Outer Banks, NC
June 2014
Showing posts with label North Carolina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label North Carolina. Show all posts
Monday, September 03, 2018
Saturday, March 08, 2014
Table for my Mother
Thanksgiving 2013 Menu
Breakfast
Grandmother's Monkey Bread and Coffee
Lunch
Curried Butternut Squash Soup
Puff Pastry Previews
Dinner
Roast Duck with Pomegranate-Honey Orange Glaze and Caramelized Citrus + Cranberry-Pomegranate-Orange Sauce
Carrot, Parsnip & Fennel Roasted in Duck Fat
Classic Cornbread Dressing
Green Beans with Parsley & Garlic
Kale & Fennel Salad with Pomegranate Seeds
Kings Arms Tavern Sweet Potatoes with Marshmellows
Ambrosia with Orange, Clementine, Grapefruit, Pineapple & Coconut
Crescent Rolls
Dessert
Pumpkin Pie and Pecan Pie made from scratch and served with homemade whipped cream.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Memorial for Mom
July 20, 2013
Eight years ago my parents had a small dry-stack stone wall built around a few bushes outside their living room window. My mother worked closely with a landscape architect designing the structure and as she watched it being built she became inspired by the process in which these stones were set so carefully atop one another to form the wall. She envisioned the wall continuing to grow - she saw it leaping across the yard, coiling around the trees and herbs and flowering bushes in the front yard and winding its way down the bank to the edge of the lawn.
So she ordered two enormous palettes of stones and got to work.
For two years my mother immersed herself in the construction of her vision. She worked diligently, thoughtfully - with great intention. She carefully weighed the qualities of every stone; turning each one over in her hand, she examined the topography of its surfaces, observing its size and shape in relation to all the other stones, considering every aspect of its character before placing it with perfect care in the spot for which it was exactly suited in the wall. She was unconcerned with how long it took to discover the perfect place for each stone; she saw only the unfolding of her vision with perfect clarity.
This was how my mother did everything. She was present in every moment and brought out the beauty in everything she touched. Her devotion to doing things right was a prayer, and everyone who knew her was lucky to be touched by that grace.
Mary
July 20, 2013
Eight years ago my parents had a small dry-stack stone wall built around a few bushes outside their living room window. My mother worked closely with a landscape architect designing the structure and as she watched it being built she became inspired by the process in which these stones were set so carefully atop one another to form the wall. She envisioned the wall continuing to grow - she saw it leaping across the yard, coiling around the trees and herbs and flowering bushes in the front yard and winding its way down the bank to the edge of the lawn.
So she ordered two enormous palettes of stones and got to work.
For two years my mother immersed herself in the construction of her vision. She worked diligently, thoughtfully - with great intention. She carefully weighed the qualities of every stone; turning each one over in her hand, she examined the topography of its surfaces, observing its size and shape in relation to all the other stones, considering every aspect of its character before placing it with perfect care in the spot for which it was exactly suited in the wall. She was unconcerned with how long it took to discover the perfect place for each stone; she saw only the unfolding of her vision with perfect clarity.
This was how my mother did everything. She was present in every moment and brought out the beauty in everything she touched. Her devotion to doing things right was a prayer, and everyone who knew her was lucky to be touched by that grace.
Mary
CARRBORO – Mary Elizabeth Morris Reid died quietly at UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill, NC on the morning of Sunday June 30th 2013, following a brief illness. Ms. Reid was born in Charlotte, NC to Kathleen and Joseph Morris. She was selected to attend the Governor’s School of North Carolina and graduated from South Mecklenberg High School with honors in 1967. She went on to attend Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA, where she excelled in many areas, with particular achievements in her study of literature and the English language. It was while at Agnes Scott that she met and fell in love with her husband, Alfred, whom she married following her graduation in 1971. Mary and Alfred Reid lived together in Norfolk, VA, Alexandria, VA, and Tallahassee, FL, before moving to Chapel Hill in 1977 and settling in Carrboro in 1995.
Ms. Reid was a woman of great style, personality, and intellectual curiosity. The vibrant cultural climate of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, with its eclectic mix of tradition and progressive thinking, suited her well. She took great joy in the simple pleasures of fresh food, arts and crafts of all kinds, and knowing the people who produced them. She took equal pleasure in supporting and engaging her local community of farmers, artisans, craftspeople and musicians, from whom she drew much of the inspiration for her own creative endeavors.
During her time in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, Ms. Reid was employed in several capacities by the University. She spent the majority of her professional life as a copyeditor for the UNC Press, where she freelanced for 15 years. An inveterate lover of books and a master of the nuances and expressive potential of the English language, she lent her eagle eye for detail and precision to many projects during her time at the Press, most notably The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture.
Her great passion for books and reading extended far beyond the provision of her livelihood. A true lifelong learner and a diligent archivist with a rich inner life, Ms. Reid made an art of her study of many dedicated pursuits. Her favorite time of day was the hour after she arose in the morning, when she returned to bed with a cup of coffee to delve into one of the dozens of books piled on and around her bedside table. She loved the meditative joys of poetry and the transcendent reaches of literature, and was in the habit of recording the ideas and turns of phrase that most appealed to her on the colorful notecards that she always kept close at hand. Reading was fundamentally its own reward for Ms. Reid, yet it also served as a springboard for her many avocations in life. Volumes on travel, gardening, food, and spirituality were cornerstones of her extensive personal library. Through books she found a range of experience, possibility, and nourishment for heart, mind and soul unconstrained by time and space.
Nowhere was Ms. Reid’s skill in navigating the intersection between read and lived experience more evident than in her love of travel. Each of the many trips she took throughout her life began with the careful study and annotation of multiple travel guides, and often expanded to include the history and literature of the destination. From the counties surrounding Carrboro to the arrondissements of Paris, there was no local tour guide better prepared to point out the best out-of-the-way restaurants or hidden cultural and artistic gems than Ms. Reid when she traveled.
Her engagement with the natural world and her connection with the traditions of her Southern heritage strengthened her appreciation of folk histories everywhere, celebrated through years of study and travel. These were enduring sources of inspiration that informed her creation of a gracious and beautiful home and garden, indelibly imbued with her personality. The same verve and unflappable dedication that she brought to her professional and personal life she brought to building, together with her husband Alfred, a home full of love, warmth, style, humor and grace. The delicacy and balance of the meals she prepared, the unerring beauty of the well-considered flower arrangements and centerpieces that she lovingly placed throughout the house, and the care with which she approached any project, great or small, were all ways she shared her gifts with those around her.
A lover of language and a lifelong student of its power and possibility, Ms. Reid placed equal value on the gifts of quiet contemplation. A natural introvert, she expressed herself through many forms of meditative handiwork including drawing, painting and bookmaking, as well as in her own creative writing and journaling practices. She sought grace in the quotidian provinces of daily life, approaching every task with the same carefully considered and steadfastly tenacious resolve, regardless of the size or gravity of the matter at hand. She took great satisfaction in a job well done, and settled for nothing less in any of the pursuits that made up her life’s work of exploration, creation and devotion.
At the time of her death Ms. Reid was the Program Coordinator for the combined MD-MPH program in the UNC School of Medicine, where her warmth, charm, and command of detail were loved and valued by colleagues and students alike. She is survived by her husband, Alfred Reid, by their two children, Caroline and Patrick Morris Reid, and by her first grandchild, Hayes Joseph Reid. She touched the lives of all who knew her. We will miss her serenity, style, humor, grace, and warmth.
A celebration of Ms. Reid’s life will be held at 11:00am on Saturday, July 20 at the Newman Catholic Student Center in Chapel Hill. A reception for family and friends will immediately follow the service at the home of Ms. Reid’s cousin, Karen Frisch, at 201 Colfax Drive in Chapel Hill. In lieu of flowers the family requests you consider memorial contributions to the Music Maker Relief Foundation, Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina, or the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association.
July 2013
Leaving North Carolina
June 17, 2013
There were storms in Charlotte. I watched her watching me in the mirror, smiling, knowing, not wanting to look at herself. I couldn't stop my tears, so I walked with Dad around the grounds. When I came back in I said goodbye. A hug and a kiss. A promise to be back in July with the dog. A big smile. Tears and numbness. Dirty jokes in the car, the familiar feeling of a headache and the smell of the highway, the rubber steering wheel, the sound of the engine and the cars passing by. Exhaust and greyness.
At the airport I drank an expensive beer and tried to write. Detroit by way of Charlotte. Storms in Charlotte, all planes to Charlotte are being held. There is a woman in a sash and a tiara at the gate. Ms. North Carolina. 4 inch heels, smooth tan skin, and she won't stop talking. She demands to know what is going on. Will she miss her connection? She has to get to - Colorado I think? There is a pageant. She represents several charities. She is a decorated marine. She tells a story about bumping her head on a stealth aircraft, such a space cadet! It didn't even really hurt, she wouldn't have known it happened at all if it weren't for all the blood.
We shiver together on the plane - the AC is cranked and little icicles are forming around the vents. The man on the aisle offers her his jacket. She whispers to me that the babyfaced boy in fatigues one row up is a moron for wearing his uniform on the plane. Sure way to tell its his first time out she says.
Hours pass. Passengers scatter. Ms. North Carolina gets a direct flight to Denver and clicks off down the concourse. I read the July issues of Garden & Gun and Martha Stewart Living cover to cover.
Finally the storm breaks and we make the 20 minute flight to Charlotte. Steam rises off the city and light streams through the heavy clouds, glowing like the gates of Heaven. I think about my mother and her childhood, and my grandparents and how I imagined them in Heaven when they died. The deep aloneness I feel with my mother's voice hidden away somewhere inside of her expands and contracts.
I drink more expensive beer in the Charlotte airport and wait. The flight to Detroit is dark and quiet. I feel the cool grainy plastic on my face pressed against the curve of the window. I listen to a stranger's voice dipped in honey singing songs of childhood in the south, and I clutch my gin and tonic and cry.
32
June 1, 2013
We drove out Damascus Church road, south of town, and hung a left down around Poythress Way. The church was all sunfaded and quiet, sparkling in the afternoon light. We could see the organ through the cracks and smell the must of the years it has sat, untouched in that backroom. There are bluegrass jams here sometimes - someone always knows someone who has the key and the Ramblers come out here to play on special occasions, or when the fancy strikes.
We went to Crooks for dinner and I felt the amalgamation of years past filtering the air with the thwump of the ceiling fans and the wine-tinged chatter of the coiffed matrons and the easy drawls of the big silver haired men in pink shirts and linen jackets, sipping bourbon and laughing.
I can smell her hair and hear my mother's laugh, her indecision at the menu, her pursed lips and the movement of the air around her hands as she rustles through her purse and places her napkin in her lap.
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