Tag Archives: heritage

Jan5

Bare

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When the paint comes off…

I’ve enjoyed playing with makeup and skin care since I was a teenager. Experimenting with formulas, blending colors, learning how to shade and highlight…all fun techniques which allow me to pretend that I am an artist, and my face is the canvas I alter and, I hope, improve.

God gave me my face and features through my gene pool, and I can look at the pieces of myself and see my forbears in the mirror. There’s the chin that came from my Mamaw Massengill through her family, the Dunns. My dark hair and deep hazel eyes resemble Dad’s coloring. My body type, short, with ample hips and breasts and a tendency to be WAY too large, comes from Granny Williams and her people, the McGills. My pale skin tone is a bit of a mystery, though. I have always been the lightest-complected person in the family, on either side, and in family photos I sometimes appear to glow in the dark!

As a young teen I battled with acne for a time, but with good skin care (and obsessive habits!) the pimple problems never became as serious as Dad’s had been at that age. I guess the Lord figured with the boobs and the bulges to deal with, I didn’t need blemishes for a trifecta! Even now, at age 57, I still get the occasional Humility Pimple. You know the one. It shows up exactly when I need to look good for an occasion, concert, interview, you name it. Cosmetic intervention has saved many photographs over the decades! I’ve written about The Humility Pimple on my weight-loss blog:

http://www.incredibleshrinkingdiva.blogspot.com

But when the paint comes off, it’s still my face that I have to face in the mirror…naked, exposed, and bare. Sometimes that face looks at me, my choices, my relationships, and seems to say, ”You are more blessed than you have any right to be”, or, ”What on Earth possessed you to make such a stupid mistake? YOU KNOW BETTER!”

Sometimes I can barely stand my own reflection. Turning away from the mirror doesn’t change anything; it merely gives me a break from having to face my face. All I can do is strip off the paint, come clean, and try again tomorrow to…put my best face forward. (You knew I had to write that.)

Aug28

Catching Dreams

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Or even remembering what mine used to be…

Last year after returning from a vacation trip to Houston for our niece’s wedding, a friend at work asked me, “Didn’t I hear you say something once about collecting feathers?”  I responded that, yes, I indeed collect feathers.  He mumbled something and shuffled to his desk a few seats over from mine.

A moment later he returned with a gift that surprised and warmed me to my core—a Native American dreamcatcher.  I yelled, “Squeeeeeeee!” And hugged him so hard I think it startled him.  He explained that he donates to a mission/orphanage out west somewhere and they had sent him this beautiful dreamcatcher as an appreciation gift for his contributions.  He wanted me to have it.

I was floored, humbled, and touched by his thoughtfulness to share such a beautiful item with me.  This guy has always been a friend to me, but his exterior can be gruff.  He does not like people to get too close to him.  I have often described him as a “cactus with a marshmallow center”!

The legend of the dreamcatcher is that a person is supposed to hang it over their bed at night.  The woven web in the center catches the sleeper’s dreams, trapping the nightmares while allowing the sweet dreams to flow down the strands to the feathers below, allowing them into the mind of the sleeper.

I have always heard tell that my Mamaw’s Grandma Sayne was full-blooded Cherokee.  I have never been able to verify this, although with technology evolving all the time and so many records available online now, it might be possible to do so.  A first cousin I have never met in person reached out to me on social media hoping to learn more about our family, and he might be the person to unravel this branch of our family tree.  Even a tiny portion of Cherokee in my lineage would make sense of a lot of things about me, how I see my world, and the things I value.  Perhaps confirming such a family history would help me to remember the childlike dreams of my past…those days when I thought anything was possible.

As it is, I look at this sweet gift, a reminder of a friendship from a workplace Shinsky and I no longer share, but memories I will value for a lifetime.  I will pray that both of us will conjure and fulfill new, meaningful and happy dreams moving forward.  I will give thanks for his heritage and for mine, for years of shared work and a future that I cannot yet see.

Oct13

How To Make Hot Tamales

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It’s not about the recipe…

 

Making hot tamales is a process

First, you gather in a loved one’s kitchen

and find the well-worn recipe

Stir up the cornmeal, shortening and hot water

while you laugh about how

the generation before you used to

perform this same ritual

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Next it’s time

to roll the meat for the filling

and laugh some more

because somebody thought

the meat logs were funny

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Then comes the assembly line

of putting the cornmeal mixture

onto the tamale wrapper

sticking the meat log inside

and wrapping it all up

repeating until we’re done

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We congratulate each other

saying “these look like

they turnt out right” and

laughing about how

someone ended up with

cornmeal in her hair

Then it’s time to

boil them all up and

smother them in the chili

that’s been patiently waiting

And savor this

Belly-and-Soul-warming meal

seasoned with

Laughter

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Nov19

Thanks

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Reflections as Thanksgiving approaches

 

 

Gracious God

Lover of my soul

Maker, Sustainer, Redeemer and Friend

I give You

Thanks

 

Thanks that I and mine

we who are so few

have been blessed with so much

while there are so many

who have so little

 

Thanks that we are warm and dry

healthy and fed

and loved

 

Thanks for all those

who have come before us

teaching us how to live

raising us up to know You

before they left us

to go Home

to sit at Your feet

 

Thanks for so great

a cloud of witnesses

who await us there

 

For glimpses of Heaven

here below

 

I give You

Thanks

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Jul22

Family Resemblance

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Who do people really see in me?

Several years ago, I started working on a “family heritage” scrapbook, thinking if would be a fun little distraction. As it turns out, the project has taken on a life of its own. It has proven to be a pleasantly absorbing activity for me, something I can get lost in and hours go by before I know it. It’s nice to have something like that in your life. And it’s fun to play around with the pictures, trying different ways to arrange them on the page, experimenting with varying colors of background papers and embellishments, and deciding what I want to write about the people and memories those photographs hold for me.

Sometimes in looking through old family pictures and papers, likenesses between people become clear. Maybe you were always told that you resembled your father or your aunt, or that your laugh sounded like your mother’s (all true for me). Maybe your parents’ report cards bear a remarkable likeness to your own (your A’s in math and English, or C’s in some other course, mirror one or both of them, perhaps). I had the delight of looking in Dad’s senior yearbook from high school and seeing his picture where his classmates voted him “Most Talented”.Image

And I had the same very good fortune to be voted “Most Talented” when I was a senior in high school some 27 years later.Image

I scanned the pictures from both yearbooks into my computer to build a scrapbook page with them…two generations of family and music, side by side. I worked for a long time to get that page just right, because it means a lot to me to share this with Dad, and I think he will enjoy seeing it and confirming that his love of music was indeed passed on to the next generation.

As a child of God, I wonder about my resemblance to Him. Do people see His character in me, my actions and my words? Do I look and sound like my Father? Is the melody of my life one that is pleasing to His ear?

Who do people really see in me?