Anne Clinard Barnhill

     This morn­ing, I had the priv­i­lege of watch­ing six stu­dents walk across the stage of the Elliot Cen­ter at UNC-Greensboro where they received a Cer­tifi­cate of Inte­gra­tive Stud­ies from the Uni­ver­sity and the Beyond Aca­d­e­mics pro­gram, the very first grad­u­at­ing class.  Among those pio­neer­ing six was my sis­ter, Rebecca Jane Cli­nard, known to friends and fam­ily as Becky.  At under five feet, she was the short­est of the group and, for­give my bias, the most adorable.  In her dark blue cap and gown (she was pleased that the blue was so close to black, her favorite color) she filed in with dig­nity, keep­ing her place to the rhythm of accom­pa­ny­ing brass band.  As she took her seat on the front row, I could feel my eyes fill—I was happy and proud and haunted by mem­o­ries of the hard­ships that had come before this shin­ing moment.

     For the past four years, Becky has been part of an inno­v­a­tive and unique pro­gram for devel­op­men­tally dis­abled adults–Beyond Aca­d­e­mics.  After spend­ing sev­eral years in var­i­ous group homes, Becky wanted noth­ing more than to direct her own life and live as inde­pen­dently as pos­si­ble.  Mod­elled on the typ­i­cal going-to-college rite of pas­sage, Beyond Aca­d­e­mics pro­vided a way for Becky to live as an adult–the way most of us live–making her own deci­sions about when she would wake in the morn­ing and go to bed at night, decid­ing for her­self what direc­tion and shape she wanted her life to take, being awarded the respect and regard that every  human deserves, regard­less of cir­cum­stances.  She, and the other stu­dents, have worked hard to learn how to accept the respon­si­b­li­ties of free­dom: how to clean an apart­ment and pre­pare healthy meals; how to become engaged with the com­mu­nity and make new friends; how to advo­cate for her­self when things didn’t go the way she wanted; how to man­age her money and pay her bills; how to nego­ti­ate the city to get to impor­tant events like doc­tor appoint­ments.  All this and more–Becky held her own book club meet­ings where hor­ror fans surely got their fill.  She faced breast can­cer with great courage and, thanks to the staff at B.A., made all of her appoint­ments for radi­a­tion, not requir­ing fam­ily mem­bers to make the daily trip from far away.  She now has a clean bill of health.  She is going to weight watch­ers and under­stands the impor­tance of exer­cise and diet.  In other words, my sis­ter has learned, at 53, how to be an adult.

     Sit­ting next to me at the grad­u­a­tion was my  hus­band, Frank, (the den­tist, as Becky calls him) who wouldn’t have missed this day for any­thing.  He was as proud as I was and I expect he teared up a lit­tle him­self when Becky marched in.  My par­ents, Jack and Vir­ginia Cli­nard (now in their 80’s) were there, sup­port­ing Becky the way they have from the begin­ning, my dad’s big smile widen­ing as Becky received her cer­tifi­cate.  My mom, with arthritic knees and back, man­aged the walk from the park­ing garage to the auditorium–nothing could have deterred her.  Next to her, Becky’s favorite cousin, Freddy Ein­stein, joined in the fun, tak­ing time off from work and dri­ving from Winston-Salem so he could cel­e­brate with Becky.  A sur­prise guest, Mary Eliz­a­beth Parker, my dear friend who has often had lunch with Becky and me, sat behind us.

     Inspir­ing speeches, heart­felt and sin­cere, rang through the halls, from such illus­tri­ous folks as Terry Shel­ton, Vice Chan­cel­lor of Research and Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment, who has been keenly instru­men­tal in help­ing UNCG part­ner with Beyond Aca­d­e­mics; David Per­rin, Provost and Vice Chan­cel­lor of Aca­d­e­mic Affairs; Joan John­son, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Beyond Aca­d­e­mics, a woman on a mis­sion for the devel­op­men­tally dis­abled; Holly Rid­dle, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, North Car­olina Coun­cil on Devel­op­men­tal Dis­abil­i­ties; Michael Mayer, Senior Part­ner, Com­mu­nity Resource Alliance, who made a mov­ing speech about inclu­sion and respect; and the Com­mence­ment Speaker, Celia Hart­man Sims, Senior Pol­icy Advi­sor, Office of Sen. Richard Burr. 

    Of course, the best speech was the last: given by my sis­ter, an impromptu and brief endorse­ment of the Beyond Aca­d­e­mics pro­gram.  After the grad­u­ates had been pre­sented with their cer­ifi­cates, DeMario Chan­dler, recip­i­ent of the Stu­dent Excel­lence Award, led in the tas­sel turn­ing cer­e­mony.  When he had com­pleted his task, Becky rose from her seat and mean­dered to the micro­phone.  No one sus­pected she would do this, but DeMario gra­ciously moved aside and let Becky have her say.

     “I’ve learned a lot from Beyond Aca­d­e­mic,” she said in a firm, con­fi­dent voice.  Then, a long pause.

     “I’ve learned to be inde­pen­dent and I’m going to get my own apart­ment,” she said.  Another long pause.

     “I love Beyond Aca­d­e­mics!” she said. 

     The audi­ence erupted in applause and Becky returned to her seat.  After­ward, lots of folks came up to me and told me they liked Becky’s speech best of all!

     As always, my sis­ter put her own touch on the event, the way she indi­vid­u­al­izes every­thing she does.  She grinned from ear to ear as we met her after the cer­e­mony, all of us filled with the pride of  her accom­plish­ment.  We took pic­tures and then went to recep­tion where we watched a won­der­ful video about Beyond Aca­d­e­mics.  Some­one said, along the way, that they hoped the entire UNC net­work would some day have Beyond Aca­d­e­mics pro­grams, show­ing the world that here, in this state, all are wel­come, all are treasured. 

     If you are so inclined, please write or call or email the good folks at UNCG (Terri Shel­ton, Linda Brady (who was unable to attend today’s events due to ill­ness) David Per­rin or any other per­son who might help fur­ther the cause, and tell them how impressed you are that UNCG has stepped up and taken a chance to embrace Beyond Aca­d­e­mics.  A call to your local and state rep­re­sen­ta­tives to encour­age them to fund pro­grams like this even more fully would be most appre­ci­ated, remind­ing them that such pro­grams  enhance the dig­nity and lives of those who might oth­er­wise be over­looked and under­es­ti­mated.  Indeed, such pro­grams make all of us more human.

     CONGRATULATIONS TO BECKY AND THE OTHER GRADUATES:  DeMario Lam­ont Chan­dler, Jason Anthony Dav­en­port, Jeremy Woolard Dono­hue, William St. Aubyn Gads­den and Raeshika Dawn McLean!!!!

I’m a daddy’s girl and always have been.  My dad has been my hero, my knight in shin­ing armor, my stead­fast advo­cate, my role model and the dear­est man I know.  He is con­sid­er­ate, kind, always think­ing of the other guy first, a great host and a lot of fun.  I remem­ber many nights grow­ing up, even at my most surly teenaged self, when Dad would tease and joke me right out of a bad mood.  Some­times, his abil­ity to make me smile made me angrier than ever, but most often, I was happy to laugh at his silly puns and keep smil­ing.  Learn­ing to laugh at myself and at the absur­dity of life were lessons that have served me well over the years and I have Dad to thank for it.

He loves to laugh, even now at 86.  A good joke is always on the tip of his tongue or a funny story he learned at his father’s knee.  He is a musi­cian and still sings and con­ducts a church choir.  I have no idea when or if he will ever retire–he loves feel­ing use­ful and mak­ing a joy­ful noise unto the Lord.  He’s been doing it for over sev­enty years and I am still moved by the beauty he can wring from a choir.  I remem­ber the Sun­day after 9/11 when he sang “The Lord Is the Strength of My Life” (not sure of this title) and he sang with such courage and con­vic­tion that his music was a com­fort to every­one in the con­gre­ga­tion.  I watched as my mother wiped away a tear and she whis­pered how proud she was of him because he was able to calm peo­ple who had been ter­ri­fied by the awful events of that week and was able to offer them hope.  He sang at my wed­ding and at my old­est son, Michael’s wedding. Before he  sang at that one, he and I had talked about how you feel when your child marries–that you are some­how los­ing him and things will never be the same.  He tried to help me see I wasn’t los­ing any­thing but gain­ing a beau­ti­ful daugh­ter, Emily.  Of course, he was right.  But as he sang “thy peo­ple shall be my peo­ple” I dared not look at him–I knew I would cry.  Then, as the song con­tin­ued, I got my courage up and glanced.  Our eyes met.  I knew he felt what I was feel­ing and vice versa.  His voice broke a lit­tle and I looked back down at my lap.  We’ve always had that connection–he is one of the few peo­ple who really “gets” me.

That’s why, for the past few weeks, I’ve been wor­ried about him.  He hasn’t been feel­ing well and his doc­tors are try­ing to fig­ure out what’s going on.  Though I have a great deal hap­pen­ing in my own life, I get teary-eyed when I think he might be sick in any sort of seri­ous way.  Truth is, I don’t want to be on the planet with­out him.  I’m not ready for that.  So, I’m going to try my best to fol­low his advice:  don’t worry until you have some­thing to worry about and live each day as if it’s your last.  This is me, not wor­ry­ing, Dad.  This is me, lov­ing you.

Today the sky is pale gray but the air is warm, balmy.  Spring is com­ing, skip­ping along toss­ing daisy petals along the way while I hud­dle inside, wait­ing for the hope blue skies inevitably bring.  My soul seems to have been hiber­nat­ing for a very long time now, curled in on itself,  try­ing not to move or feel or give any indi­ca­tion of life.  There are com­forts in hiber­na­tion, relief in sleep.  Empty belly and empty mind work to weave a sort of cov­er­let, a thread­bare pro­tec­tion against despair.  Yes, if I am hon­est, despair should not be avoided.  The thing to duck is numb­ness, that haunt­ing numb­ness that lev­els life to one blank shade, one long field, one empty motion.  Feel­ing every word of Eliot’s hol­low men today, I won­der if I should have the will even to  whisper. 

Yet, in all this swirling gray, that most cruel, final gift of the gods, Hope, still flut­ters her shin­ing wings, just out of reach, tan­ta­lizes with beck­on­ing light.

I just returned from the AWP (Asso­ci­ated Writ­ing Pro­grams) Con­fer­ence in D.C. where I ran in cir­cles around the enor­mous lobby of the Mar­riot Wald­man Hotel, los­ing the bath­rooms and ele­va­tors (and my mind!) a hun­dred times.  There were 6,500 or so writ­ers all gath­ered together for a word­fest of epic pro­por­tions.  The bars were crowded, the restau­rants packed and the work­shops jammed.  So many writ­ers, so lit­tle time to meet them.

And yes, it was my first-ever AWP expe­ri­ence.  As a vir­gin, I had hoped to be romanced gen­tly, sweet-talked into shar­ing a bit of my story with other writ­ers, soft lights, slow jazz and good wine.  But that wasn’t quite the way it went.  Instead, I ran hap­haz­ard into ele­va­tors where no one spoke except in numbers–three, eight, four–and where the big ques­tion was ‘how many writ­ers can squeeze into a four foot square?’ 

 The buzz from a thou­sand con­ver­sa­tions hummed through  my skull as I tried to look young, cool, sexy or famous–someone wor­thy of con­ver­sa­tion.  Instead, I was a short, middle-aged chick who dis­cov­ered she had, rather sud­denly, become a hen.  Even my old grad school advi­sor didn’t talk to me–too busy being adored by some young thing.  Thank heav­ens for my panel pals and my trav­el­ling companions!

I’d say my deflow­er­ing was, over­all, mundane–no roman­tic romps or dra­matic dis­cov­er­ies.  By the end of  five days, I had lost my ner­vous­ness, my sense of awe.  I nav­i­gated to nearby restau­rants and var­i­ous work­shops with the assur­ance of a con­fer­ence queen.  I held my shoul­ders back, chin up and tried to make my eyes look glinty.  Yes, now I’d been had, but was the bet­ter for it. 

 I never could fig­ure out those roam­ing restrooms, though.  No mat­ter how good I got with assum­ing the nuances of  the writerly pose, those johns kept me off bal­ance, search­ing and praying.  One way to find reli­gion, I reckon.

     I am amazed when I meet peo­ple who have lived in the same house for most of their adult lives; I have lots of friends who fit into this cat­e­gory.  At once, I am jeal­ous of their deep roots into place, how at home it would feel to have spent so much time in one spot.  Through cir­cum­stance and choice, I have not lived in one place more than ten years; in some, less than eight months.  Per­haps that is why, here at mid-life, I feel dis­com­bob­u­lated.  I don’t feel at home any­where except in the dreams of my child­hood, the moun­tains of West Virginia.     

    It is those moun­tains that have been call­ing back to me since I left them so long ago.  When I see the ris­ing land, undu­lat­ing hills cov­ered in wood­land and meadow, my body seems to sigh all over and my spirit is enveloped in the wel­com­ing arms of the Appalachi­ans.  If I travel to West Vir­ginia in the spring, the new-green buds on the trees give the hills a shawl of pale silk; if I jour­ney in sum­mer, the full, lush growth has dark­end and thickened–now, it’s an umbrella shad­ing every­thing; in autumn, the hills pull the bright quilt of orange, yel­low and red, some dark pur­ple, leath­ery brown in prepa­ra­tion for win­ter, sea­son of bare limbs and whip­ping winds, pewter clouds and heavy snow.

   And it is to those moun­tains I hope to return–I have told my hus­band that I’ve lived lots of places but my intent is to die in the moun­tains, sur­rounded by the song of the mock­ing­bird pun­tu­ated by the rhyth­mic owl, the bub­bling voice of a small creek and the occa­sional tap-tap-tap of a wood­pecker.  I want to walk through woods each day–no side­walks, please–and become so famil­iar with my one lit­tle piece of land that I know its look in all sea­sons, its sounds at noon and at mid­night, the scents of the foliage and the com­ings and goings of my fel­low crea­tures who share the land with me.

    Today finds me with the moun­tains in my heart.

   I just spent 3 days with my grand­daugh­ter, Bela, who is four-years-old.  It’s the first time she’s stayed this long with us, and I was wor­ried she might suf­fer from home­sick­ness so Frank and I planned to amuse her to keep any such feel­ings at bay.  It worked–we made sugar cook­ies, cut­ting them into Christ­mas shapes and spread­ing them with but­tery icing, sprinkling them with those tiny, multi-colored balls that get every­where; we bun­dled up and drove to the nearby park, climbed up to the slid­ing boards and swished down; we went shop­ping and Bela picked out a toy; Frank took her to Mar­bles, the kids museum in Raleigh; and I told (and acted out) at least twenty-four hours worth of Julia and Belle stories, tales handed down from my grand­mother about two sis­ters, one a per­fect angel, the other, well, not so per­fect.  For some rea­son, chil­dren from about 2–6 LOVE these sto­ries.  My the­ory is that Belle gets to say and do a lot of naughty things chil­dren think about doing, but don’t dare.  Of course, there are con­se­quences for Belle but they aren’t so bad when they hap­pen to some­one else.

  I fear Bela might have given her folks a fit when she returned home.  She was absolutely per­fect while she was with us–and four days is a very long time for such a lit­tle one to be per­fect!  But that’s the joy of being a grandparent–you have the lux­ury of devot­ing your­self totally to a child, some­thing impos­si­ble to do while rais­ing your own kids.  After all, when you are rear­ing your own, there are bills to pay, jobs to do, houses to keep at least some­what san­i­tary.  Not to  men­tion cook­ing, laun­dry, and mak­ing sure the kids are behav­ing prop­erly.  A great deal of work.  And stress.  And fun, too.

  But being a grand­par­ent is different–the only stress is on the body–sore mus­cles unused to car­ry­ing tod­dlers, knees that creak and pop, fatigue that hits a lit­tle ear­lier than when you were thirty.  Yet, there is also a real­iza­tion that is, per­haps, impos­si­ble until grand­par­ent­hood is thrust upon you.  That there is noth­ing more impor­tant than lis­ten­ing to a lit­tle one’s story; that, for all our strug­gling with money wor­ries and mak­ing ends meet, the true gifts of life are free, and no one loves as openly and freely as a child.   For all our dreams and bro­ken hearts, the ill­nesses flesh is heir to, the trou­bles and jagged mess of our world, our grand­chil­dren offer respite and hope.  When those lit­tle arms close around your neck and a squeaky voice says, I wove you, Nan­nah, every­thing seems right.  Life is good, indeed.

I’m think­ing about poetry tonight–the way it can cut, razor its way through the heart, cause tears to bulge at the cor­ners of my eyes, shock my sys­tem with words, words and more words.  Thank good­ness for poems that tear words from us and patch them back together with a heal­ing balm.  I wish I were a true poet, one who could shake the bones of the prophets with my rhythm, rock­ing them into new visions.  But since I’m not one of these, I can read what oth­ers write and enjoy it, believ­ing as I read, I become more deeply human.

If there is heal­ing in this world, there is heal­ing in poetry.

Greet­ings!  I have finally arrived in the 21st Century–I am BLOGGING!!  Wouldn’t my mama be proud!  Or my sons!  Or my more techno-savvy friends!  I’ll use this first attempt to announce the upcom­ing pub­li­ca­tion of my sec­ond book, WHAT YOU LONG FOR, a short story col­lec­tion of six­teen quirky tales, told with a South­ern drawl.  Ya’ll.

You can pre-order the book at Main Street Rag for the spe­cial rate of $9.00 until April 27 when the rate will be $14.95.  Nov­el­ist Julianna Bag­gott calls the col­lec­tion “a cause for cel­e­bra­tion.”  Hope you will pass this info along to any­one who loves to read.

Cheers!