Judy by Emma Tobin, late 2018, teaching a class.
The Late Years Thirty-Nine July 28, 2019
The human body has its ways
of sending messages, especially
when aging. I know when I need
to slow down, rest, listen, obey.
I had these messages years ago.
I’d have vertigo then. Nothing
to do but lie flat. I learned to
drink self-heal tea–better than
Dramamine. Now it’s afib–
my heart racing. I drink lemon-
peppermint tea, take deep breaths,
forget about work, sleep if possible.
Then allow myself a lazy day:
read a novel, write in my diary.
How I love to work, get things
done. I remind myself that
everything can wait for a day.
“Take a load off.” “There’s no
rush.” The work I want to do
will be there tomorrow and the
next day. I slept. I rested.
I listened. I healed again.
Photo and sign by Keely Wood. A hot day in Moncure, N.C.
***
The Late Years Thirty-Eight July 21, 2019
I was thirty-eight when I had that dream.
I was sitting in a circle with black women,
and someone stabbed me in the back.
A nightmare which has come alive
in my mind again, but of course it has
happened before–in the intervening
years. I use my ingenuity and courage
and make things happen: a small press,
a major library program for new writers,
a statewide writers organization where
all are welcome, giving a death blow
to the clique mentality. It’s no wonder
I was hated. I didn’t publish them. I
Interfered with their power base.
Or here, I wanted to protect my
neighbors from coal ash poison, and
in years earlier, formaldehyde, plus
other causes of cancer. I lost John
Cross, who was always willing to help,
and Terica, endlessly inventive about
how to fight fracking and coal ash
dust, and Cora, who told me she
loved me as if she knew people who
didn’t. I wouldn’t change what I’ve done
even if I live among those who stab
me in the back when they can. I forget
more. I can’t go and do as much as
once. Yet here I am. Help me or
harm me, but let me do my work
while I live.
Photo of sunrise from Jordan Lake Dam on New Year's Day 2019 by Ellen Tinsley, DVM
The Late Years Thirty-Seven July 14, 2019
It is quite true that the artist, painter, writer or composer starts always with an experience that is a kind of discovery. He comes upon it with the sense of a discovery; in fact, it is truer to say that it comes upon him as a discovery. It surprises him.
–Joyce Cary, Art and Reality, p. 15.
What then do all these words mean
that come upon me–years of them now?
I listen. I record. I respect, nay, I honor
that mysterious flow. As to Eliot’s vision
of how a new voice will become part of
the tradition that has gone before and change
it all, I’m hesitant to claim to be that
important. Besides, he says, such poetry
won’t be personal, and mine definitely
is. My friends and children, my chickens
and hydrangea bush, the little blue
grosbeak who sings to me at six in the
morning–at sunrise time–when I go to
walk, are personal, or are they? Does the
bird’s insistent call when the sky is pink
all the way around, red, and even green
in places, and he waits to hear me sing,
“I see you!” does that stay personal
or does it change into a token of eternity?
What happens to the words I hear in
my ear and baptize with the water
of my spirit, which lifts me past my
balance problem, my lament that I can’t
do everything I did only eight years ago?
The answer comes easily now. I’m still
making discoveries, and they are
still in possession. I needn’t be afraid.
Judy and Sheila Crump after Gospel Sing to raise money to fight our coal ash dump. Photo by Johnsie Tipton.
***
The Late Years Thirty-Six July 7, 2019
It has been so for most of my life.
Some people love me, and some hate me.
I think of the woman in the post office,
being waited on. I didn’t know her, walked
around her and put my package on the scales,
not imagining I would offend her, but when
she left, she said pointedly and coldly, “Sorry
I interfered with your post office business.”
Meaning: “You interfered with mine.” I
was reprimanded. True, I didn’t think my
gesture would be offensive. She probably
has me pigeon-holed now as a racist.
Another day, walking toward Food Lion,
a woman coming out calls to me, “Miss
Judy.” It’s Delois, whom I know, and who
hugs me. “How you been?” “I’m fine.
How is your mother?” I hadn’t heard since
late last year. Cora was so sweet, so dear.
Once she told me, as if in defiance of
somebody, “I love you.” “Mama passed,”
said Delois. “I’m sorry. She was so sweet.”
I’ll be more careful in the post office, but
I doubt I’ll change the mind of the other
woman. Delois’s hug and Cora’s love
are what sustain me. A friend told me
years ago, “If you make enemies, it means
you’re getting something done.” If people
love you, you’re doing something right.
Photo by Emma Tobin, December 2018
Judy Hogan featured in two events: July 17 and August 17, 2019
July 17, Wednesday, 2:30 p.m. I’ll be at the Eva Perry library in Apex near Raleigh, for an author tea, along with authors Peggy Payne and Anna Jean Mayhew. The Eva Perry Regional Library is at 2100 Shepherd’s Vineyarad Dr., Apex, NC 27502. 919-387-2122. Contact: Lisa Locke, Adult Services Librarian. Tea will be served, and the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions. Please come. It should be fun.
Peggy Payne (born 1949) is a writer, journalist and consultant to writers. She has written four books and her articles, reviews and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, among others. Her books focus on spirituality.
Anna Jean (A.J.) Mayhew’s first novel, The Dry Grass of August, won the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for the Book Award from the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. She has been writer-in-residence at Moulin à Nef Studio Center in Auvillar, France, and was a member of the first Board of Trustees of the North Carolina Writers' Network. A native of Charlotte, NC, A.J. has never lived outside the state, although she often travels to Europe with her Swiss-born husband. Her work reflects her vivid memories of growing up in the segregated South. A.J.—a mother and grandmother—now lives in a small town in the North Carolina Piedmont with her husband and their French-speaking cat.
Judy Hogan was co-editor of a poetry journal (Hyperion, 1970-81). In 1976 she founded Carolina Wren Press. She has been active in central North Carolina as a reviewer, book distributor, publisher, teacher, and writing consultant. She was one of the founders of the NC Writers Network, and chaired the board from 1983-7.
She has published twenty-two books including seven volumes of poetry, ten mystery novels, and four non-fiction books, the latest being Baba Summer: Part One about her experiences with Russians in the 90s. Between 1990 and 2007 she visited Kostroma, Russia, five times, teaching American literature at Kostroma University in 1995 and giving a paper to a Kostroma University Literature Conference in March 2007. She worked on five exchange visits, as well as cooperative publishing with Kostroma writers and exhibits of their artists. Judy lives and farms in Moncure, N.C., near Jordan Lake.
On August 17, Saturday at 2 p.m. Judy will read at the South Regional Library in Durham from two new books, Baba Summer: Part One, and Bakehouse Doom: The Tenth Penny Weaver Mystery. After a short break, Judy will give a workshop on writing memoir, from 3:15 to 4:30 p.m. there will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions and buy books. A memoir is a form that is quite flexible, and most people can do it fairly easily–tell the story of their lives.
The South Regional Library is at 4505 South Alston Ave, Durham, NC 27713. Contact Teresa May, 919-560-7410. It’s free!
Blue Grosbeak. Photo by Ellen Tinsley, DVM
The Late Years Thirty-Four June 23, 2019
Did the little bird miss me when
I stayed home to avoid the rain?
Then it didn’t rain. He hadn’t
forgotten me and sang robustly
from the razor wire protecting the
dam machinery and later let me
close before he dipped his wings
and flew away. When you move
slowly as I do now, you see more.
You have time to watch the eagles
flying over. Once I saw two, both
carrying fish. The fishermen ignore
them, and the eagles ignore the
fishers. Right at the end, as I
return to my truck, I hear the
Carolina Wren cheering, cheering,
cheering me. I watch for morning
glory leaves, some orange native
ones, some invasive purples,
blues, pinks, and whites–no color
yet but crowding heart-shaped
leaves. Here no one fears them.
In my garden they can wrap
around a tomato plant and squeeze
it to death. Here their bright colors
imitate the sunrise, and no one
minds. They can be as invasive
as they want to be. The stones
and dirt that make this dam are
glad to see them, as am I.
Photo of family of deer crossing shallow water only a few feet from Doc Ellen Tinsley DVM
The Late Years Thirty-Three June 16, 2019
Sometimes, when you have trust in
yourself, other people, the way things are
made, results you never dreamed of
come to pass. You learn that the treasurer
of the coal ash fighters has quit, not the
first to give up hope. Then a name falls
into your mind. She seems like a long
shot, but, impulsively, you ask, and
she agrees to be the treasurer, which
saves our group from dissolution. I
promise to help her and show her
what to do. You were worried about
money, too. Can you pay for your
groceries till the end of the month?
Much less, any new expenses? Then
the bank statement comes. The sales
of your books through Amazon has
brought in over a hundred dollars.
And your son’s dog, Sophie, so
fearful of being abandoned, hunts
for him, waits for him, but then
comes to you, when you call her, to be
petted and comforted. Sometimes
the Universes gives you the kind of
consequences you didn’t dare imagine.
Not deus ex machina, which it feels
like, but fruit falling into your hands
from the trees you took care of. Yet
such fruit can only be called
the Gift of Grace.
