Bush Pilots and Holy Mysteries

I was captured by the gypsies. Well, almost. I was six and they didn’t even know I existed but I was following them, captivated by the sight and sound of them and being carried away just the same. My mother happened to look out our third story window in Germany and could just make out my head bobbing up and down over whatever was growing in that field. The other kids had run with me after the cart, the animals, the wagons
– like something from another time, and then they had stopped and returned to the safety of home. But something about those bells pulled me farther and farther away as if I were under a spell. It was the calling of my mother’s voice over and over and over from a distance that finally made my feet to slow, then come to a full stop. I stood staring longingly as the gypsies disappeared. It was one of the first serious decisions I remember ever making -to stay. To choose family over wild adventure. I was such a quiet, safe, child that one would never have expected this from me. Which made the choosing so much harder. My true nature had surfaced sudden, fierce, and unexpected. A wild, gypsy child with a spirit of adventure built into her bones cloaked well in my silent, somber eyes.

Flash forward five years and I’m was back in America back in my hometown. I’m called forward to the teacher’s desk for questioning. My crime – creative writing. It appeared I had done exceedingly well on a written assignment. Suspiciously well. So the teacher felt that questioning my process, the origination of my thought pattern for the assignment, was in order. I passed the test and then the teacher called my mother to declare to her that I was a writer.

Twelfth grade found me sitting in a creative writing class elective with an angry substitute teacher in the middle of a wildly creative group of seniors who were just this side of out of control, and the substitute, (let’s just call her Miss Shady to protect her identity) yelled out – “How many of you plan to make writing your life and your career?” Before I realized it I passionately raised my hand. Then I realized out of thirty odd kids – my hand was the only one up in the air. Anger fortified, Ms. Shady who yelled, “Then what in the hell are the rest of you doing in here” (No offence, but true story) I didn’t bother to tell her that I sure didn’t think that the school board would approve the creative writing class for just one solitary student. Even one so dedicated.

A thousand words have gone by since then. Journals kept, plays produced, old stories written, and novels published. And still I wake up and think – Yes, I should have been a bush pilot. A truck-stop waitress. A nun, teacher, diplomat, missionary, moon-walker.

In short – the call starts all over again every day that I step outside the world, set my imagination free, and let characters pull up a chair and talk to me with little hope for major gain or commercial success. It comes because there's a story to be told and I'm the teller. It comes again every time I approach a deadline or face the blank page. When I search my heart in the dark for the meaning in this messy, writer life. As my talented friend Denise Hildreth would joke with me, “Sister, it ain’t easy.” And some days it is not. Some days it’s not easy to juggle being under the call while also being a human being with people in my life I love a lot and want to be there for. Or to make decisions that seem logical in nature while my soul beats to the tune of a strange language that only I can hear. It’s not the safest of worlds this writer business. No it’s not.

But oh – the goodness and glory of telling a story that a stranger will embrace from a faraway place and hold it to their chest like a lifeline. To write words that help people cry, or laugh, or sing. To illuminate this sloppy, beautiful life we have with the simple, profound connections we have to each other. Tis a Holy Mystery - that's what it is.

Just today I called my mentor, a strange ringing of the phone for her, and asked almost without hello, “How do I continue to tell the truth? I've got a character, I've got a place, but I've got a really bigger than me deadline?" And with all the wisdom she is known for, she quietly replied, “You simply say, Honey, I need you to talk to me. Then you listen.”

So I’m hanging up my bush pilot dreams and answering the call again. One word, one story at a time.



River Jordan is a southern storyteller and novelist. Her most recent work of Fiction - SAINTS IN LIMBO just surfaced this week and is available everywhere they sell good books. She lives in Nashville with her husband, Owen Hicks, their great, white 120 pound lap dog, and a stubborn cat named Moses. You may reach the author always at her website www.riverjordan.us

The Deep, Down, And Dirty South

Well, I went and did it. People asked me to and I said I would, and then with the hard push and shove of my cousin, dang if I didn't live up to. I compiled a selection of essays, reflections, and favorite postings to A Good Blog Is Hard To Find and wrapped it up between some covers to take to the Pulpwood Queens shindig in Jefferson, Tx. It just a few true tales and takes on growing up in the south coupled with old family pictures. Here it 'tis and if you are at the Girlfriend Getaway Weekend this weekend you can find a copy there.

Going through those old photo's with my cousin has been a hoot and an education. I mean - there it is in black and white and there is no denying any of it. My southern roots are right out there in the wide open. I am reading the back of some of them that tell the most amazing story and I'd call Momma and say - who wrote all this stuff? And she'd say, "Oh, that's your aunt Aggie. Should have been a librarian." Aunt Aggie wrote on the back. "Here is my brother. He always wore a hat and jacket year round and looked like this. He seemed to always be cold." Well, obviously he is kin to this Florida girl up here in Nashville in 10 degree weather freezing her rear off! Aggie's brother, some distant, cold but not forgotten Uncle of mine is standing in front of a sugar cane field and I must say - it looks sunny and sugar cane is in and my guess is it is Summer and he really does look rather toasty in the hat and jacket.

Or just one shot of this man (who I really think was my grandaddy) says more than many of my words could muster. Looks hot. Looks like cotton. Looks so dusty and dry I can't swallow. And it explains why when my sister stopped to pick a few stalks of cotton to bring home to my mom because she thought it was so pretty and would make a nice little present (like a bouquet of flowers) she found that cotton thrown down outside behind the house. "Do you know how hot and dry it is out in the field picking cotton? Do you know how many hours and years I spend out there in that sun? I'd be happy if I never saw any cotton again for the rest of my life." All righty then. Make note. Momma doesn't want any cotton. Prefers flowers.

Or this one - check it out. That's me sporting the overalls look with with one shoe off and one shoe on but when I asked Momma who the people were holding me she told me, "Honey, I don't remember their names. They were just some people down on their luck that needed a place to stay till they could get back on their feet and find a place to live." Really? Just needed a place and they moved into our little house with not much room and shared with us and we didn't have all that much and you didn't even know them?

That's what I call The Deep, Down, & Dirty South. Where people would open a door, set another plate on the table, share what was in their field or in their pocket. Its where we come from - and I hope it's where we're going. In this day and age when we have so much more, bigger houses, belly's pretty darn full and pockets wide - I hope that the changes in our society, the dangers that we truely face and the changing face of our nation - doesn't cause us to change from the principles my mother so well set as a standard. And she wasn't the only one. There was a long, strong line of people working hard with their hands and yet, with the softest of hearts, putting food on the table and willing to share.

For anyone who might want a copy of The Deep, Down, and Dirty South - there might be a few copies available for personalization through my website next week at And don't forget that Saints In Limbo surfaces May 19th, and can be preordered now, in all its backwoods, southern glory set right smack down on my Daddy's creek and in the house he grew up in. My stories? Fiction or fact - they come from my people. And I'm proud to be a Southern Girl - oh, yes I am.

River Jordan is storyteller of the southern variety and has been cast most frequently in the company of Flannery O'Connor and Harper Lee. Jordan's writing career began as a playwright where she spent over ten years with the Loblolly Theatre group and received productions of her original works for the stage including Mama Jewels: Tales from Mullet Creek; Soul, Rhythm and Blues; and Virga.

Jordan's first novel, The Gin Girl, (Livingston Press, 2003) has garnered such high praise as, "This author writes with a hard bitten confidence comparable to Ernest Hemingway. And yet, in the Southern tradition of William Faulkner, she can knit together sentences that can take your breath." Florida Toda y. Kirkus Reviews described her second novel, The Messenger of Magnolia Street, (Harper Collins/Harper One) as "a beautifully written atmospheric tale." It was applauded as "a tale of wonder" by Southern Living Magazine who chose the novel as their Selects feature for March 2006 and by other reviewers as "a riveting, magical mystery" and "a remarkable book." Her most recent work, Saints In Limbo, (Random House/Waterbrook) arrives in stores May 19, 2009. Ms. Jordan teaches and speaks on 'The Passion of Story,' around the country and produces and hosts the radio program, Backstory City Limits with River Jordan, on WRFN, 98.9 FM, Nashville every Saturday at 4:00-6:00 CST.
She lives with her husband in Nashville, TN. You may visit the author at www.riverjordan.us