Views and Mechanics Publisher's Note Editor's Note Review of Language and Mind Review of This Is My Best Review of Lost in the Void Crossword (Solution Posted in September. Printable version in pdf format of journal.) May/Jun Crossword Solution Creative Nonfiction Puttin' on My Pearls By Cathryn Braswell My Dinner with Gacy By Andy Martello Mysteries of the Shenandoah Valley By Casey Clabough Getting Lucky By Dale Purvis Poetry Your Mind and You Are Our Sargasso Sea By Lita Sorensen Midsummer By Lita Sorensen Windows By Lita Sorensen Simple Man By B.K. Birch The View from Here By Mary Hudock The Dinner Party By Ruth Mark Fiction It's in the Stars By Linda Gallant Potts An Intimate Evening with Papa By Lance Garrison Ballard The Prank By Terri L. Knight A Pocketful of Starflakes By Leslie Wolter Cover Art Photography by Seth Brown About the Contributors © 2006, River Walk Journal and respective authors and artists. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission. River Walk Journal, Inc. Board of Directors Chairman - Elizabeth Ross Vice Chairman - Joseph Koch Secretary/Treasurer - Geri Stock-Ross Editorial Director - Patti Kurtz, DA Literacy Director - Bill Mausteller Policy Director - PA State Rep. Jess Stairs Advisory Board Chairman - Patti Kurtz, DA Asst. Chairman - Dan Lachenman, PhD Samuel Hazo Christopher Leland Edwin Yoder Joseph Bathanti Journal Staff Publisher - Elizabeth Ross Editor-In-Chief - Joseph Koch Sen. Fiction Editor - Patti Kurtz Sen. Poetry Editor - Neeldhara Misra Sen. Creative Nonfiction Editor - Brenda Coxe Contributing Editor - Robert Dittman Publicity Director (PA) - Geri Stock-Ross For information about submissions, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/submission.html. Questions about promotions, subscribers' services, and advertising should be sent to publisher@riverwalkjournal.org. River Walk Journal, Inc. is a non-profit corporation run entirely by volunteers. For information about volunteer opportunities and internships, visit http://www.volunteermatch.org/results/org_detail.jsp?orgid=58479. |
Puttin' on My Pearls By Cathryn Braswell I was born a G.R.I.T.S. When I say this, I'm not referring to the corn-meal breakfast food that you can eat with butter, salt, pepper, or cinnamon. And I'm not referring to the movie starring John Wayne, because as a young child I was encouraged to watch that movie and much to my chagrin was scarred for several years afterwards. I believe I ran out of the room with wide, frightened eyes when "The Duke" began cutting off a questionable western man's fingers with a long knife. No, the type of G.R.I.T.S. that I am referring to is Girls Raised In The South, those who have been born below the Mason-Dixon line, reared to live a gentile life, and admonished against doing anything of ill-repute or northern. Any female who has been born and raised in the south knows that as soon as she wakes up in the morning the first thing she must do is put on her "pearls". And I am certainly referring to two things here. I do mean pearls in the literal since of the term. Pearls have been a sign of elegance since the beginning of time, and certainly since the beginning of my young life. Pearls signify prosperity and abundance and are worn as a sign of wealth and well-breeding. I received my first real pearls earrings when I was in the fourth grade in a red velvet case. I promptly lost them at a sleepover never to see them again. Queens, movie stars, and president's wives have always worn pearls at an attempt at glamour and class. Because they are so rare, many view pearls as the height of beauty because real ones are so elusive. But when a southern puts on her "pearls", she doesn't just put on the material ones. She pulls on her pearly whites, her smile, just as quickly and with much more rigidity. She knows that everything she does is on constant display and if she doesn't give off that ephemeral appeal of beauty, grace, and class with every action then she is not only letting herself down, but the South as a whole. Therefore she knows that, "Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world is watching."-Thomas Jefferson. A Southern woman's smile is like sweet tea, turnip greens, and confederate flags. You're bound to see them wherever you go, whether in twangy Nashville Tennessee, rural Mississippi, or refined Georgia. A pearl girl is always taught to smile big, sit pretty, and pour sweet tea to anyone that comes within her area of hospitality. You've always got to pull on those pearls and smile big so no one can doubt your complete and utter sincerity. I remember that this concept of always smiling was taught at an early age. I had just gotten a spanking because I had gotten my new white dress shoes all dirty right before church when my mother had explicitly told me not to go outside. But I was headstrong and ignored her and ran helter-skelter through the mud puddles dotting our back yard. For such willful disobedience I did receive my just reward and quite a sore bottom. I cried all the way to church, not because it truly hurt that badly, but because if I didn't cry hard enough, I knew my next spanking would be with a firmer hand. As soon as we arrived at church though, my parents both turned and cautioned me against anymore crying. "Cathryn, stop you're crying right now! We have to go into church and we can't go in there with your eyes all red. Now be a good girl and stop." My mother and father both cautioned me in turn against showing my reddened eyes and nose to the whole congregation. I listened this time and stubbornly wiped my nose and eyes on my bare arms and then my sleeves. I was being trained here. Don't let them see your weaknesses. Always smile and even if your cheeks hurt from it, and your heart tells you you're lying, never let your guard down. There just as ravenous as wolves. If they smell fear or weakness, there goes your name, trampled, muddied, and torn. Women of the South have been directed throughout the ages to "pull on the pearls". It's handed down from generation to generation and few stop to question and challenge this mindset. Is it truly the best manner in which to live? To be constantly living with a perpetual smiling face, never letting anyone know how truly terrible it is to find out your failing, or that your granddad just died after a long dance with cancer, and you just don't know how your going to forgive your family for breaking up and letting you down?. If your always smiling, then your either invincible, which I have found is impossible, or your putting up a false front, a lie. But aren't lies sometimes the best manner in which to convey the truth? If you don't let people see the tears you cry over every boy that breaks your heart, then they will know that you are truly strong. You may be weak in your own heart, but before others you are strong. And what others see, well, that is truth in society's eyes. If you handed out every piece of your dirty laundry to your peers, you wouldn't ever have anything clean to wear. You can hold your own feelings and emotions close to your heart, but the front you put up for others is going to be what they believe you are. I myself prefer what others believe I am in comparison to who I truly know myself to be. And in some way, both of those opinions are truth. Who you see me is, is who I am to you. And who I see myself to be, is who I am to me. This is our will and drive to put on that immovable smile and it's going to be taught for generations to come. It's part of the heritage of the South. You have to lie to be a true Southern. You've got to put up a bit of a barrier in order to be happy with yourself. That doesn't mean that this way of life is exclusive to the south. I merely am saying that we're raised that way, whereas others may come to live this way through choice. But the desire to lie, that is true no matter what walk of life you come from, whether it be a Southern, a poor man, the inventor of Microsoft, or your next door neighbor. It part of being a human, and constantly having to be held up to the rest of societies standards. You are told from the very start of your life to be happy with yourself. To be comfortable in your own skin. To value yourself and never be pushed around. But the weak underbelly of this is that it's not true. We may be told to be ourselves, but we're constantly being molded into something that is completely opposite of what we truly want to be. I come from a family were you are highly encouraged to do what you want in life. To pursue your own dreams, make your own decision, and go down with your own burning ships. However, I know the expectations that are placed on me. If I don't get into the grad school that is the best option for an English major, I'll be failing. If I don't marry a well-off man, have 2.5 children, and have a white picket fence surrounding a 3 bedroom house, then I'll be failing. But the "truths" that I've always been told are to be yourself. But as soon as that future might not become reality, then the sting of failure can be seen in every family members eye, and the mumbled, "Oh well, it's your life" give me little comfort that I've heard the "truth" all my life. People like comforting themselves with lies. If I keep letting my parents believe that I'm going to grad school, maybe I'll prolong their satisfaction in me. I'll let the "truth" elude them for a bit longer, before I let them in on my little secret. So many people just lead these lives. They let others believe the lies, because it makes them feel good. And I'm not sure if it's truly that wrong. Of course lying is wrong. But is letting others believe a lie about you wrong? Well, my moral compass says yes, but the part of me that craves approval says, "Come on. Really, what could it hurt? They chose to believe it on their own." But the fact is, letting others believe a lie about you is wrong. That knowledge doesn't make the addiction to approval weaken, nor does it enflame me with any particular desire to tell everyone the truth about me and clear the record. But I know I should. I'm sure that every person, and since this essay is supposedly focusing on Southern then we shall specifically point them out, knows that they should let the public in on their true selves, but living the lie is so much easier. It gives a comfort. People don't know the real you, although they think they do. Therefore, they'll never question you, and you never have to meet opposition from them, because you've already convinced them of the "truth" about you. So that's a major part of being a Southern. Living a lie. I live it, but I don't want to. I want to let others know who I truly am. I want them to accept me for myself, and not the apparition that I have given them as me. But I'll have to be the predecessor. I'll have to be breaking the mold and changing the status quo. And no matter where you come from, that is hard. With a southern, this change causes a major ripple in the river of life. We have been taught to live this way. No need to change that. If people want to believe some untrue things about you, why take the time to correct them? It's their fault for getting the facts wrong, and frankly, that makes them the liar, not you. But we all know the real truth. Everyone involved is lying. And whether or not you can make a change isn't the point. It's whether or not you can be truthful with yourself. And that's the hardest part of it all. After hearing other people's opinions and perceptions of you for so long, you gradually start to think as they do. But in order to be honest with yourself and true to who you truly are, you've got make a clean cut of it all, and break your own and their misconceptions about you. And that is how to be a true person, a true Southern. Be proud of who you are, and don't let others perceive you as something that your not. That's where the change in being a Southern woman must take place. The new woman is going to be truthful. No longer letting others have misconceived or preconceived notions about her. Always letting the truth be known. Throwing aside the pearls and pulling on the glistening diamonds of truth. Hard, a little cold, but brilliant. |