The Mockingbird At Fifty

The  Mockingbird at Fifty

The Songwriter sometimes calls me “The Harper Lee of Country Music”.  He’s kidding, of course.  The reference originates from a song we once wrote together.  I had burst into the front door one autumn afternoon bubbling over from a sight I had seen on the way to my favourite nursery.  Intending to write a short story about the experience, I told him all about it over dinner.  “Story!?”, he said, eyes gleaming.  “That’s a song, not a story!  We have to write that!”.  

And so we did, and I soon discovered during that day long writing session that we work in entirely different ways.  I am always impressed that each morning, rain or shine, he can be found heading out along the stone pathway that winds through our back garden - Apple at his heels, coffee mug in hand - to his studio where he will write the morning away.  For someone like myself, who merrily skips along until the muse conks me over the head, this is a tremendous example of discipline.  Our diverging methods of working crashed into each other like bumper cars as we wrote that song, with the day even including, if I remember correctly, a threat to lock me in the room until we were finished.  I do remember, more than once, gazing longingly at the door.  Songwriting, I discovered, is hard.  A good idea is necessary, but then it all has to rhyme, and be set to music, for goodness sakes.   Although we both loved our finished product, and it was recorded by a bonafide country music legend - a fact The Songwriter considered a bit incredible (“She only wrote one song in her whole life and it got recorded?  I can’t believe it!”) -  I vowed to never write another.

And that is where any comparisons between me and Harper Lee come screeching to a halt.  Harper Lee wrote one book, To Kill A Mockingbird, and that was it.  Only one book and never another.  But oh, what a book it was.  

I should think it is always the chief desire of any good writer to fashion their words into a hieroglyphic net for truth, and to arrange those words on the page in such a way that that truth can never escape, but is destined to remain between those covers forever, clear and undeniable.  This is certainly the accomplishment of  To Kill A Mockingbird - truth on every page, truth so shining it is recognized in over 40 languages, with the book selling over 30 million copies.  This July 11th marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of To Kill A Mockingbird, with literary celebrations scheduled all over the world.  Articles are being written, old photographs reprinted, the wonderful movie version played again and again on television.  Just don’t ask Harper Lee how she feels about it all.  She won’t tell you.

Many have speculated as to why Ms. Lee never wrote another book.  Notoriously private, she isn’t talking.   Perhaps she is rightfully wary of fame, having observed its ill effects on her good friend, writer Truman Capote.  She doesn’t grant interviews, she’s never been on Oprah.  She has been known, as it’s widely reported, to respond to any request for an interview with a resounding, “Not just no, but Hell No”.  Consequently, we don’t know what she eats for breakfast, who she votes for, or what she thinks about the new Twilight movie.  God Bless Her.  For did she not put everything we need to know between the covers of that book?  Did she not tell us about justice and love, show us the grim results of ignorance and fear?  Did she not give us the template for parenthood, for friendship, for integrity?  Show us the face of hate, and the value of community?  Lord knows, I could go on and on, for it’s all in there.

There is a restaurant here in town that we frequent.  On the wall hangs a framed book cover of To Kill A Mockingbird, with a handwritten note of appreciation from Harper Lee.  I often stand there gazing at it whilst waiting for my table, saying a silent thank you to the lady I shall never meet.

Harper Lee is 84 now.  For fifty years, people have been reading her amazing words. 

 Read the book.

Read it again. 

There will never be another like it.

Painting by Mark Sandlin

Porcelain Zero

Porcelain Zero

In summer, the so-called “Happiest Place on Earth” becomes the hottest place on Earth as well.  I know this from experience for I have been to Disneyworld in summer.  Now don’t get me wrong, I really do enjoy Disneyworld.  For a person like me, habitually keen on controlling  just about every mundane aspect of life, there is something quite seductive in simply handing over my car keys to a cheerful chap dressed like a nineteenth century footman, walking through doors that whoosh open at my approach like something out of Star Wars and entering a comfortably chilled hotel lobby where the air smells like lilies and the sumptuous decor seems straight off the set of  The Music Man.   For the entire length of my stay my sole commission is to enjoy myself and, to that end, I wear only play clothes and am driven around on monorails and boats, blissfully unaware of newspapers or television.  I need no car, I need no purse, I need no money ( at least not until check-out day when I shall need far more money that I ever expected for a three day holiday, but no worries till then).  Everywhere I turn there are characters straight out of my childhood storybooks, nodding at me encouragingly and clapping their fat little orange hands in delight at the simple sight of my approach.  Mary Poppins stops by my breakfast table to give her regards over my freshly squeezed orange juice.  I mean, what’s not to like?  ( Of course, if one were inclined to a cynical view, one might suspect that those life-sized stuffed animals busily clapping their hands and permanently grinning their stitched on grins are, in grim reality, sullen teenagers who have signed on to swelter inside those tortuous polyester suits for the duration of the summer months in order to earn enough money for an iPhone.  One can only imagine the faces they pull inside those outfits each time they pose for yet another picture with a sweaty faced tourist clad in madras shorts and holding a half-eaten turkey leg in one hand.  But, I digress.)  Suspending belief in reality is a specialty of mine, and so I love to go to Disneyworld.

I most decidedly do not, however, love to be hot and therefore, during an afternoon visit to Animal Kingdom some years back, I could be found resting with an out-of-date copy of Vogue inside the deliciously cool establishment known as Baby Care, a Disney designed place for mothers to take red-faced toddlers who are woozy from too much excitement and heat, and a spot I discovered to be just perfect for yours truly when The Songwriter was desirous of a spin on the dinosaur ride.

Truth is, summer is just not my season and it never has been.  I am of Celtic descent and have the almost translucent colouring to prove it.  I do not tan - I do not attempt to tan.   Clad in my usual white linen and sun hat, I might indeed be invisible without lipstick.  If you are inclined to think I exaggerate, I offer this example.  Once, on a Disney monorail, on my way to a massage, I sat down across from a friendly Latino family.  We smiled at each other, the only barrier to conversation being lack of a common language.  As the flying car zipped along over the sun speckled lake, I noticed that the youngest child was staring at me, staring hard.  Finally, he pointed straight at my face, looked up at his mother and said...”Muy blanca!”.  Yes, that’s right.  Very white.  I knew enough high school Spanish for that translation.  Surrounded as the little fellow was by so many fantastical Disney creatures, it gave me pause to think my appearance elicited such awe within him.  But, there you go.

Now I’m told by dermatologists that this is not such a bad thing.  Supposedly, the lack of sun exposure indicated by my pale visage bodes well for my skin’s carefree traipse through the aging process.  We shall see.   I do well remember once approaching the Bobbi Brown make-up counter and being almost blown backwards by the delight of a saleswoman when she clapped eyes on me and called to her co-workers... “Look!  Look!  It’s Porcelain Zero!!"  Thinking at first that maybe I was, as I had always secretly suspected, a superhero, and that this woman had finally realized my true name, I was instead informed that Porcelain Zero was the name of one of Bobbi’s foundation colours, a colour that, up until that very moment, no one had ever been white enough to qualify for. 

Yes, Porcelain Zero.  Not bad.  With a moniker such as that I  think I could give Catwoman a run for her money, don’t you?  Now would someone please turn on the fan and pass the sunscreen?

painting by marie laurencin

Courage

Courage 

When the multi-volumed story of my life is finally complete,  I would like to think I shall be read as a plucky heroine, someone who could grab hold of the reins with finesse, someone unafraid of the dark, someone brave.  I know I can haul in an armload of firewood and have a roaring blaze crackling before dinner is on the table. I can dig a flowerbed. I can drive five hours to the beach by myself with only a bag of celery for sustenance and I can stop a snarling, charging dog in his tracks with a nothing but a strong yell and a fearsome look. (Okay, Edward helped with that last one, but I like to think that I played a part.)  I can write a blistering letter to the editor when the mood strikes me, and when faced with arrogance or rudeness, I assure you that I can be quite the master of the withering stare.  However, The Songwriter will tell you that a water beetle in the house can send me right up atop the kitchen counter, and frankly, I couldn’t change a tire if you paid me.  But then, there are all sorts of definitions for pluck, I suppose.  And as for bravery, it is a virtue to which I aspire, for it is one I have seen up close.

These days, as a culture, it appears to me that we admire quite different values than those of the past.  Bombast and swagger seem highly esteemed whilst the qualities of bravery and courage, so closely connected as they are with gallantry and honour, are rarely spoken of outside the theatre of war.   Real, personal bravery is quiet, and rarely noticed, but no less remarkable to me.  In our current age, it takes real bravery to live a life well-lived.  It is so much easier, so much more comfortable, to lock one’s door and remove oneself from all the troubles of the day.  It takes courage to step outside of oneself and into the shoes of another.  It requires courage to endeavour to make things better, to consider other ideas, to admit you don’t have all the answers.  Sometimes it takes great courage simply to put one foot in front of the other.

I see little acts of great bravery all around me these days.  They often accompany a dire diagnosis, or the loss of a job.  They appear in the form of a smile or a hug - good humour in a check-out line, or courtesy to a stranger.  They send someone off to a neighbor with a bouquet of garden roses, or to the telephone to call a troubled friend.  They are meals cooked and laundry done, work done well and laughter shared.  

Little acts of bravery, occurring in spite of it all.

The Songwriter’s best friend lost a twelve month battle with leukemia several years ago, a battle he faced with remarkable courage and humour.  I once asked him how he did it.  He told me that each morning, before his feet hit the floor, he made a conscious choice to be happy that day.  An amazing answer to my question.  An amazing act of courage.  The brave hero of his own life story.  Something I aspire to.