"All God's Children Got Shoes" by Phyllis Castelli
– Going barefoot is fun…if you have shoes in your closet.
Even in old age, Mama remembered hopelessly tugging down the faded blue dress, trying to hide her feet.
Phyllis Castelli is at home for a while on one of the northernmost beaches in Currituck County, North Carolina. Beauty is everywhere, especially in the sky, the wild horses, and the ever-changing sea, a true invitation to create something magical. She and her husband, along with their Labradors, Cara and Oliver, are hoping for happily ever after.
Phyllis’s poems and essays have appeared in Quillkeepers Press, The Avocet, Scarlet Leaf Review, and Tar River Poets, among others. As a very young poet, she published Gentle, I Think, a book of poems with pen and ink illustrations.
Author’s Talk
Phyllis Castelli
At her death, my mother was the last living person in her birth family, the last of her high school graduating class, and the last in the group of Moms from my childhood. She was the oldest member of her church, except for one. At age 70, I became an orphan with no parents to keep me grounded. That truth lay bone deep. I felt the wind-rush of time with a renewed sense of urgency to get busy living.
Many of us are now the oldest living generation and approach the question of what comes next with decades of life experience, graying hair, and wrinkles from worry and laughter. As a newly verified grown-up, there is no tether between this earth and what I might still dream to do and be.
Counting back 12 generations, each of us has more than 4,000 ancestors, people who built their lives with hopes and dreams for the future. In the moment, that hope culminates with us. I wonder if I am the person they prayed for.
In Mother’s family, genealogy and the search for deep roots were always a priority. Those tap roots are central to understanding who we are. Following people back through time is like walking a labyrinth. The connections are not just up and out like a tree. They cross over and back from path to path and from family to family, a nexus of individuals, community, church, and land, sewn together in one history. These are the threads and bits of fabric for stitching our own patchwork pieces, a mix of heredity, environment, experience, and a dash of audacity.
There was nothing easy about my mother. I am an only child and have often said I really wanted someone to share my mother with. We clashed, often fiercely, yet learning more of her stories later in life helped me see what shaped her desperation - and how that filtered down to me. I wish I had known more about her sooner. Perhaps she didn’t tell me. Perhaps she tried, but I could not hear her.
Now, without too dramatic a flourish, there remains for each of us the question of legacy. We inherited the magic of a shiny, glittering, old/new something - but what? For me, the answer may always be an open-ended exploration, though I plan to heed the advice at the end of a very tender speech by Robin Williams:
“Make your life spectacular!”
