Although I was usually quite the sensitive and well-behaved child, on this day I did not realize it was proper for the bouquet to land in the eager palms of a more age-appropriate girl. After someone pointed out my gaffe, I apologized and handed over the blooms to Ginny. She was gracious about the whole thing. Then I asked my mother if I could change out of my bridesmaid’s dress and put on some play clothes.

Having defied tradition so blatantly, I wondered later if I might have jinxed Ginny’s chances of finding a soul mate of her own. I needn’t have worried, though, for she and her husband tied the knot in 1981 and have been married for some 27 years now. I, on the other hand, did not make my way down the aisle until I was 40. Maybe the delay was some sort of cosmic payback for the unladylike bouquet-snatching episode of my youth.

As my family gathered in Birmingham for Martha Grace’s wedding in December, I promised the blushing bride I would be on my best behavior. “My flower stealing days are over,” I assured her. The odds would have been against me anyway, what with my arthritic knees and some 12 girls to overpower. I did, however, muster up the energy and wherewithal to spend an inordinate amount of time on the dance floor with wedding attendants, family members, and perfect strangers, gyrating to “Tighten Up” as if I had been told it would be my last opportunity to do so.

Even today, some three months after the wedding, each night as I lay my head on the pillow I pray I will not wake up to find a video of my antics on You Tube, for more than once I have been accused of dancing “like nobody’s watching.” Thankfully my husband, who is not the gyrating type and instead prefers to stand on the sidelines and smirk, does not know how to work the camera on his cell phone.

When the time came for Martha Grace to toss her own bouquet, it separated into several smaller clusters so multiple girls could catch them…some newfangled invention called a “breakaway bouquet.” My how things have changed since 1973.

I didn’t throw the bouquet at my wedding in 2002. Something about heaving a tightly wound bunch of lilies toward a room full of middle-aged guests—many of whom were shocked even to be witnessing my betrothal—chewing on crudités seemed a bit unseemly at my advanced age. There was no ripping off of the garter, no smushing of cake into the faces of the bride and groom. Just a man and a woman coming together—a bit love weary but still full of hope—vowing to make the best life they could with one another.

Copyright Amy Lyles Wilson, 2008

For some reason, Maybelle’s not sure why, she ate an entire bag of doughnuts yesterday. They were the small ones, mind you, but still. A whole bag. The white powdered kind. Maybelle prefers the ones that taste like they have coconut on them, but those are hard to find when a gal is in the middle of a craving and has only the neighborhood convenience store at her disposal.

Although Maybelle did not eat them in one sitting—more like one sitting (on the floor), one ravaging (at the kitchen counter), and at least one reclining (on the couch)—eat them she did. She had put it off as long as she could, well past noon, but she was craving something soft and sweet, an unfortunate diet buster that’s been sabotaging her more and more frequently these days. Maybe she should ask her gynecologist if this is another disappointing development she can blame on menopause, even though her doctor keeps telling her she’s not in menopause yet.

“You’re not menopausal until a year goes by without a period,” he says as he scoots back from the examining table with a thrust and snaps off his plastic gloves as if he has just won some sort of vaginal duel.

“Even if you have symptoms for some ten years before.” Now he is jotting down notes in Maybelle’s file folder, which seems alarmingly full now that she takes a good, long look at it. Did he just say ten years?

By Maybelle’s calculations, which even Maybelle must admit often skew things in her favor, she’s been at this for two years, easy, by now. Or at least six months, for sure. But regardless of how long it’s been, she knows her body, for goodness’ sakes. She’s been hauling it around for forty-something years, and she senses when one organ or another is out of whack. Like the time in elementary school when she woke up and called out to her mother to say something was wrong with her stomach. Maybelle promptly threw up all over the blue-and-white floral bedspread she had picked out herself not two weeks earlier at JC Penney in the mall. Stomach flu. Or the time more recently when shedoubled over in pain in the Hallmark store while shopping for Halloween cards. “Something’s not right,” she told her husband. Ovarian cysts with an abundance of endometriosis.

Whatever was happening with Maybelle’s body now had to be the worst, if for no other reason than its unpredictable nature. From one hour to the next she did not know if she would be hot or cold, happy or sad, full of energy or down for the count.

“Some women don’t have problems for long,” says her doctor, ushering her from the examining room to the billing office. “Maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones. But be sure to call me if you bleed for more than three weeks in any one month.” Did he just say three weeks?

Copyright 2008, Amy Lyles Wilson 

“Learning is ever in the freshness of its youth, even for the old.” —Aeschylus

On an August day so hot even the television meteorologists had run out of words to describe it—“sweltering” no longer seemed to do the heat justice—I joined throngs of suburban women rushing to our neighborhood Target in search of school supplies. As we lunged for three-ring binders, lined notebooks, and multi-colored highlighters, I might have looked like any other well-intentioned mother readying Junior for his upcoming year in the classroom. The difference in my case is that the coveted school supplies were for me. At 45, I found myself back on campus, this time in pursuit of a master’s degree in theology.

Of course, more than the fashions have changed since I matriculated at Millsaps College and Ole Miss in the 1980s. Now kids today—they all look so young to me…maybe because they are young—have laptops for taking notes and mini-recorders for taping lectures. When they meet for lunch in the cafeteria, they send instant messages to one another while munching on tofu and granola. There are a few other “second career” students like me, meaning “over 30,” and we huddle together in the corner for solidarity, sipping on diet sodas and screaming into our cell phones because we don’t quite yet trust the technology.

At Target, as I threw such antiquated items as marbled composition books and number-two pencils into my shopping cart, I stopped short when I came upon the crayons.

Each fall, when Mother would take me to buy school supplies in preparation for a new school year at Hattie Casey Elementary School, and later at Jackson Academy, my chubby hands would inevitably be drawn to the 64 Crayola crayons, the box with the sharpener built right into the back. Just as predictable was Mother’s reaction: “Put those back, Sweetheart. There are people starving in third-world countries.” Apparently Mother thought 16 crayons were plenty when such havoc was being wreaked on the other side of the world. Who needs burnt sienna when plain old orange will do?

“I never understood that logic,” my father would tell me when I relayed my crayon-deprived existence to him. “Your Grandmother Lyles did that same thing to me, too. We’d be having dinner at her house in Oxford and she’d day, ‘Earl, don’t leave anything on your plate. There are people starving in third-world countries.’ I knew that to be true,” Daddy would say. “And I was sorry about it. But I did not understand how I was supposed to get my leftover lima beans to the people in need.”

Back then, I don’t think I had any idea what a third-world country was. And even if I had known about Bangladesh or Nepal, I feel sure I hadn’t a clue what the hungry people there had to do with my learning to draw stick figures in Hinds County, Mississippi.

“All my friends have this kind,” I would say to her Mother, mooning over the box of 64 and hoping the threat of potential ostracization at school might cause her to see the light and give me what I surely deserved.

“I can’t help that,” Mother would say as she turned toward the notebooks that had been marked down for quick sale. “There will always be someone with more than you,” she’d add, pausing for emphasis. “And someone with less.”

Today I’m a bit better informed about the plight of people in developing countries through my volunteering with Ten Thousand Villages, a network of more than 100 fair-trade stores across North America providing vital, fair income to artisans in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Ten Thousand Villages markets handcrafted home decor and gift items from more than 110 artisan groups in 32 countries.

“Back in my day,” my stepdaughter tells me one afternoon—she’s 21—“they had all our school supplies in sacks for us at the Jitney Fourteen grocery store. Everything you needed was included, depending on what grade you were entering. You just had to pick up your sack and that was that.”

That certainly sounds convenient, but I suspect I would have missed the thrill of the hunt for the most colorful plastic ruler or the shiniest protractor. There is something about sharpened pencils and crisp legal pads that instills me with renewed energy and heightened curiosity. I suspect I will be buying them long after I collect my graduate school diploma.

It’s a good thing Mother wasn’t with me when U went shopping for the most recent round of school supplies. Now Crayola offers erasable crayons, washable crayon pens, and all sorts of other high-tech varieties of waxy hues. There’s even—gasp—a keepsake box of 120 crayons with a free surprise inside.

What would Mother have to say about such unnecessary decadence? Before I left myself imagine the answer, I threw the box of 64 into my cart. What Mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

Copyright 2008, Amy Lyles Wilson 

When Maybelle empties her pockets before putting her clothes into the wash, she sometimes feels as if she is on an archaeological dig. As she turns the material inside out, she never knows what she might find. Usually she can count on at least one receipt from TJ Maax, because she hangs onto the small, smeared pieces of paper for months after they are of any use. Scared she might need to return a 12-dollar pair of pants bought on impulse—Maybelle loves a bargain, even if it is ill-fitting—or the cracked plate she thought would be perfect under the jade plant in the den.

Always there is loose change. Maybelle and her husband, Precious, have taken to putting their extra coins in an old Folger’s coffee can in the kitchen. They call it the “bank of can.” Every so often Precious takes the can to one of those coin-separating machines at the grocery store. The one at Harris Teeter, he says, is less conspicuous than the one at Kroger, as if he might be worried someone they know will see him and think, “Isn’t that Maybelle’s husband? I thought she married money.”

In reality, Maybelle and Precious love the “bank of can,” for it reveals untold treasure for them when they least expect it: dinner at a favorite restaurant, concert tickets for the symphony, payment for overdue library books.

Sometimes in Maybelle’s pockets there will be a tattered tampon, the wrapper half off, the slender sphere gone useless. It disgusts Maybelle when she finds such a remnant, makes her feel inadequate somehow. Surely if Maybelle were a different kind of woman, a more organized gal or a classier broad, this would not happen. Instead of tooling around town with exposed feminine hygiene products in her pockets, she would sport a zippered Prada case like Sally’s—or at least a plastic baggie—to protect her monthly arsenal. Alas, Maybelle is not that kind of woman.

Instead she is the kind of woman who ends up with matchbooks in her pockets even though she doesn’t smoke. Maybelle tried to master the fine art of blowing smoke rings in college when she thought it might make her seem alluring to the handsome fraternity president in the front row of her political science class. Because Maybelle dissolved into fits of coughing every time she lit up, she may be one of the few folks who believes Bill Clinton when he says he “didn’t inhale.”

It was all for naught anyway, for what Maybelle didn’t know at the time was this: the only thing that would have caused Frat Boy to look her way was a penis. And that Maybelle does not carry around in her pocket.

Copyright 2008, Amy Lyles Wilson

In the offbeat film Leaving Normal, two women head West to make new lives for themselves. Their reasons for packing up their possessions and striking out for parts unknown are varied and depressing, including romantic histories that would make my mother blush. Having nothing to lose, they decide to get the heck out of Dodge, or, in this case, Normal, Oklahoma. Or in my case, Jackson.

Our reasons for leaving are dissimilar, but our wanderlust and curiosity are identical. Since graduating from Millsaps in 1983 and Ole Miss in 1986, I have come and gone several times from the familiarity that is Jackson: twice just long enough to hug a few friends and reload the moving van, and once to work for a year.

As I was preparing to leave Jackson the last time, some twelve years ago, I ran into a woman I’d known since we were both in knee socks and colorful barrettes. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, her voice tinged with exasperation. “I thought you were happy here.” I was happy there. I was also happy in Knoxville and Washington. If a frustrated search for happiness were the motivation for moving, I would be worse off than my friend’s tone implied. Moving shouldn’t be about avoiding a situation or erasing a memory. When you pack your belongings, taping the boxes and labeling them ever so carefully, you better be sure the one marked “personal satisfaction” is stacked alongside your grandmother’s deviled egg plate and the petrified corsage from your first prom.

Moving to another city does not mean you are at loose ends. It can mean enjoying the challenge of a new locale, choosing a career that demands relocation, making friends from other parts of the country, thriving on change. Plenty of people who never venture farther than the Delta are less grounded than I am. I’ve just had more addresses.

Transferring to Millsaps College after my freshman year at Ole Miss was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done. Like many of my peers, I hadn’t considered going to college in the same town where I’d lived for eighteen years. So at a certain point in my life, staying in Jackson was the thing to do, the thing that saved me.

Even today, after building a fruitful life for myself in Nashville, occasionally I’m overcome with homesickness, almost immobilized by the need to meet old friends at Nick’s, hear Barry Hannah read at Lemuria, and order a gyro at Keifer’s. And so I come home again. For as much as Jackson has grown in recent years, I can still find myself there, in the hallways of my high school and the church of my father’s funeral, in the faces of old friends and the antics of their children.

Near the end of Leaving Normal, the main character says to her cohort, in distress, “How long am I supposed to keep going?”

“Till you get there, I guess,” comes the response.

“Get where?” Which is, for those of us who care to admit it, the question that really matters.

At times I may not know where I’m going, but I do know where I got my start. And for that, I am grateful.

 Published in the Northside Sun Magazine. Copyright 2006, Amy Lyles Wilson.

If “thank you” is the only prayer you say, that will be enough.—Meister Eckhart

On the dresser in my bedroom, next to the perfume bottles and the black-and-white picture of my mother when she was a sophomore at Ole Miss, I have a pottery jar with the word “blessings” stamped on it. It contains assorted bits of paper on which I occasionally jot down reminders of what matters to me, such as experiences and encounters for which I’m grateful.

These moments of joy—instances when I believe with certainty that there is a rhyme and reason to it all—range from “Quay snoring” to “afternoon on Alison’s porch.” I do not need the details to recapture the feeling of contentment that watching my dog sleep or catching up with a childhood friend afford me. A few words are enough to bring back the scene, and the sentiment. The most recent addition to my collection is “couple dancing in courtyard.”

While eating lunch one day on the Vanderbilt campus, where I attend graduate school, I watched as a young man and woman put down their backpacks on a weathered, wooden bench, walked to the center of the grassy area outside the refectory, and began to dance. They did not seem to speak to one another. Instead, in a graceful display of partnership, they came together and fell away, came together and fell away. All the while, they were smiling. After several minutes, they picked up their belongings and walked to class, perhaps, or the student union. Where they were headed, I have no idea. But I do know what they left behind: a memory.

When I was in high school, I served as an officer of a social organization that held a formal dance each year during the holidays. Wallflower that I was when it came to boys, I didn’t have anyone I was brave enough to invite as my escort.

“Isn’t there a classmate you might ask?” said my mother, eyeing me incredulously.

“No,” I said, looking anywhere but straight into my mother’s eyes. “No one.”

“What about the Mitchell boy, the one you met at that Children of the American Revolution meeting last month?” (Name changed to protect the unsuspecting.)

You’ve got to be kidding me, is what I thought. But what I said was, “I think he’s visiting his grandmother in Paducah.”

“Well, then I guess your father will just have to go with you.”

Bingo.

It might sound pathetic to some, a senior in high school relying on her father to take her to the Jackson Country Club. But Daddy wore his tux, and I got a new dress, and we had fun. I have a snapshot to prove it. As it turns out, there were other parents there, too, so Daddy wasn’t the only person over 50. And a few of the girls’ dates were college boys who thought my father sort of cool. After making sure I had fulfilled my duties to the group, my father asked me to dance.

I have never been all that graceful, and have in fact been labeled more than once as the kind of person who dances “like no one is watching.” But my father led, and I followed, and we came together and fell away, came together and fell away. It was not the last time I would rely on my father to get me out of a jam, but it was one of the most fun.

That young couple in the courtyard did more than make me smile during my lunch hour. They reminded me what life can be about if we let it. It can be about finding joy on a daily basis, even if for a few brief minutes. It can be about noticing the remarkable while you’re eating tuna salad and drinking iced tea. It can be about taking time to remember what matters to us, whatever—and whoever—that may be.

As we enter this holiday season of giving thanks, I suspect my “blessings” jar will be filled with Post-Its and index cards, anything I can get my hands on when I stumble over a bit of wonder or awe. I’ve already got a good start, what with “harvest moon in Memphis” and “trip with Mother” resting near the top.

And who’s to say I won’t uncover some other example of all that’s good and unexpected in life on my way to work tomorrow? Surely there are more fox-trotting couples out there worthy of notice. You just have to know where to look.

Published in Northside Sun Magazine; copyright 2007, Amy Lyles Wilson