Owens at Home

After talking to Daddy last night, I realize that I’m leaving my blog readers in the dark about the momentous developments on the new novel. I know that because Daddy interrogated me shamelessly, and asked outright what was going on? When was the new one coming out? He’s particularly interested in that this one is dedicated to him, and it was my unhappy duty to tell him the truth, which is: not soon.

The fact of the matter is that the new novel still isn’t where it should be. It’s good enough for my agent and husband to love, but in the big picture, that is rarely good enough. After turning it over in my head a few weeks, I’ve decided that I cannot polish one more floor or wash one more window and remain in good mental health, and regretfully informed Joy (agent) that I have to have something to work on this summer, and have no inclination to start another book. Therefore, the new book (working title: When The Chickens Came Home to Roost) is my summer project – which means it won’t even go on the market till late August, and even if it sells on the second day (which Claybird did) won’t be on the shelves till, say, 2006 or 2007.

I know this is a blow to the few people who I haven’t yet harassed into reading it in draft, but there it is. In the meanwhile, I will try and come up with a Recommended Reading list of good books that will keep you busy for the next two years till my own fiction can be read. I’ll call it Janis’ Book Club, and with luck, it will become as influential in the writing world as Oprah's Bookclub. Whenever my own next book comes out, it will automatically be that month’s selection, which is shady and manipulative of me, but hey: welcome to the book bidnis.

I don’t have a premier book in mind yet, but give me time. I have to speak this weekend in Jacksonville and that will take up a good bit of mental space till then. But on Monday, I’ll make my grand announcement and commentary on why I picked it. My taste is uninformed and eclectic, so brace yourself.

Oh, and my webmaster genius, Val, wants to update and redo the website this summer. She's into high-tech and I'm into country, so we've settled on a style that can be called High-Tech Hillbilly. On new site, I can post pictures, which will be fun. You won't have to imagine in your mind what my daddy or my oak trees or baby chicks actually look like, but will have pictural evidence to help you along.

I am celebrating a belated Easter on my blog by printing, in toto, a sermon written and preached by the Dr. Reverend Dennis Campbell, lately of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock, Arkansas. That’s his official title, though beneath the pomp of a doctorate, he’s just our own Dennis-Campbell (pronounced as one word) – a good old Arkansas boy who used to attend our church during the summer, when he came down and stayed with his aunt in Florida. During those summers, he was a running buddy of my older brothers, and entertained all and sundry with mythic tales of his life there in Trumann, Arkansas – stories in which his best friend, Wendel-Owens, was prominently mentioned. When I was nineteen, Dennis offered to set me up on a blind date with that same Wendel-Owens, and since I was, even then, a sucker for mythic tales, I agreed, and so met my future husband, who I married four months later (and recently celebrated my 25th year along side.)

So I owe old Dent, who long ago abandoned the Assemblies of God to become an Episcopal priest (“Right around the corner from Popism,” our preacher commented at the time) and now lives in Little Rock with a stunning wife and four magnificent children. He emailed me last week when he was working on his Easter Sermon and asked for Resurrection imagery, and sent me a copy of the sermon itself on Monday – a doggone good one, I think, proving once and for all that he is thriving in the Spirit, still.

+Easter, 2005

Growing up in Trumann, Arkansas, I remember reaching a point of insufferable curiosity when I finally got to the place of asking my grandfather a question that I just didn’t have the nerve to ask anyone else. I was about eight and I’d noticed that we didn’t bury people in Trumann, we took them to Jonesboro, which was over Crowley’s ridge. We’d buried my father there a year before. Now, I knew that we always went to Jonesboro or Memphis to do our major shopping but I couldn’t figure out why we’d go there to bury people. We had a radio station, a high school, a local newspaper; we couldn’t have a local cemetery? So I asked him “Grandpa, why do we bury people in Jonesboro instead of Trumann?” And he said, “Well son, the land is too low. If we buried people here they’d float away.” Immediately and forever thereafter, I saw this image of caskets floating down Main Street. Ghastly.

Ghastly. If it were not for two thousand years of Christian tradition, ghastly would be our response to the Gospel today. Ghastly, scandalous, tacky -- take your pick. But hearing that Gospel backwards through two thousand years, the image of an empty tomb for us brings forth images of joyous celebration, Easter egg hunts, new clothes, chocolate bunnies, the Arkansas Brass, and resurrection; nothing ghastly there. But if we were those who lived at that time either Jew or Greek, we would have been horrified by this scene. The Greeks had a very clear idea about death, they entertained the idea that maybe something continued but it would be in a vague shadow world set apart, with very clear boundaries, and no one would be making excursions back here. And even after some Jews developed the concept of an afterlife, they saw that occurring all at once for everyone in the end time. In the Gospel of Matthew, after the crucifixion we are told that people rose from their graves and took a little jaunt through town, and this was not well received, there was no joy in seeing one’s relatives return from the grave, it created an earthquake in terms of how people understood the universe. Scary and ghastly.

But that’s what we have in the Gospel today. An empty tomb. Now I’m sure that if our friend Alf Williams, faithful Junior Warden, had been there that day in charge of the Jerusalem Tomb Society, Alf would have been sweating bullets. Empty tombs, someone is going to start asking for refunds.

In John’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene returns to the grave, the tomb where the body of Jesus had been laid to rest. It is early morning, early enough to be dark. The sun has not risen, it is dark and damp and cold. She retraces her steps to the place and as she nears the spot she is horrified to see that the stone has been removed from the tomb and it appears to be empty. Who among us would think of anything else but vandals; someone has desecrated this grave; someone has stolen the body of Jesus. She came in grief and is now stricken with fear and confusion. So she goes to the disciples with the biggest hearts, Peter and John. She tells them what she’s found and they tear out of there running to the tomb, can’t get there soon enough, surely after everything else, this can’t be true, this can’t have happened. John gets there first and can’t even go in. He simply stands at the opening and peers into the empty tomb. Then Peter arrives, never afraid of being the first one, he enters and sees the grave clothes on the floor. Finally, John enters and he sees the grave clothes that covered Jesus’ body and the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head, and he knows that this is not the work of grave robbers. He doesn’t exactly know what has happened but he knows somehow Jesus has defeated death. He doesn’t understand what is going on but he believes. They too are fearful and confused, the empty tomb does not hold a final answer, so they simply go home.

Mary is left there at the tomb, at this ugly, terrible scene. Just emptiness. I suppose her heart felt emptier than the tomb. And so she sits down and just has a good cry. None of this had turned out the way she thought it was going to be. It was a short span from waving palms to the cross to an empty tomb. So she weeps and feels loss and fear and confusion. Good Friday is still alive and well for Mary. But then she stands and leans down to peer into the tomb one last time just to make sure, and she is astounded to see two angels sitting where they had left Jesus’ body the day before. One is sitting at the head and the other at the foot.

They say, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they’ve put him.”

You see, Mary just wanted to put the pieces back where they belong so they could move on and end this sad experience. And then suddenly, she feels something, someone behind here and a voice says, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it that you’re looking for?”

Mary thinks this guy is the gardener, and she pleads with him to tell her where he’s put the body of Jesus. But he says, “Mary.” And that’s all it took. The shepherd knows her name and she knows the voice of the shepherd. She says: “Rabboni.”

She is the first to witness the resurrected Jesus Christ. She is the first disciple to give witness to not just an empty tomb, but that Jesus was alive, different, but alive.

Jesus tells her to go tell his brothers, “tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” God became human in Jesus Christ; Jesus lived, suffered, and died. And then he is resurrected and ascends, returns to the Father, our Father, ascends to God, our God. “I have seen the Lord.”

A couple of days ago, I was pondering this sermon, wondering what I might say that would be new. There is nothing new under the sun, especially when it comes to Easter. I emailed a friend of mine, a woman named Janis Owens. She is a Southern writer who lives in Florida. I hoped she might give me an image, something that communicated resurrection in a new way. She said: “Look to the live oak, my friend. You know, I live in a grove of them, and am staring at four dozen as I write. Right now, they’re all still winter white and bare, with hardly any leaves, looking dead as doornails unless you closely look at the tips and see the swelling buds. Soon, and practically overnight, they will burst into beautiful light green leaf – a sight to behold and as good an image of resurrection as I can think. Goes from dead to life so quickly, and is a heck of a tree anyway – the most efficient for soaking up water in the worse drought and returning it to the heavens – a whole little factory beneath its spreading canopy that keeps the woods damp and happy and our whole little ecosystem functioning. Good metaphor of salt and light, what they contribute.”

Many of you here today may feel like that sprawling live oak tree; winter white and bare, with hardly any leaves, looking and feeling dead as doornails. But the news of Easter morning is “I have seen the Lord, and he is alive.” And because of that so are you, bursting into life overnight.

So take heart and rejoice and remember these words that St. Chrystostom said sixteen hundred years ago on Easter Sunday:

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!
Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
For Christ having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. AMEN!

We had our usual eat-a-thon of a holiday yesterday for Easter, and will be living off the leftovers for many days to come. I’d been exhibiting great will-power in not eating any of our chocolate eggs and bunnies, and even (mostly) stayed clear of the jelly-beans.

In short, I was living a life of respectable aestheticism till about an hour ago, when I was vacuuming the living room and came upon a chocolate Milky-Way egg on the coffee table. I'm doing Laurel Mellin's Solution workshop -- primiarily a weight-loss group -- where mindless eating is the Great Sin, and had I thought it over, I might have fled temptation and let the little egg sit there undisturbed. But old habits die hard, and as soon as I saw it, I ate it without pause, like one of our little chickens do when they come upon a piece of corn: just peck and gulp and its gone, in a purely primal reaction: I see chocolate, I eat chocolate. I wear a bigger dress size than I used to.

It's another one of those Southern Circles of Life.

We are right on the brink of spring here in Newberry – the oaks just budding, and the dogwoods and azaleas in full glory. Wendel and I sat out on the porch late yesterday evening before the storm and it was nearly perfect weather – cool and breezy, except for the pollen that had him sneezing twice a minute, the whole time we talked. The girls have invested in ten chickens -- yet little chicks -- and two ducks. The chickens were the planned purchase, but when they saw the ducks at the feed store, they were too adorable to pass up. They take them for a swim in the tub at night and they provide a lot of entertainment -- bobbing in the water and now that they're a week old, diving down to feed on the bottom as ducks do. We plan to build them their own little pond like the ones Charlie builds on Ground Force, but Wendel and Abby are disputing where it will be placed. She wants it close to the house. He wants it in the field.

I’m at the end of my speaking schedule – went to Brunswick last weekend and stayed at the most ornate B&B in the southeast – full of flamingos and four-poster beds, and a four-tiered fountain with a goldfish named Lorenzo. Em went with me and as we lay down to sleep Saturday night beneath the most elaborate light fixture I've ever laid eyes on, I told her I knew what it was like to spend the night in a New Orleans bordello.

A week from Friday (April 2nd) I speak at Much Ado About Books in Jacksonville at Prime Osborne, and after that, I don’t speak till September. Since I’m mostly finished with current draft of the new book, I’m working around the house every day, doing all the little jobs I never get around to doing when I'm working on a book – rug cleaning and floor polishing and etc. Our house never looks very unkempt (aside from the girl’s bathroom) but I never run out of little chores – one right after another. At this rate, I shall soon be casting around for a new novel to escape the drudgery. Suggestions welcomed.

I am still dealing with a small error in judgment I made on Friday night, when I let my family talk me into watching Red Dragon.

They had to beg because I’m not much of a movie fan and never see anything they see, and they have just a pathetic hope that one day I’ll join them in the ranks of the Normal and start going to the movies like everyone else. Usually I creatively wiggle out of all offers, but since I’ve got some spare time on my hands, I thought I'd give it a go, as it was free on TNT, and edited of the most gruesome scenes. Wendel told me that it was much milder than the sequel, Silence of the Lambs -- and only Isabel warned me that maybe I shouldn’t watch the first half-hour, when the murders took place, but jump in at the 2/3rd point. That way, I’d get the thrill without the gore.

Trusting soul that I am, I agreed and took the dogs on their evening stroll, then came in about forty minutes into it. Iz had already seen it on cable and was there to act as my guide, telling me who killed who and why; my own questions limited to things like: “He killed the whole family, or just the dog? Why’d he kill the dog?”

Iz explained it all; was quite forgiving the old Red Dragon – who had apparently butchered several happy families while I was out walking the dogs. Sitting there on the couch wrapped in a microfiber throw, she preached a straight Determinist line: about how mean his grandmother had been to him and how bad childhoods breed monsters, etc.

I was more worried with inadvertently seeing something that would keep me up that night and at regular five-minute intervals, announced things like: “What is the next nasty scene that I can’t stand to watch?” or “Does it get any worse than this?” or “If he ends up killing the blind chick I’m not gonna speak to any of you for the rest of the weekend.”

And so we continued to the end, with me making constant comments to the actors – pieces of sage advice. To Ralph Fiennes (when he is seeking deliverance and eats the poster): “Son, forgit thet. You need to find you a priest and get exorcised.” And to Edward Norton, when he sends his son inside the empty house to get s’mores at the end, “Oh, shug – why d’you want to do thet?” and so on, to the bloody end – which I prophesized long beforehand.

Iz was patient with me. She knows that the fine line of reality and cinema isn’t so hard and fast in my head, and at the end, only stood and stretched and said in a voice of firm conviction: “Well, it was a good movie,” the emphasis on the was.

As in: before I watched it with my mother.

I have finally gotten my manuscript off to my agent this week and am feeling the usual little dip that comes when you let a book go. Some writers liken it to selling a child, but I think it has more to do with the fact that for the last five months -- since roughly hurricane season -- I've been emersed in writing, putting in many hours every day. Even when I technically wasn't writing, I was thinking about writing, turning the plot over in my head and thinking what needed to be cut or added.

Now, suddenly, I have nothing to do -- a sensation I find far from agreeable. So far this weekend, I've cleaned out closets and waxed floors and today even crawled under the stairs and cleaned out the vents -- which is a fairly good sign that I'm at the end of my domestic rope. I've also tried to catch up with old friends, and had lunch with two old pals on Friday. Talking to them was a strange sensation, as if I'd been on a tour abroad for a couple of years and had just returned home.

I figure this is the way that Rip Van Winkle felt when he woke up -- that the world turned without him for a while there. I just need to adjust my footing to the new pace.

This is what life in North Florida is like in early March: when I woke up this morning, I thought we’d had another cold snap, as it was chilly in the upstairs bedroom. I put on a winter robe and went about my business. When I came downstairs, it was too hot for the robe. I thought it’d warmed up quickly, then realized that Wendel had turned on the air conditioner upstairs, while the heat was on downstairs. Both pumping at the same time.

Wonder what Clay Electric will make of that...