The Bridge to New Life

Recently as I walked in the park, I was dealing with my feelings of deep grief again. I came to the little bridge that had been built over the creek, an open metal grate kind of bridge that allows you to see down into the depths, a type of bridge that has always frightened me when it was really high, like a drawbridge over some bay that is a hundred feet above the water or a deep ravine. Here it was not very high or frightening but it made me contemplate some thoughts about where I am in life and what I am dealing with. I see myself on a bridge, trying to cross over into a new integration of the grief over Shane's death and general regrets about things undone in life - the death of dreams - to some kind of reconciled life where I can make plans for a future. I've been stalled in my path and I need to cross this bridge. But this bridge allows me to see into the abyss and I am afraid to look at the depths of my fears, afraid to really face what has happened and how much my life has changed. The open grate looks like too fragile a support to hold me up - if I look into the depths, will I fall? My support system is the Lord - therefore it will hold if I trust it, but my fears are irrational and I am trying to get over it. Taking small baby steps, walking slowly, looking at the abyss in small doses. What is in the abyss? Death, and all the fears that humans associate with it. Shane's death, in particular, the details of it, the horror of it, which leads to fears of future losses, yet at the same time reassures me that I will somehow cope. It is this sense that I have entered new territory, where losses become regular occurrences and I don't know if I can stand to look that reality in the face. I have to cross this bridge. I have to move into acceptance of a new life. Recent dreams about going through passages where doors locked me behind so that I could not go back to where I was have confirmed my understanding that I have to cross this bridge. I have taken a few steps but my sense is that I still have quite a length of bridge to walk, walking "that lonesome valley" - but in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil! That will be my cry as a warrior who must push past fear to be victorious.

New Life July 18

Since I last wrote, right after that we got a contract on the house and that process is moving along. But this has still been a very sad month or two for me. I have been going to some counseling, trying to come to terms with how I feel right now, and progress is being made there as well. Taught a class last night, the second in a series of 2, on establishing a nonprofit. I had such dreads about it, and it wasn't as much fun as the eBay class, but at the end last night I got thanks from the students and generally good evaluations. I guess I will do it again, but I have just felt overwhelmed with lots of things to prepare for - I also agreed to do a presentation to teachers at Summer Conference next week, and I really have nothing to say (God help me find something interesting!). Donald and I went birdwatching at the swamp on shady Grove yesterday morning and I saw a Black Crowned Night Heron - that was good. And some pink swamp mallow flowers that were just gorgeous - that swamp is so pretty! This weekend I agreed to go with Carla to meet our cousins in chattanooga - I hope that turns out well - Libby has recently lost her husband, so maybe this will be good for her. Mostly right now I am just looking forward to finishing the house closing and getting on with making some plans from there - I feel like we have been on hold for more than a year - yet we had a wedding! Oh, well, life does move along, despite everything!

Life goes on

Si I have not written a word in two months - what have I been doing? Slogging through life, wondering what the next stage will bring, whether anything interesting will happen. We are in a holding pattern, depressed over various situations such as the southside house not selling, and just blah. Still, there are good things every day. I am finally having time to finish some quilting projects started long ago. We went up to the Lodge last Friday night and enjoyed that as always - the weather was great. Sunday night we had Wes and Amanda over for dinner and we all love them. But truly, we are all tense and angry and wondering what to attribute that to. I have made an appointment with the grief counselor for Wednesday, just wanting to talk to someone, trying to decipher whether a lot of the feeling really relate back to that. It seems like most everyone I know is currently disturbed. Except Jerry, I guess, - we ate with her and Jerome Saturday and she seems very happy. And while I am happy for her, I had hoped to have someone there that I could cry with, and that is not possible. I cried a couple of times yesterday - once when I heard a piece on NPR about a group of women who meet together regularly to talk about their sons who have died in the war - it made me wish so bad that I had someone to share that with. Donald and I are going to the cemetery this morning - that may not help but I just feel like I need to. After crying so much yesterday I felt sick and wimpy, and still feel rough this morning, but hope that enough crying will help ease some of the bad feelings - we will see.

Working on a Wedding Dress - by Mom

Working on a wedding dress is kind of like constructing a building (or a life!). This is the fourth one I've made (I made Carla's, Sierra's, and Alison's), and there are some elements in common that seem metaphorical to me. Parts of each construction are very solid and supportive. For Ashley we have a heavy fabric that will wrap tightly around her and contains boning to be supportive. We have a big crinoline that will fluff out that heaviness and make it more airy. These parts are like the solid parts from which we build our lives, things we can lean on or into, things we know will hold up against the vicissitudes of real life. We try to build these things to be beautiful also, but they are solid. Other parts, like the bolero I have been working on this morning, are as gossamer as butterfly wings. The bolero and the beaded fabric are the stuff of dreams, meant only to be beautiful. Much of the wedding finery and the wedding process is like the bolero - they are designed to symbolize our dreams and only to last long enough to get us through this lovely transition. Such is life - gossamer dreams as trimming on a solid foundation that supports us through life!

The Sorrow and the Smile posted by Ashley

Everything bursting with beauty and life. A new flower, new animal, new breeze across each spring day as it comes. And yesterday the sorrow. In the midst of the wedding preparations, spring, love, family and fishing: sorrow. Shane and I stole away to Black Creek in the dark and watched the glittering waters under the park's lights. Our feet cold where we slipped in darkness when we crossed the creek. And he wants to know why I am so sad today. And I want to know why I am so sad today. Ultimately my brother, my sweet Shane, in my head. Many things have passed and I look forward not backward to the best of my ability. I weep aside night's creek and Shane just rocks me gently. Never angry at my contradictions nor frightened by my dark side. Only this great gift to ease this sorrow that is a part of me as much as any joy can be. I don't drink it away; I don't drug it away. I feel it fully for a moment and then turn my face away with will towards my love's smile.

The Ultimate Wild Goose Chase - by Mom

Donald and I went up to The Lodge at Locust Fork to retreat and enjoy a night in the wild. It was a beautiful 24 hours! Four great blue herons flew into the trees right at dusk, looking like ancient pterosaurs. We sat out back in the total dark and listened to the night sounds and watched the moon and stars. I think we heard a Whipporwill even though I know they shouldn't be this far south. We awoke to an amazing bird chorus and a sunrise as gorgeous as the sunset the night before. I was thinking today that "The Property", as we called it so long, is the ultimate wild goose. It has been a place to hang our dreams for quite a few years. It has yielded returns more spiritual than physical, even though much physical labor has gone into it. Mostly we relaxed and enjoyed our retreat but this morning we went down to the river and there was work to do, as always. Dad cut a tree off the path and used the DR to cut the path. I used the nippers for awhile and tried to get some of the privet cut that blocks that beautiful back path where all the wildflowers bloom. The privet is going to hurt the wildflowers eventually. But I couldn't even get enough cut to get all the way through. Constant pruning, cutting, just to survive. It's a place that will never be domesticated, and surely we knew that - didn't we? I was thinking about what I had written earlier about our ancestors and their hard-scrabble existence - did we inherit genes that allow us to draw sustenance out of a place this raw and harsh? Along with it were we given some gift that lets us see the wonder and beauty all among the privet and kudzu? In a recent book I read, on theological stuff, the author quoted some lines from a Bruce Cockburn song, something like "here I am after all these years, bowing before this beauty, understanding nothing". That about says it all.
But also I sat and watched the river flow this morning and these lines came to me:

As Hulseys,
The River takes us down.
We flow through space and time
To be reborn
Into another world.
Some of us must come back.

In sensing the glory that lies behind it and ahead,
We glean intimations of divine immortality.
Forced to return
To the unnatural, the unspiritual world,
Fragments of what the River teaches us
Cling to our hearts and sustain joy.
So we hang our dreams and invest our faith
In that eternal flow.

Poem posted by Mom

"I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great" by Stephen Spender (@1920)

I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered their soul's history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
Born of the sun, they travelled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

I thank God for a family who can appreciate this imagery!

Easter Dinner - Family History - posted by Mom

Instead of turkey, it is ham that is the family Easter dinner, instituted by Grandma Tommie, along with her famous potato salad and green beans. I arose and cooked that meal today and thought about her. I had been thinking about her in church on Maundy Thursday when we sang "The Old Rugged Cross" - one of her favorite hymns. So I got up about 5:30 and had a ham in the oven by 6:30 and picked green beans and thought about family traditions. Today I wish more family could have been here, but Carla came after the glorious church service, and brought a friend, and me and Donald and Ashley ate that good meal! And I often think about the trouble that it is to cook, when you can go to the store and buy all things ready-made, but how cooking it with my own hands is an expression of love in my life.
It's not because I think I'm not always going to be here, but just because I want you all to have some perspective on your own lives that I want to tell the family story, even if it dribbles out in bits and pieces. Life is harsh. It's hard and gritty in some way not matter who you are or where you come from. It's just because we think we are privileged and have so many choices that we think it is possible to live a perfect life.
We can't. That's where grace enters your life. You look back at your family history and you know that perfection is not attainable. We just bumble along and do the best we can, cross ourselves and thank God when our mistakes produce consequences we can somehow live with and move on.
Where you come from: I grew up not really poor but nearly. My family grasped at money, maybe not nickels and dimes, but certainly quarters and dollars. Now my philosophy is : "If it's a problem only about money, it's not a real problem." Since I first wrote this I have experienced a real problem and now I know this to be the real truth.
Your ancestors: Just a couple of generations back, your ancestors did hard physical labor on hard scrabble farms that never really produced a good living. Each generation that could get out left it behind and chose a different form of hard grind.
On your mother's side: hillbillies from the hills of Tennessee and the South Carolina-Georgia border. Descendants of indentured servants from Europe? - England maybe? Indian blood mix was claimed. Your mother's grandfather, William Redmon Fowler, worked in the hosiery mills in Clinton, TN and then retired to Chattanooga. He was good with machines and invented things. He was a good gardener and canned homemade vegetable soup. He and Annie Mae Fowler lived in Clinton, where Tommie was the youngest child. She had an older sister, Marion, and an older brother, Raymond, whom she idolized. Tommie had polio when she was 2 years old.
That's all for today- Easter is a good time for just watching the sunset and that is what I plan to do!

Chasing the Wild Turkeys posted by Sierra

The Equinox has come and I welcome Spring and the beauty of the cycle of seasons- returning always to full bloom... Turkey hunting season is on and Jimmy and I rise early in the dark morning hours to listen to the joyful gobbling of lovestruck birds seaching for mates. Some mornings we hear nothing and walk out a trail in the woods, setting up in some shrubbery, Jimmy clucks and yelps and when there is no answer, still we feel the shapes shifting in the woods- are reminded of the life and beauty hidden out there. This morning, I stayed home, back at the Elliott's Creek cabin in Moundville, I stepped onto the screened in porch at sunrise and heard the turkey's joyous gobble from my porch. I will look for blooms hiding in the woods today at work.

Good Friday/Easter - Posted by Mom

There are all kinds of messages in Good Friday and Easter. The full moon last night and the vernal equinox presage new life springing up and out and we are so ready for that! This season also reminds us how good things can come to us, even when all hope seems to be dead, when we are sure that we are at the end of the road. I am so thankful for hope and faith, for life that can continue in the face of utter despair and turn around to bring joy if we are open to it! Easter is proof that the forces for good and love in the universe ultimately beat out the evil forces that bring about death and despair. But we can only see that invisible victory if we are looking for it and choosing to affirm life and love in the face of loss. I have gone through a sad period again lately, but it has been balanced with planning a wedding that is all about affirmation of love and joy. Dad and I were watching a program this morning about "big brother" phone surveillance techniques and laughing about how bored they would get listening to me and Sierra talk last night about tablecloths, serving dishes and buying wedding finery, not to mention the bizarre turkey story -maybe the government could have found some alien story there! Yes, Sierra and Jimmy went looking and listening for turkeys yesterday and didn't get one, but I found one in a sack by the road! But, as always, it is good to be busy with mundane details and especially with our hands, making dresses and invitations, being creative with our thoughts and hands. That is when joy surprises us.

Wax On Wax Off posted by Sierra

Wax on, wax off. Simple words of wisdom that still ring true... After wrestling taxes and the open ended day, moping, wishing it was real swimming weather, knowing the water must be quite cold still so- put on my bathing suit and barefoot wandered out the back door, took up the hose in desperation and stood amongst the blueberries and sprayed myself down in the bright sunshine, then instictively began to spray green grime off the vinyl siding. Jimmy joined me and before you know it, there are brushes and toothbrushes and bleach water and we have finished two sides. Wax on, wax off, this is the best I've felt in days. The house isn't looking too bad neither.

Senior Citizen Sited (sic) - posted by Hulsey Dad

Fultondale. The Highway Department reports sighting a 63 year old Fultondale retiree attempting to scale a 5 ft. Hwy. Dept. fence. It was the darndest thing, said Fultondale Police Officer Orville Ifill. It looked like the old fella was trying to climb up a privet bush to get over the fence. I saw him go down and would've liked to have helped but he was on the other side of fence and that side of the fence is Gardendale Police responsibility. The senior citizen (now identified as Donald J. Hulsey) is a recent transplant to Fultondale from Southside.

Officer Orville Ifill commented "What do you expect? He said he was from Southside!"

Advanced Adolescence by Billie Sue

My age?
It is a geeky age, not unlike adolescence, a transition stage.
Definitely no longer "pretty", we have yet to attain the peaceful beauty of the elderly.
The hard edges still remain, but gradually they are softening.
Instead of increased height, we adjust to a body shrinking, growing wider and heavier.
With less sense of this unfamiliar body, we grow clumsy, bumping and falling.
Mentally also, it is like adolescence in reverse.
We shrink, and words go as mysteriously as they came during our youth.
The mental facility, the gift to clearly articulate our policies and positions goes.
We mentally bump and fall, unable to express the inner knowledge that we know.
The rational is replaced by the intuitive, and life becomes art instead of science.
Just 10 years ago, we were in control, at the height of our powers.
We knew we were agile enough to adapt and sought to expand our borders.
Now we seek simplicity rather than complexity, seek manageable objectives.
Like lemmings driven toward the sea, we know circumstances can change in a breath.
Like children we long for a security that we know doesn't really exist.
And we grapple for a way to padlock a security built through a lifetime of hard work.
In adolescence, you cling to the past at the same time you long for the future.
Lord, get me to the next stage where I will be at peace!

Written 4 years ago - I am not there yet!

Native American Prayer- posted by Sierra

May the stars carry your sadness away,
May the flowers fill your heart with beauty,
May hope forever wipe away your tears,
And, above all, may silence make you strong.

-quote from Chief Dan George

Password

Oh, and I forgot to give you the sign in info - it is "bhulsey05", and the passwork is "fulton2412". So now we can all post on the front page!

Shane has joined the goose chase!

Since mom posted a little love history, I will begin there as well. None of us would want to hear about my history of love altogether, (besides which that is the stuff of novels), but true love came along last summer. Shane and I agreed to meet through Match.com to go to a large back to the earth, contra dancin, hippie, pot-luck, pond swimmin party. We had spoken a few times on the phone but never met. I drove to locust fork, completely unadorned except for my proclamation of "reading is sexy" on the front of my t-shirt, parked and sat on his front porch watching birds at the feeder and then a heavy thunderstorm before we began our trek. All day as we drove through the country, getting lost, swimming in the pond and picnicking outdoors, it felt as though we were longtime friends who had known each other always. Comfortable, right, peaceful.
Today we refound a rock formation that we saw at dusk yesterday and wanted to check out. We climbed in and out of rocks and through open spring woods. Heard the call of a squirrel frog. Bought comic books and children's story books at the jumble flea market. And yes kisses, always always always kisses. Literally --at dusk---the geese honked that wild sound above us and two of them passed us along towards some tantalizing unkwown wetlands just beyond thickets and forest. There is death and there is the world of 10,000 secret things outside, inside, and all around us. We both used to go looking and looking for through a veil of empty feelings and now there is May 3 and the rest of our life. Everyday love.

Sunday March 9, 2008 Family History Lesson

OK, today Donald said another appropriate identification for us might be "The Bluets" (as in Blew-Its). Thats mean, don't you think? Today is Sunday and I went to church and then Carla brought over some good chicken and rice. I tried to take a nap this afternoon because I was out late last night at a concert with Denny and Paula. It was good Celtic music and the best thing was a crew of little girls doing Irish step dancing every time they played a jig -they were so beautiful!

So - a little family history. I will start with my generation and work my way back. I met Donald at church - Oakmont Methodist where we grew up. He was dating a friend, but she went off to college when I was a senior in high school and Donald kept coming to Sunday night church and going out with the youth to get food afterwards. On one of those nights we both realized we were interested in each other. He asked me for a date and we went to the Birmingham International Fair on our first date, Feb. 23, 1963. My family lived in some apartments in Homewood on Central Ave. then, and he walked me upstairs and we stood in the hallway and talked for a really long time and we kissed. I was making plans to go to Montevallo and he was making plans to go to Auburn, but somehow he ended up at Montevallo also. We went all the way through college dating each other and planned to get married in September of our senior year, but he backed out and we waited then until Christmas of the next year - 1967, after we had both graduated and I was in grad school at UAB and he was in med tech school at Carraway. He came over to my apartment (18th St. and 10th ave So) on the Friday before Christmas Eve was on Sunday and said "Let's get married this week-end" so we went and got our VD tests and the license that day. On Sat I went with his mother and bought a dress and we got married that Sunday night! You all probably know this but I just thought I'd write it down. Questions? Oh, please!

This afternoon the hawks are flying around, the Yellow-rumped warblers are in the trees and all the usual suspects are at the feeders including the squirrel we have named Orville Ifill. Spring is so close but it is still cold. My heart is sad this afternoon, because I miss someone, but there is some joy in every day!

March 8, 2008 Snow!

This blog is about stories - family stories that may amuse, illuminate, or instruct others of the group. Tell us what is happening that is funny today, or what is happening in your deepest thoughts. I want to use this to tell you all some family history and hope to post just a few facts every now and then.

Donald chased the Wild Goose the other day and nearly spent the night in a privet bramble. He went rambling to see the coke ovens near Five Mile Creek and ended up in a bramble (interesting how ramble and bramble rhyme!). Lost near dark, he fought his way out through a wall of jungle briers and came home bloody and only slightly bowed. He says he was SO SURE that there would be a trail, but no, no trail, only impenetrable privet (nice alliterative word match!) and briers. So that is an example of a Wild Goose adventure, and I will try to get him to write about it!

Well, snow this morning! Even though its against my religion to have snow after March 1, it was pretty. We sat in the sunroom and watched the birds battle over the suet feeder. Only a couple of days ago the dandy looking red and black box-elder bugs were cohabiting on the house's sunny south face, cluttering up the window sills and doorways, getting ready for spring. But since it is after the first of March, I am not depressed by this cold weather - I know it is only temporary.

My word for today is "gesture" - I dreamed that word and had to arise and get to the dictionary to grasp its full meaning (body language that demonstrates or expresses idea, opinion, or emotion). I think I have been seduced by the forces of postmodernism to meditate on such visual words. But the art of language and gesture becomes more real to me every day as I struggle to allow spiritual transformation to progress. Dreaming about the gestures in life lead me to think about what we can learn from gestures large and small, and how we need to become more aware of what our gestures communicate to others.