I sit in my tiny house 2000 miles from the river near which I spent my childhood.  The San Joaquin silently glides past the marina out beyond the levee road, just a few yards away in the dark of the Delta night.  Decades stretch between our bay and the wide Mississippi of my youth.

Two days ago, my brother Mark slipped from this world to whatever lies beyond us.  We had not been close for years but  as a child, I worshipped him.  He primed me for that idolatry with his silent strength and his adolescent swagger.  He paid me twenty-five cents to tell visitors that between us we knew everything — He knew everything, and I knew him.  I’m not sure he ever satisfied the substantial debt for my repeated assertions but I didn’t care.  I never minded anything he did back then.  

Mark defended my honor in the neighborhood against what today would be considered impermissible bullying curtailed by teachers and parents.  Bigger boys taunted me as I struggled to keep pace with their play.  Mark and Kevin, two and four years older than I am, stepped in front of them with raised fists.  They didn’t have to say anything; the set of their jaws gave sufficient warning.  Transgressors backed from their glare as  I cowered behind my big brothers, whimpering, fearful, and anxious.  Mark’s clumsy assurances calmed me as the two of them guided me towards home.

We walked a couple of miles each way to our parish school.  The shortcut took us over train tracks high on a ridge.  One time, as the long low whistle sounded, I urged my useless legs over the rails.  Mark scrambled backward, grabbed my shirt, and dragged me out of the path just as the locomotive reached us.  We tumbled down the embankment, landing hard against the asphalt at the bottom of the hill.  We lay there for a long time before Mark stood, pulled me to my feet, and dusted the dried leaves from my uniform.  We never spoke.  We never said a word, not then, not when we got home, not in all the years since that day.  But I have not forgotten.

Eventually we grew apart, maybe for legitimate reasons, maybe just due to time and distance.  Every family has its small clicks and so, too does ours.  I have siblings with whom I am close and siblings with whom I have less contact.  Over the years, I saw Mark at family events — funerals, weddings, the cousins reunion.  He treated my son with kindness the time or two that they interacted in my son’s young adulthood.   Mark and I exchanged only brief pleasantries at these gatherings and I made no effort to cultivate more.  I left it alone, and so did he.  I’m close to one sister, and my youngest brother that died in 1997, and my older brother Kevin.  I had no bandwidth for breaking barriers, or scaling walls, or confronting old wounds over which scabs had only lightly formed.

But as far as I could tell from where I stood, he lived a good life.  He had a partner that adored him  and children who drew their life’s lessons from him.  I saw him once with his granddaughter in a moment so tender that it left me breathless.  I have a picture somewhere, and occasionally I come across it.  If you turned a dictionary to “grandfather”, that photograph would be the perfect illustration.  A little red-haired girl, sitting  on her papa’s lap, safe, enraptured, completely at ease.

I represented Mark when he adopted his wife’s young son.  We went to court in a large, comfortable room in St. Louis County, with the child sitting on my brother’s lap.  As I went through the questions, I repeatedly referred to “the petitioner, Mark Louis Corley”.  Each time, my nephew, not yet five, exclaimed, “That’s my Daddy!”  By the time the judge granted the petition, even he had to wipe away tears.  The court reporter asked if she could hug me after everyone had left and I stood by the counsel table, gathering my things.  “In all my years here, I’ve never seen anything like this,” she admitted.  “That’s quite a brother you’ve got there.”  I closed my briefcase, smiled, and told her that I agreed.  

My brother Mark lost a daughter, a brother, and his mother who presumably await him on the banks of the eternal river.  I hope he can stroll without pain now, in the cool breezes of paradise, under a willow tree, his baby girl in his arms.   I know his wife and the children still living — his sons, his daughter — and his grandchildren, as well as the rest of us, will mourn his passing.  The end of a life of filled with love and passion can never be easily accepted.  But if some other existence does follow this one, then I know for certain Mark’s will have music, and laughter, and the endless peace which he deserves.  Nothing less would be fair.  Nothing less would be heaven.

Fare thee well, my brother.  Thank you for carrying me through the difficult days of our childhood, and for being a part of what good I took from those troubled times.   Give my love to Hot Lips Mama and to your friend and mine, Stevie Pat.  Rest easy, now.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®

The eight Corley siblings: Top row – Adrienne, Ann, Joyce, Kevin; Bottom row: Mary Corinne, Stephen, Frank, Mark

Mark and my son Patrick

Brokedown Palace, Grateful Dead

The world turns and all of a sudden, I can get fresh fruit in the local stores.  My hands eagerly fumble through the bins.  A few roll onto the floor and skitter across the produce section.  I smile at the clerk who corrals them and wipes them with his cloth.

Mornings break in a roll of fog across the meadow.  Our park sits below sea level so the heavy dew clings to our porches, our houses, and our vehicles.   I huddle within my new winter coat, grateful for the warmth of its cashmere shell and silk quilting.  The blue tam that I crocheted with wool spun by my oldest sister guards my head.  I wrap a knit scarf around my neck and gaze skyward, scanning for the geese whose noisy honk has startled me.

Sleep often dances in the dark of my tiny bedroom, eluding capture.  My grogginess makes the cold bite more closely.  The events of the world nag at me, heavy weights on my brittle psyche.   The turmoil surrounding the policies of the current federal administration haunts me.  Parents torn from children; communities disrupted; people shot, people crying, people dying.

When the war in Ukraine first started, I followed its events even more closely than I might have because a friend’s brothers fought in the Ukrainian army.  People would greet me with a query as to my condition.  “No bombs falling on my village,” I’d respond, to varying degrees of comprehension.  I have a new answer now.  When someone asks how I am, I simply reply, “No one has shot me in the face today.”  Everyone knows what I mean.  Everyone nods.  Some even reach to share a brief, empathetic hug.

Normal life seems wrong to enjoy.  Where my sister lives, gangs of federal agents roam the icy streets.  As a medical professional, she’s doing virtual visits for people who fear leaving their homes.  She’s taken “ICE watch” training.  Sixty miles west of me, peaceful protesters gather in the streets of the City, taking a stand against the wanton raids.  I strain to think of any way that I can help from the rough inland refuge that I staked for myself.

I marched in 2018 for the rights of women and again that year for our immigrant neighbors.  In Sacramento and Vacaville, I stood with strangers and decried the first Trump administration.  But I have aged since then while adding to my daily responsibilities.  Now I can only repost critical information and donate to groups that lead the resistance.   

As for myself, there are, in fact, no bombs falling on my village; in fact no one has shot me in the face.  I’ve seen two ICE raids in the town where I work.  Rumors of several more circulate on social media.  No one showed for a class that one of my artists planned to teach in Spanish even though we posted the rules of entry at our store in accordance with California and federal law.  No judicial warrant, no entry.  No masks, no guns, no warrantless searches.  I taped it next to our recitation of bigotry that we will not tolerate.   Plain and simple.

I try to put myself in the skin of the people confronted by immigration agents.  I remember the few unpleasant encounters that I, a small disabled white female, have experienced in a lifetime of otherwise unnoteworthy interactions.  Once a Kansas City, Kansas officer drew down on me as approached him to ask for directions.  We froze, his partner raising a cautionary hand.  I whispered, I’m a Jackson County prosecutor; I carry a badge.  He slowly rose and holstered his weapon.  The moment passed.

Another time, in an affluent neighborhood, I got stopped for running a red light.  The cop told me to get out of the vehicle.  I glanced at my sleeping baby in the car seat.    I quietly refused his order.  He leaned closer to my face and repeated his direction between gritted teeth gleaming in the frosty glow of the street light.  I again said that I would not.  I told him, softly, that he could write a ticket but I would not get out of the car and leave my child.  His radio crackled as he hesitated.  But then, because I am who I am, what I am, and the color that I am, he relented.

I cannot even fathom what the Somali-Americans experience on the snow-laden streets of Minneapolis.  My heart sinks at the mere thought of the terror.  If I am sleepless in the California Delta, what exhaustion must their first-hand worry cause them to suffer?

Meanwhile, citrus season unfolds, telling me that I’ve now been in California for eight years, of which I have been a full-time resident for seven.  My presence in the park has grown.   My original four-foot porch morphed into a 10 x 8 deck with quarter-panels of trellis for privacy and a tangle of vines that bloom each spring.  My dwarf lime tree shriveled after a year or two of yielding fruit but my succulents thrive and the rainy January has inspired my perfume bush to bloom.   I have a drawer filled with mandarins, their leaves sending fragrant wafts into the house whenever I open the fridge door.    And, with a northward nod, I have increased my monthly contribution to the ACLU.  It isn’t much, but it’s something.  I will keep watch for other things.

For nowadays, the world is lit by lightening, though in my small, secluded corner, life continues.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®

Rain hammers on the steel roof of my tiny house, over and over in its relentless erratic pattern. A podcaster drones between clips of Jack Smith’s deposition. I think, briefly, of just playing the whole thing but eight hours? It won’t change my mind. Soundbites will do, though I did listen to the entire opening statement. Its primary impact on me? It drew forth my longing to practice law again.

Earlier, I listened to another group talk about the waning year. They seemed to agree that events unfolded more starkly than they predicted yet they seemed hopeful. Each offered a unique point of view but all agreed that America had squandered her soft power, caused the death of thousands, and left millions without the ability to buy health insurance. What a mess, I thought, as I boiled potatoes and heated tempeh in my favorite little cast iron skillet.

The electric heater has quieted. In a minute, I will need to go wind its dial. I’ve been thinking of installing a different kind of heat — propane, possibly, or a small wood stove. I would put that in a corner of my sitting room and watch the flames as I wrapped myself in the shawl that I’ve carried from home to home since 1987. A weaver in Arkansas made it. I think of winter in those mountains, of the mud, and the snow, and the quiet hours with no television and howling wind. December in the Delta reminds me of the wintry Ozarks and I am a bit taken aback to think of how many years have fallen away since my time there.

I spent last week in Missouri, first in St. Louis and then across the state in KC. I spent several hours in Union with my brother Kevin and his sweet wife Melissa, in their cheerful, cozy home with original art and eclectic curios. My sister Joyce and I had a wonderful time thrift-shopping and talking over small plates in a restaurant at the hotel where I stayed, thanks to her largesse. Before heading west, I had breakfast with a high school friend and met her husband and grown children. Then off to 39th Street and Prospero’s Books, Rm 39, and the Plaza. Friend after friend greeted me with hugs and grins. Their enthusiasm shocked me. The five-day trip seemed to last five seconds. The list of people whom I could not see presses against my heart. At 70, I recognize that each trip home might be my last, or the last chance to spend time with any one of those kind souls who have enriched my life for decades.

I did not drive past my old house. I know the woman who bought it from me has made her own memories in it. She’s had a beautiful child, photos of whom I have seen on social media. I did not sell to the highest bidder. Instead, I chose someone whom I thought would love the place as much as I did. While I miss that bungalow, the fact that the new owner gets to raise her daughter there confirms the rightness of my selection.

Seeing those photos also solidifies my keen realization that while I will always be welcome in my Kansas City haunts, it is not truly my home any longer. This 200 square-foot rectangle and the rural area in which it sits fill that role now. I live among people with their own tiny houses and trailers, in the circle which surrounds the big meadow here, the old oaks, and the shady rows on the east side of the park. A ten-mile stretch of levee road defines our neighborhood. Around its curves, other parks and marinas form their own small hives. Boats navigate the sloughs and pull into slips, tie themselves to the dock with sturdy knots, and hunker down for the cold weeks ahead. The rain comes, and the wind blows, and the swans drift into the curves under the dying hyacinth.

Another year will dawn in four hours. I will likely fall asleep before that moment. I will wash the dishes, start a load of clothes, and drape my tired limbs in woolen blankets. The sound of the rain will be the last thing I hear before closing my eyes and surrendering to the satisfaction of sleep. When morning comes, I will embrace the prospect of a year to fill as I choose. As I wait for the kettle to boil so I can brew my coffee, I will, no doubt, make a reckless host of resolutions, some of which I might even keep.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®