It's Nice To Have You In Birmingham, circa 1967

Local good ole boy treating visiting good ole boy and family to a visit to Vulcan Park today:

LGOB: The museum here is pretty interesting.
VGOB: Is it included in the admission?
LGOB: Yep. They're a little biased though.
VGOB: How come?
LGOB: They tell all about the slaves that worked in the iron industry. They got their own museum at the Civil Rights museum. I don't know why they have to tell that story up here too.
VGOB: Do any white people go to the Civil Rights museum?
LGOB: I'm sure they make all the white school children go through there.

Yessir, we've made great strides, haven't we?

Of course, I came up with a snappy comeback, eight hours later:
BW: Well, guys, you're in luck. Admission is free on Sundays at the Civil Rights Institute. Why don't you check it out when you finish here?

One day I'll learn to think on my feet.

Holy Week

Here is a brief recap of our Holy Week celebration:

Sunday

We begin in the garden in Genesis 1 and 2. On the table are five lit candles. All is pure and holy and good, until Genesis 3. We blow out a candle as man sins, is banished from the garden, and God's redemptive plan begins.

Monday

We discuss Abraham and God's promise to him. We read about Abraham leaving his country and the miracle son God gives him and his wife Sarah, through whom all the nations will be blessed. We blow out another candle. The light decreases.

Tuesday

The nation of Israel is captive in Egypt, but God raises a deliverer in Moses. God leads the nation toward the promised land, feeds them with manna, and has them build an ark and a tabernacle, a place where heaven and earth come together. Yet another candle is blown out.

Wednesday

We read about David, a man after God's heart. God promises David a kingdom that will last forever. We blow out the next to last candle.

Thursday

We are in the upper room. Preparations have been made for the Passover meal. In the midst of the meal, the Passover lamb himself serves his disciples the bread and the cup.



As Jesus and the disciples leave for another garden, Gethsemane, we blow out the final candle. It is dark. The hour has come.

Friday

In darkness, we read of the arrest, trials, and the trip to the cross. "It is finished." The earthquake. The veil ripped from top to bottom. The pierced side. The hasty burial. The stone rolled across the mouth of the grave. The disciples in exile.

Saturday

A day of lament. Disappointment. Despair. Fear. Uncertainty. Questioning. Doubt. Anger. Shame. Grief. Brooding. Darkness. Silence.

Sunday

He is Risen! The tomb is empty! He has conquered death and the grave! We venture out into the coolness for breakfast and a trip back to the gardens, the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, as we read and share the resurrection. The sun is bright, and we warm ourselves in its light, and in his light. Hallelujah!

Death in Memphis, Part I

We've spent part of spring break in Memphis. We've been the proper tourists: river cruises, Beale Street, Graceland, Sun Studios, Gibson guitar factory, etc. We've eaten Gus's spicy fried chicken, Corky's bbq, and Dyer's burgers, deep fried in the original grease from 1912. We even saw an NBA game for $5 a head. (NBA Trivia - Q: Can you hear the basketball bounce off the floor from the $5 seats? A: No.)

We strayed off the tourist brochure map a couple of times, though. This morning, for instance, we spent a little over an hour at Elmwood Cemetery.

If you are thinking What kind of man takes his family to a cemetery on vacation? well, that would be me. Because they love me (and because I was driving), Joan and the kids kindly agreed to indulge my diversion all the while holding my promise of brevity over my head.

A cool, sparse drizzle struggled to wash the South Dudley Street grime off the windshield as I drove across the whitewashed bridge that arched over the railroad tracks and into the cemetery. The Victorian cottage that houses the cemetery office seemed inviting and the distinguished gentleman (bearing an uncanny resemblance to the late Ed Bradley) who appeared out of the safe when I entered the office wasn't at all surprised by my presence or my request for help locating a grave.

"Who are you looking for?" he asked.

"Shelby Foote," I replied.

"Ah, I can show you right where Shelby's at," he responded, with a warm, casual familiarity for both the subject of my search and location of his resting place. He highlighted the route to the grave on a photocopied cemetery map while explaining that Mr. Foote's family had yet to put up a headstone though the burial had taken place almost two years before. "You need to look for Jeffery Forrest's grave, and Shelby will be right next to that."

I turned to leave, and he asked me, "So, what brought you here today?"

I puzzled at the question, for I thought I had answered it earlier, but I replied, "I'm just an admirer of Mr. Foote's work and I thought it'd be interesting to visit his grave and pay my respects."

"Well, we're glad you stopped by. When you get to the grave, pull as far off the side of the road as you can. These roads weren't built for cars and they're mighty narrow. Enjoy your visit."

By then the rain had stopped and the clouds were breaking. I followed the map down the narrow passage bordered by grave markers of every shape and size and shaded by towering magnolias, dogwoods, and crape myrtles. When I reached the point on my map where the office manager's highlighter mark ended, I looked to the side of the road and located Jeffery Forrest's grave. Next to it, under a mighty forked magnolia, a tiny American flag hung limply in the stillness.

"Around the bend from Bolton's rumpled statue, a visitor comes upon what many consider the high point of the tour, Chapel Hill Circle, which contains the Forrest plot. Here Lieutenant Nathan Bedford Forrest was laid to rest in 1877, at the age of fifty-six, joining four of the five brothers who followed him at birth and preceded him in death, two of them as casualties of the war that gave him his nom-de-guerre, "Wizard of the Saddle," and earned him the reputation, widely acknowledged, of being the greatest cavalry commander of the Civil or any other war. Sixteen years later his wife was buried beside him, and both were removed in 1904 to rest beneath his equestrian statue in Forrest Park, just over an airline mile away, out Union Avenue in what had by then become the heart of the city." Elmwood: In the Shadows of the Elms by Perre Magness, from the introduction The Legacy of Historic Elmwood Continues... by Shelby Foote.

I became acquainted with Shelby Foote's writing as a freshman in college, though I didn't know it at the time. My US History to 1877 professor, Mr. Sandlin, passionately quoted Foote's accounts of Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston: how he had been branded the Savior of the Confederacy, how crowds had greeted him throughout the Confederacy on his way to Richmond to receive his orders, how he had led the Battle of Shiloh carrying a tin cup instead of a sword, the cup his share of Yankee spoils as an apology to a young lieutenant whose feelings he had hurt by chastising him for plundering an enemy tent, and most memorably the exchange between Johnston and his aide at Shiloh, Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris, as the general's mortal wound was discovered.

IGH: General, are you hurt?
ASJ: Yes, and I fear seriously.

I searched for the source of that quotation for years, in vain. It wasn't until Ken Burns' The Civil War and my introduction to Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative that my search was rewarded and my interest in Foote and his writing blossomed.

When Foote died I was going through a rough time dealing with my grandmother's illness. On the day his death notice hit the Memphis paper I flew through Memphis on my way to Colorado and I got a copy of the paper in the airport. I knew if ever I was in Memphis, outside the airport, I'd have to make a trip to the cemetery, and this morning I made good on that promise to myself.

I had planned to read the aforementioned account of General Johnston at Foote's grave, but a river cruise tour guide's comments about the Civil War naval battle that took place just off Mud Island prompted me to read that instead. I figured the kids would relate to that better since they had been at that spot and had a frame of reference. They indulged my reading and then sped off to terrorize the dead while I wandered around, soaking up the experience.

A few minutes later the kids came running back to the flag marking Foote's grave. "Papa, you gotta come see the funny statue we found!" they cried, dragging me across the road. I could see the tarnished bust a good ways away but when I got close enough to read the name I got the shivers. We were standing at the grave of Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris.



There is no way I could express what I felt at that moment to the kids, so I let Foote speak for me through the original passage I had intended to read at his grave.

...Johnston saw that the officers were having trouble getting the troops in line to go forward again. "Men! they are stubborn; we must use the bayonet," he told them. To emphasize his meaning he rode among them and touched the points of their bayonets with the tin cup. "These must do the work," he said. When the line had formed, the soldiers were still hesitant to reenter the smoky uproar. So Johnston did what he had been doing all morning, all along the line of battle. Riding front and center, he stood in the stirrups, removed his hat, and called back over his shoulder: "I will lead you!" As he touched his spurs to the flanks of his horse, the men surged forward, charging with him into the sheet of flame which blazed to meet them there among the blossoms letting fall their bright pink rain.
This time the charge was not repulsed; Hurlburt's troops gave way, abandoning the orchard to the cheering men in gray. Johnston came riding back, a smile on his lips, his teeth flashing white beneath his mustache. There were rips and tears in his uniform and one bootsole had been cut nearly in half by a minie bullet. He shook his foot so the dangling leather flapped. "They didn't trip me up that time," he said, laughing. His battle blood was up; his eyes were shining. Presently, however, as the general sat watching his soldiers celebrate their capture of the orchard and its guns, Governor Isham Harris of Tennessee, who had volunteered to serve as his aide during the battle, saw him reel in the saddle.
"General -- are you hurt?" he cried.
"Yes, and I fear seriously," Johnston said.
None of the rest of his staff was there, the general having sent them off on various missions. Riding with one arm across Johnston's shoulders to prevent his falling, Harris guided the bay into a nearby ravine, where he eased the pale commander to the ground and began unfastening his clothes in an attempt to find the wound. He had no luck until he noticed the right boot full of blood, and then he found it: a neat hole drilled just above the hollow of the knee, marking where the femoral artery had been severed. This called for a knowledge of tourniquets, but the governor knew nothing of such things. The man who knew most about them, Johnston's staff physician, had been ordered by the general to attend to a group of Federal wounded he encountered on his way to the far right. When the doctor protested, Johnston cut him off: "These men were our enemies a moment ago. They are our prisoners now. Take care of them." So Harris alone was left to do what he could to staunch the bright red flow of blood.
He could do little. Brandy might help, he thought, but when he poured some into the hurt man's mouth it ran back out again. Presently a colonel, Johnston's chief of staff, came hurrying into the ravine. But he could do nothing either. He knelt down facing the general. "Johnston, do you know me? Johnston, do you know me?" he kept asking, over and over, nudging the general's shoulder as he spoke.
But Johnston did not know him. Johnston was dead."
The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume I, Chapter 4, by Shelby Foote

I explained to the kids that minutes before we had been at the grave of the man who wrote those words about the man at whose grave we now stood. The connection was deeper than that for me, of course, but how to explain? My father had taken me to Shiloh as a child; I'd seen the tree that marked the spot where Johnston died. Later, as an adult, I'd heard a park ranger from Shiloh tell a Civil War roundtable audience of Governor Harris's reticent return to Shiloh to help find the spot for historians. Add to that the aforementioned passion of a beloved teacher and a coincidental discovery by a couple of rambunctious kids running off energy while waiting for their old man to get his head out of the philosophical clouds and it all comes full circle. Where else but a cemetery can a twentieth-century writer truly convene with literary subjects of a prior century that died before he was born? How better can he affiliate with a family he so admired than to be buried beside them? How more tangibly can a reader connect a writer's words with his subject's actions and bring those actions to life again? How, pray tell, can noble deeds of past centuries live on, but through words?

I took a few steps toward the car before I realized that the bust on Governor Harris's grave was staring towards that small American flag on Chapel Hill Circle. I will remember this day until I die, or until words fail me.

Hello Kitty

Joan and I went to a surprise 50th birthday party for my boss tonight, up in Blount County.

I parked the van with the driver's side on the uphill slope of the community center's steep parking lot. I opened the door and turned to get something out of the van and when I turned back around the corner of the door hit me right on the forehead.

So I entered the room of mostly strangers with a big, bloody flap of skin flopping in the breeze. I discreetly approached the hostess, my boss's very resourceful wife, for first aid.

In a public facility with scads of party-goers, the only band-aid we were able to secure was a pink Hello Kitty.

Sometimes I can be a real loser.

Christmas Day

On Christmas morning, we lit the white candle, placed baby Jesus in the manger, read Psalm 111, and celebrated communion.

The bread of life (Jesus) has come to the house of bread (Bethlehem), and we ate that bread and drank from the cup in remembrance of him.

Then we journeyed to the local cineplex to see The Nativity Story.

Christmas Eve

After the sun went down, we gathered around the advent wreath, replaced the flour and vinegar with wedding cookies and sparkling cider, and read Luke 2.

Advent IV, Interlude

While waiting for the sun to go down so we could celebrate Christmas eve, we watched a modern parable of advent, Ralph Hamner's The Homecoming: A Christmas Story.

This movie is the pilot for the long-running series The Walton's. It debuted in 1971. I was around the age of Elizabeth, the youngest Walton, when the series premiered.

The Homecoming is the story of a depression-era family, waiting on husband and father to return home for Christmas. The radio reports a snowstorm, and a bus wreck, and a frantic yet stoic wife tries to occupy her brood during the wait.

It painted exactly the picture I wanted to paint about advent. It was tough to watch this year, having just lost my grandmother, but it was a perfect interlude between advent and Christmas eve.

Good night, John Boy.

Advent IV

Theme: Peace

Hebrew Scripture: Micah 5.2-5

Gospel: Luke 1.39-55

Psalm: Psalm 113

Today we talked about peace, using this definition:

When we hear the word peace we usually associate this to mean an absence of war or strife but the Hebrew meaning of the word shalom has a very different meaning. The verb form of the root word is shalam and is usually used in the context of making restitution. When a person has caused another to become deficient in some way, such as a loss of livestock, it is the responsibility of the person who created the deficiency to restore what has been taken, lost or stolen. The verb shalam literally means to make whole or complete. The noun shalom has the more literal meaning of being in a state of wholeness or with no deficiency. The common phrase shalu shalom yerushalayim (pray for the peace of Jerusalem) is not speaking about an absence of war (though that is part of it) but that Jerusalem (and by extension all of Israel) is complete and whole and goes far beyond the idea of "peace".

To say that Jesus is God's peace is to say that he is God's fullness, God's completeness. "It is finished."

O come, desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind.
O, bid our sad divisions cease,
And be yourself our King of Peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee O Israel!

Advent III

Theme: Joy

Hebrew Scripture: Zephaniah 3.14-20, Isaiah 12.2-6

Psalm: Psalm 126

Gospel: Luke 3.7-18

We discussed how God's people are people of joy, a deep contentment that has no regard for circumstance.

O come, our dayspring from on high,
And cheer us by your drawing nigh,
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee O Israel!

Advent II

Theme: Love

Hebrew Scripture: Malachi 3.1-4

Gospel: Luke 1.68-79

Psalm: Psalm 136

We defined love, thanks to C.S. Lewis:

1. Storge: an affectionate love as between a grandmother and grandchild
2. Philia: a friendship as between schoolmates
3. Eros: an erotic love as between lovers (try explaining that between a fourteen-year-old and a six-year-old)
4. Agape: a willful love most powerfully expressed when the object is unlovely

We talked about God's love for us in sending Messiah. We redefined Psalm 136's "his steadfast love endures forever" as "his faithful love never quits" just because it was easier for us to grasp. We read the psalm responsively with this substitution. Try it!

Advent I

Theme: Hope

Hebrew Scripture: Jeremiah 33.14-16

Psalm: Psalm 25.1-10

Gospel: Luke 21.25-36

We talked about the meaning of advent, what it means to wait. I shared this quotation with Joan and the kids:

Most of us think of waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands. The bus is late? You cannot do anything about it, so you have to sit there and just wait. It is not difficult to understand the irritation people feel when somebody says, 'Just wait.' Words like that seem to push us into passivity.

But there is none of that passivity in scripture. Those who are waiting are waiting very actively...Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it. A waiting person is someone who is present to the moment, who believes that this moment is the moment. Henri Nouwen

We then talked about hope. Hope means not a wishful thought, but a confident faith, that something promised will happen. As we wait for Messiah, we wait with confident faith because of the Faithful One who promised him.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee O Israel!

The table is set

Greenery woven into an advent wreath, holly leaves emerging from clusters of pretty red berries because God is alive, and he is fruitful.

Three purple candles and a pink candle surround one tall white one, all unlit because we live in darkness.

A ramekin of flour and a cup of vinegar on the table because we live in bitterness.

A small creche, its manger empty because Emmanuel has yet to arrive.

The Word of God opened to the Old Covenant because the prophets promise us a Messiah.

A hymnal opened to "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" because that is the song on our lips.

The table is set. Advent is here. We await you, Lord Jesus.

Tandoori Thanksgiving

Our friends Adam and April moved to Florida in August. Because of Adam's work schedule, among other things, they knew they wouldn't be coming "home" for Thanksgiving so they invited us to visit them.

It really was a no-brainer, accepting the invitation, once I heard that there would be cooking involved. I trudged up the attic stairs in search of old Bon Appetit November back issues, drooling over possible herbs to encrust the bird with and pondering exotic sides with which to surround its golden-baked carcass.

Joan and April burned precious cell minutes planning the menu before Joan announced one day that we were having Indian food for Thanksgiving.

Well, duh. There were Indians at the first Thanksgiving. And they brought food. Corn, potatoes, berries, pemmican, etc. Indian food.

Only Joan wasn't talking Indian as in Squanto and Massasoit. More like Shashi and Mujibar.

It was an intriguing idea. I love Indian food. One of our favorite restaurants is Taj India here in Birmingham. I've had some great meals there. I just don't know how to pronounce most of the stuff and I especially don't know what goes into it.

Also, I'm not so stuck on traditional Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is my all-time favorite holiday, but Joan and I once caught the stomach virus from hell on a Thanksgiving weekend so for several years we did anything but traditional. We did burgers one year, barbecue the next. Anything but turkey and cranberry sauce. That's all I have to say about that.

So following an uneventful 9-hour drive to central Florida, we were barely in the door when Joan began parsing out recipe printouts and little plastic bowls of spices. Without further adieu, here is the complete menu and the responsible chef:

• Papaya Chutney (April)


• Walnut Chutney (Brian)


• Sheer Kurma (Joan)


• Chana Masala (Brian)


• Navratna Korma (April)


• Palak Paneer (Brian)


• Curry Chicken (April, recipe from a neighbor)


• Rice Roti (Joan)

Sparing you the details of what goes on in a frantic Indian kitchen, this feast ROCKED! Absolutely rocked. Not a dud dish in the bunch. I can't speak for the others, but some notes on the dishes I was responsible for:

• The masala in Chana Masala is a base of tomatoes, peppers, garlic, and onions that would have made a pretty good salsa were we doing a Mexican Thanksgiving. However, it is fried in oil until it becomes a paste, and then it is brought to boil just before the chana (chickpeas) are added. This base would be excellent with some lamb in it.


• The paneer in Palak Paneer is milk curds. I used this recipe, and quite honestly, this was the most frustrating part of the whole process. I wasn't sure what I was after and couldn't tell whether I was doing the right thing, though I did an awful lot of stirring. I believe paneer is Sanskrit for "much patience required."

This was truly one of the best Thanksgiving experiences of my life. The food, the fellowship, the challenge, and the end result were a recipe for success.

Shashi and Mujibar would be proud.

Nanny goes home

Sixteen months ago, Nanny's doctors told her to get her affairs in order following a severe internal bleeding episode and subsequent diagnosis of terminal liver disease. The situation was tenuous and I immediately flew out west to say my goodbyes.

Sixteen months ago.

Since then I've been in regular contact, either by phone or e-mail, with Aunt Becky and Aunt Sandra. They both discouraged visits due to Nanny's decline and fear of having Evan and Lora see her in such shape. We weighed the options and acquiesced but her demise hung over our heads like a dark cloud. For sixteen months.

About a month ago, Aunt Becky called Joan in desperation. Times were tough, she needed some relief, and felt like the kids might brighten the place up. Evan had a couple of in-service days coming up at school so we flew out early on a Saturday morning. Having said my goodbyes sixteen months ago, I wasn't looking forward to having to do it again, but sometimes you can't get around the hard stuff.

We had a great visit. Nanny's mind was sharp, she ate well (for her condition), the kids kept the farm hopping, riding the golf cart and chasing the dogs around. On Tuesday morning, Evan and I flew home. The next Tuesday, Joan and Lora flew home.

On Wednesday night, Aunt Becky called to tell us that it was just a matter of time. Shortly after Joan and Lora left the day before, Nanny had become unresponsive. Aunt Becky asked if we wanted a call if she died in the night. We told her we did.

At 2:00 a.m., the phone rang.

I had been aware that this moment was coming. For sixteen months. When it came, I was blown away at how profound one death could be. We've lost more than 2800 soldiers in Iraq. More than 2900 people died in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Two-hundred-fifty thousand people died in the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. None of those deaths affected me like the death of a frail, eighty-one year-old woman in the basement apartment of a farm house on the Eastern Plains of Colorado.

Appropriately, Nanny died during an uncharacteristically heavy autumn blizzard. She would have loved that. It was almost morning before they took her away. We changed airline reservations three times because the blizzard so impacted the schedules at the funeral home and the cemetery.

Which was not a bad thing.

Nanny had asked me, sixteen months ago, to preach her funeral. I had been thinking about it since. For sixteen months. And I had yet to write a word.

Granted, procrastination is one of my hobbies. But sixteen months? You'd think that with that amount of time I'd have come up with something. But I didn't. I couldn't. I could not even begin to write a eulogy for someone who was not dead. Every cell in my body screamed No! each time I tried. So I gave up. I knew when the time came and I was under a deadline I could do it. At least that was my hope.

So on Saturday I hunkered down at [local chain coffee shop that's not Starbucks] and wrote. On Sunday we flew out.

On Monday, we met with the hospice chaplain to go over the service. Nanny had fallen in love with her hospice caregivers and wanted the chaplain to have a part.

On Tuesday, we had a private visitation at the funeral home. Granddaddy insisted that he had to see her one last time before we buried her. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

I've always hated the funeral home visitation cliche "doesn't she look gooood?" but in Nanny's case it was true. She had withered to nearly nothing but she looked so much better than the last time I had seen her, two weeks before. Then, when she was lying in her bed, I hugged her and kissed her forehead and told her, "I'll see you again." She smiled at me and said "I know." I knew I would never see her again in this life, and she did, too. It was such an easier goodbye than the one sixteen months before. None of us knew how much time she had left then and it was painful and emotional. Two weeks ago, it had been hopeful. Tuesday it was painful again.

It was a large room with just a few of us - Granddaddy, Aunt Becky, Aunt Sandra, Uncle Connie, Joan, the kids, and me. Some of us had brought things to place in her casket and I took mine up just before we left. I lost sight of the hopefulness I'd felt two weeks earlier. A measure of finality overwhelmed me as I touched her bony arm; her cold cheek.

Wednesday was a brisk day, sunny, but breezy. She'd requested a simple graveside service, which is about all that's allowed at the national cemetery where we buried her (Granddaddy is a veteran). We lined up our cars at a staging area, awaiting instructions from the cemetery staff. When our time came, we were lead to a small chapel, open on one side, with only six or eight chairs. A good many friends of Aunt Becky and Sandra, the hospice staff, and some friends Nanny had made during her short stay in Colorado were there. I was really anxious about speaking because of the difficulty of the viewing, but I made it fine. The hard work had been done in the coffee shop, on the plane, and in Aunt Becky's home office on the computer.

I shared a little of who Nanny was, read some of her favorite scriptures, and addressed each of us as a family. I felt it important to give us all permission to grieve. I'm convinced we have Egyptian blood in us because we're all experts on denial (de-Nile, get it?) and I wanted to address that. Also, Nanny was not perfect. She said and did things that hurt us and we said and did things that hurt her and I wanted to acknowledge that. I closed with one of her favorite poems, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost, and the hospice chaplain prayed.

Later, we went to find her grave, which I almost wish we hadn't. The cemetery had done maybe twenty funerals that day, all in one section, with no sod, no marker, nothing but red dirt. Place, though, is important to me, and I've seen the grave, I know where it is, and if I never make it there again I have no regrets.

Godspeed, Nanny. I'll see you again.

Birmingham or Bombay?

The Watkins aren't your typical suburban family as far as running around goes, but we do our fair share. Joan leads a small group on Monday night, I led (past-tense, more in a bit) one on Tuesday, Evan has drum lessons on Wednesday, and Joan's writing team meets on Thursday. Lately the schedule has improved as obligations are met and fall by the wayside. We've tried to be selective about how we replace time commitments that have freed up. I've enjoyed the change in schedule.

So it surprised me when Joan added a yoga class a few weeks ago.

Her friend April teaches the class. It didn't really affect me at first because it meets on Tuesday, same as my small group. Joan made arrangements for the kids and went her way and I went mine. I could tell that she enjoyed herself but my experience with yoga (read: none) left me without a clue as to what she enjoyed about it other than she started breathing funny before getting out of bed in the morning.

She was excited when my small group drew to a close because she wanted me to join her for yoga. I thought, What the heck? as we usually encourage our kids to try different things. The class starts at 5:30 and it's a stretch to get there on time from where we are (stretch, get it? Man, I kill me...) so Joan picked me up at my office. Traffic was horrible and we were running late, but April called and said she was running late, too, so I relaxed a bit. Big mistake.

We arrived at the dance studio and I strolled leisurely into the restroom to change from my baggy old man chinos and yellow polo shirt into my baggy old man shorts and a yellow mission trip t-shirt. Wash my face, check the hair, perform the miracle of turning Diet Mountain Dew into water, and man, I'm ready to yoga.

Joan met me in the hallway. "Will you come on, they've already started!"

What? Started? I thought April was late. Well, apparently not. But we were. Which meant that I, Brian Watkins, yoga-novice squared, was banished to the front row empty mat, nearly in the center of the room.

I was not happy. Joan took to her mat and began funny breathing with the rest of the class. A smooth jazz soundtrack wafted at a much lower jazz-worthy volume than I'm accustomed. April was slinking around whispering instructions. In Latin. I had no one to look at, since everyone was behind me, and I could faintly hear the whine of dork meters alarming throughout the over-the-mountain suburbs at my yoga futility.

I was uncomfortable, I must say, in not knowing the lingo, or the positions, or the motions, being late, out front, etc., etc.

April: Now take a deep breath in through the nose down from your xyphoid glottus and let it out slowly through the nose, compressing your maximus platypus into your occipital flywheel and touching your lateral rhomboid to your left shoulder.

Brian: Uh, is there somewhere I could put my keys? Did they disinfect this mat after the last occipital flywheel was compressed on it? Aw, man, I think my maximus platypus is going to sleep. Has anyone ever died of mortification during a yoga class?

Then I saw my way out. April brought her baby to class and the little doll was beginning to fuss. As I tried to figure out how to keep the blood flowing through my legs while sitting on my keys, I visualized myself scooping baby up and rescuing us both to the higher ground of the hallway, away from the raging torrent of exhaling xyphoid glotti. A perfect plan. Probably some resistance from April, but if I picked my opening correctly I could be halfway to the door before she knew what hit her, my lateral rhomboid aglow with new flowing blood.

Then my conscience got the best of me. Sure, I could quit, but I'd let Joan down, and April, and for all I know all the other nose-breathing mat monkeys. But most of all, I'd let myself down. Avoidance has been a coping mechanism of mine for a long, long time. I come from a long line of avoiders, almost professionals, certainly with the consistency and passion of a calling. I briefly thought of that and remembered how hard I've tried in the recent past to break some of those old habits and chains. About the time I convinced myself to stay, Joan poked me and whispered, Watch April. April had laid baby down and was now showing us the moves she wanted us to make. Having someone to look at helped me catch on to what was happening. Nothing was beyond my ability to handle, stretch-wise, and before I knew it time was up and the mat monkeys were rolling up their mats (alas, without disinfectant. I guess that answers that.).

Joan, April and baby, and I crossed over the mountain to our favorite Indian restaurant. I ordered some Lamb Jalferizi that was hotter than a two-dollar pistol. Set my maximus platypus on fire.

Ah, that's a language I understand.