From the top of the water tower, Vivi felt a relief spread through her. What a sweet small-town thrill, this was, like the delight of watching a parade from the top of a tall building. She could see the tangled Spanish moss hanging off the oaks in City Park. She could make out the camellia bushes and azaleas, the salvias; she could smell the night-blooming jasmine. Closing her eyes, she imagined she could look down into her house, into her bedroom and everything in it. The four-poster bed with the silk canopy Delia had bought for her in New Orleans; the new vanity her father bought for her fifteenth birthday, on top of which sat a photo of Jack clad in his basketball uniform, fiddle in hand; the tall armoire crammed with loafers and sweater sets; the ceiling fan; the tennis racket propped against the night stand; her tennis trophies; countless photos of the Ya-Yas, and one of Jimmy Stewart.

Looking away from her parents' house, Vivi imagined she could see the block she lived on, and then her whole neighborhood. She conjured all the people she knew and the few she didn't. She saw them tossing and turning in their beds, too hot to sleep. She saw lights burning on front porches; slivers of light where ice box doors were open, someone standing there, reaching for a bottle of milk, just an excuse to feel the cool air of the icebox. She saw a night lights in the rooms of the babies who dreamed soft seersucker dreams, drugged happy with the heat, their pink baby bodies curled against worn cotton, not fearing Hitler yet, their strong, tiny hearts beating in unison with the trees and the creeks and the bayous.

Vivi saw the flicker of candles burning at Divine Compassion for the souls of the dead; she spotted tiny fiery red tips of cigarettes dangling from the lips of sleep-starved souls seeking the faintest of breezes in back yards; she caught the soft glow from radio dials left on all night, in case a warning was broadcast, in case the Nazis or Japs invaded on this feverish night, executing the horrors that lived in the town's heart even as the bank opened for business, as the milk was delivered, as the wafer changed to body and blood.

--Rebecca Wells, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

::giggles because she and Aims both posted Southern fiction::

It's what we love. Heartbreak Hotel has been on my must read/wish list for ages.

Although I must say, RW's Little Altars Everywhere is, IMVHO, a giant steaming pile of poo. But I re-read Ya-Ya's at least twice a year.

Yeah, Little Altars sucked big donkey balls. It made Vivi more unsympathetic, which was really not something she needed. Wells did a tremendous job in Ya-Yas of taking an unlikable character in Vivi and showing us her path and if not redeeming her, at least making her actions understandable.

I am woefully behind, but have threadsucked in an attempt to get caught up on my lunch break.

how are you, bitches? i'm doing pretty well considering i was thisclose to staying home today. glad i didn't though because i got to be incredibly snarky and bitchy to a customer that left a voicemail cussing us out last night. there's no such thing as FREE, asshole!!

Yeah, Little Altars sucked big donkey balls. It made Vivi more unsympathetic, which was really not something she needed. Wells did a tremendous job in Ya-Yas of taking an unlikable character in Vivi and showing us her path and if not redeeming her, at least making her actions understandable.

We are as one. I hate the movie, although I must watch it every time it's on. By cutting out the whole of her being sent to the nuns, they took out so much of her path.

I love Ya-Yas. I listened to that, rather than read it, and the actress reading it did such a wonderful job. I couldn't listen to it at work, though, it had me in tears too much of the time.

I like parts of Ya-Yas but the whole just didn't hold together for me.

Am at Boise airport, awaiting arrival of co-worker from Seattle - he is the one with the rental car reservation. Am bored.

The blow that finalized the split with my mother was when my father died. Things get said that probably shouldn't, and when I asked for my father's gold class ring, Mother said, "No, you'll just sell it." I let it go at the time, but I was appalled to discover what kind of opinion my mother held of me.

It turns out she had a tendency to blurt out similar things to all my sisters, expressing extreme lack of faith in our sense, decision making, or such. It was very reassuring to find out I wasn't the only one to catch such comments and to have my sisters wince in sympathy at the unpleasantness of what she told me. It turns out when she searched my dresser drawers when I was home from college once and found my birth control pills, she called my middle sister to find out what they were. I told my sister, "You couldn't have told her they were vitamins?" The rest of the BC story is predictably upsetting.

Anyway, we were going through her jewelry box, seeing what there was, and I saw Daddy's class ring in the bottom. I picked it up and ID'd it. My oldest sister said, "Well, that goes to you, definitely." My middle sister nodded firmly. I'm wearing it now. I'm trying to be noble and not think "Revenge is sweet" but not really succeeding.

But, yeah, good trip. We all agreed that we wish Mother could have appreciated that she succeeded in raising strong-willed women who know our own minds, just like her. All she saw, though, was that we weren't accepting the prejudices and believes she held, and she didn't know how to cope.