my illness was still months away.

When I wrapped the champagne flutes and cake topper from our wedding and tucked them away amid the keepsake napkins, ribbons, and party favors from that magical, long ago day, I was a completely different person than I am now. It may be my hasty handwriting on that box, but I barely resemble the cocksure dame who scribbled it.

I’ve moved that box six or seven times (without once opening it), but when I saw it again today, the ten years between that moment and this zoomed past me at once like something out of a cartoon. It felt foreign to me, like a relic from a life I barely remembered. And the time it represented was like a piece of threadbare cloth, faint and worn thin from too many handlings.

I considered saving this box, keeping it so I could remember the way things used to be. But when I thought about who I was then and how far I’ve come spiritually, emotionally, and mentally, I realized I wouldn’t trade anything to go back. That life, I see now, was just as empty as the box is today. What I thought was worth pursuing was really a “vanity of vanities.”

The real joy is never what we leave behind. It’s the glorious possibility that surrounds us today and what lies ahead of us tomorrow. And that is something that can never, ever be contained in a box.

Life Is More than Food

jamieahughes30 Comments

I value healthy eating, but by the seventh mention of bowel movements, I totally checked out. I’d gone to a baking class to learn about something I considered complicated—making bread. But I got a lot more than that for my eight dollars. In addition to learning about all things yeasty, I was also treated to a dissertation on the evils of pre-packaged foods and forced to listen as the teacher waxed rhapsodic about the unfathomable joy that could be mine if I made everything from scratch. Like buy-grain-in-bulk-and-grind-your-own-flour-in-a-mill-from-scratch.

To quote Hall and Oates, “I can’t go for that. No can do.”

Don’t misread my reticence. I’m not one of those people who eschews anything to do with good nutrition. In fact, I avoid fast food as much as possible, drink plenty of water, and eat my veggies. (Seriously, I actually like Brussell sprouts.) But to spend nearly every waking moment of my life thinking about what I eat and how I should buy, store, and prepare it is beyond my ken. If you’ll forgive me the dead metaphor/bad grammar super combo, it might be some folks’ bread and butter, but it ain’t my cup of tea.

Image from wisegeek.com
Image from wisegeek.com

Hecks to the yes, I value wellness. As a person who’s lived with multiple sclerosis for nearly ten years, I know what it feels like when your body turns traitor and refuses to work the way it should. But expending such an inordinate amount of time, money, and energy in the name of good health makes me wonder if the term “quality of life” has as many shades of meaning as Kool-Aid has uses for Yellow No. 5. To me, a life spent checking labels and prepping food to squirrel away in Tupperware boxes doesn’t make me want to do the Cupid Shuffle or “go tell it on the mountain.” I love to eat delicious, wholesome meals, but if I have to make a choice between spending my life creating them or crafting poetry, the latter will win. Every single time.

In C.S. Lewis’ masterwork, The Screwtape Letters, the title character (who just happens to be a demon) advises his nephew to tempt a person with gluttony. He says, “We can use a human belly and palate to produce querulousness, impatience, uncharitableness, and self-concern” by “concentrating all our efforts on gluttony of Delicacy, not gluttony of Excess.” In other words, Lewis says, the desire for a perfect slice of toast or ideal cup of tea can never be fulfilled, and in searching for it, a person’s stomach “dominates” his/her life to the detriment of everything else.

I still want to learn everything there is to know about baking bread—but not so I can fend off some invisible specter of illness or fear. I want to bake to help feed the hungry, to teach my future children the value of making something with your hands, and to welcome others to my table to fellowship. After all, what good is lifetime spent filling my stomach with good things only to wake up one day and discover my soul is empty and my heart starved?

No Ifs, Ands, or Buts

jamieahughes20 Comments

Last Saturday evening, my husband received a cryptic text message from Stan, a friend and fellow trombonist. It was something straight out of The Matrix, an indecipherable garble of letters and numbers, and Wayne decided he’d have to tease Stan about it at church the next day.

He wasted no time and shouted across the orchestra room, “Stan, what are you doing butt dialing me in the middle of the night?”

The older man’s head whipped up, a deep furrow creasing his forehead, and he snapped, “Son, you ought not talk like that in the Lord’s house.”

Wayne looked at me, panicked—like a kid who’d forgotten his one and only line in the school play. He stammered and sheepishly asked, “What did I say? ‘Butt’?”

“Worse than that,” Stan replied. “I’m not mad, but you just shouldn’t use sex talk here.”

Then it clicked in my head, and I couldn’t stop laughing. I kept on even though my gut hurt and tears filled my eyes.

“Wayne,” I said, trying to catch my breath, “he thought you meant ‘booty call.’”

A few beats later, Wayne got the joke as well. Then the only one not snickering was Stan. It was then my rather unenviable job to explain the difference between “booty call” and “butt dial” to a man thirty years my senior. It was uncomfortable to say the least, like having to tell your teacher the meaning of a dirty word when she (and you) would be better off if she remained blissfully oblivious. But, thankfully, by the time I finished, he was shaking his head and laughing too—a deep, whole body chuckle that made his shoulders shake.

Several years ago, I taught ESL classes and enjoyed many zany moments like this. And if there’s one thing those amazingly determined students taught me it’s that words matter. Especially when they have different connotations. For example, when it comes to her body, a woman would much rather be described as “voluptuous” than “chubby.” The same holds true for someone who’s good with money; I’m willing to bet “thrifty” is much preferable to “stingy.” (I wouldn’t know as I’m as prodigal as they come.)

And vocabularies, unlike currency, don’t always convert well. Consider the word “fag.” Say it in England, and a Brit will go looking for his pack of smokes. However, it’s disrespectful on this side of the pond. And you better not call your bag a “fanny pack” when you’re looking for some bob to pay for your fish and chips. It will end with you being roundly mocked.

Words also morph over time, changing their colors as easily as a chameleon does. The word “awful” once meant “full of awe” (something wonderful and amazing.) Now, it’s the last word you’d use to describe the Mona Lisa. Same goes for “manufacture.” It’s original meaning was “made by hand.” Now that term only applies to mass produced junk coming from the bowels of a factory. That’s why the sentence, “The awful manufactured lamp made my house look bright and gay” means something radically different than it did a century or so ago.

Yeah, words matter—no ifs, ands, or “butts” about it.