A specter of love
October 30, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 22 Comments
photo courtesty of photobucket.com
The thing about Virginia is that it’s old. There is history here, more than in most places, and that history isn’t confined to places like Williamsburg and Jamestown. It spreads westward too, over the piedmont and the mountains, right to my proverbial backyard.
Some say that our history is still alive in one way or another. I guess the story Jeff Jackson told me a few weeks ago could be classified as “another.”
Jeff and his father, Larry, are hunters. Big time hunters. The sort of Virginia boys who elevate it from sport to near religion.
Always looking for an edge as to where the best game is, Larry heard through the redneck grapevine there was a section of the mountains full of the biggest bucks anyone had ever seen. There was, however, one small problem—those woods were haunted.
Superstitions run deep in the mountains here. Larry and Jeff knew that. They also knew many of those superstitions were tales spun by moonshiners to keep prying eyes away from their stills. Besides, both of them had been in those woods before, and both had never seen anything other than squirrels, snakes, and the decaying foundation of an ancient cabin.
So they went. Hiked in one Saturday morning just before sunup. Jeff left his father under a stout oak on top of a ridge and then made his way another mile down the mountain. Walkie-talkies would keep them in contact, the woods would keep them at peace, and the prospect of a trophy buck would keep them watchful.
Larry sipped coffee while the mountain threw off its dark blanket and began the morning. The rising sun brought the woods to life slow and easy. Birds sang and critters scurried for breakfast. The cool wind was enough to keep him alert but not cold.
And then it all stopped. Everything. The birds, the critters, the wind. Life one moment, not-life the next.
Larry exchanged his thermos for his rifle, thinking that maybe the sudden stop in activity meant a bear or mountain lion was making its way through the area. But he heard and saw nothing.
Then from the corner of his eye Larry saw movement through the trees. He peeked from behind the oak and fingered the trigger.
Then he went numb.
There, no more than twenty yards away, was a woman. Not a big deal, usually. Plenty of women hiked the mountains. But two things set this particular woman apart from the rest. One was that she was wearing a wedding dress. The other was that there was empty space from her waist down.
Larry couldn’t move. Couldn’t talk, couldn’t shoot, couldn’t breathe. All he could do was stare as the legless bride floated past him and disappeared into the woods.
The silence remained behind like a whoosh of air after a car has passed. Then a cardinal sang from far away, a signal that all was safe. Other birds joined in. Critters went back to scurrying. The breeze returned.
And Larry discovered he could talk again.
“GIT UP HERE BOY NOW!!” he screamed into the radio.
Jeff, one mile down the ridge, had been oblivious to everything that had happened. All he knew was that his father was screaming for help, which to him meant Larry had either been shot or was in the process of being eaten.
“What’s wrong?!” he said through the radio. “DAD? WHAT’S WRO—”
“—Git. HERE. NOW!!”
Jeff ran.
He found Larry still peering from behind that oak tree. All his father would say was, “We gotta get the heck outta here, boy.”
A year has passed. Larry’s spent the majority of that time obsessed with what he saw. He’s researched and read, spoken with writers and professors. All to find some sense of what happened. He thinks he has.
According to Larry, the decaying foundation he and Jeff found was once the home of the Walker family in the late 1700s. Father, mother, son, and a daughter named Abigail, who just so happened to be hopelessly in love and engaged. But war came to the colonies. Abigail’s love joined Washington’s army. He never returned.
Larry’s convinced it was Abigail he saw that day, destined to forever roam the mountains in search of the man she lost and to be dressed for a wedding she’ll never have. There are some who snicker when he says that. And there are more than some who think that rather than stumbling upon a ghost, Larry stumbled upon a still and got sauced.
Me, I’m not so sure. I think Larry just might be telling the truth. Because there is ecstasy in finding true love, and there is torment in losing it.
What a leaf gives
October 29, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 33 Comments
Photo Courtesy of Annie K
Fall approaches only when the leaves on our backyard maple begin to yawn inward and drop to the ground. One would perhaps think that owning the focal point of one season’s exit and another’s entrance would be a big deal, but it’s something our realtor failed to mention. Not that I’m complaining. My maple wouldn’t want the attention.
As I write this I am looking out an upstairs window. Beautiful day, eighty degrees and sunshiny. But I’m not fooled. My backyard is slowly pulling a blanket of yellowed leaves over itself to settle in for the colder months. My maple is becoming bare. That’s how I know that both the end and the beginning are near. My beautiful day is just a little more than a mirage. It’s both here and not really.
Soon the leaves on the other trees in the neighborhood will take their cue and follow suit. Green will turn to yellow and then to red and orange in a sudden and silent conflagration. It will be a shout of goodbye mixed with a little leaving of something behind.
Sometime in the next month or so a migration to our valley will ensue. People for hundreds of miles will make the journey to the mountains in my front yard just to get a look at our leaves.
This seems curious on the surface. After all, I’m sure those good folks have trees wherever they live, too. Travelling hundreds of miles to look at other trees can seem to be a bit ridiculous. But I understand. Because I am, above all else, a leaf guy. I would even go so far as to say that a single leaf embodies everything to which a human should aspire.
That statement might on the surface seem a little demeaning. If we’re going to compare humanity to the positive attributes of a natural object, it should be something a little more awe-inspiring. Like an eagle, maybe. Or the mountains. Or maybe some bright, shining star.
But I don’t think so. No, I don’t think you can get much better than a leaf.
The leaf is a wonderful creation. It’s value to trees and plants is vital because of photosynthesis, the natural process of turning carbon dioxide into organic compounds—something from nothing. The result of this miraculous poof!ing is oxygen. Leaves convert almost a hundred billion tons of carbon dioxide into fresh air every year, keeping us all alive. Next time you take a deep breath, thank the nearest tree.
And that’s not all.
For thousands of years humans have used leaves for everything from medicine to food. They provide shelter from the elements and shade from the sun. Adam and Eve used them to cover their nakedness. Christ used them in parables. And let’s not forget the entertainment factor. Leaves are fun to play with. Just ask my kids.
The life of a leaf is a life of service. It gives, whether it be life or shelter, and asks for nothing in return. And when the end comes, the leaf doesn’t fret. It doesn’t fight the inevitable, doesn’t shrink or shrivel or succumb.
No, it uses its last days to brighten and reveal the beauty that was always hidden within it, thereby inspiring us to notice the beauty that is apparent around us. Even in death, the leaf gives.
So you can take your oceans and mountains. You can have your eagles and stars. I’ll stay a leaf guy. I don’t think I could ask anything more of myself.
The night my son gave up
October 28, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 12 Comments
At five, my son is quickly learning the ways of the world when it comes to dealing with others. It’s a necessary skill. Maybe the most necessary.
He knows that a crying fit will likely get him nothing but a slap on the rear, and he knows he can sweet talk his mother into just about anything he wants. He also knows his father is a much tougher sell. I’m not much on sweet talking. So with me he tends to approach things from a more practical standpoint.
“Dad,” he said the other day, “I think I need a knife because you have a knife and I wanna be like you.”
So he got a knife. Plastic, of course. But still one that’s worthy of both his father and MacGyver.
He’s slick, I tell you. Very.
The way to deal with God has come much harder for my son, mostly because he can’t seem to figure out how to get what he wants. I’ve spent the last few weeks as a spectator to this getting-to-know-you process. I’m not butting in. Not yet. Some things are best learned on your own, even when you’re a kid…
I’m at highcallingblogs.com today, and if you’d like to read more, just follow this link. I’ll see you over there. Have a great day, everyone!
The truth about humanity
October 27, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 24 Comments
photo courtesy of photobucket.com
Something about college seems to get young people thinking about where they’ve come from and what they belong to. Most students are at that age when they’re attempting to define themselves in some way, whether it be in terms of gender or class or ambition. Or, in many cases, race.
Here at work there is an excess of different clubs and organizations begging for admission. There is an African-American group, a Latin-American one, and a Pacific-American one, too. There are clubs for Christians and atheists and homosexuals. And there are even clubs for all the people left over. From what I hear, there may soon be one devoted to paganism as well. Higher education at its best.
It’s ironic, really. College is where people are supposed to expand their horizons, and yet it seems as if all anyone wants to do is put themselves into a nice small box labeled This Is Me.
I’ve been privy to several conversations the past few weeks concerning whose race is what and why theirs are better. Most of these conversations take place at a large circular table in the dining hall. I’ve listened to Hispanics and blacks and Asians, one person from India, three Jews, and two Muslims.
Thus far I have only been a casual observer to these talks and not a participant. I tried once, but was told I was white (shocking, that. I had no idea). I took the liberty of informing them I was one quarter Cherokee Indian. Unfortunately, that was not enough for me to qualify.
Being proud of your ancestry is a good thing I think, so long as that pride doesn’t turn into arrogance. You can build yourself up without having to tear someone else down. But I’ve noticed that many of these conversations have little to do with the extent to which their race has added to mankind and much to do with the amount of misery they’ve endured at the hands of other races.
They all have good arguments. There’s little doubt each of their forefathers have gone though much in the way of undeserved hardship. And maybe still do.
But I’ve been wondering about a few things.
Like worth, for instance. Do we tend to measure our worth by the amount of suffering we’ve faced? Are we all jockeying for position on some cosmic scale of deserved retribution? Or is it more like we’re all a bunch of old men in a bar comparing war wounds? I’m not sure. But if so, then that’s just sort of bad, isn’t it?
Because we can’t compare the wounds on the heart in the same way as wounds the body. There are no nicks upon the soul. No pokes or pricks or scratches. No, every gash there is a gaping one, a canyon rather than a cut. No matter how hard we try to convince ourselves otherwise, life is hurt pure and simple. If there is honor in suffering then we should all be honored, regardless of the color of our skin or the nation of our birth.
I wish we could all realize that.
I see at that dining hall table a microcosm of our world. People sitting in the same places they’ve always occupied, thinking they have the best view of the truth. They talk nice enough most of the time, but that talk is usually interrupted by plenty of shouts and accusations. But still, every day they come and sit and talk. That’s good, I think.
Maybe at some point they’ll all come to understand the truth about humanity. Whether they believe we’ve all evolved from the mire of the earth or were created by a loving God makes little difference here. Either way, we’re all connected. We’re all the same.
All of which makes us one family under one roof, many children with one Father, and every war a civil war.
Loving thy neighbor
October 26, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 14 Comments
photo courtesy of photobucket
There are some stories that stick with me long after they’re told. They linger rather than fade, like the scent of a spring shower long after the sun has returned.
Pete’s story is one of those, mostly because it’s a story that continues to be told. I drove by his house the other day and saw him helping his neighbor rake leaves. That in itself is not an uncommon occurrence. Around here neighbors help each other, whether it’s raking leaves or lending ingredients for a recipe.
But Pete and his neighbor were different, and in more ways than one.
Since I spent the weekend working on a looming deadline, I thought I would take the opportunity to repost Pete’s story over on katdish’s blog. It’s worth the read if only to remember that loving thy neighbor isn’t always the easiest or most comfortable thing, but it’s always worth it in the end.
Waking Up
October 23, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 30 Comments
Picture courtesy of Photobucket.com
My alarm clock is the digital kind that at some preprogrammed time emits a shriek specifically designed to shock me into consciousness. I’ve experimented with others, the ones that guarantee the same result but with bells or music or ocean surf. None seem to work. No matter how soothing the process, my awakening is always unwelcomed and rude.
Which is why my morning ritual has become so necessary. My weekday routine has been simplified and honed over the years. It’s been stripped to the barest essentials to ensure the maximum amount of doing with the minimum amount of effort:
Stumble out of bed, brush my teeth, shower, and pour coffee. Then I leave, using the drive to work to pray and catch a few minutes of my favorite semi-crude redneck morning radio show.
This may sound simple and ordinary, which exactly accomplishes my purpose. My morning routine is designed to be a counterassault on my day—a way to add a layer of the predictable between me and the unpredictable hours that will follow.
Sounds flawless, doesn’t it? It is. Or was. Because last Wednesday something very odd happened to challenge that notion.
I woke up at work.
It was a sudden realization, one that I decided was not unlike my shrieking alarm clock. One moment I was in bed, and the next I was standing in the middle of a college mailroom with a stack of letters in my hand. The memory of how I had managed to get from point A to point B had been at best misplaced and at worst lost.
I could only suppose that I had followed the usual ritual of alarm-wake-brush-shower-pour-leave-pray-laugh. I just couldn’t remember it. And that bugged me. I felt as though I’d somehow cheated myself out of two hours of living.
That notion stayed with me for the rest of the day, and I went to bed that night determined to make sure it didn’t happen again. So Thursday morning I changed things up. I showered before I brushed and laughed while I prayed (which I’m now convinced everyone should do because it was fantastic). I drank hot tea instead of coffee. I took a different way to work and listened to a slightly more intellectual morning radio show.
It was, in a word, better.
Not so much because my morning was improved, because it wasn’t. Showering before brushing my teeth wasn’t very pleasant, but it was pleasantly different. Just like the alternate route to work didn’t reveal anything new but much that was dissimilar. That was the key. Being a little uncomfortable meant I had to pay a lot of attention.
Sometimes I think we’re fooled into believing we have only one birth and one death. I don’t think that’s true. I think with the shrieking alarm of every day we’re faced with a choice to live or die, if not outwardly than certainly on the inside. And it’s the purest sort of choice, one that cannot be bargained with or cheated. Choosing to live a little less is the same thing as choosing to die a little more.
How much do we miss while chained to the Same Old? How many blessings pass us by? How much of life’s magnificence? The ugliness of this world surrounds us every day. It’s as close as the newspaper and the television. It’s a click away on your computer. It engulfs us to the point of surrender.
You can be numb and still see the bad, but you have to pay attention to see the joy. You have to watch for it. Seek it. The beauty that exists in this world is like the wind. It’s difficult to see, but much easier to see its effects. It fires the imagination and inspires hope. It replaces our wandering with purpose.
My morning ritual is more of an embrace now. I’m trying to wake up. Trying to reach out for my day rather than shrink away from it, to draw deeply from life’s well rather than taking a sip.
The Middle Rule
October 22, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 12 Comments
Photo courtesy of Photobucket.com
People have an unfortunate habit of measuring their own progress according to the progress of others. Writers take this habit to new heights. Or depths, depending upon your point of view. Which is exactly why when two unacquainted writers strike up a conversation, one question is inevitably asked:
“Do you have an agent?”
It’s always that. Always. “Are you published?” would maybe seem to make more sense. After all, that’s the ultimate goal. But the great secret of professional writing is that in an age of vanity and self-publishing, it’s more difficult to sign with an agent than to get your book on a shelf.
Which is why many consider literary agents to be the rock stars of the publishing world. They hold the keys to the kingdom. Manage to catch the attention of one, and you’ve all but made it as a writer.
That’s what I thought, anyway. But as is often the case with many of my assumptions, that one turned out to be wrong.
By my count I queried nearly forty agents before one finally showed interest in my book. Fortunately those forty rejections turned out to be quite a blessing, because the one agent who said yes happened to be Rachelle Gardner.
I’m sure most of you know Rachelle through her blog, which has a wealth of information and insight into the publishing business. She’s informed, wise, and both very friendly and a consummate professional.
And she’s also very, very cool. How cool? Cool enough to let me guest post for her today.
So follow me to her blog, where I talk about life after getting an agent, my wrong assumption, and how every writer’s journey to publication can be defined by what I call The Middle Rule.
Jump
October 20, 2009 by Katdish · 52 Comments
Photo courtesy of Photobucket.com
I hold out my hands and say, “Jump.”
My daughter stands on the edge of my bed, arms up and shaking. She giggles the way little girls do, part amused and part terrified. And she says, “I’m scared.”
“Why?” I answer. “You know I’ll catch you.”
“But what if you don’t?” she wonders.
“What if I do?”
“But what if…you don’t?”
She giggles again at the father/daughter version of Abbot and Costello and looks down. The carpet seems soft enough to cushion a fall, but maybe not a fall from that height. Her parents’ bed is high. Very high. High enough that if she stretched out her hand, she could almost touch the ceiling.
She’s torn. Jumping would be fun. Being caught would be fun. But jumping and not being caught? No fun at all.
But then I say the two words she really wants to hear. Words of assurance and truth. Words a father not only says, but means.
“Trust me,” I say.
Her giggle turns to a smile which turns to tightened lips of determination. She bends over and crouches down, ensuring her spindly legs give her the maximum jump possible.
In the movie that seems to constantly play in my mind, things always seem to progress in a predetermined manner designed to make me look as good as possible to the most amount of people. Unfortunately, that movie rarely compliments reality. Not only do I royally screw up from time to time, I’m often the victim of life’s cruel timing.
Because just as my daughter crouched down to jump, I started to sneeze.
I’ve never been able to stop a sneeze. I’ve heard it was possible, I’ve even seen some people do it, but it’s always been more of a postponement than anything else. My nose began to itch with fire, my eyes watered, and my head leaned backward. I was so consumed with what was happening that I couldn’t tell my daughter to wait. Just a second. That’s all I needed.
But little girls tend to be both impatient and steadfast in their decisions, and she had decided she was going to jump and nothing was going to stop her.
The moment she bounded from the bed and into the air was the very moment my head swung forward and sneezed, expelling both air and whatever else outward from my mouth in speeds up to 100 mph. I couldn’t cover my face because my arms were still valiantly trying to catch her. There was no buffer between my airborne germs and her airborne everything.
She winced in mid air, and that was the last I saw of her. Because not only is it impossible to stop a sneeze, it’s also impossible to keep your eyes open when it happens.
The full force of the air hit her square in the face and we collided, sending us flailing backward into the open closet. Arms and legs tangle with jeans and T shirts. The air smells of detergent and confusion.
I raise my head out of a pile of dirty socks to see that one of our legs has knocked over the hamper, and I fumble around for my daughter to make sure she’s still breathing.
But I don’t have to fumble. I hear. And I remember that the only thing louder than a little girl laughing is a little girl crying.
“You didn’t catch me!” she screams.
I pick her up and comfort her as best I can, and my wife sits her on the bed and scolds us both on the dangers of roughhousing inside. Band-Aids are deployed to cover nicks and scratches, both visible and not. But there’s no Band-Aid that can cover the fact that I didn’t catch my daughter. That she trusted me and I didn’t deliver.
Boo-boos mostly healed, we sit together on the edge of the bed and ponder. This is a powerful lesson, though one jumbled amongst bumped elbows and wounded pride.
Then: “God would have caught me.” She says it to the carpet and not to me. She knows she can’t hurt the carpet’s feelings.
“Yes,” I say.
“It was just an accident, right?”
“Yes.”
“I still love you, Daddy.”
“And I love you.”
“But I think from now on I’m going to trust God more than you, if that’s okay.”
“I think that’s probably a good idea,” I tell her.
We both sit, silent but better, thankful that God can always be trusted. That He’ll always catch us, because He never sneezes.
For more stories about Trust, check out the blog carnival at One Word at a Time.
What makes a person
October 19, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 17 Comments
It was Flannery O’Connor who said, ”The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that doesn’t require his attention.”
I really like that. It makes me feel better about being such a snoop. I like to watch people. I like to study what they do and analyze what they say. And I especially like to know what they believe. But more than that, I like to know why they believe what they do.
A case in point.
Last week at the coffee shop I was an unknown audience to three friends whose rather tame conversation turned into a discussion about a subject much more serious and touchy–abortion. I tend to shy away from the more controversial subjects in life, choosing to leave that to those more learned and eloquent. But what I heard at that table astounded me; it was a way of looking at the issue that I had never before considered.
To hear what transpired, follow me over to katdish’s blog. And no matter which side you happen to come down on, you’ll have to admit that Tori has an interesting perspective…
The Long and Winding Road
October 16, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 111 Comments
Fifteen years, seven months, and twenty-three days. As best I can tell, that’s how long it’s been since I first picked up a pen and said, “You know, I’d really like to get a book published.”
If I had known then that it would take that much time to be able to write these words, I maybe would have reconsidered that notion. Maybe. Because at that moment I took one small step onto a road of unknown distance and grade, thinking it would be an easy stroll.
Is that how it is with most dreams? Do we all fool ourselves into thinking the path from where we are to where our goals wait will be straight and flat with a slight decline to push us onward?
As is usually the case when my expectations collide with my reality, the road I took didn’t really take the form I thought it would. Or even should.
Far from straight and flat, my road was a long and winding. There were hairpin turns and potholes that I both fell into and eased my way through. There were steep climbs and harrowing descents. And the faint glimpses of an end were only false horizons that taunted rather than encouraged.
The only comfort I found during those long walks were my faith, my family, and the daydream of a phone call from an unknown someone who would tell me that it had all been worth it. That even though I had much walking left to do, that part of the journey was done.
That unknown someone turned out to be my agent, Rachelle Gardner. And on a warm afternoon about two months ago, she called to tell me just that.
I can now officially say that I’ve signed a two-book deal with FaithWords, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group. My first novel, Snow Day, will be published just in time for Christmas 2010. If you’d like a sneak peek, just click on the Snow Day tab above.
I’ve had much help from two of my blogger pals to fix up what I think is a rather awesome website. Katdish’s artistic ways came in very handy, and Peter Pollock was nice enough (and patient enough) to get things just right on the technical side. I don’t know how I can thank the both of them, but I’ll think of something.
And speaking of thanks.
People always seem to thank God whenever something wonderful happens. Even people who really don’t mean it. I do. The last fifteen years hasn’t always brought out the best in me. I lost faith, love, hope, and everything else I was supposed to never let go, only to find and lose it all again. The whole notion of the suffering saint has never really applied to me. The suffering? Yes. The saint? Not so much. And yet through it all, God was there.
So was my family, who learned quickly that life with a writer isn’t all bubble gum and cotton candy. If I endured much, they endured more.
It’s no accident that all of this has come about now rather than years ago. I’ve only been blogging for a little over a year, but I can honestly say that each and every one of you who have taken the time to stop by my cyber porch for a story have made all the difference. From what I understand, the comments you all have left over the months went a long way to convince my publisher there was an audience out there, even if it was just for a redneck hick like me.
We’ll keep you up to date in the coming months as things move along. In the meantime, feel free to visit often and take a look around. I’ll be right here on my usual days to share what’s on my mind. So grab a rocking chair and settle in. The weather’s fine, the breeze is cool, and there’s plenty of tea.
And the light’s always on.
I’m a writer whose first novel, Snow Day, will be published by FaithWords in 2010.
But don’t let that fool you. I’m just as confused as anyone.
And that is fine with me, because the great thing about wandering around in the fog is that you never know what you might run into.
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