Connections

My mother's mother's widowed mother lived on the family farm in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I visited her once when I was a pretty small child, maybe five. I remember stepping up onto a small wooden porch into a small wooden room. I have a vague awareness that she liked Dr. Pepper, had a reputation for making really good cornbread, and had no use for modern conveniences. I don't remember meeting her, but I believed she was kind. I wanted to go out and see her cows so I went out by myself, climbed through the wooden fence, and when I got close to a cow I got really scared of being charged, so I left. That's all I remember.

Yesterday George, Rebecca and I took Ben to UTArlington to take his math placement test. I lived in Arlington from when I was six until I moved west right after Ben was born. Yesterday was the first time I'd been there in a year, though before that I used to go at least once a month to visit my family. Since I was not there to visit my family, I was surprised at how I felt connected to just the town. I thought more of the places of my childhood. While Ben was taking his test, we took Rebecca to a park where I had hunted for Easter eggs with my Christian School elementary class. The shady pecan trees were probably quite a bit taller and thicker than they were thirty-something years ago. Still having time, we took her to River Legacy Park which has paved walking trails along the banks of the Trinity for bicycles, roller blades, joggers and walkers. This park is only about 20 years old so my memories weren't the same as childhood ones are. The connection I felt was more with the indescribable Arlington "aura". I don't know whether to classify it as southern, Texan, or what. It's mostly a bedroom community between Dallas and Fort Worth, so I guess it has a relaxed mood, though it has gotten a lot more crowded and congested. It wasn't too crowded at the parks, and almost all the people who passed us said "Good-morning". I also liked how the woods kept changing character around each bend; thick densely packed skinny short trees in some darker spots, and tall sprawling cottonwoods around little clearings of wildflowers in others. We walked about a mile and it was fun recognizing the different landmarks on the way back. Pioneer navigation seems better.

During our trip George and I talked about the X-files episode we'd watched the night before, where Mulder was having deja vu moments as he relived the same day over and over. I said that I think mostly they are times where other senses besides cognitive memory "remember" feeling connected to something that's going on now, maybe a combination of things like a smell and a room together, or something like that. I said I think people take notice because we want to feel a timeless, transcendent, deep connection. We long for reunion with our past or those we used to feel connected to, or at least the feeling of that connection.

When my husband's sponsor in the Orthodox Faith, who introduced us to Orthodoxy, told me he was from Hattiesburg, I felt warmed by the connection to my Great-grandmother's homestead. And I like remembering her this Memorial Day weekend.