Over dinner my friends tell me that they don’t appreciate me bashing the South in my blog.  
“I don’t bash it!” I say.
“Um, you make us sound like rednecks.” 

All of a sudden I (we all) hear “REE-GEEN-A.  GIT OVER HERE!!” from a woman at the bar.  We all die out laughing.  
“Don’t you dare…” my friends say to me.  
“Sorry.”  I reply.  ”It’s just too good.”

The next day my friend and I go for a good, long walk.  We walk past the homes of friends, the home that will soon be theirs, and end up at a coffee shop where we sit for breakfast.  From there we head back home, and I am soon on my way to Birmingham, AL. for my final leg of the journey.

I pull up on the gravel drive and am greeted by my dear cousin with a glass of Rose’.  She and her husband spend half the year in a restored log cabin in Tennessee and the other half in the opposite of a log cabin in Midtown NYC.  We sit on the front porch in rocking chairs and after the sun sets, we move inside for a summer supper of salad and duck confit.  After a perfect night, I go to bed wondering how it can get any better.  Then I wake up to coffee being brewed and bacon on the skillet.  I move outside and have breakfast on the porch, as the animals – dogs, cats, and everything else come join me.  I wonder how it can get any better.  I go for a walk on an old logging road and Rosie, the dog and guide, trots by my side.  Coming back down the trail with branch marks on my calves and Southern sweat dripping down my face, I wonder how it can get any better.  I take soak in the footed bathtub and as I dry off, I wonder how it can get any better.  My cousin greets me with homeade gazpacho and we sit on the porch for lunch.  I wonder how it can get any better.  She goes inside and I move to the hammock where I read for hours on end.  I don’t get up until it’s time for dinner and walking the house, I wonder how it can get any better.  We have grilled chicken and vino and as I hug my cousin goodbye at 9pm, I ask her how, after living here, life could get any better.  Honestly, I don’t think it can.

I chat with my teacher for a moment and the 10am yoga class begins at 10:30; no one seems to mind.  After moving through a series of poses and stretches, I lie on my back in savasana, sweating, letting the hard work I have just completed settle into muscle memory.  I relax my face, my mouth, my eyebrows, my shoulders…  

The doors facing the street are open and the air blows in, as does the faint voices of people passing by and children enjoying their first week out of school for summer.  My fellow yogis and I are drifting off to the cloudlike state, off in Never Never Land, when I am jolted by the voice of a child, “OOOH! Look at dem people sleepin!  Dey look like dey is DEAD!”

Breaking through my yoga induced coma I shake with laughter.  The teacher responds in a monotone, yoga teacheresque like voice, “Only in Alabama, right Sara Beth?”   Only in Alabama indeed.

Walking through the security line already exhausted, I am stopped for a bag check.  Usually I try to sneak something on: face wash, lotion, lip gloss, etc. but today I am all clear.  I know with certainty I have nothing that warrants a bag check.  Or so I think.  Riffling through my bag the gatekeeper pulls out 2 plastic jars of Peanut Butter & Co. Cinnamon Raisin Peanut Butter.  If you’ve had this stuff, you know how good it is; it’s like crack.  My brother loves it as much as I do so this morning I went out of my way to pick up a few jars for him.  

“You can’t bring this on the plane,” the guy tells me.  ”It’s a paste.”
“Excuse me?” I utter, halfway questioning, halfway bitching.  ”It’s not paste, it’s butter.”
He proceeds, “And what happens when you melt butter?  It turns to a liquid and you’re not allowed to bring liquid on a plane.”
Now I’m just mad.  Partly because I went out of my way to get this stupid peanut butter, partly because it was a $12 purchase and partly because this guy is getting a personal power trip  for confiscating peanut butter.  
“Fine.  What would you call a squash?” I ask.
“A squash?” he asks, taken aback and confused.
“Yes,” I reply, “a squash.  Is it a solid, a liquid, or a paste?”
“A..a..solid…I guess.”
“Right.  And what happens when you steam squash for an hour?  It becomes mush, i.e. a paste, but you would let me take squash in its natural form on the plane just like you would let me bring peanuts in their natural form on the plane so make up your mind whether you are going to debate with me the chemistry of processing foods or if you are going to let me take through 2 jars of harmless peanut butter.”  
At this point they call someone over to deal with me and that is when I demand that if I can’t take my peanut butter through security then I will just go back and check it.  I want to prove a point that by having peanut butter on the plane,  the plane will not explode.

He hands it back to me and I stomp off like a 5 year old, two jars in hand.  I go through the time consuming process of checking it all the while ignoring the peculiar looks from those around me.  Walking back through security I don’t look up and only when I am sitting at the gate waiting to board do I have time to think about what just happened.  Basically, I made a fool of myself.  I haven’t slept and I haven’t eaten and I am irritable, but irritability, in retrospect, is a recipe for embarassment.  And embarassment rears its head when, poking through the blinds of the baggage claim turnstile, my peanut butter appears.  There lies my 12 oz package amidst 50 lb suitcases; a perfect visual for how I feel as I bend down to claim it.  

It’s days like this that I am thankful I am not a WWJD bracelet-sporter.  Anyway, I don’t need a reminder to ask myself after the fact “What Would Jesus Do” because I already know he sure as hell wouldn’t have done what I did.  Instead, I ask myself “What Did Jesus Do?” and at that point offer a silent prayer of thanks.  I thank him for his grace, and I thank him for his death – that my acceptance isn’t dependent upon my actions.  And then, with a spoon in one hand and a jar of peanut butter in the other, I shake my head and laugh.  ”What about squash?”

A few days ago I had to walk around caution tape; above it men were chipping away at the facade of the building.  Knowing it was none of my business but asking just the same, I inquired about the situation.  I was told the foundation of the building was faulty, collapsing at any point, and until the building was completely restored, the tenants were asked to move, with no notice as to when they might return.  

Joining me, on this summer eve, are multiple other onlookers.  It’s funny…New Yorkers are always rushing, always in a hurry.  Until you offer us a peek inside our neighbor’s apartment.  For that, we’ll stop for minutes (which might as well be days in NewYorkLand), to pay our respects and look up and in to the apartment of our familiar neighbor…hoping their possessions will introduce us to the life of the person we see everyday, but know nothing about.

The 4/5 train was running local so my commute uptown was taking longer than expected.  Deciding not to get anxious, I recline, anticipating my evening with the motivational speaker.  Will she change my life?  Will the whole thing be a waste of time?  My mind drifts until Crazy steps on the train.  I realize it’s politically incorrect to name him Crazy but for the sake of this exchange, go with it.

“Mother F’in” this and that and anything else you can think of, he finds a seat and slowly sits down (naturally, right across from me) with a comb in his hair and a bag of cans.  He smells like he hasn’t showered in weeks but in truth, the stench is less bothersome than the volume and the language he is using to interupt my daydream.  Trying to provoke anyone who will look at him, he finds a fellow player.*  

“You dressed like you s’posed ta be protectin some’n but you ain’t protectin nuth’n,” he shouts to a man in a blue uniform suit.  In my mind the Uniformed Man is a security guard about to go on nightime duty.  
The Uniformed Man turns back to Crazy offering an original line, “WHAT did you say to me?” 
“I had said you ain’t nuth’n.”
“You saying I am NO-THING?  NO-THING?  You…you…you are NOTHING!!”  He clenches his fist and I start to pray.

People shuffle to the back of the car and soon after “Transit Police, please report to the first car” echoes over the speakers.  I don’t move and to be honest, I’m not sure why.  Instead I watch, and I pray to God asking Him to intercede.  No sooner did the prayer leave my mind than an angel, a man in an dirty white t-shirt, a scruffy beard, and old Levi’s appear.  He walks purposefully in between the shouting men; he intercedes.  

Looking into the eyes of the Uniformed Man, he calms him. “Let him talk, man, let him talk.  He isn’t worth your energy.  Let him talk.”  He reaches out his hand offering…peanuts.  ”Have some.”  The Uniformed Man looks confused, then backs down, shakes his head and begins to laugh.  The two men talk and in the background, Crazy chatters crazytalk. 

Admittedly, sometimes when I pray I doubt God’s response.  This time, however, it looks as if the two of us are on the same page.  Sort of.  When I think of intercessors and protective angels, I think of feminine qualities and wings.  In this instance, God was thinking peanuts and jeans.

*This photograph is the bottom half of the Uniformed Man.  I was too chicken to capture the top.