Matriarch

ma·tri·arch (mtr-ärk)
n.
1. A woman who rules a family, clan, or tribe.
2. A woman who dominates a group or an activity.
3. A highly respected woman who is a mother.
matri·archal (-ärkl), matri·archic (-ärkk) adj.
matri·archal·ism n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Matriarch, a mother who leads and guides her family and in the case of Araine's grandmother, Inez Nanney, that included a husband, 3 children, 6 grandchildren, 10 great grandchildren and would in a few months have included a great great grand as well. Inez, know to most of us as Gran, left us this week. In truth I believe she left us sometime before then but the body with it's strong survival instinct held on as long as it could, which was until this past Thursday when, surrounded by her family, she passed into (I know I used this in my last blog but I feel it so appropriate to use it again) what Peter Pan referred to as the greatest adventure of all. The service, which was beautiful and befitting to a woman such as Gran, was Saturday. I had the honor of being a pallbearer, helping to carry this great woman to her final resting place. During the service Rainey's eldest cousin, the first of the 6 grandchildren, spoke of his remembrances of Gran. How he had spent so much time and so much of his life at her feet, and in her kitchen. How many of us I wonder can separate memories of our grandmothers from memories of food, I know I can't see a fried apple pie without remembering my maternal grandmother, and I know no one in Rainey's family will ever eat dressing or creamed corn without remembering Gran. As Araine and I drove back after the grave side service we talked about our memories of Gran, Araine of course had know Gran her whole life and I had the pleasure of knowing her for more than 20 years, and it's funny that we both have the same mental picture of her sitting in her rocker on her front porch with Pop breaking green beans or shucking corn. Pop and Gran, it's hard to imagine one without the other, they were married for 68 years and unlike so many older couples one sees who never touch or show emotion to one another, you could tell they truly loved one another. Countless times I remember seeing Pop lean over and kiss Gran or seen them sitting beside each other or holding hands, I just hope 48 years from now Araine and I will still be loving each other as strongly as these 2 did. They were married in Gaffney and if I remember the story correctly they paid the preacher with a goat, shortly afterward Pop went into the Army and Gran raised there oldest for 2 years on her own. I've heard a number of stories over the years about what a character Pop was, and in truth still is, how he would say he was leaving and pack his bag but only packed neck ties and Gran held the family together. Over the years there were many ups and downs, and Gran held the family together. Pop and Gran were instrumental many times in mine and Araines life as well, helping to raise Rainey during troubled times in her life and getting us set up in our first home when I got out of the Air Force and I'm sure in many other varied and subtle ways as well. I want to close this blog with what I feel is one of the most touching things I've ever seen or heard of- after Gran passed they painted her toenails and put a star sticker on one of them and then all her daughters and grand daughters painted their nails with the same polish and put the little star stickers on as well. Goodbye Gran, we loved you very much.

I heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, who...

Okay so stole it from a friend who stole it from someone elses blog is more like it, but I love to get a song stuck in someones head. WWW Wednesday, or I suppose it could be WWWW. Why are we copying this idea? Because it's neat and it's simple and because we love books. For the uninitiated the love of books comes in because the www's stand for what book did you last read, what book are you reading and what book do you plan to read next. So without further ado, here's my www. I last read (as of this morning) The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje- fairly good book but I bet the movie is better. I'm reading A Primer of Jungian Psychology by Calvin S. Hall. And as usual I have no idea what I'll read next, it depends on the mood I'm in when I finish reading about Jung.

Starting with the man in the mirror

To stay still to long is to stagnate, atrophy and die. Change is part and parcel with the universe in which we live. From the largest of galaxies to the smallest of atoms everything is in flux. People are born, the grow up, move on, they come in and out of our lives and eventually pass on to what Peter Pan referred to as the greatest adventure of all. My youngest who only a few weeks ago was a little baby is up and walking and into everything, so much so I've threaten to change his middle name from Wit to Make a Mess. It has a nice indigenous feel to it,don't you think? My oldest who was born so premature we lived for months in constant fear of his taking that great adventure much to soon is almost 15 now and nearly as big as I am. In fact he picked me up off the ground yesterday. I'm no astrophysicist but I believe change to be the only constant we can count on.
So is this to be a blog of philosophical speculation on the nature of life as we know it? No. This blog is meant to be much more ego-centric, more to do with changes in me. Over the past few months I feel I've grown more into my own skin than I've been in quite some time. One reason I've never been able to get to involved with politics is because my beliefs and convictions have changed so much over my life swaying from one side to another and back again to the point where I'm afraid to state an opinion for fear of having to retract or contradict it a few weeks or even days later. Politics and religion have always been arenas where one has to feel they have all the truth on their side otherwise how can you be zealous of your beliefs. To illustrate, I once went on a trip with my dad's church in which several people got into a religious discussion on different translations of the bible, my dad could tell I was not enjoying the discussion. I talked with him later and told him I couldn't understand how they could be so certain in what they believed to which he, very enlighteningly replied, they have to be certain in order to believe it. Which I guess is why I've never been able to maintain belief. There's a great Calvin and Hobbes comic in which Calvin at the beginning of the strip is drawn in an abstract way to where you can see each side of everything after a few panels he reverts back to his normal appearance and says he's tired of trying to see all sides of issues, he's going back to looking at them from just one perspective. So, to get back on track, it is with a bit of reserve that I say my character has solidified more over the last few months. But I do, honestly, feel more settled on what I believe and what I feel, on what I like and dislike and feel more secure in who I am. Perhaps I'm finally maturing? Could be, I still refuse to grow up though. I saw a sign the other day that said the best fathers are still kids at heart, while I am miles away from being the best father I'd like to think that I can still relate to being a kid.
The biggest change in my life right now, from an outside perspective anyway, is my change in jobs within Wix. I'm not only changing sifts but am taking on a position with leadership responsibilities, a role I wouldn't have taken for anything a year ago. You see the changes in my internal view of myself have allowed me to take on bigger challenges in the external world. It seems a little self confidence can go a long way. One of the reasons I've become such a fan of Doctor Who lately is his, at times, overbearing self confidence as when he calls down a fleet of alien spaceships and tells them he protects the earth and that if there smart, they'll run. Which of course they do.
Now, I'll not be defending earth from aliens anytime soon (I hope) but I do feel more comfortable saying- Hi, I'm Chad and this is who I am.

The house that built me.

There's a country song out right now by Miranda Lambert entitled The House That Built Me. If your not familiar with the song it's about a person going through a rough patch (imagine, a country song about that)and she goes back to her childhood home hoping touching the past will bring some comfort to her life. There's lines like 'I know you don't know me from Adam but these hand prints on the front steps are mine' and 'I bet you didn't know that under that live oak my favorite dog is buried in the yard.' I think that most of us that had at least a passably happy childhood can relate. The house I always think of as my childhood home is the little two bedroom, one bath, black cinder blocked underpinned, white vinyl sided, almost perfectly square house on 2nd Street. It had a little concrete front porch that seemed to me always to be cool to the touch, a little covered carport and a gravel drive. My dad put up a storage building and if you were to look you'd see my initials in the concrete pad. This is the house we lived in from the time I was about 5 until I turned 12, the wonder years, I believe there sometimes called. This is the place where I built so many tree houses I killed a cherry tree, where my friends and I would play ball and war, and sometimes ball that turned into war. This is where we would act out our favorite shows like Ultraman and The Dukes of Hazard, I was always Luke because I thought Bo was a show off (which, of course, he was). When we first moved in my dad and grandpa built a large deck on the back of the house, my first stage. I would put my record player's speakers up next to the kitchen window, slap on a stack of my favorite 45's (yes, I'm that old) and put on a private show. This is the house where my sister and I shared a room, my half containing my NFL toy box with all the team mascots on it, and we would curl up together in the mornings in the tiny little hall that separated the 5 rooms from one another in front of the oil furnace. This is where we lived when I was convinced I was going to grow up to be either a mailman or a cartoonist. I had 3 regular cartoon strips I drew- Yucky about a big eyed dinosaur and his cousin Spike, Sheriff Sam with his big cowboy hat and outlandishly large mustache meeting without any other trace of face showing (a la Andy Capp) defeating the outlaws often times as not with a spit of tobacco (how un-pc of me), and a one panel comic I called Teddy Bear Rock about a rock band made up entirely of teddy bears, each installment was merely a different picture of the teddy bears rocking out. In other words this is the house where I was a kid, before the world invaded. Back before puberty reared its ugly head, before I knew moms and dads sometimes had fights, when a heart break was over a missed cartoon and not my heart. So I understand what Miranda means when she says she wishes she could touch the past to heal the present, but of course it's not the house, it's the innocent we were when we lived there. Once I remember a man pulled his car up along the front of the yard and got out and talked to my mom or dad and told them that he had grow up in our house and just wanted to see it. I can't remember what he looked like but sometimes, just sometimes, I believe it was probably me. Sometime, somehow, somewhere in the future I'll find a way to go back in time, and visit the house that built me.