CHAPTER 60…or My Year of Self Discovery

by Carol Dumas

underwear is too tight and I’m about to eat a jellied donut. My jowls have

dropped or are drooping at least as I sit and write this and being here on my

patio beside this turquoise pool is the best joy in my day or week mostly as I

seem only to indulge myself on the weekends.

Writing on

the patio has been a slow evolution for me. My creative energy became alive out

here over a year or so ago when Rusty was home from California where he works as a storyboard artist in Hollywood.

His dream and focus is to direct the movies that he has researched stories for

and a friend recommended that he meet Frank Thurmond.

Frank was

teaching high school English in our town and had recently written a movie

script called the $15,000 Slide. A

meeting took place where the script changed hands and we promptly abducted

Rusty up into the mountains of North Carolina to visit his sister. And I began reading

“the Slide” out loud.

The

creative juices were flowing so deep in that vehicle that it is a wonder we

didn’t drown. The intensity of thought

and ideas that came together in that short space of 6 hours spread throughout

the visit and carried us home again. It carried us though many miles and

meetings with Frank on the patio by the pool, in the restaurants over

margaritas and often again over the phone and internet as time moved on and

Rusty and Frank moved on to L.A. too.

So inspired

was I with this magical new tool I’d found, this creative jungle in which my

son inhabited that Ray and I started an animated movie script called “Almost

Eden” based on the flowers and gardeners that compete in the Royal Chelsea

Horticultural Show every year in England, the most prestigious floral show in

all the world.

Ray and I

would float about the pool on those hot and humid South Georgia days and give personal biography’s to each flower in the

yard. Watering the plants with Manny, Rays big grey cat along side him, gave

Ray a unique insight into the various personalities of the plants that were so

thirsty each day. Each name boasted an

identity we’d embrace; Johnnie-Jump-ups, Black eyed Susan’s, Lily of the

Valley, Bearded Iris and others grew with excitement in my head and imagination

and I couldn’t stop myself from writing it all down. The little garden story

was growing into something on it’s own it seemed and I was just the

typist.

With each

thought I’d write, each character plant grew and expanded so much that we’d try

and figure out which Hollywood actor or

actress would play each part. Now I knew what each plant would sound like, and

I was brimming with excitement!

CHAPTER 60- Continued .2

Their

conversations were swirling through my head. I heard Joan the Crabapple tree

complaining of Beech wood aging because of her “drooping little apples”, a bit

like my jowls, and I’d heard Vinny the vine and “theDonald, of Trump et al,

Inc.” converse with Zelda Zucchini over housing problems and poor lonesome

Vari-Ivy stuck there in a garden she didn’t chose.

Was her

transplanting dilemma my own? Were her words of wishing to be someplace else,

growing into something else, my own? As I reflect back on this it perhaps was

more Vinny the Grapevine that had already born it’s fruit and had wedged itself

into a comfortable crack and was growing with “to tight” problems also.

Were “the

Weeds” with their thorns destroying my old life with petty squabbles over

boundary lines and the who’s who standing in the family and neighborhood?

Disputes that were forcing me out of my fragile and unkempt existence here on

St. Simons in spite of the fact that my work was not completed? How could I

play?

This

“writing thing” creating in me such joy and happiness that it must be play,

right? If not, then it is work…and others

work at it…their called “Writers”! And I think I’d like to be one…But, I

ask…How do you get to be one? Not by just writing…surely?

So I study and read, buy books and research, talk to acquaintances

and I think very hard.

And then my

little dog Riley gets sick. I am so

caught up in emotional strife and pain that again I “write” my way though it.

My “Tribute to Riley” is my battle cry, my moment to stand and be counted as a

writer. I sent it out there to the Veterinary hospital staff that tried so hard

to help him live just one more day, one more week and finally one more month.

They all cried with me, through my words as I’d heard later.

So now I

keep writing, it’s what my books say to do,”Just Write”. Soon you’ll be better

at it they say. “Keep a journal-one per month”, they tell me, “20 to 30 minutes

a day, same time each day” Okay, okay,

I’m writing…see me writing?

Then they

want me to go back and read what I wrote, analyze it and read it out loud to

someone else to judge the good and bad parts, but I’m afraid. All I see as I

leaf through my pages is that I worry ALL THE TIME and that I don’t sleep very

well. A few other subjects pop in from time to time, Ray is my favorite; he is

my lover, my soul mate- as they say my strongest supporter and best friend. He

is teacher, husband and frustrated mate on this 41 year journey we’ve been

taking. If he’ll still have me, we will continue forward along this path of

confusion and self discovery.

Devilishly Good - BLACK BEAN SOUP

This is Halloween fun if served with Sour Cream Dollop “Ghosts” and Pumpkin Bread. All of it can be made ahead and frozen so you can simply thaw, slice, reheat and serve. Enjoy!

BLACK BEAN SOUP

2 Cups Black Beans 2 Quarts water

1 Ham Bone 2 Tbs. Chopped Onions

2 ribs Celery 1 teas. Salt

½ teas. Pepper ¼ teas. Dry Mustard

4 Tbs. Butter 1 ½ Tbs. Flour

3 Tbs. Sherry 1/2teas. Lemon Juice or Lemon Slice

Optional: Sour Cream

Soak beans overnight. Drain. Add to water and ham bone. Cook onion in 2 tablespoons (one half) of butter. Add onion and celery to beans and cover. Simmer three to four hours until beans are soft. Put through fine strainer for a smooth soup. Re-heat to boiling; add salt pepper, mustard and remaining butter and flour. Add sherry when ready to serve and garnish with lemon juice/slice and/or sour cream. Serves 8-10.

NOTES: I love to make soup, my Mother loved to make soup, and I can’t believe that more people don’t make steaming bowls of great food like this more often! This recipe calls for a ham bone, and I love to cook with ham bones, but it doesn’t say “meaty”. These old cooks didn’t have meat left over and I’m sure they were “makin’ do” with what WAS leftover, the bones! But, there’s flavor in those bones…

I’ll buy a $5.00 shank potion ham bone from “the Honey Baked Ham Company” eat at least one meal and some sandwiches from it and then make this soup. There is still plenty of meat left “in little slices” for my soup to look good with out straining it. I also chop the celery and onions in sizes that will make my soup “look” good. Serve this with a dollop of sour cream alongside the lemon slice garnish that really adds to this excellent soup, so don’t forget the lemon.

People in the South and Caribbean cook with black beans a lot, so never having had them as a Yankee I’ve really enjoyed getting acquainted with them. I’ll try them everywhere their served, but this soup is the VERY best I’ve tasted.

I have a heavy old aluminum “soup kettle” pot with a heavy old lid that belonged to my husband’s grandmother that I love to use for anything I cook that has great quantities or needs a long cooking time. With all this high tech research on everything I use, I don’t know if it’s still “good” for me or not and I don’t really care. It’s cooked up batches of soups and stews, pints and pints of jams and jellies, ”canned” quarts and quarts of New England garden vegetables and pickles for winter’s storage and that is just while I’ve had it in my possession. One can only imagine all the family members it has fed throughout the years of good attempts made in that old pot.

-2-

While I was working at the Yum Yum Shop in South Georgia, I’d brought my old Yankee cook pot along to help me make my fortune, and the young dishwasher broke off the wooden knob lid handle when he let it slip out of his grip and on to the floor. Smash went the handle and smash went my heart when I realized I’d mistreated it. My old cooking friend was damaged and it’s remaining little bent over stub would cause me grief each time I use it. My penance paid, for leaving it in someone’s immature hands. The excitement of my OVER reaction scared the poor dishwasher kid and of course, he never understood what I’d gotten so upset about, as it was just an old cook pot anyway, but I’ll never get over it. I messed it up when it was MY turn!

I guess my kids will prefer to put my ashes in it and bury it along with me rather than fight with the “ole lid handle that Mother broke” problem after they peel it out of my cold dead fingers when I go, but that will be Okay too. When I get to where I’m going I’m probably going to find some old bones and make some “Devilishly Good Skeleton Soup”! Enjoy.

Carol Dumas

229 Alabama Street

St. Simons Island, Ga. 31522

912 634-0458 Fax

912 258-6663 cell