Clay County Alabama - Linda Rochester's Observations on her life in Clay County
Springtime in Ashland
When I take outsiders on a tour of Clay County, they invariably comment that they can see why I love it so. I do love the place with its rolling green shades and tones. Each area of the county has a different lay of the land as it rises and falls in a flow at the base of the Appalachian chain: the barrier that separates us from the world. Outside of my window, that's what I see, Cheaha Mountain, a survivor of the ice age and its graceful thaw into greens and browns laced with white Queen Annes and speckled with black-eyed Susans, crept myrtles, and wild running roses. An occasional zinnia bed in a garden, daffodils in the early spring, and fields of purple, pink and yellow, even the weeds put on a show! We are too high up for moss-drenched trees, but the magnolias bloom proud. Oaks and maples are plentiful making October an awaited event. The fruits in full bloom strain their hosts, like our children bend us to a near breaking point that seldom occurs but threatens the trunk year after year, scorching summer after summer, dreading the moment when the fruits depart into a basket or onto the ground, the fall cushioned by a pad of green carpet that turns yellow in want of water then darkens only when the cloud-filled sky bursts into tears.
This doesn't include the places where people, both living and departed, leave tracks and traces of who they were to this world, to others, to me. I see that as well in greens and browns with an occasional dab of color, a spot, a smear, a blemish, a stain. All that scurrying about by people. All that moving and living and running and dying. If you remove the element of time, then you see all those faces at once, never communicating though. You see them looking outward away from each other and those they loved or wanted to love or never knew. You can never bring all those people together, no matter how much you want it or how hard you try. And you can't recreate them once they are gone. They are as gone as the ice and snow, last year's zinnia bed, and yesterday's fried chicken / biscuit and red-eyed gravy dinner.
Lineville Water Tower
The structures that our ancestors left us are seared into our memories: the Courthouse in Ashland, the water tower in Lineville, the theatre, the schools, the art shop, the towns. All of them are to some degree worn, but still beautiful in their own weird ways. And they have been spruced up in spots by artists and groups and those who want to see what is valuable survive and thrive: the past and future come together like hands praying when vision, energy, and good-will enjoin.
And then there are the Churches. How do I explain my feelings when I let my voice loose in my personal Holy of Holies: the sanctuary of the First United Methodist Church? My voice reaches out to the stained glass windows, it rests upon the rafters and drifts down the halls, around corners, and up into the belfry. I beg my children's choir to sing out loud, knowing that the voice is going to be a powerful tool. That it is as big as the mountain outside and the ramifications of using or not will travel and land for good or evil into a distant, but certain, future. The children doubt me, silly children. They believe their friends before they believe me. If you remove the element of time, then you can hear their voices in the Church Sanctuary, and the ones that came before, and before. They can't hear each other, but you can hear them. They stand out amid the changes, the disasters, the celebrations.
Finally, it would be thoughtless and rude not to mention the good deeds of the people, the bridal teas, the covered-dish dinners, food for grieving families, and all of the manifestations of a generous spirit that abound here. Turnip greens from someone's garden, an extra hand when you need something moved. And when disaster hits, Clay County tops them all. When a house burns, people give until they hurt. When you are sick, Churches pray. And when you take a fall, they are ready and present to pick up the pieces.
Still, this is only part of the story. This is not the story that haunts you, that you revise in your sleep or remember on your death bed. This is the fairy tale, but it is not the part that grounds you or even binds you to it both as a participant and a bystander. The creeping greens and browns with their moods and echoes and shadows have disappointed your eyes, your spirit, your mind. You thought about what went on outside: the tall buildings and music, the jobs, and opportunities. You thought about hot tea parties and blankets of snow and the taste of salt in a breeze.
It is not the failure of this place to live up to other places though: it is the failure of the place to live up to itself. Our history is fraught with exclusion and violence. An Indian massacre occurred here just before our ancestors filed in actually stealing the land from the Indians, without a thought that they were stealing. Not to mention the elephant in the closet: our history of racial tension and exclusion. That story ranges from embarrassment to nightmare. And then there are the secret evils, ranging from downright abuse on one end to a willingness to tolerate things that just shouldn't be tolerated. Failure to take a stand is in surely in our genes. Our story is one of stifled voice.
Maybe this is what makes my feeling for this place a love story after all. The world is full of war and murder and sorrow for many if not all people of all ages. What has Clay County done to disappoint a lover? Not a whole lot is the answer, if you consider all times and places, and that is what makes the story one big tragedy. It is the almost, the near-miss, the just about quality that promises then dashes that promise almost every time, and that kills you. That kills me.
Still, it is the hope that lives here, that comes with an early spring and lives through the summer, dies late in the fall, that lives through a short winter, is resurrected in an early spring, year in and year out, and that process continues to hold one in place. Me in place. Or maybe it is my own actions now that I'm older. Maybe now I think that I might step into the seasons. That I might be the hand that reaches out to remove the thistle from the waving grass. That I might hold on to the past with one hand and reject the evils with the other. That I might use my voice to rattle the rafters. That I might fight and sing and laugh and speak. That instead of rolling along the way of the hills and mountains, I might dig into the ground and trouble the soil. That I might be a worrisome lover of the place that holds me in checkmate. It must want something of me to hold me here. I must want something of it to stay.
That's why I have named this page A Love Affair with Place. I have not taken one picture but I have seen the camera and traveled with the photographer. My eye has taken the shot and my fingers type out the scene. What were we looking for as we traveled this land? We were looking for what was good. If we could find it in one place, then maybe this time . . .
