The flower of Midlife sifted through faith, family and heaping helping of southern fried chicken.

Complete torture. I would choose hanging by the ends of my hair a month of Sundays over listening to my voice mail greeting. It doesn’t help when husband says, “That’s incredibly goofy, Jamie.”

Of course it’s goofy, no way to sugarcoat a cat fight in a helium chamber. That’s why when first wading into writing waters; I panicked upon hearing that young writers need to find “their voice.”

Deidre Knight noted author, agent and dear next door neighbor confided, “Just write, Jamie. Keep writing and it will find you.”

 What could I do with pedestrian? I needed the soulful power of Aretha Franklin, the edgy androgynous strength of Annie Lennox.

I needed, “It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day…”

Bobbie Gentry. I wanted the voice pulsing from my fingertips to drip everything sultry, raspy and mysterious like Bobbie Gentry’s voice entwined with her guitar.

NOTHING dripped from my keyboard (except maybe honey and peanut butter from my morning bagel). Now, I did play a mean zither in Ms. Osby’s fourth grade music. At least I had that going for me. But a clean hammer-on, pulling-off zither solo can’t make up the absence of a sassy voice or somber one, a voice of darkest tragedy or intelligent chatty chaos.

Funny how quiet a voice can get. Staying locked inside, held captive by wicked stepsisters standing at the keyhole, whispering, “You’re dull.” Or far worse, “You’re impossibly average.”  A voice drowned out by a party of characters vying for the title of “Miss Voice of Jamie Miles” a poor splintered soul with no idea if she ever had, lost or left behind such a thing in white plastic on the self-checkout carousel at Ingles.

But following Deidre’s wisdom, I kept writing. One by one, almost imperceptibly, the imposters slipped out of the room; the chatter ceased.

When the silence parted; there she sat.

I guess “she” had been there all the time; silently lining the cafeteria wall in the midst of those clever, flirty, dramatic souls at some middle school dance. She prayed someone would notice her – though preferably not Jimmy with CNPD (Compulsive Nose Picking Disorder). Mute and plastered against the lunch trays like a doomed flower up on Choctaw Ridge, she waited to be plucked and dropped into the muddy water.

No, there was no muddy river, no dramatic freefall from the Tallahatchie Bridge and thank goodness, no Jimmy. My voice just appeared and attempted some funky, foolish dance, but it was her dance. And she so loved dancing that one day my voice grabbed the microphone and began to…sing.

 And you know, she wasn’t half bad.

 Okay, she was dreadful; but it didn’t matter. For the first time singing — just felt so good.

My daughter needed to select a famous American for her second grade biography report. The assignment included dressing as the subject. My mind wandered…Sally Ride, Sandra Day O’Conner, Betty Crocker?

 “Barak Obama,” she decided.

 That was cool. No gender bender problems for this mom. Hannah could borrow boy’s navy blazer, cinch a red tie and pull hair back into a ponytail.

The next day she’d changed her mind.

 “Miley Cyrus.”

 From Leader of the Free World to Leader of the 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Disney Channel timeslot.

 I sensed need for motherly manipulation (or guidance).

Hannah lives to save distressed creatures. Who was famous animal rescuer? Filing through my vast knowledge of useless 21^st century trivia, I remembered Sigourney Weaver in movie with orangutans. After googling this, “Gorillas in the Mist” popped up. Silly me, gorillas not orangutans and Dian Fossey became her famous American.

Watching the movie (before devouring written bio – of course), the two most traumatic moments for my daughter came when poachers killed Fossey’s beloved gorilla, Digit and the revelation, “Dian Fossey SMOKES!”

“Everyone did back then,” I reassured. Smoking did not automatically topple one off famous American pedestal. (Well, maybe the American Cancer Society’s.)

Then she needed a costume of sorts and Dad volunteered to head up the shopping expedition.

Roaming the wilds of Wal-Mart and not wise in SuperCenter navigation, Dad took a wrong turn. Into the women’s intimates.

“Daddy, I need a bra.”

“What?”

“Dian Fossey wore a bra.”

Living in Rwanda with a bunch of gorillas, I don’t know if crossing-her-heart was a high priority.

 “Do you think she wore wear underwear like this?” In Hollywood’s portrayal, Fossey worried over missing luggage for, “My underpants and brassieres are in there.” Hannah’s selected panties were pink, polka-dotted, lacy and cut up to somewhere which might look attractive on someone twice her age and half mine.

Dian Fossey’s passion was not pink, plastic or in any way held together with dental floss.

With an occupational therapy background at a children’s hospital her only training, she convinced Louis Leakey to entrust her with counting gorillas in central Africa. She hungered, but not for fame.

Suffering the pain of broken bones, jungle rot, decaying teeth, living with civil unrest and weakened lungs that made breathing in the mountains laborious torture (for she did manage to buy cigarettes); Fossey ultimately gave her life to save the mountain gorilla from extinction.

Dear Hannah, a drawer full of lacy, in-your-face sexuality is only frothy whip cream on the delicious nine layer stack of syrup-laden womanhood. Be vigilant. Never let the culture’s increasingly one-dimensional, hyper-sensual feminine images distract your life mission. Too many of our gender waste precious time chasing pink polka-dotted underwear.

Go find your gorillas and live.

 A friend buzzed into the house to fetch my daughter for play date with her grandchild just as I emerged from shower in my bathrobe. “Are you sick?” She quizzed.

“No,” I sighed. “I’m just clean.”

Lovely to reach a point in life where your naked face free from grime, blush or sunless tanner looks as if you’re safe harbor for virulent illness.

In hindsight, she might be a prophet.

Later that evening after midnight, our young daughter called out, “Daddy, Mommy!”

My husband leapt out of bed. Eyes closed and motionless, I drifted back towards that blissful state where all appeared rosy and age didn’t cast me an ashen, yet squeaky clean invalid.

“I threw up!’

My husband stopped.

Then I did what every woman does after her husband stops like a statue sensing the sickly winds of stomach flu wafting stealthily toward every healthy household nostril. I climbed out of bed, brushed past Daddy (who already tucked one toe back under the blanket) and headed down the hall to…the MESS.

As the lioness hunts while the male lion preens, women bravely march to the vomit zone and drape yellow tape. Men roll over, go comatose and block any recognition that Mount Vesuvius just violently erupted in the next room.

Only science can explain a woman’s willingness to risk exposure to debilitating disease and spend sleepless nights washing load after load of laundry. A 47^th chromosome and sacrificial attitude toward her gross-tolerance units is the only answer.

I theorize women carry an additional chromosome rendering them unaffected by sight and smell of the recent marbleization of a child or child’s bedroom with half-digested chicken nuggets trimmed in mac-and-cheese. This Clara Barton DNA lies dormant until the onset of pregnancy or upon turning 25 – whichever occurs first. 

Along with this 47^th chromosome theory, my neighbor, Trish Jones and I came up with the gross-tolerance hypothesis. The amount of grossness humans can tolerate at a given moment is determined by how many gross-tolerance units they have left in their gross-tolerance allotment. Grown women recoil at placing an earthworm on a fishhook because as adults, we expend our all gross-tolerance units cleaning up vomit, changing dirty diapers and scouring petrified umber urine-stalactites off toilet bowls.

Maybe the larger concern is what happens to all available male gross-tolerance units rendering men incapable of stomach flu wipe downs? Couldn’t they find a bucket, move wet bed linens from washer to dyer, shepherd a dear vomit-encrusted child to bathtub? Clearly, researching such pressing questions begs for Superfund status or bailout add-on.

 As a Georgia Tech grad, Trish will head up the study. I volunteer to be her dutiful assistant and promise never to call in sick.

Fortunately, I only look deathly ill. Well…only those days I bathe.

Number 34. I stared at the “34” illumined on my car’s thermometer. Dear God, please stay Walter Payton. No Marcus Allen, Jim Brown or Franco Harris. 

 Last weekend, I attended the Florida Christian Writer’s Conference. The retreat bordered an enormous sandy-bottomed lake and trees dripping oranges. On Saturday, the temperature soared into the 80s. Sunshine and flip-flops.

 On Sunday, I awoke to The Weather Channel broadcasting lots of blue and pink over Alabama marching towards Georgia. 

Talking with my husband, I questioned, “Lots of snow headed toward Madison. Should I try to drive home?”

“Snow? No snow. Just lots of rain,” he reassured. “You’ll be fine.”

 My husband lived in Minnesota for many years. I grew up in Florida. This equaled a vast chasm between our safe driving winter weather perceptions.

Leaving the conference early, I planned to arrive in Madison before temperatures dropped and ice coated the roads.

 Driving along, I received calls and pictures from husband, children, friends and neighbors. “Lots of snow. Having so much fun! DRIVE SAFE.”

Drive safe? 

Reached Fort Valley navigating a somewhat icy I-75.

Instant messages from friends. Weather bad. Be careful. Roads nasty in Madison.

“I’m fine. Roads a little slick, that’s all.” 

Then at Macon, I turned onto Highway 11 at 5:30 p.m. 

PANIC.  

Snow, ice and freezing precipitation poured from the heavens. Two lanes, the world going Antarctic in 30 seconds and I was 50 miles from home. That’s when I started obsessing about the “34” on the car temperature register. 

Don’t hyperventilate, just focus. Driving a 2-wheel drive Suburban (Minnesota husband felt no reason to buy 4-wheel drive; it never snows in Georgia.), I feared my future held impending 2-wheel, two-ton toboggan freefall into frigid, deserted ditch. 

“Go slow, 15 miles an hour if you have to,” my husband confided. “Just get home.”

I wanted fast. Speed. It took steely resolve to inch along. I craved my driveway five seconds ago. Would I arrive before 34 degrees became Franco Harris? 

I loved Franco Harris. I loved black and gold. I loved “Have a Coke and a smile.” Silly me, Mean Joe Greene sipped that Coke and tossed his jersey. Jersey number 75.  Yesterday held sunshine and light-hearted commercials featuring defensive tackles. Today rained snow and threatened running backs wearing numbers lower than Tony Dorsett.

Once on Highway 83, got to Monticello, then Shady Dale. 

Creeping, creeping along as snow-laden branches bent arthritic hands out to snare my Suburban sled. Once white-knuckling my way to Pennington, I remembered to breathe. 

Crossing over I-20, the BP closed. The most beautiful darkened green and yellow gas station I ever laid eyes on. I made it, blessed home… and still Walter Payton. 

I always pegged God a Bears fan.