The morning after my father passed, my aunt opened every window in the house. She said it was to let his spirit escape.

So, I peeked my head outside.

All I saw were my uncles' two beat-up motorhomes rolling into our driveway. They parked in the tall grass, strung power cords into the barn, extended awnings.

That night, they built a campfire, then sat looking at the stars. Now and then, one uncle would stab the fire, sending a spray of sparks into the night.

Instead of conversation, someone brought out a guitar. In his raspy voice—which sounded like a bloodhound with sinus issues—my uncle sang, “Amazing Grace,” and,

“When the Roll is Called Up Yonder.” When he sang, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken?” he was nearly overcome.

I didn't understand the song, or what kind of circle he meant. I'm not sure he did either, because when I asked about it, he lit a fresh cigarette and said, “It's the mystery of life, boy.”

Mysteries.

Like the way clouds keep reproducing out of thin air. Or: what makes a heart beat—and what makes it stop? How a fire works, and why politics feels like a poke to the eye…

I'm looking at the bay water right now. A storm is blowing in. It looks like heaven is fixing to open up.

Vacationers in the cabin to my right are doing the same thing I'm doing. The man is on his porch, wearing a bright red Georgia Bulldog T-shirt, smoking a cigarette.

Watching.

The family in the cabin to my left is from Auburn, Alabama. The back of their truck, smeared with pictures of tigers and eagles. He's on his porch, too. He's sipping a cup of something that's supposed to be coffee. But I'd bet good money it's hair-of-the-dog.

“Good morning,” says Georgia.

“Good morning,” I'm saying.

Auburn says nothing—his

morning isn't so good.

Well mine is. And I'm just going to come right out and say it: I feel grateful. I don't know why, to tell you the truth. I suppose a man can't control the way he feels, sometimes.

Neither good nor bad.

Anyway, it's not because my life is wonderful, or because I'm naturally happy. My life hasn't always been so wonderful. And I'm not exactly the giddiest little sailor God ever created.

But I'm grateful for things. Things like puppies, geckos, and stocked coolers. For…

Our air conditioner went out. And if I were to tell you that it's hot, I would be making a gross understatement. It's not hot. It's sweltering—that's what my mama calls it.

Our bedsheets feel like they're made of industrial wool. I smell like the raw side of a mule. My wife has sweat rings under her sweat rings. Our dog looks suicidal.

I don't know how the old-timers did it, before window-units. I remember my grandfather saying, as a boy, he'd sit beneath his house with his dogs. He'd practice guitar; they'd pant.

His mother would lower lunch through the loose floorboards—crumbled cornbread in a jar, doused with buttermilk.

“All food ought be cold during the dog days," he'd say. "Tea, tomatoes, cucumbers, potato salad, watermelon, slaw...”

Summer food.

And then there were summer Sundays. “Church was awful," my grandfather said. "Cramming a bunch of folks into one hot little chapel, everybody sweating. It's enough to make you believe in Hell."

Even so, Hell happened to be his favorite season of the year. I asked him how this could be, when only hours earlier, I'd seen two trees fighting over a dog.

He said, “We didn't notice the heat,…

Here I am, sitting in a library in mid-Alabama. It's nearby to where we're staying, and it's a swanky place. You ought to see it.

They even have espresso machines.

I'm am at a desk now. When I first sat here, I planned to write about God-knows-what. But, midway into the third paragraph of what was shaping up to be the most boring piece of literature mankind has ever seen, I saw them.

An older couple. She's small. Her slacks look four-sizes too big. Her tall husband is holding her hand.

“I wanna rent a movie,” she's saying.

“Sure thing, baby,” he answers in a thick drawl.

He lends her his arm

like they're promenading onto a dance floor, and they shuffle toward the DVDs.

Libraries have changed over the years. Long ago they were books, desks, Dewey decimals, and unpleasant beehive hairdos. Now, modern municipalities like this place have aquariums, WiFi, soundproof playrooms, and Spanish-English classes on Tuesday nights. And you should see their DVD collection.

She grabs a movie and hands it to him.

He reads aloud, “Species: a government scientist intercepts an alien transmission, and...”

“No,” she says.

He reads another. “The Exorcist: when a twelve-year-old girl…

Birmingham, Alabama, 9:07 a.m.— He sat across from us in the hospital waiting room, wearing an Auburn hat, his cellphone pressed against his ear. He couldn't have been more than forty—maybe forty-five.

His eyes were red. He covered his face with his hand, but he wasn't hiding anything.

A swell of tears hit him again. The sound of his stuffed-up nose could be heard across UAB.

“It's not good news, Mama,” I heard him say into his phone.

The old man beside me had drifted off to sleep. The television above us blared commercials at a volume loud enough affect the climate.

"BUY A NEW KIA FOR NO MONEY DOWN!

COME IN TODAY AND WE'LL THROW IN A..."

Auburn-Cap walked toward the elevators.

"I know, Mama," he said. "But the doctor just told me it's... Mmm hmmm, yes ma'am...” More pacing, more biting his lower lip. “I dunno, they say it's bigger... Yes ma'am... We're still waiting on results...”

“Y-y-yes ma'am,” he stammered. “I dunno know, the doctor says it's too early for that...”

By now, the eyes of the entire room were upon Auburn-Cap. He rested his forehead against the wall, probably wishing he could vanish into thick air.…

If you grew up like she did, you'd call yourself a tomboy too. She has the attitude and the antique pictures on her wall to prove it.

“When I was a girl,” she said. “After school, we'd spend the afternoon catching frogs, fishing, climbing trees. A tomboy like me didn't know HOW to be comfortable indoors. I was nothing like my other sisters, I wanted to be outside, in the mud."

Muddy childhoods like hers are foreign concepts to modern-day kids. Things like climbing trees, throwing pocket-knives at pine trees, or catching frogs are forms of cruel and unusual punishment now.

Today, it's video games, texting, or songs

about getting naked and drinking enough tequila you forget your limo-driver's name.

And folks have the gall to call it country music.

While we chatted in the kitchen, her eight-year-old grandson laid on the sofa, playing with his phone.

“Used to,” she went on, “my favorite thing to do was camp with my friends. Mama didn't even worry about safety back then. We girls camped by the river, we'd get so dark-tan we looked caramel.”

Her grandson waltzed into the kitchen, his sneakers squeaking on the floor. Without taking his eyes off…

"The Lord is my shepherd," he's saying, slowly. And it takes him a good three syllables just to say the word, “Lord.”

He stands beside the casket, sweating through his suit. His white hair looks nearly perfect.

This is Brewton, Alabama. The family of the deceased sits motionless with swollen faces, dabbing their eyes. He's old, he talks with a drawl that won't quit. He has the Bible open, but it's only for show. He could recite this passage from memory.

For the life of me, I don't know why anyone—myself included—bothers to pick up a pen and write anything. Everything you'd ever need to know; he's saying it.

“He maketh

me to lie down in green pastures...”

The sound of a bird chirping competes with the preacher's voice. Someone ought to shoot that bird.

"He restoreth my soul..."

I once knew a girl whose husband died when his tractor rolled over. At the funeral, she sat beneath the big tent, stone-faced while the preacher spoke. Her two children beside her.

That morning, she told me, “I'm too stunned to cry. I keep expecting it to hit, but every time I try to cry, nothing comes.”

That day, she didn't…

We got lost on the way to Sepulga Baptist Church. We ended up wandering through forty miles of Alabamian countryside to find it.

"Honey," said my wife, after an hour driving. “We've passed that same barn ten times now."

So, I pulled into a squatty general store, next to a forest overgrown with kudzu. A dilapidated place where you can buy everything from Red Man chew to Georgia Pacific toilet paper.

I asked directions. The lady behind the counter spat dark spit into a Styrofoam cup, saying, "Go 'bout a quarter mile d'rectly up yonder 'til y'all hit a fork, hold right a few miles furr' an' y'all're smack-dab

at Sepulga. Got it, darlin'?"

Not really.

She sent me away with a Ziploc of pecans—no charge.

When we reached the church, it was a little white building with only one truck out front. The Sepulga congregation consists of nine people who all pronounce the word, “power,” like, “par.” And on this particular day, the crowd was a few shy of a baseball team.

Once folks found their seats, seventy-nine-year-old Brother John called from the pulpit, “How're you feeling today, Ricky?”

An elderly man hobbled to his feet, thumbs hitched in…