I feel pretty sure God said He was going to stop doing that to people.

I love bad weather. I hate flying.

Putting the two together does not help, because the spectrum on which they reside is of equal value. Both haunt my dreams, and continuously.

I’m hoping…against hope I would imagine since we’re entering that stage of the season where thunderstorms lurk around the farthest oak trees, down the highway, and then appear suddenly, from the limb tops…still, I’m holding out that the weather will be nice toward the end of June when I must board a plane and fly to Tacoma, Washington.

For funsies, you say?  No.

Not for funsies.

My thoughts exactly.

For competition. The community theatre I work with is taking a play to Nationals, this year, and those are being held in Tacoma, Washington.  As the director, I have no choice but to get on a plane, and fly to an airport, where I will de-board and get on another plane and fly to another airport.

I’ve already had nightmares, now, for weeks.  We won regionals back in March. We are now in June. That is like, what, more than a week, at least. That much math I can do.

Last night, though, perhaps a shimmer of calm?, I dreamed I was on a plane flying to Washington, and I was actually doing all right. Of course, there were large beds in the plane, and a high ceiling, and a bar, and it was at night, and the windows had heavy curtains that were closed, and so OK, basically, it was a house, not a plane, it was a flying house.  

Whatever, get off my back.

What’s important is that we landed, this time. In Washington. And we had to grab a taxi which was, in fact, a boat with wheels, in fact, eight of them, and it was very cold in Washington; I had no jacket, so the cab driver gave me his scarf, which I never gave back to him.  On the way to the airport, because in my dream I had apparently only flown all the way to Washington to take a taxi to yet another airport and fly right back, I got to see two moose mate.

I guess that’s the way you’d say that.

It wasn’t a real pleasure to watch, but I was rather unable to do anything about it. (Maybe make it an -ing word. I saw two moose mating).

The point is, I made the trip there and back and all was well.

But, if the sky looks like it does today, I may not get on that plane. Even though Lyle says I have to because the ticket’s already been paid for. And, money spent is a big bag of guilt. That much we all know, huh.

(Sidebar: one of my students today told me her initials were B.A.G., and that she didn’t know it was “stupid” until she got an L.L. Bean bookbag that Christmas she was in third grade and there, emblazoned on it were her initials, which, her friends quickly and readily identified as being a word that also described the thing itself. They were smart children, I guess. 

Please tell me that you’d laugh at her, too?)

I don’t know exactly when I became obsessive about bad weather. I’m not negatively affected by it, like my friend Angie, who, no matter what time of day or night it is, will call you every minute of the hour until the storm passes to make sure you’re alive, or in a basement, or a closet, so forth, and so on.

She’s as bad as U.L. Except he calls every minute of the hour, everyday, regardless.

But, at some point, in my tender years, which I should tell you only came to their end last month, I began to hoard, in my subconscious, some irrational attachment to severe weather. The worse the weather, the greater my fear and enjoyment of that fear, I can’t explain it, but it’s that feeling that makes my groin tickle, in a good way. I was a man born in crisis, so I suppose I have an affinity for it.

Never know where you'll find a promise.

Amanda often says what I’ve heard U.L. say before: there’s a safety in the sense of having something happen that is so much larger than we are. To be made to feel small is an equalizer, a reminder that we’re more alike than not. Despite the fact that I heard a sermon once which indicated that we bring destruction on ourselves. I heard that sermon, no lie, at least three times, in the immediate wake of Katrina. I was embarrassed and upset, I couldn’t accept that anyone would believe that.

I mean, I feel pretty sure God said He was going to stop doing that to people.

What I mean to say is after great tragedy, comes the simple reminder that wealth, age, race, gender, status, none of it holds back the Hem of Fate. It drapes without consideration.

As much as I dream about flying and crashing and all the anxieties that come with air travel…I also dream, and a great deal more, of tornados. Specifically, tornados. Out of all the bad weather phenomena.

They’re not on my list of phobias like being struck by lightning (which comes I think from wearing metal rims on my glasses all these years), or ingesting glass (I blame GamVa for this – she gave me a book, when I was very young, about the Roman Emperors and How They Dealt With Their Foes. In particular, the story of Elagabalus and his feeding ground glass to his “invited guests,” i.e. his competitors, really seems to have stuck. To this day, if I’m in the kitchen and cooking and I drop a jar, a plate, anything, and it shatters, the entire kitchen must be put on lockdown and cleaned, glass or not. FYI: I will not drink from a chipped glass, either).

No, tornados are just wild. A fascination, not a phobia. A fear, not a fault.

But, why I dream about them is anybody’s guess.

Mississippi isn’t in Tornado Alley, but we get our fair share of them. I think they probably cause more damage in our state, per capita, than elsewhere. I’m not sure, but for some reason, I’ve grown up in awe of their beautiful devastation. They remind me a little of family reunions…except you’d have to share the basement.

Amanda sent me an email awhile back describing the “meaning,” or “implication” of my dream motifs. Along with tornados, I tend to dream about shoes and feet, a good deal, and almost nightly, about teeth. I was intrigued by the “meanings” these habitual images portray in my dreams, but also, a little exhausted by it. 

Here, read for yourself about tornados:

Tornados
To see a tornado in your dream, suggests that you are experiencing some extreme emotional outbursts and temper tantrums. Is there a situation or relationship in your life that may be potentially destructive? To dream that you are in a tornado, signifies that you are feeling overwhelmed and out of control. You will be met with a series of disappointments for the next week or so. Your plans will be filled with complications. To see several tornadoes in your dream, represent people around you who are prone to violent outbursts and shifting mood swings. It may also symbolize a volatile situation or relationship.

 That’s hardly conducive to a good night’s sleep.

You only got two options.

And yet, I wait, in anticipation, to go to sleep each night…mostly, I should be honest here, because I can’t wait to see where my dreams will take me. I do curl up with some trepidation, as I certainly don’t want to get caught in a nightmare. Last night, for instance, was a close call. I’ve only had a few lucid dreams in my lifetime. So, it’s a risk.

But, as I sit here typing, I hear a soft peal of thunder in the background, and in that bizarre way that bad weather has over me, I feel comfortable knowing that if danger is stinging the edges of these clouds, I’m as helpless as anyone else to it, and so, why worry.

 

No, instead, I’m thinking to myself: I might as well take a nap – what happens is going to happen, either way. So, if you’ll excuse me…I need to brush my teeth and settle into the couch…because I’ve got a tornado to catch.

 

That time I almost met Harper Lee.

I take great pride in the Lee last name.

According to legend, and also my father who, among his many world travels, visited the “Lee place” in Ireland, etc. I think, from what I can gather, that it was hardly more than a couple of sticks stuck upright in a slab of mortar. 

A perfect potato.

I mean, that’s been centuries back; the only palpable evidence was that of the family crest, but don’t ask me what’s on that thing. I couldn’t tell you. What I do know is that there were only ever two Lee brothers who set out for the New World. Both made it, but on the way over, one lost everything except like a goat or two, a cow, and half a potato…oh, and of course his precious family. The other managed to hold onto all his money, though I think he lost a daughter.

I don’t know; it’s not important.

Point is, in a way, we’re all related. And, in that same way, I get to take all the credit for what everyone else in the family did, does, and has done. Even though, we don’t know each other. And probably never will. Because why should we.

However, following this by-now established logic in my made-up world of existence and family trees, that means, then that Harper Lee is related to me. And that means I’m a part of her great American novel. (Also, it means I’m related to Peggy Lee, Bruce Lee, Gypsy Rose Lee, Jason Lee, and probably Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Vivian Leigh, even though they tried to cleverly hide the fact by misspelling the Lee last name. But, I wasn’t fooled).

There are many more Lees/Leighs/even Lis (like Jet Li), in my family, but today’s focus is on Harper for the simple fact that I almost met her once.

My friend Lyle and I (several years ago, now, I guess it was) were taking a trip down to Pensacola. We have some good friends who live down there, still, and it makes me jealous to think about it since I too wish to live near the water but I still love them. Lyle had diligently (as he is wont to do) made all the travel arrangements. I try to always maintain great relationships with extremely orderly people.  I secretly wish I were, and every now and then, I can aggravate myself into becoming like them, but it’s ever so much, much easier just to find friends who already are like that, and then support them in their decision-making process. This I can do, in my sleep. (And that’s usually exactly where I do it).

Lyle had chosen a more scenic route, which if I recall correctly, actually ended up being a better route, anyway, and a portion of it wound its way through Monroeville, Alabama.  This was exciting news to me.

I knew of Monroeville; one of my favorite authors is Capote. Not so much for anything stylistically, but more because he was such a loudmouth, one-of-a-kind original. For me, that’s how I divide my favorites in literature: those who wrote well and those who lived well.  And though I personally think I’m nothing like him, I still blush at the comparison people often make between us. I think it has mostly to do with the fact that I, like him, am somewhat addicted to scarfs.

I've been to Paradise, and I've been to Me.

I also wear a Fedora, though, which puts me, perhaps, a little more in the category of Elvis Costello, someone else I’m often compared to, for some reason. I look nothing like him, and besides, I think he favors Bono. Who recently wrote a poem about Elvis Presley (not a good one, in my opinion – I’m supposing there’s musical accompaniment that I missed hearing). A few members of Presley’s family, a small tributary of it anyway still gurgling along in Mississippi, on his father’s side, are close family friends of U.L., so I don’t know, maybe it all comes full circle.

I’ve gotten off track, as usual. Sorry.

I was well familiar with Monroeville, like I said, because I often re-read and enmesh myself in one of my favorite autobiographies, Capote, written by one Gerald Clarke; it truly takes a good long look at this tiny town. It’s also well-written, I should point out.  Which is really all it could be, considering the stink Capote caused about his “invention” of creative nonfiction. I know, I know, he never really said, out loud, that he “invented” creative nonfiction, but so superior did he think his ability to cull a story from truth along the tenets of fiction that he, I’m sure, believed it his invention by proximity of mastery, if nothing else.

That’s what all geniuses do, you know.

So, I was elated when Lyle said we’d be passing through. I’d always wanted to drive through Monroeville. I mean, it couldn’t be that large. It wouldn’t take up much time.

We were stopping for gas anyway.

The trouble was – the rain. It was pouring, open-spout, straight down, as rain tends to do. And, it was a little more off the beaten path of Highway 41, than it appeared to be on the map. Still, there’s no better motivation to take on an adventure quite like the need for gas. As we tentatively took the exit towards Monroeville, it dawned on Lyle that another great, literary giant lived here: Nell Harper Lee, who in the recent cinema had been portrayed on the big screen by both Catherine Keener and Sandra Bullock. The New Yorker had recently published a letter from Harper Lee in which she openly criticized Bullock’s version of her in the lesser Capote film (put out literally on the heels of the award-winning one). “I never wore penny loafers,” Lee said. Or something like that; it had to do with shoes, I believe.

Her curmudgeon is still thick as a pie crust. But that letter I read way after the fact of this trip, as you’re about to see.

We should track down her house, then, I said to Lyle. Let’s bite the bullet, and be those people, I said, let’s ask the locals where she’s buried. 

For shame, I know. But, we couldn’t help it. She’d not been heard of in ages, she might as well be dead, in a plot right along Capote, if indeed, he were buried here, as well. I found out and soon, though, that she wasn’t dead. As a matter of fact, she was very well alive, and living in Monroeville.

Let me back up first, a little.

So, we’d found ourselves, finally, under a tall awning at a Chevron. And not a moment too soon, I should add. I get nervous easily on road trips (having fun, of course) and was in need of a restroom break. It doesn’t take much, as anyone who knows me will gladly tell you. While in the Chevron, I did bite the bullet – I did the one thing I dislike others for doing, because truth be known, I don’t get starry-eyed. At least, not easily. I remember my Ya Ya saying once that no one was that important; we all have to shit, she said. (Forgive the imagery and language, but that’s fairly provocative, and it’s kept me in good stead for many years).

But, regardless, I did it: I became a tourist of wanderlust and asked the guy behind the cash register where her grave was. And also, Capote’s house, and her house, also. The guy behind me answered. She’s not dead, he said. And he should know; he was her mailman, and was on his way to deliver her mail, right then.

And for the record, Capote’s house was torn down years ago, and the mailman wasn’t sure if there was even a marker there, but maybe? Anyway, we could find Harper Lee on the second floor of the bank, in the middle of town. She kept her office there, and we could just get out and go upstairs, and on the right, knock at her door.

The real deal. No deal.

I hurried back to the car, told Lyle, and we immediately agreed that we should do this. We should just go further into the town and get lost and find her and well…let’s just get that part done, first, we said.

The town wasn’t, isn’t, large, but it doesn’t take a space much bigger than a living room to get lost in when you don’t know where you’re going. The rain was relentless. We took several wrong turns, and I believe, at the last minute, we were about to give up when a KFC roared into view and there behind it was a clunky, solid-brown brick building with an unobtrusive sign stating that this was indeed the First Bank of Monroeville.

We pulled into a parking space and stared at it. Here it was; here, she was, somewhere tucked away inside like the thousands and thousands of dollar bills. I imagined her wound as tightly into her own persona as a roll of quarters. Just as heavy, too, I thought, with her mystique and her bitten thumb attitude at the literary world. Who could blame her? Some critics don’t really believe she wrote To Kill A Mockingbird, anyway; others don’t give the fact that she had anything to do with In Cold Blood a leg to stand on, (I mean, Capote didn’t), so where do you go with that?

Poor thing.

However…she was still a giant, and more power to her if she’s fooled them all. (But I don’t believe that for a moment).

We took a deep breath, Lyle and I, and scared ourselves. What would we say to her? Hey, Harper, good job on that book and all?  Or, Atticus, cool name, where’d that come from? Or, are you Scout?

The rain kept on and on and on.

And, then…so did we.

We pulled out of the parking space, too intimidated to meet her. At least, this is what we said to ourselves, heading further south towards old friends who hadn’t written any works of “staggering genius” (yet), and a mile of sand that wouldn’t care what questions we asked. We told ourselves, Look at us – what we have on, we’re wearing traveling clothes (for me that was pair of exercise pants and a Golden Girls overshirt).

You couldn’t go meeting the First Lady of Fiction looking like we did.

Plus, the rain! We would have come across as obsessed fans, a couple of soaking rats. We’d probably have been arrested. Of course, I’d spit the fact of that mailman out as fast as I could, if that were the case. Aiding and abetting is a crime, too.

I know I missed a real opportunity that day. But, only in the flesh, in the literal, only in the very real chance of having met her, shaked her hand, thanked her, whatever would have happened. Everything else about that moment, though…pure gold, I must say. A great memory.

Just do it what it says.

We took our last exit in Alabama, just miles from the Florida state line, through a town so small I’m still not sure it was even there. Except for this sign. Spray-painted across an empty storefront.

I don’t know, but for me, this made the trip.

This sign was worth all the money in the First Bank of Monroeville.