Parallel Universes: Leaving Ossabaw

I'll certainly write more when I get home, sort pictures, and come to my senses. Still, I need to get this down so I remember exactly what this feels like.

I have spent the past year researching and studying mythologies and folklore. Many of those stories have an element of faerie magic. I am holding those tales at the back of my mind as I process this.

The last hours on the island, I spent cleaning and polishing and helping people gather their thoughts and belongings to depart on the boat that returns to the mainland. Ossabaw is a coastal barrier island, one of the few that is nearly pristine wilderness and not housing or commercial tourism development. There are no grocery stores, no malls, no gas stations. It is perfect and as silent as a wild forest can be. Every morning I would wake and quietly slip out of the bunk room around 5am. I'd start the coffee pot in the kitchen and then slide on boots and coat, walk in the darkness the long narrow path to the dock.



I was never frightened of the open water at this place, at the dock. The marsh was in reaching distance and the view was more river than ocean and it felt like home, something manageable and beautiful. Every morning brought something new: the first was total darkness, walking alone I met a small group of Ossabaw pigs on the path. I couldn't see them, but hearing them close in the dark? It was frightening. I raise these pigs, I know not to meet them alone in the dark, even the gentle ones. The next few mornings,  fellow writers joined me in my early morning meditation. Watching the sun rise, quietly and subtly over the water, no blazing dramatic production, just a slip of blue, silky white, and the darkness falling away. The next to last morning it was pouring rain and I went anyway. Standing the the cold rain, I saw piglets playing the marsh and I felt so much wash away, I had been burning with ideas all day, writing furiously and spilling it all on  to paper, too fast and I was beginning to burn at both ends. The cool rain brought me back to grounding.

This world feels like a fold in time. I almost went to the college here, choosing the easy path instead (keep my museum job, have babies, and attend the local state university). Moving is hard. But these streets, these rivers, these people? They may have been my neighbors, my friends.....this place would have been my home. Or not. I mean, I could have been as easily killed by a rolling out of parking gear on a hill car, or gobbled by alligators, or married and have babies and moved away. I can't dwell on the what could have beens. Except for the feeling of having lived here already forever, knowing the landscape as if it were my birthplace. It is a strange feeling.

I thought that was that. The week was over and I scrubbed counters, stripped beds, put the clutter of books and pens away. I began to feel panic, I thought of the boat ride and dismissed my panic as the unreasonable phobia that I've been fighting for years. When it came time for me to get on the boat and go, I couldn't let go. I asked to walk the path instead of be driven. That long path I walked every morning, hoping the familiarity would ease the transition.

I began to cry. Or weep. Or completely fall apart. This place has hold over me that I can't explain. I feel at home here and enchanted by the music of the wilderness. Alligators and blue herons, marshes and bones. It feels like all the landscapes I have loved all rolled up into one.

No light mention that my love of poetry re-ignited here, just one year ago. A slow awakening, but I am working daily to bring it back to life. It feels like falling in love again, just as I remembered and maybe why I put it away nearly twenty years ago. Falling in love, the intimacy of words, especially poetry, is dangerous, always. I am careful and cautious, to a fault. But this? This is me falling apart and rising up from the destruction. Taking apart why I couldn't write, and re-mapping ways to travel around that.



The boat ride was as scary as I predicted, but it didn't rain so my fear that a monsoon would sweep me over into choppy waves was not realized ....this time. Friends held my hand, and eventually I stopped cowering on the floor of the boat and held my face in the wind.

**

Back on mainland, Jj, Holly (friend not child), and I walked the streets of Savannah in the delicate, cold rain. I started shivering, the deep down shivering that has only ever followed childbirth, by traumatic surgery. I knew it would cede if I slowed my breathing and calmed down and it did, but left me feeling dizzy. I bought what we now call a "Calm the Fuck Down" essential oil patch (Bergamot from Nourish) to help with the transition. This is when I remembered the tales of people stolen by faeries and then returned after living in the other world, the world of magic.



Ossabaw is a place that people see the poet and artist. Not the me that is a terrible housekeeper, a frazzled mother, an novice farmer, or a failure in all the ways that I struggle to keep all my busy in the air. No one cried because the bananas were broken, or fought over ponies, or made demands on my time ungratefully. There were chores to do, but always someone there to help. It was different than at home. I feel terrible admitting that, and I will go home and be more fully present.

I share with these writers this fragile and vulnerable side, my words, my histories, my heart. And they embrace it, know the struggle, and I feel so much less alone than I do on the range lands and rolling hills of my home. This magic is powerful, and the time precious. Just enough, even if I felt torn leaving it.

It was stepping on the shore of the return dock, the boat captain said, "This is the most dangerous part, when you get out of the boat, Watch your step."

Yes. This return is the hard, sad, necessary part. This is when the magic broke and reality settled back around my shoulders. This is when I started shaking. I can't pretend it was just the trauma of the boat trip. No, I really can't. I feel like the faeries have returned me and the enchantment has left me changed, in this dreamworld, like a cloak or a charm, an affliction that is hard to wake from.

Probably sleep deprivation and homesickness, but I had to write this all down before the feeling leaves.

What I know to be true for me.....

When Lily was born I was overwhelmed with everything. Bathing a baby? Oh my no, who ever thought bathing a baby was easy? You get a helpless yet squirmy thing wet and soapy and try and hold on, over water?! It was scary. Everything was like that, like I was holding her over water while she was squirmy and slippery and yowling.

I went back to work. I asked the day care lady to bathe her instead of me. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do any of it and I was overwhelmed and feeling like a failure. I enrolled in more classes, took on more hours, and yet everything was falling apart around me.

My day care lady quit with just about no notice and no reason. I had one semester left to finish my MA degree. My job was getting frustrated with my "mommy" hours. I struggled with breastfeeding, but was committed to it. My baby would scream if she wasn't in my arms, probably why the day care fired us.

Then one day, it got easier. I quit my job and found a part time one that paid just as much. I found a better child care option for us. I finished my degree. Bathing and feeding her was less scary. It felt like it all got better overnight. It was at the 9 month mark though, not overnight, and learning to babywear helped 100% in how I unfolded into motherhood.

So I threw myself into motherhood full on. I resigned my committee obligations, scaled back on volunteer work, stopped writing, stopped wood working, gave up all my personal hobbies and focused on motherhood. of course that meant....more children.

When Holly was born I felt like I really had this parenting thing down. She was the easiest baby ever, even when she was fussy. She still is my easiest kid, though she feels like I don't always hear what she has to say.

Then we moved to the farm and Isaac was born and he was not easy, he was complicated from the pregnancy on. His diagnosis of 22q was one of the most difficult things I have had to emotionally process as a mother and as a person. And somewhere in this fight, I threw myself into motherhood more.

Except I was no longer succeeding at this whole thing. My house was messy, I have never been a good housekeeper, and my relationships were either crumbling, on fire, or just slowing sneaking out the back door and then full on running away from the train wreck of me. (This is where I am so thankful for those who stood by and held me up anyway). I hired someone to come help with the house stuff, and like Nanny McPhee she put more than just the toys in order.

But that is not what I want to write about now. Not my point. That is all just background so you understand where I was at the moment things changed.

One day a friend posted how much she was struggling too, with motherhood. Me? I was still on the shore sopping, dripping wet from almost drowning in it, I knew and felt exactly what she meant. I wrote her a poem about it. I had not written poetry in 15 years, even though it was one of the great loves of my life, motherhood had pushed out the time for it. I had let it.

Penning those words imploded something inside me.

We shared tears and this deep emotion that was inside of us both. That's what art should do, connect us through shared experience and emotion. I was blogging again at that point and raising livestock that connected me to Georgia and in my email and news feed an advertisement for a writer's retreat kept appearing. It showed up for family members and friends too, and they kept sending it to me.

The deadline to apply approached. I had a HUGE list of reasons not to attend. My kids needed me. Chad would have to take vacation to care for them. Isaac's immune system might tank, he wasn't even weaned yet. I had never been away from my kids since Lily was born, save for a few overnights at grandma and grandpa's. Money. Travel complications and cost. Goodness, how could I even think I would be good enough to get in? And what would I send them? Old stuff from when I was a teenager or blog posts? Ugh.

Then like dominoes, excuses fell away. Isaac weaned. Chad suggested I go to work on the farm cookbook, bus ticket was $50 round trip, and a friend offered to take me from Atlanta to Savannah so no excuses for travel. None. Money happened for tuition. I sent the new poem and a few from 17 years ago with the application. I got in.

My only real obstacle at that point was me. I was anxious about going, about leaving the kids at home. 8 days is a long time. I was so intensely immersed in motherhood that I could not imagine myself outside of it, nor did I really want to. That's right. I didn't want to. I was scared spit-less of what I might find, who I might be outside of that framework. What if they suffered without me was not as scary as....what if they were fine, just fine without me? What if I am not really needed? What if there isn't a me outside this.

I got on that bus trembling with fear.  That bus ride was a story or horror in itself and someday I'll write about it. Maybe. But really it was a lot like childbirth, excitement, thinking yeah ok, labour is fine I can do this, then scary unexpected layover in an ice storm in the middle of the night, the folks in charge are fucking insane, and then after 36 hours I was disoriented and DONE. Just done. But I couldn't just get off the bus. I had to ride it out. SO MUCH LIKE LABOUR. At least that's how it was for me, well, but without stranger's sticking their hands in my business. Thank God for that. 
I got there. I did it. I did it alone without my husband, kids, or friends. Except that isn't really true, is it? I had my kids cheering me on, my husband (eventually) sending me off, and my friends and family at every doubt volleying back my excuses and then actually getting me on that bus, on the other end driving me to the island and back. There is no mistaking that this community of incredible, inspirational people (many of them named Jennifer) got me safely there.

And where is there? A year later I am preparing to return to the island. I have had work published, performed at an art festival, which was a big deal for me and my stage fright, and I actually feel like a writer again. I am excited to return to this magical place, but the truth is this: I inhabit it everyday. It isn't the island itself that holds the magic at all but the community of friends and support that hold me up everyday. Many of them are writers too, but not all.

Photo by Maggie Howe

I didn't give up the intensity of motherhood to find myself again. I always thought that it was a choice between the two, and no doubt that my kids needed me to be there in that intense way for the time I was, but having this creative side nurtured and traveling all over the world makes me that much better of a woman to be a mother to my children. I feel more alive and more in love with my own life. That is so important.

That is the back story behind the adventure.  The adventure continues.

Getting Home Again

I have not yet shared the details of my bus ride and night spent in Memphis, in part because I was trying to freak myself out into a panic attack at the thought of returning home the same way. The trip home also had a 3 hour layover in Memphis at midnight. The biggest problem I experienced with the Megabus was that the long layover and bus stops were not marked, just random street corners, and not in a populated place with eateries. Memphis was the worst. Only a liquor store, three blocks away. I was terrified that I would not make it back to the unmarked loading point, either from being mugged or forgetting my way back.

There's more, I will share later, but suffice it to say, that one night a few of us writers at the retreat were up late and working hard, sharing stories, and it came up again how I had taken a three day bus ride to get to the island, I confessed that I had never really had so much contact with the homeless and that I knew better how I was going to navigate the trip home, though it was still making me anxious. I even did an impersonation at one point of the redheaded polygamist's daughter, Jazz, that was helping her felonious husband flee to Mexico. She had a very distinct accent.

Then, one of the writers, asked if flying out of Savannah would work for me, Friday morning.

!!!!

He bought me a plane ticket home. A plane ticket. This meant instead of 36 hours of cross country starvation on a crowded bus, in possibly another blizzard/ice storm, I would travel for 4 hours and be home by lunch on Friday.

Oh, yes. I cried. I held myself together until I got to my room and then I sobbed like a little baby. I had not realised how homesick I was until that point either, but I imagined my babies jumping into my arms as I set my bags down at the front door and I just cried. I tried to text Chad to tell him, but Isaac was having a nightmare and he couldn't talk or text. I tried calling again the next morning, but he didn't answer.

When I did tell him, I could hear relief in his voice. He knew I could handle the bus again, but getting me home early was so, so welcomed.

Dr. Baxter, your generosity is deeply, deeply felt by my whole family.

*As a funny side note: I have not flown for many years and not since the TSA security thing was developed. So of course I set off all the alarms and had to be searched 3 times, in almost all possible ways, and have my hands chemically analysed. Of course. Why? Forgotten lip balm in my pocket. I had to unpack all my bags and explain it all. Then they stuck their hands in my pants pockets. IN. MY. POCKETS. You know, Megabus didn't even check my id, let alone violate my person.

Still, totally worth it to fly. Totally. Worth. It.

Day Five, Off the Island, the Ghosts of Savannah

As we ate, my sweet tea disappeared.  J.J.'s glass kept getting lipstick prints on it even though she wasn't wearing lipstick. Then the window reflection made it look like there was a 6 ft tall gorgeous drag queen standing behind me laughing and undoing her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders.

All of these things had logical explanations, but we decided it was more fun to think we were dining with the ghosts of Savannah and the ghosts are gloriously fabulous. Good company, all around!



We headed out to walk around town and visited the Telfair Museum, the Mercer House,  and a couple of shops. Mercer House was a tour of no photographs allowed, but the guide was seriously channelling a younger Morgan Freeman, and if you closed your eyes, you would seriously think you were there with a wily Jim Williams and Mr. Freeman. I am not one to talk about specific ghosts and haunting, but I swear Jim was there in the purple room grinning at the whole ordeal. Jen said maybe I was picking up on her mental assessment of how the museum artifacts are being displayed and cared for, which is not up to standards (cabinet holding books, was bowing from the weight of the books among many things).

Jen drove us to Tybee Island for a tromp on the beach. The fog settled in fast. It was suddenly cold!

It was surreal to walk in the fog with the tide rushing in on a near empty, possibly radioactive beach.

So then we headed to find a hotel, sadly, nothing was available. We were left to walk the streets of Savannah when the good and evil may waltz and play together. It was fun! We even found the exact make and model of my first car. A 1953 Chevy, automatic transmission, 4 door, black and chrome.

And of course crossed paths with a ghost tour.

Then exhausted we headed back to the car, no hotel rooms nearer the airport either. We parked in the car and talked until about 3 am, then ate breakfast at the Waffle House.

Oh, did I mention airport? To be continued......

Day Five on the Island, Saying Goodbye

 

Saying goodbye was hard. There was a lot of hugging. Southerners hug a lot. There were tears. It was surreal leaving, loading bags on the boat, perfect weather. I even got a sunburn from the boat ride. The air was sweet and salty, like caramel.

Tucked away in my bag, a pirate's map to unlocking my own sabotages. So grateful for this time and place, like a rift, splitting open my own guts and revealing the landscape of my inner workings.

And so the journey home began.

Ossabaw Island, Day 4 Pictures

Ossabaw Island, Day 4, Sunrise

Today, I jumped out of the bunk beds, barefoot down the ancient wood floors, and quietly headed out to the docks. Every morning before, I was up and out here too late and other folks had already seen the pigs, scared them back into the marshes. Today, I was set.

Quietly, I put my footsteps in the soft part of the sand in the path, avoiding the crinkly fallen Palmetto leaves. I found fresh tracks, steaming pig dung, and I even heard some soft snorting the in grass. Alas, though, I did not lay my eyes on the elusive wild Ossabaw pig. Today is the last day of the workshop, tomorrow morning we load the boats and head back to shore and our families.

I, sad that I nearly caught my glimpse yet failed, sat on the dock and watched the sunrise. Sometimes, even when you do not get what you worked for, God lands another gift in your hands. The sunrise this morning, before the others stirred and the coffee started brewing, before the trade ships start yelling at each other in the passage waters, rumbling like thunder, this moment of peaceful quiet that even the wildlife pauses....this was my moment of prayer for the day. This is Ossabaw's cathedral.

Oh my heart aches for home and my babies. I am torn between this magical place and home, hoping to take a wee bit of the magic here home. That is what I asked for, to leave the regret I have carried in my jeans pocket for nearly two decades and bring home instead seashells and island talisman.

Ossabaw Day 3, More Thoughts

I know I already posted this picture, but I wanted to highlight it. Taking a black and white of trees is so terribly hard. All the greens just melt together! Today though the island was overcast, so I headed out. My computer needs to charge after workshop, so I plug it in and tell everyone I am going to charge me back up in the woods. We have to say where we are going in case we get eaten by alligators or some such.

Taking this picture wasn't hard, it was knowing what kind of lighting I needed and taking the opportunity. Getting out there in the woods, climbing the the forest walls, and taking it.

Poetry is like that too. You have to know the craft, get out there and take risks, and then just when the time is right.....reach out there and grab it. What is it they say? 99% of good fortune is being ready and working hard, the 1% is luck/timing? Yes. That's exactly right.

Today was a good day. I am having a very hard time settling down for sleeping. It is like I am at a summer camp run by immortals, the great writers of our time. I am in awe at the craft sessions, taking notes furiously. This is odd, even in college I doodled instead of notes. This time, this time I have something and I am working to find my way in the woods to happen upon the perfect light.

Pictures of Ossabaw, Day 3

Extra Pictures from Before the Island: Exploring Historic Atlanta With JJ Part One, The Mansion That Hunger Games is Being Filed At

Extra Pictures from Before the Island: Exploring Historic Atlanta With JJ Part One, the Ivy Hall