Close Calls

Hmm, as always, I'm slow to get started, so I'll start with a list:

• tree stand
• Stevens-Johnson Syndrome
• little pinky incident
• kneeboarding near the gator (Wes)
• snorkeling with sharks (me)
• train in India, people trying to enter our room all night, Betty being groped by attendants
• break ups
• Dad's appendectomy

Nothing really grabs my attention, demanding I write, so I guess I'll just start to see what happens.

Standing Tall

We stroll into the woods, following the path behind Grandmother's house, walking beside fields, smelling freshly plowed dirt. Wes needs a break from my hordes all relatives; they're all fun, but he's not used to spending time with so many relatives at once. Probably between fifty and seventy-five people gather for Thanksgiving and Easter for my family--Grandmother's kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids, but also her brothers and sisters and their descendants.

I show Wes the woods I played in, the fields I mowed (well, really, I just rode the tractor while Dad mowed, but Dad always said I was helping, the stands of pine trees I planted with my dad and my brother. Once my grandmother's land, it now belonged to my dad, but it felt a part of me. My cousins taught me to ride motorcycles along these trails. My sister and friends and I used to sunbathe in the open spots in the fields. My brother and cousins hunted in these woods. My dad and I had hiked to the springs on our neighbor's property.

Stories haunted these woods and all of Grandmother's land, stories of Dad and his sisters as children, stories of Dad playing with his cousin Kelly and being loosely chaperoned by his uncle (more like an older brother). There were bad stories too, stories of my grandfather dying in a hunting accident when Dad was in high school, stories of the high school boy who killed his ex-girlfriend and then himself in a jealous rage. Something about the last story always suggested to me that he may have had help deciding to kill himself, but it was probably just prompted by all the mysteries I read at the time. Darkness attracted me.

Wes and I strolled through the woods, a mixture of sunshine and darkness playing over our shoulders. (On a side note, could the people in Einstein Bagels possibly make more noise?!) At the first fork in the path, we spied a tree stand probably belonging to my cousin, Robbie. Wes wanted to climb it, so we did, enjoying the view of Grandmother's land. We saw the house in the distance; it overflowed with family members, who spilled outside into the gazebo, out into the yard, where they played football, chatted, smoked, and shared more stories.

Wes and I lingered in the tree stand. I pointed out the boundaries with Uncle James's land, with my cousin Joey's land. Then we needed to get back, so Wes scrambled down the tree stand. I turned around and wiggled to try to reach the first step, but it wasn't there. At the tipping point, just about far enough to not be able to return to the tree stand, I froze. Where is that step? I wondered. I stretched even further, but had no luck.

"Just a little further," Wes said, trying to encourage me.

Easy for you to say, I thought, you're taller than I am.

"You reached it on the way up," Wes reminded me.

"Oh that's helpful," I snapped. "I thought I floated up here." I climbed back up into the tree stand and glared at him, wanting to underscore his jerkiness, but it had no effect. He could barely look at me for laughing. "Go get my daddy. He'll take care of this." I plopped down cross-legged on the tree stand and refused to budge.

"Come on. We've got to get back," Wes urged. "Come on. You were almost there. Just a few more minutes."

I've got to get down from here, I realized. I imagined my brother, chief of the volunteer fire department, showing up with a ladder truck and shuddered at the image. "Okay," I capitulated, "but try to be helpful."

I turned around and edged my legs down as far as I could without losing my ability to climb back up. "It's just two more inches," Wes said. Trusting his words, I let go and fell the five inches to the step. I climbed down the tree and glared at Wes, but his laughter infected me, and we both laughed all the way back to Grandmother's house, where Wes shared the story, cementing his place in the family. Storytellers are always welcome here.