I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

storytelling for truth lovers

  • I don’t want another dog or another husband


     

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    My mother Selma (left) and my Aunt Lucille

    in their younger days

    My mom was relatively infamous in our family for her conversations which she uttered more like pronouncements than regular chit-chat. You know, the kind of awkward things that made everyone uncomfortable, and I do mean everyone because her speaking voice was louder than most. She had no indoor voice.

    For example, “I wish all those gay people would go back in the closet. I’d slam the door on them myself,” was a personal favorite she occasionally pulled out of abstract thin air with absolutely no relevance to what anyone else was saying. Since all my family members recognized I was a lesbian except her, that tended to be a real deal-breaker for further small talk. People coughed or mumbled something inane as they melted away from her at family gatherings. My dad’s sister Lucille could handle my mother better than anyone with just a quiet, “Now, Selma…”

    As the years went by, my mother developed more mantras that became her touchstones which I now realize she needed in her life of quiet desperation as she slipped away from herself behind the barricade of dementia that must have made her so afraid.

    “I don’t want another dog or another husband,” was one of her select quotes in the years after her second husband died of leukemia. She did have many dogs in her 85 years – but she had been no Elizabeth Taylor husband collector – only two for her.

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    Mom and her last dog Alex

    Perhaps the mantra that affected me most – even more than her preference for gay people in the closet – was, “I am never lonely, and I am never bored.” This was truly an alternative fact for her because, of course, she was both.

    My maternal grandmother had been plagued with depression in the 1960s, and my mom had been responsible for managing her treatment options. I was a teenager at the time, but I have vivid memories of my mother’s carrying my grandmother to an array of doctors, clinics and hospitals before finally bringing her home to live with my parents. Mental illness in the 1960s wasn’t pretty or easy to deal with.

    Apparently some doctor somewhere told Mom her mother needed more to do since she wasn’t working anymore. Mom tried to interest her in countless books, recipes, puzzles and finally gave her a needlepoint sewing kit to make an elaborate tablecloth and 8 napkins which, as I recall, she ended up finishing herself when my grandmother was unable to concentrate on it.

    “I am never lonely, and I am never bored,” was Mom’s final defense against an enemy she didn’t know she had and one which may or may not have had any connection to the enemy which stalked my grandmother. I’ll never know for sure because she forgot all of her mantras in the last four years I was with her – even the one about where the gay people belonged.

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  • Despite Countless Warnings, I…


    …browsed through the AOL news this morning. I know, I know. My friend Dick Hubbard is shaking his head in dismay if he is reading this right now. “Please don’t read the AOL news,” he’s warned me over and over again. “You’ll be sorry.”

    Ha, ha, ha, said I to myself. What could happen on a Sunday morning that would either (a) bewilder me (b) mildly annoy me or (c) raise the level of my blood pressure which has been WAY too high recently. Thank goodness for my wellness exam that uncovered my old friend Hypertension who my doctor reminded me was the Silent Killer. More meds, please. Thank you very much.

    When I have distractions like the Australian Open for two weeks or the current Gamecock men’s and women’s basketball season or the Gilmore Girls original series on Netflix with Pretty every night or my cyberspace Words with Friends, Yushino and Word Bubbles or God forbid, I actually read a book or even more unlikely, work on my new short story which has so many threads I can’t figure out how to put Humpty Dumpty together again or who shot who which for a mystery is troubling – I really have no time to read the AOL news.

    Today, as I was hopelessly bored while I waited for Pretty to get up and get dressed for our brunch with Pretty Too and Pretty Too+ later this morning, I mistakenly read a few stories in the news and found a few that piqued my interest and, sadly, fit my categories. Sigh.

    (a) Bewildering – HGTV Flip or Flop stars Christina El Moussa and Tarek El Moussa who are apparently in the process of a divorce were together at an investment seminar in Las Vegas.

    This was bewildering to me since the only reason I even know who these people are is because I watch them at my orthopedist’s office for the two hours I wait to see him but I had no idea they were getting a divorce. I also never know whether to flip or flop.

    (a-1) More and more Texans are doing “doomsday digging” – the survivalist bunker business is booming these days. Seriously? The mind races with underground shelters fighting for territory with moles that are frantically fleeing to Mexico.

    (b) Truly annoying – Kellyanne Conway has hired a chief of staff. I really don’t know what to think about that and the fact that my tax dollars are paying for her to have a chief of staff. What good can come of this? Hm…perhaps the chief of staff can help to connect her mouth to her brain which would be a monumental achievement. I heard Ivanka Trump will be designing the wardrobe for Kellyanne’s new hire.

    (b-1) The foods for a better sex life are, unfortunately, not in my basic food groups; sugar, the WORST food in the world to eat if you want any kind of good health, IS, unfortunately, my basic food group.

    (c) The Trump cabinet and its $1 trillion-dollar connection to Exxon – now that raises my blood pressure, I’m sure.

    Enough of this. Pretty is up and ready to go to brunch, thank goodness. And tomorrow the Lady Gamecocks play the number one team in the nation, UCONN.  I will avoid the news like the plague this week and faithfully take my lisinopril every day. Can’t say the same about avoiding sugar.

    Oh, well. You can’t have everything.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

  • Which Anniversary to Celebrate?


    Sixteen years ago today I stepped onto an airplane with Pretty to begin a spontaneous first trip to Cancun, Mexico. I had no way of knowing the day would be the beginning of the most important adventure of my life because at that moment I was more nervous than I possibly had ever been in my previous fifty-four years. Petrified.

    First of all, I never did anything spur-of-the-moment and this trip had been planned for exactly two days. Secondly, I had taken off work days during the week to make the trip – I rarely took days off from work. And third, I wanted to impress Pretty with my spontaneity and reckless abandon because I thought I needed all the help I could get to change our fledgling romance into a full-bloomed happening.

    As we landed in Atlanta in the early morning, I was disappointed to see the airport bar didn’t open until 9 o’clock, but I made sure we waited in chairs that faced the bar so that I would be the first person to race in for a screwdriver when the gate was raised. I needed fortifying.

    When we touched down in Cancun, I had been fortified again by the stewardess who served spirits in the air; my spirits were high by the time we landed. Pretty, on the other hand, remained loyal to her Diet Cokes.

    The Cancun trip was memorable for more reasons than I can discuss in this PG blog, but one of Pretty’s favorite stories from the trip was our floating in an inner tube down a section of river beside one of the tourist stops we made on a guided tour outside Cancun. Once again, I had been fortified by tequila shots I happily shared with our waiter at lunch and agreed to dash over to wait in line for our turn to hop into a shiny black inner tube with Pretty to join scores of other fun-loving gringos enjoying the sun as they leisurely hand-paddled their make-believe boats down the beautiful, calm river.

    Unfortunately, I had forgotten to mention my water phobia to Pretty who was quite taken aback when I sat frozen on the top of the tube and was unable to help paddle it. The tequila shots were no match for my fear of falling out of the tube into the river.

    Gone was any more pretense of the reckless adventurer – my true sober self revealed itself to Pretty when she had to jump out of the tube and swim to shore – pulling the tube and me along with her. She always laughs when she tells this story.

    We both loved the trip, and we both agree it was one of the most fun times we’ve had. It was the beginning of an amazing life that continues to produce laughter on a daily basis. We are lucky, and we know it.

    So this is an anniversary we can celebrate today, but we will also celebrate our first anniversary on April 24th, the day we legally married in 2016.

    Why not celebrate both?

    Thank you, Pretty. Where you lead, I will follow…if you need me to be with you, I will be there.

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    having dinner in Cancun – February 09, 2001

     

  • The First Census – North Carolina – 1790


    Life with Pretty is always an adventure with few dull moments. For example, we just spent at least five minutes downstairs hollering at each other about whether I had used her gift certificate she gave me for Christmas for a free massage with our friend Meghan or not, and she must be right… because she must be right, which is a family trait on her daddy’s side.  All of this heated discussion started when I found a Subway gift card I had given her for Christmas in the envelope with the massage certificates. It was downhill from there.

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    Pretty on the steps of Casa de Canterbury

    One of the biggest bonuses of life with Pretty, however, is her fascination with books – any book, all books – which has resulted in the largest collection of books in Casa de Canterbury I’ve personally seen anywhere other than a public library or the Adams house in Quincy, Massachusetts where John and John Quincy kept their books in a separate building from their home.

    I find myself having access to unique books as a result of Pretty’s library, and last week she had a copy of the First Census – North Carolina lying on a stack of books in our living room. The Department of Commerce and Labor Bureau of the Census took the first census of the Heads of Families in the year 1790. Pretty’s copy of this North Carolina count was printed in 1908 by the Washington Printing Office. To put this in historical perspective, the Union consisted of 12 states when the First Census Act was passed on March 1, 1790 and signed by President George Washington, who was, as we recall, our first President.

    In that first census in North Carolina, there were five categories of people to be counted:

    (1) Free white males of 16 years and upward, including heads of families

    (2) Free white males under 16 years

    (3) Free white females, including heads of families

    (4) All other free persons

    (5) Slaves

    Now why would I have any interest in this very old census, you might ask? Good question. The answer is Ding, Ding, Ding! the daily double.

    I have relatives from both of my paternal grandparents who lived in North Carolina in 1790 when this census was taken, and I wondered if I might be able to locate any of them. I knew about my family’s early connections to the state through my Ancestry Family Tree which has now given me way too much information about my forefathers.

    For example, my fourth great-grandfather William Morris was born in King George County, Virginia in 1730 and died in 1802 in Anson County, North Carolina. I wondered if I could find him in the 1790 Census since he likely would have been living in North Carolina at that time. Totally made sense.

    And in fact, I did find not one, but two William Morrises living in the Fayette District of Anson County, North Carolina during the census-taking.

    The first William had 1 free white male of 16 years and upward, 1 free white male under 16 years, 2 free white females and 2 slaves. I really was thunderstruck by that. I’m not sure what I had thought about my 4th. great-grandfather, but I had never in my wildest dreams imagined he was a slave owner. Surely it was a mistake.

    The second William Morris had 2 free white males of 16 years and upward, 1 free white male under 16 years, 2 free white females…and 4 slaves. Oh my God, I thought, that’s even worse.

    The ancestors I assumed would hold some moral objection or righteous indignation at the concept of owning another human being were actually slave owners themselves. I felt ashamed and sick at heart. I didn’t like that DNA flowing through me. I wish I hadn’t found it out, but there it was printed in a book published by the government.

    Well, back then everybody in North Carolina owned slaves – it was part of the agrarian economy, right?

    Wrong. While many of the households had slaves, many did not. My people did.

    My friend Millie Miller warned me that if I went down the Ancestry trail I would find out things I might not want to know. She was right – that same being right trait runs in her family, too, by the way.

    Nothing can change the reality of my family’s participation in this dark blight on American history – I would give anything if I could change that.

    But February is Black History Month, and what I can do today is celebrate the victories that have occurred in the Civil Rights movement during my lifetime and recognize the vast chasms of inequality that are the remainders of generations of oppression yet to be overcome and do my part to be on the right side of history in this moment.

    As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Our freedom was not won a century ago, it is not won today; but some small part of it is in our hands, and we are marching no longer by ones and twos but in legions of thousands, convinced now it cannot be denied by human forces.”

  • Dear Edie Windsor


    Dear Edie Windsor,

    Today is the 13th. day of the new regime in the oval office that is apparently now the cesspool from whence both tweets and executive orders spew forth with reckless abandon and no regard for the rights of the citizens of the republic which they were elected to serve.

    As the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, you must be particularly saddened at the sights and sounds of the past few days in our nation’s airports where innocent travelers’ lives were interrupted, families were separated and our American values of welcome and acceptance to those trusting us for safe harbor were randomly impugned. Shame on this administration and shame on us if we don’t fight them like you fought your entire life for the causes of social justice and equality for all.

    But today I want to give you some good news that is my way of saying thank you for the journey you took for marriage equality in the LGBT community. The Supreme Court ruling in June, 2013 for your case the United States v. Windsor has been described as “the most influential legal precedent in the struggle for LGBT marriage equality.” The dominoes of discrimination against us began to topple and fall after that ruling and before you could say two shakes of a lamb’s tail, my partner Teresa and I were the first same-sex couple to be granted our marriage license in November, 2014 in Richland County, South Carolina – the 35th. state to recognize equality.

    I can’t tell you the number of LGBT marriages that have taken place in our state since then, but I regularly see pictures of weddings via social media and personal messages of young people and older ones, too, tying the proverbial knot, as our straight friends have always said. It’s a good thing.

    Yet, this weekend, in the midst of an unbelievable national wave of hatefulness and exclusion, my wife and I went to a shower for two young lesbians who are getting married next month – a natural next step in their belief for the pursuit of happiness as they see it. It was a festive fun evening with the usual “games” for the brides-to-be, great southern barbecue with all the trimmings, a special Signature Cocktail (which I can personally endorse) and champagne for everyone.

    What made this particular shower different, however, was that the hosts were eleven straight couples with a plus one…all of them friends of the parents of one of the brides-to-be. The parents of both brides were there, and everyone celebrated the upcoming nuptials. As I mingled and talked with our friends who were the hosts, I felt I was in a different universe from the one where I didn’t dare to dream about marrying another girl when I was growing up in rural southeast Texas in the 1950s. It was if a magic carpet had transported me from a land of ignorance to a place of enlightenment. Truly remarkable.

    And so I wanted to share this joyful time with you, Edie, because you are one of the major reasons these two young women have the same hopes and dreams for their family that their straight friends do.

    Believe me when I say you were there in spirit. They may not even realize who you are and what you have done for them, but I want to simply say “I do,” and I’m forever indebted.

    Warmest wishes,

    Sheila Morris

    (reprinted with permission of Auntie Bellum magazine: http://auntiebellum.org/mag/ )