Moon Over Mississippi. A full moon over Mississippi as seen from the backyard of my former residence. I took the picture with a Nikon Coolpix 995, resting on a picnic table. It was cold and cloudless. The sky was so dark, the air still and the moon lit up the yard. I already knew I was leaving the state in a few months. It was as if the moon and sky let me have a moment of calm before the turmoil to come. I'm grateful for that.
See other entries for Thursday's Challenge: Sky. 
What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. - William Shakespeare
Nyssa. Where did you get that name mom? Well, it's a long story. Not really. Before you were born I had a long list of girls names. All girls go through the phase of thinking of names for their kids, just like they go through the phase of "trying on" the last name of your boyfriend to see how it looks on paper with your first name. You know, you write it in those linked together puffy letters in the margins of your notebooks or you color in the different letters on the back of a notebook; never in the front where everyone can see. You do the same thing "trying on" names for your kids. I know you do too...you told me you want to name your son Leviathan! Oh, my goodness! That makes Nyssa look downright ordinary. Hopefully you will change your mind because any boy named Leviathan or Leviathon or any variation of that will not stand a chance on any playground. Even making it Levi for short can't save it. The whole name will be on his birth certificate, social security card, tax return, diplomas from high school, college, medical school and he won't be able to hide it. Please reconsider.
Anyway, my list for girls included Shauna Rhunette, Sharla Rochelle, and Sheena Ranelle. I admit these were not very good choices. But I had been saddled with an SR so I thought it would be good enough for a girl. I thought the name Raven was pretty but then you might be blonde (sure enough) and it wouldn't really fit, too dark. I thought about a family name but on my mom's side these were pretty disastrous, especially my grandmother's name, Zula or rather Minnie Zula. I thank God almost daily that he let my mom see the light and forget about that. She gave in to the concept with your uncle. At least she made Grady the middle name and not his first name.
I didn't have such an exotic list for the boys: Christopher Scott, Jason Michael, Jonathan Mark, and Nathan Alexander. Boys names just never seemed to be as important to me as the names for girls. Then when it came time to really pick out a name, the boys names didn't matter at all. I knew you were going to be a girl.
There is where it fell apart. Your father didn't see my concept of girls names. He hated every name I put out. He never gave any specific reason for his feelings but just didn't like them. Of course he had no alternative choices to discuss. I finally started at the beginning of one name book and just went down the list....Ann (no), Abigail (no), Charlotte (no), Helen (no). He was no help.
He was a science fiction fan, always watching the BBC show Dr. Who that ran on PBS for a long time. One of the traveling companions was named "Nyssa" and she was quiet, cute, and very smart the exact opposite of "Teagan", also a traveler who was very ditzy. Thinking that this would be shot down as well, I tossed it out there. He actually liked the name. In fact it was the only name he would agree on. Then it became a matter of figuring out something to go with it that he didn't hate. There wasn't much choice really. Very few names in the book sound right with "Nyssa", you really need a one syllable or two syllable name to fit. Most of the one syllable names he hated or it made a strange initial combo. For example, I knew he hated Ann or Anne and though it sounded OK, the initials would be NAP. Knowing how much you like to sleep now, I think this would have been fine after all. The second name took as much time to figure out as the first and even up to the day they asked for your name for the birth certificate, I wasn't sure if your dad would veto at the last moment. We settled on Marie. No one else in the family was named Marie; we didn't know anyone with that name; the initials were ok and it sounded good with Nyssa. So, that's how you got your name.
What do I know about your "namesake" Nyssa?
1. She is a character, not real.
2. She was a serene, warm but scientifically minded young woman who always kept her composure and her wits about her even if all else was chaos.
3. She was pretty but not a smart aleck.
4. She had lost a father and her home, had seen friends die, but instead of falling apart the circumstances of her life only served to strengthen her character and her resolve.
5. She was a good person.
What have I learned through the years about the name "Nyssa"?
1. It is Greek in origin and means starting point, the beginning or goal.
2. The Scandinavian form of "Nyssa" means friendly elf.
3. There is an historical figure St. Gregory of Nyssa, but I haven't read much about him.
4. There is a Nyssa, Oregon.
5. You are a genus of trees also known as the Tupelos. (I think that is so strange particularly since we lived in Mississippi for 15 years and were 60 miles south of Tupelo.) This genus of trees include the following:
Nyssa aquatica - Water Tupelo
Nyssa biflora - Swamp Tupelo
Nyssa javanica - Indonesian Tupelo
Nyssa leptophylla - Hunan Tupelo
Nyssa ogeche - Ogeechee Tupelo
Nyssa sinensis - Chinese Tupelo
Nyssa sylvatica - Black Tupelo or Blackgum
Nyssa ursina - Bear Tupelo
Nyssa yunnanensis - Yunnan Tupelo
We discovered the Nyssa sylvatica on a trip to Monticello. The trees along the trail outside of Thomas Jefferson's home were labeled with their scientific names and there you were. Turns out that we had one in our back yard, the blackgum tree in the corner. It had the most vibrant red leaves in the fall and the dark blue oval shaped berries.
What have I figured out about the name "Nyssa"?
1. It is uncommon but there are others out there. On one poetry site there were over fifty other poets named "Nyssa".
2. There is a website called Nyssas Around the World.
3. Many people from the deep South have difficulty pronouncing Nyssa. I have heard many variations. Nassa - with a short "a" sound; Nissa - with a long "i" sound; Nessa - with a long "e" sound; Nesse - with two long "e" sounds; Nasser, Nisson, etc.
4. The correct pronunciation: Ny - sa. Accent on first syllable. The "y" has a short "i" sound and the "a" is a short sound like you use saying "a" bird or "a" plane.
5. Some Southerners will NEVER be able to pronounce "Nyssa". Case in point your softball coach. He tried every variation known to man with no success. He just couldn't get it. So what does he do? "I'm just going to call you BOB!" And that is just what he did. He would call you off the bench, "Let's go BOB, take first base for her", "Run! BOB! Run!", and when you were Freshman Maid at homecoming and walked on to the field in your red flowing formal with the hair all done up, he turned to me and said,"That's BOB? Wow! She really cleans up nice!"
So there you have it, the whole story and everything I know about your name. Do you feel dizzy yet? As Dr. Who said, "Wow, that takes me back...or is it forward? That's the trouble with time travel, you never can tell."
This was not Nyssa's first experience with music; that was with the toy piano and her Elton John glasses. Here, at one year of age she tries her hand at the big piano. Don't you just love the concentration, the tongue stuck tight to her upper lip? Thursday she has to play in front of the music faculty at Sewanee. If she concentrates like this she'll be great. I wish I could be there for this one.
I have heard her recitals many times. For a mom, they were times of great stress, much breath holding and turning blue, especially if the piece exceeded four minutes in length. I pass out after four minutes of breath holding. As a mom you want your child to be pleased with their performance, not be overwhelmed with nerves and to enjoy the feeling of accomplishment. But I had to sit there and remind myself to breath. I always tried to sit in the balcony both to film the event and to keep her from seeing my nerves.
She started piano in kindergarten. Her teacher for many years was a lovely lady who had never had a pupil start in kindergarten, before they knew how to read. Nyssa hopped in the car that first Friday of kindergarten and said, "Mom! Guess what!" As the pessimist I am, my first thought was, "Oh! No! She's been expelled from school the first week!" Bad momma. But I said, "What?" And while sweeping her arm for dramatic effect she said, "Mrs. King came and got me for a piano lesson and it was w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l! We have to go buy a piano this weekend so I can practice!" Thus began her piano life.
Sorry Nys, but moms have to brag a little. She played the offertory in church for the first time when she was six, just before starting first grade. It was a medley of songs including Go Tell It On The Mountain, Stand Up For Jesus and Onward Christian Soldiers. I sat with her to turn the pages and she was so little you could only see a part of her head above the little wall by the piano.
I want her to know that I have always been impressed by her lack of nerves. Right before a recital she will go through the pieces, get up and say "No sweat." I could never do that. I got out of more recitals than I played in. Had the measles for one. Moved to a different state two weeks before another. But the third, I was stuck. My piece was "Tales from the Vienna Woods" in three movements. I had to have it memorized and I did but, I was supposed to take the music so the teacher could follow along and I forgot mine. I remember being so nervous and wanting desperately for it to be over. I got up, played and sat down. I was quite pleased with myself and thought "boy that was easier than I expected and shorter too." When I got home and looked at the music, I discovered why. I had played the first movement and somehow managed to change keys and without missing a beat went straight to the last movement. I left out the middle part all together, two pages worth! No wonder it was fast! More than likely my tempo was quite fast as well. Nyssa is not plagued with those kinds of nerves. Thank goodness.
To Nyssa: So, on Thursday, I will be thinking of you. Good luck. You'll do great I'm sure! Make them wish you weren't transferring out.
Sorry Nyssa, but I really think this one is cute. This was taken in 1988 at home in Oklahoma City and she was two; loved peanut butter sandwiches and the yard sale cowboy hat. I believe we still have that put away somewhere. Peanut butter and jelly was the fall back staple. She didn't even let a piece of steak touch her lips until she was in middle school. If we went to the steak house she took her sandwich and grapes. They would give her a plate, a big tossed salad (yes, she does like salad) and a drink. She was happy as a clam then, eating her peanut butter sandwich. Caption: "It's hard work mom, but someone has to eat it!"
Parents are always telling you about the "bad weather" back there on the farm when they were children. "I had to walk a mile to school in four foot of snow, every day, uphill both ways." We have all heard it. Now it's my turn.
In Gary, Indiana it can get really cold. I had to stand on the corner and wait for the bus in temperatures that were 24 degrees below zero, before the advent of wind chill indicators; and we had to wear skirts or dresses to school. There it is, my "how bad I had it with the weather as a child" story.
Except it brings to mind the year I was in 9th grade. In January of 1967 we were having some really unusual weather for northern Indiana. It had been unseasonably warm with temperatures in the upper 60's and 70's on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of that week. In fact when a strong front headed for the area we had severe thunderstorm warnings and even tornado watches with lightening and rain. The air behind the front was extremely cold and the area of low pressure was huge. The temperature dropped into the upper 20's and low 30's by Tuesday night and the rain turned to snow.
It was snowing when I took the bus to school on Wednesday, a wet snow with huge fluffy flakes and very heavy, "blizzard-like conditions". By noon eight inches or so had accumulated so they closed schools and took everyone home. My mother taught school in an area across town from the parsonage. By the time she got home mid-afternoon, there was over 12 inches on the ground, it was still snowing and she couldn't see the driveway. She just aimed her little car at the garage door and hoped for the best. It stuck in a drift that was already forming and there it stayed. At least it was off the road.
It continued to snow all day Wednesday, Wednesday night, all day Thursday, Thursday night and all day Friday. It finally quit sometime in the early hours of Saturday morning. They never were sure exactly how much snow fell as the gauges measured to 36 inches and they ran over. All I knew was that WE WERE OUT OF SCHOOL! Now it isn't that I didn't like school, I did. But in Gary, Indiana we hardly ever got out of school for snow. It just didn't happen. They have snow plows and salt and sand and they just know how to handle it. It isn't like Mississippi where they had a THREAT of snow and closed schools at noon; right before the sun came out that afternoon.
There are several problems with that kind of blizzard. First, you didn't expect the snow to be that bad so you didn't get to the store to get bread, milk and eggs before it became too bad to get to the store. So what you have in the freezer and fridge have to last.
Second, the snow was over 36 inches deep, the front stoop of the house was the highest elevation but not that high and all the doors of the house opened outward except the basement door. So, the doors were stuck. Shoveling didn't help because the wind was also blowing and as fast as you dug to the bottom in one area, another area would drift over. We had drifts as high as the roof line of the house. The garage door was drifted to the roof line and wouldn't budge.
Third, our dog Pepper, was outside in her warm, heated, insulated, two room doghouse. This is fine except we can't see the doghouse; it is buried under a snow drift that covered her house and the kitchen window. So, I had to go out through the only door that opened inward, climb the basement stairs and start digging in the general area of the dog house. I finally hit the roof and worked my way to the front. We were afraid she would suffocate in the house and she had not dug out on her own during the actual snowstorm. But when I got down to the front door, there she was, tail wagging, toasty and dry in her condo. We let her stay in the garage for a while until I got her area cleared a bit. Unfortunately, overnight the drifts again formed over the fence and she just trotted up the drift, over the fence and out of the yard. The next morning when we went looking for her and called her we saw this little black speck coming over the white snow. She had gone into the woods behind the house and came home dragging a prize; I think it was a shoe. She loved shoes. So until the meltdown, she had to stay inside. It was either dig her out from under a drift or have her get out over a drift. It was just easier to keep her inside.
The fourth problem is boredom. After two or three days it was just plain boring to be stuck, rationing food (not that bad as we did have a freezer), in a house with a 4 year old brother and parents. We were out of school of course the rest of the week it was snowing and four days the next week. You can only read so much. FM radio was just starting to be popular and AM was as static filled as it is today.
On Friday, a week after the storm stopped, the roads were deemed clear enough for school to open. I don't know why they bothered. Over half of the kids were absent as many of the more remote roads were still under drifts or worse the parents had cars covered with the snow plowed off the streets. But we had school that Friday. That weekend it snowed 12 more inches so we missed Monday but somehow, by Tuesday they finally had everything back together.
Mom had to drive the big car back to her school because her little one was still buried. When the snow finally melted and we saw where she ended up, we laughed. She missed the driveway by about a foot and was stuck in the shallow ditch beside the road. At least we found the car....for a while all you could see was a little bit of the black top.
