Old Things

Old Questions

Sometimes we get one memory.

And I’m not even sure this is my memory. We hear stories over and over until we claim them as our own as a man who plants a flag atop a mountain he has climbed but can never possess. My paternal grandfather died when I was six, so my recollection of him is tenuous at best. I am told that he stood up from his rocking chair to swat a fly and dropped dead from a stroke. You could say that this was an unremarkable end to an unremarkable life, but you would be wrong. Here is a man who worked as a mule skinner in turn-of-the-twentieth century rural Louisiana. He made fifty cents a day. Six of his eight children survived to adulthood. They did not starve. Remarkable enough. But however we travel through the days we are given, we are all philosophers trying to make sense of this ephemeral existence. My grandfather was no exception. His days were marked by poverty and hardship with very few things he could count on for stability. But there was one. Here is the memory. Every morning my grandfather would call out to my grandmother, “Cora, where is my hat?” Her answer. “It’s on the library table, Bud.” An unlikely name for a hand-hewn table that never saw a book other than a Bible or a Farmer’s Almanac. Every morning, he asked the same question, and every morning she gave the same answer. What seemed silly and inscrutable to a six year old is, in my coming of age, as clear as the simplest of proverbs. He was not asking where his hat was. He was asking, “Cora, are you there?” She was replying, “Yes, Bud, I’m here.” And, after all, isn’t that all any of us need to know?

Old Books

Given the choice, I will always choose an old book over a new one. To know that my eyes are not the first ones to read the pages is somehow comforting, a connection to another reader who, perhaps, lived before my grandmother and perceived the book entirely differently. I wonder how the book survived the indignity of being thrown away. And how did it make its way into my hands? And, most importantly, why does this book in particular appeal to me? I cannot explain it. Many of them come to me by accident. I can pass scores of books without a glance, and then stumble onto one in an antique store that calls to me as clearly as a bell ringing. I buy it without hesitation and carry it home to its place on my shelves or my floor or my bedside table. They are stacked everywhere, finding their places as they will, and warming the room with their presence. But more often, I deliberately seek out a specific book as a miner pans for gold, sifting through thousands of volumes until I see that familiar glimmer of treasure. I have become interested in a particular author, or genre, or title. It must be found. And when it is, the inscription can be achingly cryptic. ”Maggie Hill, 1888.” Others have brief messages of endearment, ”For my grandsons, 1939.” The smell is not musty, as some think. It is of earth and time, and I inhale it deeply as I want to do with life. Buy an old book. Read it. Be flooded with “a sense of ocean and old trees.”

Old Trees

This ancient oak was brought down by a recent hurricane. The tree, older than my grandfather, has withstood other hurricanes, tornadoes, and even ice. But this time, it was not so lucky. I walked my first puppy home under its branches, my bare feet cooled by its shade from the scorching dust of the dirt road. I’ve leaned against its trunk while a melting popsicle ran down my arm and dripped from my elbow. It graced the background of my outdoor wedding reception and looked on as we emptied the rooms of our childhood home after our parents died. If you look closely, you will see that the inside is hollow, but still the leaves are prolific and green. It had more to give. I can think of a thousand analogies to accompany this, but we will not speak of these now. There will be no comparisons to life scraping us hollow with its sharp fingernails and dragging us to the grave while our family and friends are still sheltered in our embrace. No. Today I just ask you to pause and grieve with me the loss of an old friend. This old tree.