Lucky Days

June 27, 2003 was a beautiful day at Ponte Vedra Beach with a perfectly perfect high of 87 degrees, sparkly, sunny crystal blue skies, low humidity and a bit of a breeze.  William, Annabelle and I were in happy residence, enjoying some welcome beach time in a lovely condo.  Charlie, William’s sidekick and best friend from Atlanta, was hanging with us there, a delightful guest who was as good-natured as he was adorable.   William and Charlie were all of seven years old, and Annabelle was a precious five. 

We launched our day at the Lodge pool next door, beautiful and expansive with plentiful umbrella-shaded chairs just right for the relaxation I had in mind.  The kids were glad to spend their morning diving for pennies and multi-colored weighted torpedoes while I kept one eye on them and blissfully paged through magazines using the other one.  Lunch was served beachside on the hotel patio where ocean-watching (for the kids) and beach-people-watching (for me) were in bountiful and rewarding supply.  Afterwards we moved on to early-afternoon rest time featuring a matinee of the cartoon movie “Robin Hood” (hands down the rented condo’s most thoughtful amenity), and I escaped to snag a teeny tiny scrap of beauty rest. 

Late afternoon found us out on the beach searching for shark’s teeth and perfect pink “lucky day” seashells (because if you spotted one in the sand, it was just that).  Amazingly successful at coming up with both kinds of Atlantic Ocean treasure, William, Annabelle and Charlie eventually ditched me for the lure of playing in the waves before we landed back in the condo for quick showers and heading into Jacksonville for the minor league Suns evening game. 

We got to the ballpark early and, armed with little wooden Suns souvenir baseball bats, William, Annabelle and Charlie dived into the pack of kids visiting with the Jacksonville players and collected Sharpie signatures.  They were particularly in awe of the Suns affable shortstop--and I am not sure if the draw was his charm or his captivating name--Gookie Dawkins.    

On the perfect evening for baseball, soft serve in little upside down blue plastic Suns baseball caps hit the spot while the aroma of Bubba Burgers cooking on a big charcoal grill drifted enticingly through the stadium.  Great seats under the starry blue velvet sky gave us a fine view of inning interludes like the chicken dance and hat game, as well as for watching the Suns beat the Birmingham Barons, 2-1.  Every Gookie at-bat, catch, throw, move, genuflection and nuance was enthusiastically supported by my three companions who had claimed him for their very own since they made his pre-game acquaintance.  

Because it was Friday, we really hit the jackpot with the game wrapping up in a fireworks show.  The four of us sat way back in our seats with faces upturned as pyrotechnic bursts of color--pink, silver, blue, and red--lit up the clear Jacksonville night sky, time and again, each one more beautiful and spectacular than the last.  As I sat there watching cascading pieces of glitter falling to earth, tired but content after what could only be called the most perfect day ever, little Charlie turned to me and said, “Could we come back here next year and do this exact same day all over again?” 

I promised Charlie yes, but I knew in my head it would be kind of unlikely that all the stars would align just perfectly again in one year's time.  However, the looking forward to a carbon copy of the best day ever gave us something to discuss in the Bug on the way back to the beach, and made for sweet dreams that night.  

~~~~~

Almost ten years have flown by since that day at the beach and ballpark, and it is kind of remarkable how that particular day out of all the many others that have come and gone has stuck with us, a prototype for the perfect summer vacation day--or, for that matter, the perfect any kind of day.  The splendid fusion of pool-beach-baseball-fireworks is forever enshrined in our memory hall of fame.  William and Annabelle still readily remember Gookie and can recite the renowned Charlie quote on demand because we have reminisced about that day many times since.  

The funny thing is that day was not carefully planned out, plotted or orchestrated with any attention to detail at all.  It simply evolved, one idea about something fun to do segueing into the next, in the end a nice surprise of a day complete with a fireworks happy ending, just like in the movies.  With the exception of a Gookie Dawkins foul ball landing squarely in the middle of one of the boys' baseball gloves, we could not have asked for anything more that would have made it better.  

These days I find myself spending a great deal of time contemplating hopes about what might lie ahead, and all the things I would like to see happen for my loved ones and me.   I was out walking one evening last week, as always reviewing this rather lengthy running list of items about which I pray for the future, the future, the future.  And it just occurred to me that I could be so interested in tomorrow, I might just overlook this day and the here and now.  Last week I got a feeling that each day I am already kind of standing somewhere in tomorrow-land, the esoteric place of promise that often occupies my thoughts. 

So I am thinking the best thing to do is to make a big effort to really enjoy and appreciate what is going on in this day--whether that involves shark's teeth, soft serve and fireworks or not--all the while looking forward to the excellent possibilities that tomorrow holds.  I should do my best work today and take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself--then let life unfold with all its nuances, sweet spots and surprises that lie just down the road.  And just like on that special summer day so long ago, welcome the really good stuff that comes along unplanned, unexpected and unplotted.  

I did go back to Ponte Vedra last summer and, even though it was the middle of July, the weather was amazing with highs in the mid-eighties, low humidity and a bit of a breeze.  Just like the images I had carried around in my head for quite a few years, most everything there was the same beautiful or even better.  It was a picture perfect few days in most every way, though I did find myself often looking around for the smaller versions of William and Annabelle playing on the beach.  While the appeal of searching for shark's teeth just wasn't the same without the kids, I was pleased to find two pretty pink lucky day shells waiting for me to come along, perfectly placed in the sand just beside my chair on the beach, on my birthday.  

I have decided that every day is a lucky day.  

Long Time, No See

Picking Annabelle up from school in the afternoon is a big adventure.  I never really know exactly how the four winds are blowing; any given day could be the absolute best one of her whole entire life or the most tragic one ever in the history of the world.  As I drive up at school, it is my custom to take a deep breath and assume the ready position that I instinctively know so well from the jumpseat on Delta jets.  I am braced for whatever should come my way on takeoff from school and during our journey home.  It can sometimes be quite bumpy. 

A 20-minute drive block-to-block, I am treated to a dramatic interpretation of the headlines and highlights from the freshman class on very that day.  There always seems to be something of intrigue going on and, just like with a soap opera or reality show, I have my own sacred favorites amongst Annabelle’s peer group, some of whom I actually know and others who are simply legends in my mind.  Each afternoon I find myself anxious to check in on my girls, to get up to speed on their big adventures, and to learn for whom the struggle was real that day.  There is always, always a story to be told, and I am a fascinated audience.  I learn something new every day, and I am usually worn out by the time we get home.  That is one busy group of girls. 

However, a few weeks ago in the middle of breathlessly telling yet another tale of Drama in Real Life from the ninth grade, Annabelle suddenly switched gears and simply said this:

“I love classical music”. 

With these few words, from out of nowhere I suddenly caught a glimpse of someone I had not seen in a long, long time.  For a fleeting moment, I saw a small reflection of my father, Emery Tucker, sitting next to me, right there in the front seat of my little Bug.   

I suppose like anyone else whose parent spends the final years of his or her life in a whole different situation than the relatively happy and healthy years preceding them, my first thoughts about my father always tend to be filled with the latter days he spent at St. Barnabas Nursing Home, smiling but without speech, paralyzed, and faithfully pushed around in his wheelchair by my mother.  Because the seven years my father spent in this way linger in my head with bold face type; all the preceding ones are pushed down a ways beyond them in more faint normal type.  But Annabelle’s four words whisked me way past the bold and back to a time that surprisingly materialized before me.   My father's life was always filled with his beloved classical music. 
   
In those many years before his stroke, Emery Tucker lived a pleasant, quiet and stunningly simple life.  He grew up in downtown Chattanooga and never lived more than a few miles beyond his childhood home on Houston Street.  Courtesy of the McCallie School, he knew the Bible backwards, forwards and upside down and was fully versed in the Westminster Catechism.  He modeled remarkably perfect grammar and his penmanship was Declaration of Independence-signing worthy.  He always leaned deeply forward to pray in an old-worldly and profoundly reverential manner.  I believe he really listened when they talked about honor, truth and duty at McCallie.  

My father liked nothing more than being at home.  Oh, he did talk some about going a lot of places, but never took the initiative to go.  He preferred the safe and comfortable travel offered in books and magazines.  Most every night found him in communion with his music—Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Bach— played loud enough to stirringly engulf the small house that was his haven on Tuxedo Circle.  With the symphony completely filling the living room, he would pass the evening hours reading the newspaper, working the crossword puzzle (in ink), and smoking a cigar.  This was his life for as many years as I knew him, and he went to bed at precisely ten o'clock every night.  

Emery Tucker always found great pleasure in conversation, and his favorite subject was always the life and times of the person with whom he was speaking.  Genuinely interested in just about everything in someone else’s life, he asked many questions like an eager tourist who had just landed in a fascinating foreign destination.  He rarely talked about himself, save for the opportunity to offer a reflection on the other person’s observation to which he could relate.  And, no matter from whence someone hailed, my father could always come up with some obscure person with whom he was somehow acquainted and who might possibly be known to the individual with whom he was chatting, asking something like, “Say, do you happen to know old Schnickelfritz?” His inquiry would be spoken as if a lightning bolt had just touched down and had given him this amazing new revelation and, if a connection was actually made, Daddy was simply tickled to death in such a genuine way.

While there is a tendency to designate someone right into sainthood once he or she is gone, with time and distance I clearly see both of my dear parents’ fascinations and foibles.  And I love them for their many fine qualities but also for their idiosyncrasies because I find them in myself, so many things I smilingly recognize and acknowledge in the apple that did not fall too far from the trees.  I do appreciate so much the immense and immeasurable good qualities of these two people who were, like everyone else, human beings and products of their days and times.  My parents lived simply, never asking for much, but they were most often kind and thoughtful and caring.  They lived what in the world’s eyes were very ordinary lives but ones that were extraordinary in many quiet ways.  As time passes, I see more and more how their subtle virtues are the foundation of what is really important in life.  

Every weekend I take long walks in downtown Chattanooga, and I always make a purposeful visit to the place formerly known as St. Barnabas, the spot that was a reluctant last home and haven for Emery Tucker in those bold-faced seven years.  I walk beneath the window where my mother used to wave at us every time we got in our car to leave, and I circle the timeless and beautiful Japanese maple tree under which Margaret and Emery held court every afternoon.  I can still see them there in my head; for just a bit, I can be back in those moments and remember what it was once like in that very place.
  

Emery Tucker would be absolutely beyond pleased to know that Annabelle loves classical music.  I do hope I catch other glimpses of my father beside me in the Bug, riding along with us in the afternoon.  With the happy words I heard so many times when he greeted old friends and loved ones, I will smile and say to myself, "Long time, no see!" 

Honor, truth, duty. 

A senior at McCallie.

Walking Home

I get to walk in Atlanta on Sunday evenings now, courtesy of Annabelle’s ambition to once again be a part of Northside Youth Choir tour this summer.  This is year four of our now-traditional Sunday night ATL turnaround that happens from January until June--provided the weather is good and homework complete.   I will admit the commute to rehearsals is kind of intriguing—I try not to think about it too much lest I begin to doubt my own good judgment.  But the little jaunt has worked itself into being a kind of pleasant finish to the weekend—the journey is comfortable, seeing old friends is always fun for both of us, and now it is just something we do.  When June does come, and Annabelle with her long-time BFFs head out together on a wonderful cross-country journey to a whole lot of places she would otherwise never visit, I am always elated for her--and I feel so clever for having made the effort.    

I love living in Chattanooga, but I also enjoy being back in Atlanta, particularly around the neighborhood that was once home.  So it goes like this:  Annabelle gets dropped at Northside and I hit the road.  The truly great thing about walking in Buckhead is the bounty of choices for ways to go, any number of really pretty routes are available depending on time and how many miles I have in mind.  Besides the familiar and lovely scenery along the streets, the best part of the whole deal is I usually run into a loved one—or several--along the way, thus finding a great time to catch up.  No matter which direction I walk, a memory lives on most every corner—and then there is a kaleidoscopic remembering extravaganza to be had passing by Morris Brandon Elementary, where many of us spent countless precious times together. 

However, an extraordinary thing occurs time and again when I am walking.  It is subtle and kind of crazy but, for a fleeting moment, I forget the date on the calendar and find myself ready to head back over to our old house on Dawn View Lane.  With the sun setting and me on familiar neighborhood streets where I have walked countless times, it feels like I have been on an extended vacation and, here I am, back home again.  Never mind I have not laid eyes on the place in almost four years, and the furnishings are all scattered, sold, stored or in our little house on Signal Mountain.  Oh, and by the way, other people do live there now.  No no no, none of that matters—for about three seconds in my head, I am walking home, past the brick mailbox and up that big hill, through the side door and it will all still be there—lights on, ESPN on the television, little William and Annabelle popping their heads up from the green family room sofa, wondering about dinner.  The Bug is in the garage where it belongs, the phone is ringing, it's my mother.  For just a flash, I’m a-going home. 

And then, with a slight shake of my head, I smile and I know for sure that I am not. 

I will admit, occasionally in my mind I do long to return to that house as it was and take a little walk through it.  I would reflect on its loveliness and be so thankful for having lived there.  And what I would give to have just one day again with the children being little, to spend time with William and Annabelle in small form, relive the days that I never really understood would pass by too quickly.  Then the scenario gets even better—seeing the old neighbors, living another day being one of them, going up to the school for some fellowship around Mary’s desk—oh, I could go on and on with this fantasy.  The days were so simple, and a do-over would be really sweet. 

But to step back into that world, the last three and one half years of life would have to be given a vigorous Etch-a-Sketch shake and made to disappear.   And I really cannot say goodbye to some of the most meaningful days I have ever lived and to the kind and awesome people who have come into my life along the way.  If the last few years were only an illusion, I would never have experienced the significant times of both loss and gain and, even more, I would not know the new loved ones and friends who are a part of my world now and who make a tremendous difference every day.  And I have only found them by being here in this place.   

I have learned some amazing things.  Like how much work and economic power it takes to sustain a family.  (A whole lot!).  I have been humbled time and again by seeing just how much I don't know and how much other people do know, inspiring me to broaden my horizons and work to be better.  I understand now it is not what you have that matters, but what you choose to do with all that you have.   And my faith has been strengthened in tremendous ways I never thought possible. 

I find myself a working woman living in Chattanooga, blessed in innumerable ways.  I have some awesome, steadfast friends I love here and in Atlanta—and around the country and the world.   I feel fortunate to have the best of both worlds—not only do I have the incredible beauty and ease of day-to-day living in Chattanooga, I am thankful I can experience bright days in ATL whenever I am there. 

The truth is, I have learned more about what is really important since leaving Dawn View Lane than I did in all the time I lived there.  While some days have been challenging, they are outnumbered tenfold by so many more wonderful outcomes that I otherwise would not have experienced, ever.  And it all began with walking down off of that hill. 

“You're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So... get on your way!”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!