I noticed today is the anniversary of Flannery O’Connor’s death. Although I’ve taught her stories on and off for the last 30 years, it’s only in recent years that I’ve taken a serious interest in her — actually — in her life.
I’ve read The Habit of Being, the collection of her letters, and really started to gain an appreciation for her deep faith. It led to my choosing to feature her in my book, My Badass Book of Saints. I found great inspiration in her life — her dedication to her craft, her dedication to her faith, and most important, the way in which she lived with lupus. It helped me a lot after my husband’s diagnosis with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
I found in her a kindred spirit, and a delightfully quirky person known for training a chicken and raising peacocks.
A few years ago when a friend and I were sitting in Atlanta with nothing to do, we decided to go on an adventure, a pilgrimage to O’Connor’s home. We thought it would be a good idea to drive all the way to Milledgeville to visit Andalusia.
Did I mention we’re writers?
So we did. Haul ourselves all the way to Andalusia. There was something special about walking around the grounds knowing that O’Connor might have gotten her inspiration from the same paths we walked. We took a tour of the house and saw where O’Connor wrote in the mornings, and sat in the afternoons.
We laughed outside as we studied the peacocks penned up in the back yard. They made a lot of noise, and we wondered what the allure was.
On the way out we picked up a couple of peacock feathers, a little souvenir of our afternoon.
Mine sits on my desk, a reminder to be bold and seek adventure. To write. To live. To laugh.
My task, to expose these things, discuss them, deconstruct them, and try to wrench hope out of them…usually ends in…not what I hoped for. I strive to take the despair and channel it into something else, something positive. It’s hit or miss.