Category Archives: Memories

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I Never Picked Cotton

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It seems like forever since I’ve posted. You would not believe what I have been doing since arriving in Atlanta a week ago last Thursday. I’ll share some that later, but first I want to tell you a story my friend Patrice told me when I spent the night with her not long after I got here.

Patrice bought a cool older home in a great old Atlanta neighborhood not long before I moved to the UK and she spent some time showing me around and telling me the significance of all the little ” pretties” as she likes to call some of her mother’s things that she inherited, as well as some of her own special possessions.

When we got to the room in the picture above, she pointed to the stalk of cotton you can see on the left and said that every day when she goes to work she looks at that cotton and thinks that as difficult as her day might be, it won’t be as hard as that of her grandparents who picked cotton as sharecroppers on someone else’s farm to feed their families.

Patrice and I are alike in many ways and I completely get the appreciation she has for the struggles of the generations before her and her everyday gratitude and acknowledgement of how their efforts helped to provide her with a different set of opportunities for her own life. Due to the hard work of those cotton picking grandparents, her parents both had a chance to graduate from college and she herself went on to get advanced degrees from several universities.

I can look back at my family history which is filled with similar stories of folks doing hard work or doing without and while I’ve never picked cotton, my brief stints in a chicken factory, chocolate factory, and textile mill while working towards a university degree made me appreciate the difference in doing a job every day that involves hard labor versus one that might be less physically demanding.

We all do what we can to make things better for our children and for the generations to come, but sometimes when we’re grumbling about how hard we have it it’s nice to remember the folks that came before us and what they did to help ensure that our lives were a bit easier as a result of their actions.

I was thinking this morning about the stories my grandmother told me about cutting fields of sugar cane and how the sharp stalks cut her hands and the stooping and bending made her back feel like it was breaking. I need to confirm the details of this in a few days with my Aunt Betty, but I feel sure she told me this story more than once when I was a teenager. I wish I had paid more attention back then.

Feel free to share a family memory if you’d like of someone in your family who made it easier for you to have a better life.

Here’s a little Johnny Cash singing ” I Never Picked Cotton. “

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Home Cooking – Love Southern Style

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A Meat & Three

In the American South where I have spent a fair amount of my life, the expression  ” A Meat & Three ” means home-cooking to anyone looking to fill up on food that makes them think of family meals and Sunday dinner after church at Grandma’s house.

Nobody does this type of meal better than my step-mom Cullene and today after years of enjoying her cornbread muffins, I discovered how she makes them so perfectly crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.

It’s a secret she learned from her mother and I’m glad I took a moment at lunch to find out just how it’s done. I’ve been eating Cullene’s cornbread muffins since I was twelve and only now thought about asking how she makes them so taste so good.

I’ve made them for John a few times and I have to say I don’t think he has been that impressed with mine. Cornbread muffins are not high on the list for meals in Cornwall, but armed with the secret to the crunchy outside I think he may find them more to his liking next time we have a southern style dinner of  ” A Meat & Three.”


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Oh Atlanta – An English Rock Band Sings Me Home

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Georgia State Capital

In March of 1979, the English rock band Bad Company released their fifth album, Desolation Angels which contained a song that many Atlantans may recognize called, ” Oh Atlanta.” For those born too late to have caught the Bad Company version, Allison Krauss included it on a CD of hers in 1995 along with covers of some of her other favorites.

By April of 1979 I was on my way to basic training leaving home at eighteen after joining the US Army right around the time ” Oh Atlanta ” hit the southern airwaves. The irony now is not lost on me that a song I fell in love with 31 years ago was written about my hometown by an English band that I loved as a teenager. While I dreamed a lot of dreams growing up, the one I am living now was never one I considered back then.

As my flight leaves my home in England for my old one in Atlanta, there’s at least one song I know I’ll be listening to once we are airborne. I’ve been humming it for days now and if you’d like to have a listen you can click on the link below.

” Oh, Atlanta, hear me calling, I’m coming back to you one fine day. “

~ Mick Ralphs

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Made In America

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There is something about seeing an American flag planted firmly on English soil even for a day that makes my expat heart beat a bit faster. Driving down the lane six days ago to James and Gillian’s home for their annual July 4th celebration, I felt a kind of excitement similar to that from childhood, the one reserved for Christmas morning and the hope that Santa might have answered the dreams of a wistful child.

I wondered to myself and even aloud several times to our American guests if the flag would be there like last year. It seemed impossible to think that it wouldn’t since I had seen it properly folded as an American flag should be, and tucked in a box the week before when talking with Gillian about the party plans for the day.

Still, the part of me that doesn’t like to be disappointed was holding back a bit of enthusiasm and expectation, just in case. In case of what I’m not sure, but nothing pleased me more than seeing the flag airborne as we came down the lane.

I don’t think I ever felt as giddy in all the years I’ve seen it flying including the times when I stood saluting the flag as a soldier in uniform while serving in the American Army. Perhaps it has something to do with making a home in a new country that makes me realize and value a few things differently … things I may have taken for granted before moving to the UK.

I don’t want to get too deep and philosophical in this post. I’d like to show you instead how we all came together with our mixed lot of British spouses along with some unmarried but permanently settled Americans and those working here who will likely go home to America to live one day.

I want to show you the fun. I think it was a good experience for our visiting American guests, Jamie and Barbara and one they may talk about when sharing their UK trip with friends back home. I can’t help but wonder what they’ll remember though and what mattered most to them that day.

It would not be a proper American celebration without a little ” baseball ” although for me to call it baseball would be a stretch. In Gillian’s version, (I can’t remember if she called it baseball so I’m taking a bit of creative liberty here) you had a choice of what type of ball you wanted hit or kick and also a choice of bat, racket, or use of a cricket bat for smacking your ball of choice.

The kids all seemed to love it and the adults were willing to continue to play even as the rain came down.

You can see the rain in this shot especially if you click on the photograph. It’s a bit blurry as I was trying to protect my camera from what John will charmingly often refer to as a ” spot of rain.”

Our scorekeeper Mitt made notes throughout, but I don’t know if there was a winner as I fled for dryer quarters while the rest of the braver folk stayed at it.

Between the ball game and the meal that followed, I went on a walk and photographed a few colorful images not associated with the July 4th holiday.

You can just make out John in the background trying to get a shot of me while I was trying to coax this peacock into posing for a portrait and since my friend Cindy in the US mentioned she’d like to see a photograph of me from the 4th, I’ve added the photograph that John was taking in the shot above.

Then I spied a Dogwood tree still blooming even though it was July. In Georgia, Dogwoods welcome the spring months not the warmer months of summer.

After a the game was over and while the burgers were cooking, the adults divided into four teams for the ever popular quiz that is such a part of British life. At Gillian’s request, I had prepared a 20 question quiz of all American questions that carried us into the mealtime which is one of my favorite parts of the holiday.

Everyone brought some of their favorites and I brought Pioneer Woman’s sheet cake in mini-cupcake form as well a potato salad made from my family’s recipe. I don’t have food pictures as I actually put the camera down for a few minutes to eat, but the sing-a-long afterwards made for a few interesting shots.

We’re finishing up the dessert portion of the meal and getting ready to rock … er sing I mean.

Gillian and Tina chatting about the music … I think.

Gillian getting the children involved. They had instruments too.

I’m not sure what Tina said here, but it Barbara seems to have found it funny.

I like this photograph of a young father and an older more experienced one talking to the baby girl.

The always tender father-daughter moment although one might argue that she was searching inside his shirt collar.

Gillian with her children as they led us in song complete with hand gestures.

Now with the baby girl from the earlier father-daughter shot going to mom for the sing-a-long, Gillian’s MIL looks on at the song lyrics that Gillian prepared for the party.

My friend Jamie showing a little fan appreciation with his applause after the song ends.

Gillian always does such a great job with everything making a party for 30 or more seem like no trouble at all. I love the way she completes the evening with music and once again, I’m grateful to be included in her circle of friends. Her husband James certainly does his share too and while you’re not likely to see him with a guitar in hand he can make you feel welcome in any number of ways in addition to grilling the hot dogs and hamburgers to perfection.

 

Gillian

James

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A Moo-ving Experience

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When my American friends Jamie and Barbara arrived last Saturday to spend a few days with us during their visit to the UK, I wanted to be sure they saw some of my favorite places while they were here. On July 4th our day started with a little excitement right from the beginning when we took them by to see the bridge where this marvelous thing occurred back in February of 2008 and later John asked me a very important question.

You know the one I’m talking about, don’t you? The one with four little words that began with Will and ended with Me and led to this sweet day early last year. Since Helland Bridge is such a significant place for us we just had to take Jamie and Barbara by to snap a photo or two. As you can see in the series below it turned out to be a very moo-ving experience for them.

Jamie & Barbara At Helland Bridge

After taking a couple of photographs of them standing in the very spot where John asked me to marry him, I stepped off the bridge for some distance shots and happened to be in the right position to catch the cattle stampede.

Okay, so stampede might be a bit of an exaggeration, but see the man walking quickly towards them … he’s letting them know that now might be a good time to moo-ve. (sorry I can’t help myself)

I bet they thought they were leaving the country life behind for a few weeks when they left the small town where they live in the US.

You guys better hoof it.

There’s some serious traffic moo-ving behind you.

Looks like they’re safely off  the bridge.

Now if I can just get past this load of bull to catch up with them, we’ll be off to explore Lanhyrock.

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Is This How Pioneer Woman Does It?

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Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Sheet Cake As Mini-Cupcakes

Unless you have made these yummy treats you have no idea how delish they can really are. What you see here is the result of turning Pioneer Woman’s Chocolate Sheet Cake recipe into mini cupcakes which were perfect for the party we went to last night and the July 4th celebration we’re going to on Sunday with some of our expat community. It was the first time I’ve made them in mini-cupcake form and the success was clear by the clean serving trays we came home with after watching my cupcakes disappear into the mouths of a mostly (except for me) group of Brits.

Several people asked as they complimented my bite-size cakes if they were an American speciality to which I gave credit where it’s due and said, ” Yes, but not a family recipe of mine. ” I told them it belonged to this wild woman out West who went by the name of Pioneer Woman.

Okay … so maybe I embellished a little with the wild woman comment, but as most Brits seem to think they’ve mastered an American accent if they sound like John Wayne when imitating us, (likely having learned their technique as my John did from old western black & white films) I thought wild woman out west would fit the image many seem to have of us as a tough talking, gun-toting, straight shooting, slightly unruly lot.

Passing by the dessert table or puddings, as all desserts are sometimes referred to here was a teenage girl who overheard me give credit to PW and turned to me and said, ” Oh, I read her, did you see what she said about iPad on her blog? ” I have to admit that PW seems to be moving farther abroad than she may realize. Thanks to the internet, not only has she young American followers like my daughter reading her, she’s picking up teen readers in rural England as well.

While PW appears to have a tidy kitchen when making her varied goodies, I must admit that my prep area looks a bit different.

Not Pioneer Woman's Kitchen

Thank goodness for lots of counter space or work-tops as John would refer to kitchen counters.

Messy Cooking With Elizabeth Harper

Gone, these are all gone now.

I call the cupcake closest to you, ” The Half and Half  ” for half nuts/ half not … neat huh? Okay, so I ran out of the frosting with nuts and had to use some without. I bet no one even noticed at the party last night. Creativity is key in marketing. I think I like that … Half and Half … I wonder what I could call my other kitchen mishaps.

My daughter once referred to my turkey meatloaf as looking like cat food, I must say years after that high recommendation by my then seven-year old, it’s one of the things I do best now. (Pssst, I’ll be making my cat food/turkey meatloaf for some American visitors this weekend) I promise I really do use ground turkey … no cat food involved. Cross my heart.

Remember what I said earlier about messy … I wonder who’s going to help me with these dishes!

Maybe I could do a reality show for messy cooks … how about you, are you messy or neat when whipping up family favorites?

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Kelly Rae Roberts – Taking Control With Flying Lessons

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Remember that e-course I mentioned here and what I revealed about myself here, well we are winding down now after five weeks of online lessons with loads of positive information and ” flight plans ” useful in getting a creative idea and business off the ground.

While I picked up some really great ideas and business tips, I think what I enjoyed most was watching how inspired the collective group was and the energy that came through when so many taking the class began implementing big projects right away and sharing them online with each other.

So many of my classmates already had the skill and creative abilities (their shoes, if you will) that helped define them in their roles as artists, but still needed a bit of help in the taking control aspect that is necessary when going from creative artist to someone able to earn a living doing the work they love.

I am in deep in the process of expanding my vision for myself now and over the next few months will be unveiling a few projects of my own as I work out all the nitty-gritty details. The biggest take away for me during this process has been about lifting some of the limitations I tend to put on myself. Although I have long been identified by friends and co-workers as the kind of person who thinks outside the box, I have often limited my own creative movement while encouraging others to reach for something more.

In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy had those lovely red shoes that could have taken her home with just a click had she known the ability she already possessed. I have been thinking lately about what I already know … what each of us know within ourselves about our dreams. I’ve been thinking too about the ways in which we can develop the vision required to take our dreams from being just a possibility to something that actually gets off the ground.

So I have been busy here … working steadily on my ” flight plan ” while opening boxes that have held a few dreams for far too long. What about you … what have you got packed away that feels boxed up so tightly it’s like a memory of what you once dreamed of for yourself?

If it’s direction you need, you might find some inspiration over here today. The topic has to do with a technique that has helped me define mine for years.

It will be worth your time, I promise.

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Auntie Norah’s Weed

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Auntie Norah's Weed

There is a flower in our garden that John always refers to as Auntie Norah’s Weed. It’s interesting to me that as much as he knows about gardening and proper plant names that he seems content to identify this flowering plant in the way that he does.

Some of you may not know that my husband John has done a great deal of research into his family history picking up on the work done by his father before he died. He likes to tell stories of how his dad was so into genealogy that at the age of 81 he flew to Singapore and Australia for three weeks on his own to attend several conferences.

It was Auntie Norah who started it all though. In 1961 John recorded this bit of conversation between Auntie Norah and his grandmother Marie where they’re discussing some relatives and family history with him. John is only eighteen in this recording.

Here’s a bit from the website of John Winchurch:


“Norah was my great aunt and her sister Marie my grandmother. They are pictured above about 1903. It was a conversation between Norah and Marie in 1961 that was an early inspiration for both me and my father to look into family history more. Dad began straight away, my research had to wait a few decades.

At this point, at the age of eighteen, I was fascinated by sound recording and had just built my second tape recorder. My family provided the material for testing its capabilities.This is one short excerpt that I am particularly glad I captured.Norah talks about ‘mother’s father’s father’ being a ‘wonderful violinist’ and ‘coming over with a German band’

Listen to Auntie Norah in forty seconds of history.  ( You can hear John at 20 and 22 seconds into the recording)

She was almost right, Francis George Sternberg was actually a generation further back and was a trumpeter with the Royal Horse Guards. He settled in Northampton, married Frances Furnivall and established himself and his family in a music retail and education business.At the time of this recording in 1961, it was two hundred years since Francis’s birth. It is an interesting example of how family information can be passed down the generations.“

L to R - Alice Brown, Francis Victor Winchurch, baby John Winchurch, Harry Brown, Margaret Winchurch, Marion Winchurch, Norah Alice Brown

To finish this post which began about Auntie Norah’s Weed I want to tell you a bit more about her. John’s grandmother was one of three sisters with Norah being the eldest by three years. As Norah never married it was she who took care of their aging mother living with her until she died leaving Norah alone at sixty-six.

She worked at several jobs during her lifetime in libraries in the area and took tons of photographs over the years as an avid hobbyist. In her 80’s when she could no longer live alone she came to live with her sister John’s grandmother Marie who was by then in her 80’s as well.

With Norah crowding into the small home already occupied by her sister, John’s mother, father, and brother she had to get rid of many things during her move. With so much family in one space, Auntie Norah did a big clear out even trying to get rid of many of her family photograph albums which were rescued from the rubbish bin.

One thing she couldn’t leave behind was the yellow flower you see above. While this is not one of her original plants, it is the same type of flower that John’s grandmother labeled a weed based on the way it overtook the garden. Aside from Auntie Norah’s Weed, when I asked John what he remembered most about her he quickly said her laughter. He said she was always laughing and you can hear it on the link above that John recorded in 1961.

Sitting in my studio I can see Auntie Norah’s Weed growing across the garden in an almost direct sight line to my desk. While the garden space is compact, as lovely as this flower is I cannot imagine a time when I would ever not appreciate the brightness it adds to my daily view.

Of course it might be nice to know its proper name if any gardeners out there want to pass it on, but personally … I like remembering the laughing spirit of a woman I never knew and hope Auntie Norah’s Weed spreads its roots as deeply in the garden as she has now in my memory.

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Sharing A Story – My Teary Moment With Kenny Loggins

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In 1997, my life was in the middle of major changes when I saw that an old musical favorite of mine was coming to town to sign copies of a book that he had co-authored with his wife. I knew virtually nothing about this book, but what I did know was how at various points in my life his music had offered a soundtrack for the emotions and struggles that I had experienced particularly in my 20’s and early 30’s and something in me felt a need to go to his book signing.

If you’ve been reading my blog for long you already know that storytelling is so throughly a part of who I am that the idea that I might wait in line at a bookstore to have my newly purchased book autographed without mentioning the significance of his music and then quietly slip away was not even in the realm of possibility.

As I stepped up to meet him with a long line of people at my back, I considered how I might communicate the importance one song in particular had for me during my divorce from my daughter’s father and how I had listened to it over and over hanging on to the words like a life raft when I felt as if I might drown in all the sadness and disappointment I felt in myself and my failures.

Although very few of us are entirely responsible for the end of a marriage, for a while I believed that burden was all mine and I cried my way through years of pain that while unrelated in some ways surfaced during the final days and weeks of my marriage. I wanted more for a child of mine than two parents living separate lives shuttling back and forth between two houses and I struggled with keeping my own childhood sorrows from overshadowing my need to ensure that she felt safe and loved.

It was during this time while dressing for work one morning that I saw Kenny Loggins sing a song on a morning television show and listened as the words in his song mirrored my own experience. I remember stopping what I was doing at the time and just sitting as I watched … feeling for the first time that maybe things would be alright. The words in his song echoed exactly what I had been feeling and later I listened as he talked about the changes in his life and the joy that was now present.

His song had given me hope and a bit of solace back then and made me see that I was not alone in my sad experience and I as I stood there waiting I thought, I’m going to tell him. For a moment I considered, what if he thinks I’m silly, stupid, or God forbid, groupie-ish, but in the end I decided to share the importance hearing that particular song had for me during a time of crisis.

What you see in the photograph below is me telling him my story. I had given my camera to the woman behind me to take my picture with him and as I was talking I knelt down for a minute so my position shifted from what you see here. I told him of that morning only a few years earlier and how the message in his song had provided a starting place for healing and a form of forgiveness that I while I was still working on for myself, was slowly coming together after years of not trusting my own voice and my own sense that my feelings and dreams were just as valuable as those who wanted to be in relationship with me.

Kenny Loggins - Elizabeth Harper

As I told him my story, his eyes began to tear up … filling close to overflowing while we spoke and not because of the sadness in my story, but I believe now having read his book, because of the similarity. I think he was touched by my story because he had lived parts of it himself, different in ways to mine certainly, but the same at the core.

The woman who followed me in line brought my camera to me after having her book autographed and said, ” You made him cry … what did you say to him? ”  Without going into my whole story, I told her that I just shared an important moment in my life and how one song had made a difference. Having taken a risk to share something so special to me, I can’t tell you how pleased I was that it was received in the way I had intended.

There’s a release that comes in speaking your truth. It doesn’t need to be public or released in a song as has often been his way, but sharing your story can be a gift to someone who just might need the message in your own experience. Most of us do this everyday never really knowing the impact our words may have.

I’ve been speaking my truth here at GOTJ for the last 24 months. Today marks two years since I wrote my first blog post at giftsofthejourney.com where my first 82 posts still live. In February of 2009, I moved GOTJ to this WordPress account and during the last two years the combined total of 338 posts have garnered 76,853 page views and the kind and generous comments of many of you likely reading this today.

I want to take a minute to thank you for including my words and images in your daily life. Even though I don’t always have a chance to respond on the comments left here, please know that they are so appreciated and mean a great deal to me. Quite often as you’ve shared bits of your own story in response to something I’ve written I have been moved to tears as Kenny Loggins was that day and I am always grateful whenever my story connects in some useful way with your own.

I’m not sure what Kenny Loggins was writing in everyone else’s book, but he could not have picked better words for me personally than those two you see at the bottom of the page,” Trust Love.”  I frequently tell people that I could not have imagined that I would ever have the life I have now, but you all know my story if you’ve been reading GOTJ for long.

Trusting love is what brought me to this sweet life with John and the awareness that change had its own gifts to offer led me to create Gifts Of The Journey and a chance to share the experience with anyone interested in their own gifts and their own journey. My thanks to each of you who through Gifts of the Journey are now a part of mine.

John Winchurch & Elizabeth Harper - 2008

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Dancing For Your Life

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You may remember this post the other day where I wrote about chewing on an idea, what I didn’t mention at the time was how difficult it was to get a macro shot of the caterpillar I used for that post. Every time I came in close to snap a photograph, the caterpillars would suddenly lift their back ends up and hold them aloft moving them up and down slightly in a waving motion.

This morning I did some research as I was curious to see what they might look like as butterflies. I was having no luck searching through Google for websites until I stumbled across a link that mentioned dancing caterpillars. It turns out they will never be butterflies as this type of larvae are known as Sawfly larvae which look more wasp-like than anything else after it goes through its final changes.

As for the dancing movement, that is commonly said to only be seen in this particular type and is a survival technique that is supposed to protect them from harm. They only do it if you get too close, but when they went into defensive dance mode with me it seemed kind of slow if the goal was to protect them from birds and other fast-moving predators. A few days later I went back to the bush to see what had become of them and to see if anything remained of the plant they had been munching their way through only to discover the branches empty and bare.

While they had eaten quite a lot of the leaves, more remained than were missing which made me wonder if perhaps those little caterpillars had not danced fast enough to avoid becoming a dinner snack for some of the birds in our back garden.

Of course nothing is ever only an educational experience on one level for me, not content with just an impromptu science lesson, I spent some time thinking about these dancing caterpillars and considered all the protective dance moves I’ve used in my own life. I considered the effectiveness of what nature had taught these little future flyers as I thought about the ways I’ve used denial and avoidance in the past to sidestep important issues and I wondered whether that had hurt or saved me in my transformative years.

Can you tell I’m working on something a bit deeper in my daily writing than just happy pleasant things? What about you, are you doing any dancing lately and is it working? Maybe you can teach the rest of us a few new steps … in case we need them sometime. Regarding dancing, I should tell you that I am notorious for trying to lead but I’ll try not to step on your toes.