Rebecca Copeland's Blog

Prologue

Recently, I’ve posted interviews on this site with my sister, Beth Copeland.

I’m fortunate to have three older sisters!

I decided I would share more about my other sisters.

Next, I’ll give Joy Copeland Lineback her turn.

When I was growing up, Joy was the sister I most favored. There are photographs of her as a little girl, and when these were set alongside photos of me, it was difficult to tell us apart!

Sisters Joy (in high school) and Becky (in 4th grade)

We both had brown hair, though Joy’s was a deeper chestnut than mine, and we both shared a mischievous grin. Although she was born with cerebral palsy, Joy was the sister who taught me to turn cartwheels and shoot baskets.

Mother liked to say that Joy was “sassy,” because Joy never settled for a simple answer. She was curious and observant. Of all of us, Joy was the one to remember details. Long after a dinner with a random guest, Joy could recall what they ate, how much they weighed, and by how many years they were older than their spouse.

Joy applied her sharp and inquisitive mind to becoming a social worker. Later she married, moved with her husband, Larry, to California, and raised two boys. Now she’s the grandmother to six grandchildren.

I thought I’d ask Joy about certain aspects of her life. Let’s start with her childhood.

 

Joy: I have memory fragments, some very vivid, of my first seven years, most of which were spent in Japan.

My childhood in Japan was charmed in many ways. As an American child, I had many positive experiences interacting with Japanese people and learning about their culture. Since our father was Chancellor of Seinan Gakuin University from 1952-1956, we were often the center of attention. And that meant we really needed to be on our best behavior in public.

Becky: Let’s back up a bit. Can you tell us more about how you came to be in Japan?

Joy: Well, I was born at Grace New Haven Hospital in New Haven, CT on January 14, 1949, three weeks after my “due date.”

It was a busy time for our parents. They were taking Japanese language classes at Yale University preparing to go as Southern Baptist missionaries to Japan. In the late summer of 1949, I arrived in Japan with Mother and Daddy and our sister Judy, who was two years old.

We travelled from the U.S. by ocean liner and rode the train from Yokohama to Fukuoka on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s main islands.

Copeland Family on the Seinan Campus, 1950. Joy 23 months; Judy three years old.

Daddy was assigned to teach at Seinan Gakuin University and Seminary in Fukuoka. I arrived as an eight-month-old infant.

Becky: Did you learn to speak Japanese?

Joy: I am told that I learned to speak Japanese and English together, though I have no memory of conversing freely in Japanese. I now understand only isolated words and phrases and a few children’s songs in Japanese.

Becky: What is your earliest memory?

Joy: I think my earliest memory is of my second birthday.

Judy and I were staying with the Moorheads, who as you know were also missionaries. Mother was in the hospital on the military base giving birth to our sister Beth, and it just so happened that she was born on my two-year birthday!

Becky: Well, that was quite a present!

Joy: Yes it was!

It wasn’t the only present, though.

“Aunt” Thelma Moorhead gave me a set of tiny miniature glass animals. They were finely painted, and not the usual age-appropriate gift for a two-year-old child! I wonder if our sudden sleep-over caught Aunt Thelma by surprise. Probably she hadn’t realized it was my birthday, so she gave me something from her own gift supply.

In any case, I liked the animals, but don’t remember what happened to them after that day.

She also managed to surprise me with a cake.

I have a distinct memory of sitting at a child-size square table just inside the Moorheads’ back door and eating cake.

Becky: See, you were already remembering details about what people ate, even when you were just two years old!

Joy: Haha, I guess so. I remember other things, too, of course.

Our first home was a prefabricated house on the Seinan campus.

[Japan was still devastated by war when the Copeland family arrived. So as to not further tax the struggling economy, missionaries were required to bring all the provisions they would need to survive for four years. This included food and clothing but also appliances, a car to share, and even their own prefabricated housing. When they sailed to Japan in 1949, the Copelands brought along a house of corrugated tin.]

I remember one morning after a typhoon damaged our roof, a family friend took Judy and me out for a walk to get us away from the damage, I guess so they could make repairs without us getting in the way.

I also recall going to the zoo located on the top of a tall department store in Fukuoka. That day there was a lot of commotion and people were running about. Judy reports that this was because the elephant had escaped his cage. Apparently, I fell down while running away from him. Funny that I don’t remember that part.

I do remember being hospitalized when I was three years old because I had a severe case of diarrhea. I can still see the hospital bed as high as my head. I had brought a small toy umbrella with me. I remember being very upset when an older boy on the unit broke it. Before I was discharged, they gave me a shot (I’m told, Penicillin) in my butt with a big needle!

I had to stay in the hospital all by myself for several days and our parents report that for days afterward I asked repeatedly, “Why did you leave me there?”

Becky: But that must have been scary for a little girl to be all alone in a hospital, stranded on a high bed, surrounded by strangers.

Joy: It was scary.

But not as scary as the time a strange man picked me up and started running away with me!

Becky: What?

Joy: Yes. It happened when we were leaving Fukuoka to return to the States for furlough. That would have been in 1953 so I must have been about four. Our family was on the platform at the station. The train was already there, and a crowd had gathered to see us off, each person shouting out their farewells. The train started moving before we could all get on.

Daddy was holding infant Beth in the door of the train shouting for us to hurry, Judy and Mother started running together with assistance from others who helped them get on, too. A young Japanese man, who I didn’t know, quickly lifted me and started running.

He handed me to Daddy. We all got on the train!

But for days afterwards, I dwelled on this experience, according to our parents, asking repeatedly, “Why did that man pick me up?”

Becky: But you didn’t know he was trying to help you. I’m sure you were terrified thinking that he was running off with you.

Joy: Yes, I was pretty scared. It turns out he was a Seinan student and obviously just trying to help. Everything was so chaotic with all the well-wishers pressing in to say goodbye.

Becky: Wow, a rampaging elephant, abandoned at the hospital, and kidnapped by a strange man! Your childhood sounded traumatic!

Joy: Oh, not at all. I guess it’s just the scary things that stick in your mind. Most of our experiences in Japan were wonderful, and not all of my train memories were frightening.

I have especially fond memories of eating on the train: mikans (tangerines), obento with maki and inari-zushi, mochi balls, and my favorite, manju (sweet bean cakes).

In 1952 the family moved to Hoshiguma, northwest of Fukuoka City, where they lived in close proximity to other missionaries.

Joy: The highlight of our early years in Japan was moving into a brand-new missionary home!
I remember we girls had a large bedroom that could be divided into two rooms by sliding doors. We loved staging dramas in the room, sliding the doors open to reveal our stage. Judy was always the director. “The Three Little Pigs” was our favorite.

It was quite a large house. I remember a spacious living room with an adjacent dining room, a kitchen, and a study for Daddy. Besides our parent’s room there was a guest bedroom, and a big bathroom. At one end of the house was an apartment for our two Japanese maids, Tamiko-san and Okuma-san. We enjoyed a close bond with them. They helped with housework and were our caregivers. They also played games with us.

Mostly, though, we played with other MKs (missionary kids). Together, we explored our neighborhood through an imaginary game called, “Magic Land” that Judy created. In the game we stomped on the lid to our septic tank to enter Magic Land and stomped on it again when we were ready to leave.

“Magic Land” changed all the familiar landmarks around our home into special fantasy places. Once Judy, Jack Garrott—another MK—, and I tried to dig our way to China to find the Abominable Snowman. I recall Daddy finally put a stop to this activity!

Becky: There must have been a lot of time spent in church, too.

Joy: Of course. We attended church every Sunday at the Seinan Baptist Church. I recall that the services were long and in Japanese.

On Sunday afternoons the missionary families gathered in each other’s homes for children’s Sunday School. I recall a lot of singing!

At home, our parents led a daily devotional before breakfast. They had a list of all the Southern Baptist missionaries around the world separated out by who had birthdays when. Daddy led us in prayer and noted each missionary by name on their birthday. We girls got the giggles when praying for missionaries with uncommon last names, such as “Longbottom, “Outhouse,” or “Hogg.”

Becky: Oops, I bet that didn’t go over well with the parents.

Joy: Right! Each time we got scolded for being “irreverent.”

Becky: Do you have memories of other naughty behavior?

Joy: I’m sure we all tried to be good!

But once, I decided to cut my hair. I actually don’t remember the incident myself, but Mother told me about it. See, Beth had blonde curls that fascinated the Japanese people. I had brown hair that was straight.  I became jealous of all the attention given to Beth, so I decided to cut my hair and her hair. I was just three or so.

I took a pair of scissors and whacked the hair on one side of my head, then started on Beth’s hair. That’s when Mother caught me.

Joy at 2 years old with her “boy’s cut.”

Beth was spared, but Mother had to cut my hair short to even it out. I practically had a boy’s haircut!

 

Becky: Oh, I’ve seen the photographs! I thought you looked really cute though!

Joy: I recall an outing we took after we returned from furlough in 1954. Our parents’ Japanese friend, Matsuishi-san, showed us around the Daimyo Castle in Yanagawa near Fukuoka. We girls played on the grounds with ducks at the lake.

Later, when we sat down to dinner at a restaurant, they served roasted duck. I ate a little yet remembered feeling it was wrong to eat the ducks with whom we had just played.

Matsuishi-san gave each of us girls a beautiful Hakata doll.

He was so nice to us! Judy tells me that on the car ride back to Fukuoka I chanted repeatedly, “I like Mr. Matsuishi!” I even wrote this in the condensation on the car window with my finger.

Becky: Oh my! Joy’s first crush! Do you still have the doll?

Joy at home in Rosedale, California with her Hakata doll.

Joy: Yes. I played with her so much that I’ve had to glue her hands and head back on a time or two, but I still have her!

Becky: I guess back then it wasn’t very common to see Americans, especially children. What was it like when you were out in public?

Joy: We girls attracted lots of attention everywhere we went in Japan—especially little blonde Beth, as I’ve said.

Sometimes we heard people calling us “America-jin” or “Gai-jin.” I recall my sisters and I waiting in the car once with the windows rolled up while our parents were away briefly on an errand. Crowds of people surrounded the car with their noses pressed to the windows as they looked in at us. We could hear them chattering about us, too.

If there was a camera around, we would soon hear the shutters begin clicking whenever we were spotted. Sometimes I’d get so tired of the attention that I’d make a silly face for the camera.

For the most part, though, people were kind to us.

Becky: Like Mr. Matsuishi?

Joy: Yes, like him. But also strangers. I especially remember how we little girls, and our MK friends, traveled across the city to our school at the American military base. Strangers often looked out for us.

Becky: I look forward to hearing more about your adventures!

Please keep your eye out for our next installment. Joy will share memories of attending school at the Itazuke Air Base and more.

The post A Charmed Childhood: Memories of an American Girl in Occupied Japan appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

Novels with clear social messages never fail to incite debate in my Japanese literature courses. They push readers to care, to take a point of view, and to act. Literary works by Ariyoshi Sawako (1931-1984) are a case in point. The Doctor’s Wife (1966), for one, questions how an entire family’s mission revolves around celebrating and supporting the eldest son’s discovery of anesthesia. Although his achievements were possible only due to the self-sacrifice of the women in the household, they are silenced.

Ariyoshi was one of Japan’s most famous modern authors, but we’re still waiting for more translations of her work.

The other day, I caught up with two Japan scholars, Hiroko Hirakawa and Jan Bardsley, who are working on something new—translating and explicating a book of essays by Ariyoshi.
They kindly filled me in on their project.

Before sharing our conversation, let me introduce the translators.

Jan Bardsley

Jan Bardsley retired from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2019, after 25 years of teaching Japanese language and culture. Her books include Maiko Masquerade: Crafting Geisha Girlhood in Japan; Women and Democracy in Cold War Japan; and The Bluestockings of Japan: New Woman Essays and Fiction from Seitō, 1911–16.

Hiroko Hirakawa

Hiroko Hirakawa recently retired from Guilford College in North Carolina, where she led the program in Japanese language and culture. Her work explores gender and popular culture in Japan, with essays in Manners and Mischief, Bad Girls of Japan, and the US-Japan Women’s Journal. For 28 years she taught Japanese language, first-year seminars, courses on modern Japan, and managed study abroad.

Friends over decades, Jan and Hiroko first collaborated on the chapter, “Bad Girls Go Shopping,” in Bad Girls of Japan. Looking at popular novels, TV shows, and feminist debates from around 2000, they explored how women buying foreign luxury goods were seen as “bad girls” for their supposed over-the-top spending.

The New Translation: New Onna Daigaku (1959-60) by Ariyoshi Sawako

Rebecca Copeland: What’s the new translation?

Hiroko Hirakawa: Thanks for asking us about this project, Rebecca. It’s a challenging one.
New Onna Daigaku is a series of satirical essays published monthly throughout 1959 in Fujin kōron (Women’s Review) and as a book in 1960.

Fujin kōron was a sophisticated magazine that tackled controversial issues and featured the leading literary lights of the day. Even though Ariyoshi was young—only 28—she had become quite a star by the late 1950s. Readers certainly would have perked up when they saw her name.

RC:  Onna Daigaku?  I’m surprised to hear a feminist writer like Ariyoshi would have anything to do with that Tokugawa relic.  Isn’t it basically a primer reminding women all about their inherent inferiority and their duty to obey and respect the men in their lives?

Jan Bardsley:  Exactly!  As you can imagine her “new” Onna Daigaku is a parody. She ridicules the men who freely tell women what to do, even though they have no experience living as a woman or needing to face the consequences of their advice.

RC:  Good for her! I bet she skewers the Neo-Confucian moralist.

JB:  Oh, yes, and with delight. But what fascinates Hiroko and me is her satire of 1950s Japan, too. Essentially, she claims that despite all the postwar reforms—giving women the vote, property rights, access to education—patriarchy remains well entrenched. That’s why, women must pretend to obey Onna Daigaku dictums to manipulate unsuspecting men to their own advantage.

RC: What stories stand out?

HH:  Ariyoshi’s insightful essay on women’s internalized misogyny is poignant. Overhearing women at the office complaining about other women, Ariyoshi realizes that the target of their anger goes far beyond any one individual. Rather, they are expressing their own deep, unconscious dislike of “being a woman” (onna de aru koto) themselves.
She tells this story in a funny way, but the underlying message is unmistakable.

RC:   What are some of the challenges you’ve faced in this project?

JB: Ariyoshi assumes an educated reader who will understand her allusions to world classical literature and movies, folklore, myth, and current events.  Hiroko and I have fun doing research to catch up to Ariyoshi’s fast-moving references.  It makes her humor shine and brings home her main messages.

HH: Ariyoshi’s stance can be hard to pin down. Sometimes it’s unclear whether her outrageous positions are meant to be taken seriously or played for laughs. When translating the more ambiguous stories, it’s tempting to make her position clearer. We have to keep asking ourselves: is this passage really as ambiguous as it seems?

JB: Passages where Ariyoshi is obviously exaggerating for comic effect are the most fun to translate.

RC:  How does this fit into ongoing work on Ariyoshi?

HH: New Onna Daigaku was published early in Ariyoshi’s career. It shows her frustration with being pegged as a postwar “woman of talent” (saijo) who was seen as carrying the flag for women’s progress. She felt the label was superficial. She was much more interested in questioning the narrative of “progress.”

RC: Interesting! I always think of her as a progressive, championing the rights of women, the elderly, marginalized communities.

HH: Exactly! By the mid-1960s and after traveling in the US, Europe, and other countries abroad, Ariyoshi was becoming a progressive herself. She had also married, borne a daughter, and divorced. So, New Onna Daigaku marks an early point in her thinking.  Yet even here we can see Ariyoshi struggling with the question of grand narratives of nation, gender, and race, too.

JB: The fact that New Onna Daigaku ran in Fujin kōron also shows how fraught the topic of “postwar woman” was in the 1950s—was she a symbol of the success of reforms or the Americanization of Japanese women? We can see this question explored in the work of other writers of the time like Hirabayashi Taiko (1905-1972), and by women know as social critics like Ishigaki Ayako (1903-1996) and Sakanishi Shiho1(896-1976).

RC:  What else would you like to see translated from writers of Ariyoshi’s generation?

JB: I’m curious about writers’ short pieces for magazines, especially their personal essays. What do those show us about the way they presented themselves as writers and what issues concerned them?

HH: I, too, am very curious about those personal essays, particularly those, like Ariyoshi, who grew up in Asia outside of Japan such as Morisaki Kazue (1927-2022) and Sawachi Hisae (b.1930).

RC:  Good luck to you both, Jan and Hiroko!  The New Onna Daigaku translation sounds both fun and revealing.

The post Translating Ariyoshi Sawako: A Conversation with Jan Bardsley and Hiroko Hirakawa appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

On Sunday, August 17, 2025 we celebrated Beth’s latest collection of poetry, I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart via a ZOOM Book Launch!

I went to Beth’s house in Creston, armed with my laptop, a set of questions, and a shaky ability to handle technology.

The Peak

I was nervous. I wanted the launch to go well, but what if I forgot to press record? What if we lost video? What if the connection was unstable?

So many what-ifs.

And out here in the middle of Ashe County, NC, there were no bright-eyed techno-savvy undergrads to call on in a pinch. It was just me and Beth.

We’d manage!

How hard could it be, right?

Beth and I discussed the staging of the ZOOM. If we faced the mountain—The Peak—the kitchen would be in the background. We rearranged the table placing the living room in the background.

Much more professional!

And, check this out!

I can blur the background in the ZOOM screen so only the outlines will show.

See, I’m more techno-savvy than I realized!

I blurred the screen, putting the attention on the faces in the foreground.

Becky and Beth Copeland

My technological innovation proved to be a mistake, however.

It meant that our heads looked like pins during the ZOOM. And each time I held up a book to show the audience the cover, I only managed to broadcast a big blur.

“Why are you so small?” I asked Beth as we pulled our chairs alongside one another. I must have been too close to the screen. I loomed over my sister.

“I’m short waisted,” she laughed. “I always look small when I’m seated.”

She put a pillow on her chair.

Now we were shoulder to shoulder. Perfect.

I stacked her many books next to me on the table, got myself a glass of water—which I carefully positioned off to the side so I wouldn’t inadvertently knock it over mid-ZOOM—and lined my notes up in front of me.

I had prepared the notes the day before—making sure I had the dates and titles of Beth’s books correctly—and ran my talking points past Jan Bardsley for clarity.

(I run everything by Jan before I post or present! She always gives me good advice. For this one she told me to define terms like “chapbook” and “cento” as “not everyone will be a poet.”)

I printed my notes out in 14-point font, for easy distance reading!

It was now 1:50, the launch was scheduled to start at 2:00.

“Ready?”

I turned to Beth.

She was radiant in a blue cyan blouse of soft cotton. Blue has always been her color, along with green, lavender, grey, and frankly almost anything. Her eyes change color depending on what she wears.

For the ZOOM her eyes were a celadon green.

Beth Copeland

She stared at the laptop as I powered it up and smiled at me. Sisterly encouragement.

Once we opened the ZOOM room, members of the audience quickly joined.
We had friends from all over: as far away as the West Coast—San Francisco and Sacramento—and as close as West Jefferson. In between there were friends from the Midwest: Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee. And a good representation from other areas of North Carolina: Chapel Hill, Cary, Durham, Wake Forest, High Point, and Burnsville.

Friends of Beth’s from elementary school as well as college were there.

Our two sisters, Judy and Joy, also joined.

All told, we had 22 people on the ZOOM.

A great number.

I introduced Beth and then asked her one or two questions, wondering about her earliest experiences with writing poetry, her interest in using form, and the way nature informs her writing. I kept my remarks short to allow more time for audience interaction.

Beth read five poems, one from each section of I Ask the Mountain.

Poems take on new texture and new depth when voiced as Beth’s performance amply showed.

The audience reacted with applause, all mesmerized by Beth’s reading.

Except me.

Not that I wasn’t mesmerized, but I was just too busy trying to figure out why Beth and I couldn’t see ourselves on the ZOOM screen. We saw other members of the audience.

Did we see what the audience saw?

I worried that the recording would be haphazard, so I texted my friend Nancy, who was on the ZOOM call.

“You’re both on screen and you look beautiful!”

So, I guess what we saw wasn’t what others on the call could see.

I calmed down a bit but kept an eye on chat comments and other communications from the audience.

The hour flew by.

I suspect some in the audience would have gladly lingered for an hour more, but we said our goodbyes and closed our session.

Better to leave audience members wanting more!

If you missed the ZOOM launch, or want to review what happened, here’s your chance!

Please enjoy the recording. And Beth and I welcome your comments and questions, so please feel free to respond to this blog post.

If you would like to order I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart, follow the link below:

Order: I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart

For a signed copy, please send $15.00 to https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/Copeland51
with your address and preferred name.

The mountain in me honors
the mountain in you.

The post “You’re Home. Open the door”: I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart Book Launch appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

Prologue: I’m continuing my interview with my sister, Beth Copeland. Beth is a poet and has recently published the book, I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart. The image on the cover of her book (the image heading this post) is a painting by her daughter Sarah.

Becky: Changing topics a bit, I’m curious about the way you arranged the poems in your book. The book offers a strong sense of movement and growth as we read from cover to cover.

I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart is a book of poems, but it also reads like an adventure, a travel memoir, a novel. I see it telling the story of a woman who has left behind the grievances and inconveniences of the past, a woman who has learned to live alone, a woman who has discovered a love she long sought but never found, but who mostly has discovered—in the mountains—herself.
I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart is a love story but to me, the one the woman comes to love is her own self. And that makes this collection particularly powerful and restorative.

Was that your objective in curating the poems the way you did?

Beth: I’m happy to hear that the book has movement because I try to create a narrative arc with my poetry collections.

I Ask The Mountain to Heal My Heart is divided into five sections. Each section has 13 pages. Why? Because the first section had 13, and I wanted all the sections to match.

I’m obsessive about such things!

The first section introduces the mountain and the woman (who obviously is me) by showing her in the context of failed relationships. She’s blinded by fog but trusts that she isn’t lost and will find her way.

Section Two focuses on our Appalachian roots and family, our grandfather who crawled from a coal mine shaft to marry our grandmother, and our missionary father who “talked to God in a chapel of trees” as a boy. You are the sister mentioned in “Lost Cove Wildfire.” You were building a fire in your fireplace on Christmas Eve.

Section Three’s focus is on mysticism—meditation, enlightenment, yoga, and prayer. You’re mentioned again in “Namaste.” Many of the poems in I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart were written during the Covid lockdown. For many months, you were the only person I had physical contact with. We were in a bubble together.

Phoenix appears in Section Four when I was finally learning to live happily without having a relationship with a significant other. That’s when I started having conversations with the mountain, a metamorphic Romeo who lovingly refers to me as “my darling hillock, my hummock, my mini-hump.”

Finally, in Section Five my beloved follows “maps of memory” to find me. I wrote “Beloved” before I knew Paul. It was an epistolary poem to an imaginary partner, a “face in the clouds.”

After Paul came into my life, I dedicated the poem to him. He has fulfilled every expectation suggested in the poem and much more.

Other poems in Section Five chronicle the challenges and joys of falling in love at age 70-plus.

The last poem is one I wrote for Paul as a valentine. When I wrote it, I didn’t know if it would fit with the other poems in the book, but once I chose the title for the manuscript, I realized that the heart-shaped poem is a not-so-subtle symbol of the healed heart. It was only after I learned to love myself that I was able to be in a healthy relationship.

Becky: I’ve often heard that once you stop actively seeking love, love will find you. I think you prove the point.

Of all your collections of poetry, I find this one carries a tone of gentle quiet. The woman has stopped her unhappy chase and has turned to see herself—perhaps for the first time. Maybe in that sense, Covid was a benefit. We were forced to sit with ourselves, and to realize that we were enough.

The following poem is just one of many that captures some of the wisdom and quietness that I find permeates the collection.

Late November

Watching a dry leaf twirl
in the wind, its stem still

tethered to the tree, I think
of how stubborn I’ve been,

refusing to let go of what was
never intended for me,

not knowing something better
was waiting if I’d let myself lift

Into the gale, that the courage
to fail is life’s greatest gift.

Beth: By the time I wrote “Late November,” I had finally learned that my disappointments and failures were for the best.

My failed marriage gave me an opportunity to find a home of my own. My failure to buy the little brick church led me to a more suitable home with a beautiful mountain view. My disappointments in dating led me to stop looking for a partner and learn to be happy as a single woman. Then and only then did the love of my life appear!

I still had healing to do—I still do!—but Paul is patient with me.

Becky: That reminds me of a Chinese proverb about a farmer whose horse runs away. Just as the farmer is bemoaning his loss, the horse returns with an entire herd! The farmer’s son breaks his leg trying to ride one of the horses, only to then be exempted from the draft. And so the proverb goes. We never know what fortune will come of misfortune.

There’s gentle humor, too, in your book! My favorite poem (well, one of the MANY favorites) is Namaste, because (of course) it celebrates an experience that we shared together with my sweet German Shepherd, Durham.

Beth: That was an easy poem to write, one that was intact in the first draft. It was spontaneous! Durham wrote that poem for me!

Becky: You have been so productive! Isn’t this your FIFTH book of poetry? And it follows very quickly on the heels of Selfie with Cherry.

Beth: This is my fourth full-length book, but I’ve also published three chapbooks [short, tightly-focused collections], most recently Selfie with Cherry, published by Glass Lyre Press in 2022. That was the divorce and dating book—a precursor to this one.

Becky: So what is next?

Beth: Currently, I’m about halfway through a collection of centos about mountains, rivers, trees, and sky.

Becky: Help me out here. What’s a cento?

Beth: According to the Poetry Foundation the cento is “a literary work collaged entirely from other authors’ verses or passages.” The form dates back to the16th century and was often composed as a tribute.

The word “cento” is derived from the Latin word for “patchwork garment”—it’s like a quilt sewn from other poets’ lines or a collage pasted from headlines.

Of course, it’s necessary to document sources meticulously to give the authors credit and avoid plagiarism. Also, finding lines from multiple sources that work together as a cohesive whole requires research and time.

Becky: What a fascinating form. Can you share an example?

Beth: Sure. Here’s one of my mountain centos, the fourth in a series of ten. The mountain series was previously published in MacQueen’s Quinterly in January 2023:

Four

At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards.
We are made of clouds and etched with holy meridians.
Here, we live on the edge of nothing, in the heart
of everything,
giving ourselves up to the time of the light, turning
and turning to clouds.
We are a flash of fire—a brain, a heart, a spirit.
We saw a raven very high above us. It called out,
and the dome of the sky seemed to echo the sound.
We made no noise. No more noise than smoke.
We found your footprints in the snow.
We brushed them all away.

Glossary
Line 1: Hunter S. Thompson. Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in
the Final Days of the American Century, 2003
Line 2: Lisa Creech Bledsoe. “The Storm and Home of Us,” Appalachian Ground, 2019
Line 3: Martina Reisz Newberry. “Queries,” Blues for French Roast with Chicory, Deerbrook
Editions, 2020
Line 4: Imogene L. Bolls. “Our Common Memory,” Advice for the Climb, 1999
Line 5: Thomas Wolfe. Look Homeward, Angel, 1929, Chapter 35
Lines 6 and 7: Dorothy Wordsworth. Grasmere Journals 1800-1803 (entry dated July 27,
1800)
Line 8: W.S. Merwin. “Animals from Mountains,” Poetry, May 1972
Lines 9 and 10: Kate Bush. “Wild Man,” 50 Words for Snow

Becky: Beautiful. I can’t wait to read more.

Beth: Thanks. I’m currently having chemo for terminal gallbladder cancer and don’t know if I will live long enough to finish it. I don’t have much creative energy left, to be honest, because I’m living in survival mode.

I completed the mountain and river sections before I got sick, and I’m four poems into the tree section, so I’m a little more than halfway done.

I believe in the manuscript I have so far. It’s like a quilt sewn from other poets’ lines or a collage pasted from headlines.

Of course, I have to document sources meticulously to give the poets credit and avoid plagiarism, so it’s a painstaking process. Also, finding lines from multiple sources that work together as a cohesive whole is difficult.

But it’s a challenge I accepted and would like to complete. I love that I’m channeling voices from all over the world, some from poets who are no longer living and others from contemporary poets.

Becky: You have already given us so many powerful poems. With or without the completed centos, your voice now blends with other poetic voices past, present, and future.

Find I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart here:

https://redhawkpublications.com/I-Ask-the-Mountain-to-Heal-My-Heart-p760864942

Stay tuned for a recording of Beth’s August 17, 2025 book launch.

The post Channeling Voices and Healing Hearts: An Interview with poet, Beth Copeland, Part II appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

My sister, Beth Copeland, is a poet and a resident of Ashe County, North Carolina. She lives at the foot of The Peak, the highest mountain in the county. Having recently published a new collection of poetry, I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart, she has agreed to talk with me about her inspirations.

I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart book cover

Becky: It’s such a pleasure to sit with you and talk about your latest collection of poems, I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart. We’ve spent a lot of time together, sister, but I think this may be the first time we’ve discussed your poems this way!

Beth: I think you’re right. We’ve talked about our work before, but not in this kind of format.

Becky: Well, one of the reasons I wanted to do this interview is because of all your collections of poems, I think this is my favorite. It is difficult to have a favorite, of course. All of your works are exquisite. I remember when Traveling Through Glass (2000) came out and the poet Karen Swenson described the poems in the collection as being “as crisply separate from each other as grains of basmati rice.”

I just loved that expression.

First of all, I didn’t know what “basmati rice” was, and I had to look it up!

But I thought she captured the delicateness of your vision. Not just “delicateness” but precision. You excel at creating a turn of phrase that absolutely captures an emotion, a moment, and freezes it in time.

Beth: Wow, thanks, Becky!

Becky: No, it’s true. So often your poems make me gasp.

“That’s it, that’s exactly it!”

Sometimes in the earlier volumes the vision was almost too clear, the precision too razor sharp.

This volume feels softer, less urgent.

You allow more time to linger in the moment, to sit with memories, to treat the past like an old friend—even with the raggedness and the pain—to allow a familiarity and an acceptance. There is a comfortableness here, truly a sense of healing.

You take us on a journey into the mountains, where we leave behind the wounds and learn to love.

In many ways, the title says it all: I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart.

I’m afraid I’m not doing a very good job of providing context for this collection or for our interview, but I just wanted you to know how much I admire your work, and how I feel this book to be my favorite so far of all your works.

Beth: I appreciate you saying so.

Becky: Okay, let me start by asking you about the steps you took to write this book. I guess it really starts with your move to Creston, North Carolina, where you are surrounded by the beauty of the Blue Ridge.

 

What brought you to Creston?

 

Beth: I was newly separated and newly sober, living in the Sandhills region of North Carolina—where there are no hills—in a small one-bedroom apartment with boards and concrete blocks for bookshelves, artwork propped against the walls instead of hung, and most of my belongings in storage.

I slept for months on a blow-up mattress. I knew my time there was temporary; it wasn’t my home. I could go anywhere, as long as housing was affordable.

I started looking at property in the high country because I had family there. Our brother Luke was well established in Boone—he’d lived there ever since his college years—and you had bought a home in Ashe County.

The first mountain property I fell in love with was a little brick church. My plan was to renovate it and also write a memoir about the process of converting it into a home, using the renovation of the church as a means of accessing my memories as the child of missionaries.

When I went back to my apartment in the Sandhills, I started drawing up floorplans and daydreamed about living in that brick building with a steeple. It was a way for me to connect with the spirituality that I had lost during an unhappy marriage and years of drinking.

But just as I had ignored the red flags in my marriage, I ignored red flags about buying the church. I had no idea how much a renovation would cost, and my funds were limited.

I ignored the “You Can Take My Guns From My Cold Dead Hands” sign in the trailer across the road. I ignored the fact that the beautiful stained-glass windows were sealed shut. How would I ventilate the sanctuary? Some of the panes were riddled with BB gun holes!

Even so, I was devastated when the property sold before I could make up my mind about buying it. I cried as if a dear friend had died. You consoled me and encouraged me to keep looking.

Becky: I remember that church. The building really did offer amazing possibilities. It’s also funny the way we invest so much—emotionally, I mean—in buying a house. I remember years ago when I lost the bid on the first house I tried to purchase. It felt like a personal failure!

Beth: Well, fortunately, it didn’t last long for me. I came back to the mountains and found a house only 15 minutes from yours. It wasn’t a church, but it had a beautiful view of The Peak, the tallest mountain in Ashe County, as well as an unexpected bonus—a tiny cabin next to the house.

On the day I went to see the property, a large buck ran across the road as I was driving up the hill. I took it as a good omen and made an offer. Within a few months, I moved in!

The mountain became the focus of my spirituality. The first poem in the book, “True North” refers to the mountain as “a point of reference” and “of reverence” and—even more explicitly—as a “steeple.”

 

True North

A mountain, like Polaris, is a point of reference
to keep us from becoming lost. A point of reverence.

Around here, your GPS will send you on corkscrew curves
up dead-end dirt roads and you can’t depend on maps

that don’t show how steep the incline is or how deep
the ditch or that the road is ruined from rain

and rivers that flood or that a fallen oak blocks both lanes
or that wheels will spin on ice and you’ll have no recourse

but to back down the hill hoping you don’t swerve
off the shoulder. –Okay, I’ll take a detour here to recall

my father winking at my mother and saying Soft Shoulders
when he drove by a highway sign. That memory is mapped

in my mind as the mountain is there even when its not
there, hidden behind seven veils of fog and forgetfulness,

a steeple pointing to the sun, moon, and stars
to remind us: We’re not lost. We’re exactly where we are.

Becky: Oh, I hadn’t thought of The Peak as a “steeple,” but now that you mention it, I can see it!

 

Like “True North,” so many of the poems in your collection feature mountains—mountains as landmarks, mountains as partners, mountains as metaphors—why mountains?

 

Beth: The mountain was the one constant in my life at that time.

View of The Peak in summer

Unlike what happens in relationships, a mountain isn’t going anywhere. It’s rooted in rock. I personified it as “flint-faced, unflinching, faithful.”

Also, as I’ve said to you before, the mountains are in our DNA.

Our father’s family is from the mountains of Nicholas County, West Virginia, and Daddy was happiest when he was in the mountains. He bought land in Mountain City, Tennessee, in the early 1970s, where he built a log cabin from fallen pines, and went there as often as he could, chopping wood, clearing paths, and puttering around. I live only a few miles from the family land.

In Ashe County, I’m an outsider to the local people because I wasn’t born and raised here, but I feel a strong connection to the mountains and to Appalachian culture.

Becky: Truly, we have mountains in our DNA!

There are other natural phenomena in the book: deer, rivers, trees . . . your poems have always featured an engagement with the beauty or the drama of nature. Blue Honey, for example, circulates around the central image of honey, of a rare honey specific to a particular place. Until this collection, though, I have never thought of you as a “back-to-nature” kind of woman! Growing up, you weren’t often out IN nature.

 

Did your relationship with nature change when you moved to the mountains? How do you now understand that relationship?

 

Beth: My relationship to nature changed dramatically when I moved to the mountains.
You’re right. I was not an earthy, back-to-nature girl for most of my life. I was an indoor girl—playing with dolls, sewing clothes for Barbies and later for myself, reading, writing. As a young woman, I didn’t enjoy going to the Mountain City land with the family. We had to use an outhouse! I couldn’t take a shower and always felt grubby. We had to carry water up the hill to wash dishes! It was boring to sit around in the cabin with no plumbing, electricity, TV, or phone.

Now I wish I had been more outdoorsy and had paid more attention when Daddy identified trees and bird songs. Now I want to ask him, “What kind of tree is that?” “What bird is that?” but he’s not here.

Much later in life when I moved to my own mountain house—which has indoor plumbing, electricity, and all the comforts of home—I started hiking with you and later with my boyfriend Paul. I discovered that I enjoy being outdoors! Now I feel a sense of oneness with the mountains, the rivers, and trees.

Becky: Yes, sometimes we have to test ourselves a little, and when we do, we discover strengths and affinities we didn’t even know we had!

 

In follow-up to the question about nature, you also entered into a very sweet relationship with a rescue dog named Phoenix, who you write about in a number of the poems. How did Phoenix fit into your journey?

 

Beth: Phoenix challenged me in ways I’d never been challenged before. He was a senior Treeing Walker Coonhound who paced constantly and was not—despite what I’d been told—housebroken.

He had clearly been traumatized before I adopted him and wasn’t able to engage with me as I had expected. He wouldn’t stop pacing and sit with me. He peed all over the house!

In an effort to keep him from having accidents in the house, I took him outside every three or four hours during the day. We walked and walked and walked. I referred to him as “my fitness coach” because I was probably in the best shape of my life from all the walking up and down hills we did.

Beth and Phoenix

He was emotionally wounded and so was I.

Phoenix had been given his name at the rescue place where he stayed before I adopted him. He had been wandering the hills of Georgia before he was rescued, was half-starved, had a terrible case of mange, and a mouthful of rotting teeth that had to be removed.

But he recovered and—like a Phoenix—rose from the ashes of his life as a stray to a new life with me. From Phoenix I learned patience and loyalty. He wasn’t the cuddly dog I had wanted, but I loved him.

Becky: I liked old Phoenix! He was a bit odd, but you were so loyal to him, too! You never gave up on him. I admired that.

The Weight of Ashes

From a blue velvet bag, I remove the rosewood box
hand-carved with plum blossoms and branches,

a brass plague laser-etched with his name—Phoenix—
glued to the smooth surface of wood.

The weight of his ashes is heavier than expected,
Like snow that softly falls, blanketing the mountain’s

Corkscrew roads, heavy enough to break an old
barn’s rotting beams and the limbs of brittle oaks.

 

Part One of our interview ends here, but please stay tuned for Part Two where Beth will discuss the arrangement of I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart.

Join us on Sunday, August 17, at 2:00 for our online book launch of I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart. Message me here for the zoom link.

If interested, you may purchase I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart from Redhawk Publications.

The post With Mountains in our DNA: An Interview with poet, Beth Copeland, Part I appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

There’s a garment bag at the back of the closet full of coats.

I always liked the black faux shearling coat. It’s very warm. But these days with the nearly weightless acrylic-down coats, this one is too bulky. And so is the brown one that’s a near twin. I found that one at a secondhand shop. The price was too good to pass up.

I have the two leather jackets I bought in Italy when I visited Molly in 2011. The buckskin-colored one was tight when I tried it on in the store.

“It fits you like a glove,” the salesman said. “And like a glove it will stretch.”

It didn’t.
I wore it for a few years and then grew to dislike the way it made me feel constricted.

The other jacket is a brown bombardier. It’s just kind of normal.

Both are more ornamental than functional. They aren’t going to keep me warm on my walks to campus. And so, they have come to reside in the back of my closet.

And then, there’s Carey’s purple leather coat.

I don’t know where she got it. The tag says it was made in Turkey.

The coat was stylish in the early 1980s. Or maybe she bought it in the 1970s.

I can’t remember WHEN I first saw her wear the coat. I just remember her in it, her thick red hair spilling over the wide lapel, contrasting the purple of the dyed leather.

The coat suited her.

It has wide shoulders—as was required of the era—that dropped softly down the shoulder and along the arm creating a strong but feminine shape. One button synched it at the waist on the inside of the coat, a second on the outside, making the coat essentially double-breasted.

The outside button fell off somewhere along the way. Now there’s just a lonely thread where the button had been.

The coat has deep pockets that end around the knees. Carey always had them filled with odds and ends: her lip gloss, loose change, chewing gum, and cigarettes.

The coat carried her panache along with her scent—Ciara! By Revlon.
Carey was effervescent! Always laughing.

I first met her at the horse stable where I used to go for lessons.

Carey didn’t need lessons. She was a natural horsewoman.

Later we attended the same high school, and we became fast friends, though we were as different as night and day.

I was as quiet as Carey was vivacious.

With Carey (on the left) 1973. Author’s photo

She was outgoing, generous, easy to talk to.

I was shy, and being in public with Carey meant that people were going to notice us. Or rather, her.

Men were naturally drawn to Carey.

She had a magnetism about her. She knew people watched her, and she sometimes took advantage of her powers by intentionally drawing attention to herself.

Being with her could be exhausting at times.

If we went to a movie theater, for example, she’d talk to all those around her, laugh loudly during the film—and often inappropriately—and flirt with strange men.

She drew me into her new friendships and suggest later dates or plans in which I had no interest.

We graduated high school and went to different colleges, but I still saw her over the summers. We spent time together, always surrounded by adoring men.

Carey married in the early 1980s to a very plain, quiet man—surprising us all. She told me she was settling down, and she did. She soon had two beautiful children, a girl and a boy. Neither inherited her red hair.

I lost touch with Carey when I left North Carolina.

Once she came to visit me in New York City, where I attended graduate school. I had to beg her not to look people in the eye while we rode the subway, not to strike up conversations. She struggled to be “inconspicuous.”

Occasionally, I’d see her when I returned home to visit my parents.

But even those visits waned.

Sometimes, I wouldn’t tell her I was coming back. I just didn’t want to get pulled into the whirlwind of energy she still managed to stir up around her. I preferred to spend time with my parents.

Perhaps that is why I never noticed that the whirlwind had ended.

The last time I saw Carey we met at an Arby’s in Raleigh on Hillsborough Street. Neither of us had much time. We agreed on a quick visit over mocha shakes and roast beef sandwiches. We split an order of fries.

Carey was uncharacteristically quiet. Her glow was gone. Even her brilliantly red hair seemed somehow faded.

Even so, I didn’t see it.

Her husband had been injured in a traffic accident some years earlier and wasn’t able to work. Her children were running wild.

“Now I know how my mother felt,” she said, referring to her children.

We had a bit of a laugh at that.

“You’re going to be all right!” I remember telling her—trying to imbue my voice with some of her earlier zest.

“You’re just going through a phase. It’ll get better.”

But it didn’t.

My mother called me a few months later, while I was working in Japan, to tell me that Carey had committed suicide.

I was too far away to return for the funeral.

Wearing Carey’s Purple Coat

Later that year, one of Carey’s friends—a friend she acquired long after I had moved away—sent me a box of Carey’s things, things she thought I might like to have.

The purple coat was in the box along with some photographs of Carey and horses.

I wore the coat once or twice, but I could never really carry it off. Not like Carey.

I can’t let go of the coat yet, though.

I will keep it awhile longer.

The post Carey’s Purple Coat appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

What is it, I asked, as I tore into the package.

Daddy always brought gifts back to us when he traveled. Usually he carried home a large chocolate bar for us to split, but occasionally he picked up separate gifts for each of us.

For me he invariably brought back some kind of animal—wood-carved lions from Kenya, a jade elephant from India, or an ivory horse from Hong Kong. Horses were always a safe bet. I was a bit of a horse fanatic.

Daddy had been spending time in Chicago.

He had a fellowship to conduct research at the Divinity School of Chicago University.

Years ago, when he had a Fulbright to study in India, the entire family went with him.

This time, only Luke and I were living at home, and Mother had just started her work at the John Umstead Hospital in Butner, following her graduation with a Masters degree in Social Work. I guess they decided to keep us at home in Raleigh. Instead, Daddy traveled back and forth from Chicago every few months.

It was on one of his brief return trips that he gave me the package.

I tore the paper apart and pulled out an article of clothing. Cotton with a vibrant print in red and green with suggestions of gold and black.

“It’s a dashiki,” he said.

“A what?”
“A dashiki. I thought you’d like it.”

I had never heard of a dashiki, but I had seen them around.

Richie Havens had worn a beautiful orange dashiki when he played at Woodstock. More and more counter-culture kids were donning African- and Indian-print garments.

The tunic was large on me.

It must have been meant for a man.

I took a silver chain belt from my mother’s jewelry box and tied it around my waist.

The dashiki became a dress.

I couldn’t wait to wear it to school.

I was fourteen.

I remember walking down the hall to homeroom. The Spanish teacher, Mrs. Scott, stood at the door, eyeing me critically as I brushed past her into the room.

She always eyed me critically. Either I was talking too much, I was walking too fast, or I was wearing a skirt that was too short.

I took my seat just before the bell sounded.

Mrs. Scott entered the room and began to take attendance. She continued to stare at me.

Was she admiring my sartorial choices?

I had paired the dashiki with soft suede moccasins, the kind that had fringe encircling the ankles.

“Becky Copeland,” she called me to the front and spoke to me in a low voice.
“What are you wearing?”

“This?” I asked, holding my arms out to the side to spread the fabric.

“It’s a dashiki!”

“A what?”

“Isn’t it so cool? My father bought this for me in Chicago.”

“Well it looks like a shirt! Don’t you have a pair of pants to wear with it?”

What was she saying. The dashiki may not have been a dress, but it fit me like one. Even with the metal belt, the hem landed just above my knee—modest by the mini-skirt standards of 1970.

“Why Mrs. Scott, it’s a shirtdress!” I teased.

“Not with those slits!” Mrs. Scott hissed.

True, there were slits on either side of the tunic, and I guess they did cut fairly high up on my thighs, but the fabric was so bulky, the slits were not very noticeable. You had to really scrutinize the dress even to see them.

No one but Mrs. Scott had been bothered by them. Not even my mother, and she was always giving me the once over before I left for school. Admittedly, my fashion sense did tend to be a little risqué at times.

“I can practically see your underpants,” she whispered. “You need to get yourself to the principal’s office right this minute.”

So off I went.

This was a first for me.

Glenda had been sent to the principal’s office last week for not wearing a bra.

She saw me on the way there and we both stepped into the bathroom. I slipped out of my bra and let her wear it. The principal was mystified by whatever Glenda’s infraction had been and let her go.

Glenda balled the bra up and gave it back to me in the cafeteria later that afternoon.

We were rebels.

And being sent to the principal’s became a badge of honor.

It also meant I didn’t have to sit through boring old homeroom with Mrs. Scott.

The principal had decided he had enough of dealing with girls’ underwear, so miscreants like myself were now directed to speak to a guidance counselor.

It just so happened, that the counselor on duty that day was a young African American woman.

“I love what you’re wearing!” she exclaimed as soon as she called me into her office.

“So, what brings you to see me this morning.”

“Well, this!” I said, stretching out my arms again to give her the full view of my garment.

Cinched at the waist, the tunic top bloused out over the belt, but you could still see the patch pockets on the front—on what was now my skirt.

“Mrs. Scott thought it was too short.”

“Too short?” the guidance counselor eyed my hemline.

“That’s not short!” she snorted.

“Mrs. Scott thought the slits were too revealing.”

“Oh, goodness you can hardly see them.”

She talked to me a little longer about my father and the time he was spending in Chicago away from home.

“You must miss him,” she said softly enough to bring tears to my eyes.

I did. I missed him terribly.

That dashiki was more than just an item of clothing.

I imagined him standing in the shop near his efficiency apartment on the southside of Chicago. Had he seen the dashiki in the window?

Had it spoken to him?

Did he see his little tangled-haired girl when he looked at the tunic with its muted greens and reds?

Did the ikat-printed cotton cambric fabric remind him of India? Did he see in it the little girl who studied Indian dance, stamping her red Alta-dyed feet loud enough to make her ankle-bells ring?

If he had known the trouble I would get in, I’m sure he would have reconsidered.

It was my proudest item of clothing at the time. I wore it everywhere, even to church.

I still have it.

Daddy bought me a poncho once when he traveled to Peru. Poncho’s were then the rage. It was a light brown with bright green yarn that rolled along the throat to form a collar. I wore it every winter.

When the poncho lost its appeal, I stored it in the cedar closet I had built in the basement of my St. Louis house. Sadly that forty-year-old garment did not survive the flood of July 2022.

Daddy also bought me a silk vest one year for Christmas. That sartorial choice was less successful. I wore it a few times, and now it hangs in my closet with nothing much to do but chat with the other out-of-style garments.

Like the dashiki, it served its time and now remains a testament to a father’s love.

The post Daddy’s Gift of a Dashiki appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

My mother was never much of a clotheshorse.

She had a serviceable wardrobe and, aside from the lovely purple dress she sewed for herself sometime in the 1950s, she eschewed anything too fancy.

If anyone was fashion-forward it was my father.

He always had suits in the latest styles—whether thin lapel, wide lapel, double-breasted, plaid, or tweed—he was dapper.

Buying him a tie for Christmas or his birthday was always a safe bet, and his closet bore the evidence.

He even had an assortment of tie pins and cufflinks. For a serious man, he certainly took delight in the cut of his clothes and the style of his cars.

Mother’s side of the closet told a different story.

She could never understand why I was so focused on what I wore.

The girls in my school all had clothes from the most expensive shops in Raleigh’s Cameron Village: Pappagalo shoes with bows and buckles and Villager blouses with capped sleeves and covered buttons. The kinds you can only find on vintage clothing sites now.

Mother refused to spend that kind of money.

“You know, when I was young I never had more than two dresses at a time,” Mother often told me as she eyed my closet crammed full of clothes I rarely wore.

“And those I had to share with my sisters.”

Mother grew up during the Depression. Clothes were necessary but hardly extravagant.

As a teenager, I always resented Mother for her lack of fashion savvy.

Mini-skirts and geometrical designs ruled the Go-Go Sixties. Colleen Colby in Seventeen and Twiggy in Vogue, were the women to follow with their wide headbands and doe-like eyes.

By the Seventies I was in bell bottoms and peasant blouses, rocking the “hippie look.”

And there was Mother in her modest a-line skirts and boring shifts.

She wasn’t without her own fashionable role models, though.

Her younger sister, my Aunt Winnie, always wore bright, pretty dresses fresh off the rack.

Both she and Mother had experienced the same Depression, the same meager closet of shared dresses, but for my Aunt Winnie, the experience led to an enjoyment of shopping. Not that Aunt Winnie was a spendthrift. She never went that far. She was just always concerned with looking nice, and for her, that meant wearing pretty dresses.

When she died, my mother inherited some of her clothes. They fit her perfectly, but she only took Aunt Winnie’s denim jumper, embroidered tee-shirts, and machine-washable leisure clothes. The serviceable ones.

“Oh, I have no place to wear her fancy dresses!” Mother would tell me.

Her closet backed up her claim. She had the clothes she wore around the house—shifts that had lost their shape (if they’d ever had any)—and the clothes she wore to church—modest suits and long-sleeved dresses.

A bright silk scarf or pretty pearl brooch were her only gestures towards whimsy.

After she started back to university for a graduate degree, attending the School of Social Work at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, she added some collegiate skits and sweaters to her wardrobe, but for the most part she made do with two or three church-appropriate garments, and one or two “house dresses.”

She didn’t want expensive fabrics that would require dry cleaning or pressing. She was wash-and-go whenever possible.

Even so, she was beautiful in a natural, understated way.

Her brown eyes pooled with compassion. Her dewy, fair cheeks offset her dark brows, which knitted with expression. She colored her lips lightly, but for the most part, she wore little makeup. Her beauty routine consisted of Ivory soap and Pond’s cold cream.

Mother sewed many of her own clothes.

She taught my sisters and me how to sew as well or tried to. I was always too impatient, too snip happy.

I hated ironing seams before stitching or pinning patterns to the material. I just cut recklessly.

Once, I wanted to make a batman cape for my brother, Luke.

We enjoyed the Batman series on TV and delighted in acting out the roles on our own. Bam, Pow, Zap.

I rummaged through our linen closet and found an old sheet.

It would do for the cape, but only if I could finesse a bat image.

A little further back in the closet—beyond the stacks of towels and face cloths—I found a bolt of yellow-green material. The color wasn’t exactly right—to be honest it was pretty ugly—but it would do in a pinch. Besides, there really wasn’t anything else available. And I was eager to get my project underway.

I unfolded the material right there in the hallway, traced the image of a bat in the middle of the bolt and cut.

No need for pins or patterns.

Next, I sewed the yellow-green bat onto the old sheet, extremely proud of my handiwork.

Luke couldn’t wait to toss the cape over his shoulders.

He raced through our cramped split-level brick house doing Batman things.

And then I heard my mother scream.

“Becky, what have you done!?”

Her voice was high-pitched and riddled with agony.

I couldn’t imagine my transgression. Had I forgotten to put away the scissors?

“You cut my silk material?”

I didn’t know it was silk. What difference did that make?

“Your father bought this material for me in Paris!” Mother’s voice trembled, she was fighting the tears. I had never seen her so upset.

“I’m sorry, Mother. It’s kind of ugly. How was I to know it was special material. I just wanted to make a batman cape.”

“Did you have to cut right in the center? You’ve completely ruined the fabric. Now I don’t know what I can make with it.”
“Well, what were you going to make?”

Apparently, she had planned to make an evening dress out of the fabric, but I don’t know when exactly. That bolt had been in the closet for years.

She must have been holding onto it, waiting for the right occasion.

“If it was so important, you should have made the dress already!”

I argued, feeling hurt by Mother’s sharp anger. Mostly, I was mortified that I had done something so stupid, so selfish. Mother was right, I should have asked her permission first. I had behaved impulsively. I often did.

Thinking back on the incident now, so many years later—as I set to clean out my own closets—I wonder about that fabric.

Was it really as ugly as I had thought at the time?

It had been precious to my mother.

Had it not been, she wouldn’t have kept it—much as I have kept the things in my closet—unused but not un-valued.

My father had brought it back to her from one of his trips. He traveled a lot, and he always returned with some kind of gift: Cadbury chocolates or a small trinket.

This gift was different, though. It was just for Mother.

Did he dream her in a lovely silk evening dress?

Yellow green would have been pretty with her dark chestnut hair.

He probably still saw her as a chestnut beauty, even long after her hair had turned to salt and pepper.

Why had she waited to sew the dress?

Was she hoping for an occasion worthy of Parisienne silk?

Did she find the wait, the imagining, the party-yet to-come more enticing than the actual dress?

I took that from her, didn’t I?

With my childish certainty I had turned her party dress into a batman cape.

And that was that.

I don’t know what happened to the remnant of the material afterwards.

Mother certainly did not throw it away. That would have been wasteful, and my mother was anything but wasteful.

The material probably found its way into pillow covers or doll dresses or something practical, something of service to someone else.

And Luke’s batman cape disappeared, too, our childhood dreams slipping away in the dark of the night like the Prince of Vengeance himself.

What remained, though, was a lesson learned through a mistake: be considerate, be patient, and ask before cutting into the very center of a piece of material, no matter how ugly you may think it is.

The post Mother’s Party Dress and the Batman Cape appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

A closet offers a wonderful repository for all the things you think you need but not right now. You can pack up old photographs, unused games or toys, the gifts you never wanted, the clothes you can’t or won’t wear anymore, close the door and forget they even exist.

Closets make perfect metaphors for all we hide away, our Jungian “shadow selves,” our repressed desires. The unexplored closet can become an untapped world of possibility, the doorway to an adventure. Our own Narnias.

Skeletons hide in closets, too. Concealed, closed off, the closet provides cover for the secrets we possess but hesitate to acknowledge.

When I was little, we had a closet under the stairway in our Wake Forest house. The stairway was steep and the closet, filling the space beneath it—reached back to the lowest step. It was dark in the furthest recesses. Although Mother stored her vacuum cleaner in the closet and other cleaning supplies, I liked to imagine it was the entry to a secret hideaway.

When she wasn’t looking, I would slip inside, close the door, and enjoy being surrounded by the darkness until the smell of Pledge Furniture polish and other cleaning products forced me back into the light.

The closets in my St. Louis house are not as conducive to dreams. As is typical of the century-old houses here, they are shallow and cramped and frequently inhabited by brown recluse spiders.

I have them stuffed with all the sundry items I’ve collected over the thirty-three years I’ve lived in this house: the clothes I never wear, a set of free weights I meant to use to tone my arms, a box of old letters I’m reluctant to toss, and more.

Lately, I’ve been unzipping the garment bags hanging there and inspecting the clothes inside. What will I do with them when I move?

In the process, I’ve discovered more than just unwanted items. I’ve discovered a touchstone to the past, a container of memories. Perhaps my meager St. Louis closets really do harbor hidden worlds.

With each dress, each suit, each jacket, I find my way into memories I didn’t know I had.

There’s the tobacco-colored suit, I have already described; the summer frock I bought at the Ito Yokado department store in Musashi Sakai, thrilled that it actually fit me. (It doesn’t now.) And so much more.

In one bag, I found a purple dress that belonged to my mother. I can’t remember when I acquired it.

I assume I brought it back with me to St. Louis after Mother moved into Sunrise, the assisted living facility where she spent her last years.

When she moved there my sisters, brother, and I sold her tidy condo in downtown Raleigh and took care of the items she had left behind and would never need again. Some we parceled out among ourselves.

(Actually, Mother and Daddy had already allocated most of the items amongst the five of us. We simply carried off what was meant to be ours). The rest we either sold or gave away.

The dress was a rich purple jacquard Japanese silk with a finely etched pattern of white floss. The dress was so nicely tailored that I assumed she must have bought it, but closer inspection revealed my mother’s own hand stitching.

Insert Image of fabric closeup or image of dress hanging outside.

The knee-length skirt flared into panels. Neatly tailored seams ran from the bodice to the hem. There was a side zipper just under the arm, and a stylish V-shape at the neckline.

When did she ever wear this dress? Perhaps to some tea at the seminary?
No, it would have needed to be a more festive occasion.

My mother’s purple dress

Mother rarely attended “festive occasions.” She mostly lived between the house and the church and later when she returned to school at Chapel Hill she added one more stop to her routine.

She dressed modestly, in serviceable clothing, wash-and-wear, wrinkle free.

I don’t recall ever seeing her in the purple dress.

After I took it home with me, I wore it once to a dinner party at my friend Iva’s house.

I wore it once again for the photoshoot Joe Angeles did with me in celebration of my kimono collection.
The dress fit, but it was clearly tailored for my mother. The waistline was too short, for one thing, and the shoulders a bit too narrow.

Mother had long willowy legs and slender, slopping shoulders.

The dress must have conformed perfectly to her figure when she was a younger woman, before all the babies, before she became the mother I never saw as anything but frumpy.

My mother was born on June 5, 1923. How many fashion trends occurred over her lifetime, trends she mostly ignored but for this one pretty dress?
As I run my hand over the fine purple fabric now and draw my finger along the seams she stitched, I feel closer to her.

There is so much about my mother I never knew or understood, but with each passing year I admire her all the more.

The post Mother’s Purple Dress appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

“Break a Leg.” That’s the pep talk when you go on stage, right?

Wish it had been only been a leg. I felt like my whole body was going to shatter, that I might even vomit right there in front of the entire search committee.

My stage? A smelly, claustrophobic classroom.

My performance? A job talk.

It’s not an experience I’ll ever forget. Certainly not one I care to repeat. But it is a memory I can recount in all its gory detail now, knowing we get to a happy ending.

It was winter 1990.

I was at a turning point. My marriage was collapsing. I could stay in Japan, where I was very happy teaching at International Christian University in Western Tokyo, or I could return to the United States.

Intuitively, I understood that if I was ever going to find academic employment in America, it had to be now. Any longer in Japan and the window to return would close.

As much as I loved Japan, I needed to be back in the States. I had worked hard to earn a PhD in order to teach Japanese literature to Americans. I wanted others to make the discoveries I had made. I wanted to share, to help others open doors to a world beyond their imaginations.

The possibilities looked good that year. The job market for Japanese literature was booming.

Back then you started the job hunt by looking for openings in the Association for Asian Studies newsletter—print, of course—and sent off letters of inquiry. I duly circled the positions I thought I was qualified for, mailed out letters of application, and anxiously awaited answers.

I applied to six or seven positions that year and secured five interviews.

A good sign for sure.

Even so, it would be a tough trip back home, emotionally fraught with both home-coming and home-leaving.

My first stop was the easy one. I flew back to North Carolina, enjoyed the Christmas holidays with my parents, sinking back into the familiarity of being a child—decorating the little “Charlie Brown Christmas tree” my father would bring back from the Tennessee land, singing Christmas carols, making cookies with Mother.

Still, the interviews loomed in the offing. All were scheduled in January, one right after the other.

I’d spent the last year in Japan training for and running triathlons. The five interviews awaiting me seemed similar. As I stared at the schedule for the month, I felt I was looking down a racecourse. Here’s where I’ll transition from swim to bike, and here from bike to run.

What of all the hidden hurdles, though?

The first hurdle was one I had been anticipating, and it had little to do with the interviews. At least, not directly.

I had the home-leaving to face.

My father and I drove to Pennsylvania to collect all the boxes of things I had left with my husband’s family while we lived in Japan.

It was stressful.

And emotional.

I had always liked my in-laws. It was sad to think that I likely would never see them again.

Daddy and I drove the 450 miles back to Raleigh mostly in silence.

I had too much to say.

Then came the interviews.

The University of Virginia was first.

The campus was beautiful, and I loved the surrounding Shenandoah area. After years in Tokyo, western Virginia felt close to home.

Maybe too close?

Next came Ohio State University. The campus was huge, and the department was emerging as a powerhouse in Japanese Studies. Still, I felt no affinity for the program, no sense that this was the right choice for me.

On my way back to Raleigh from Columbus, the little Embraer jet hit some of the worst turbulence I have ever experienced—and I’ve been flying since I was just one month old! I felt as though all the anxiety of my job talks was striking the little jet with every clap of thunder.

We bounced and rolled through the clouds and the woman in the seat next to me screamed the whole way.

When we safely landed her little boy said, “That’s was fun! Can we do it again!”

I couldn’t help but smile.

I wanted to channel his innocent sense of adventure, the way he enjoyed the bumps with no awareness of the danger.

And then it was time to interview at Washington University in St. Louis.

I had been waiting for this interview.

Somehow, I knew WashU was the position I wanted.

Would wanting something this badly help or hurt my performance?

I wore a sleek, grey knit sweater suit for the first day. It was comfortable enough to travel in and wouldn’t wrinkle, so once I reached Lambert airfield in St. Louis, I was ready to go.

And I dove straight into the schedule. The first day was packed with activities: meeting the chair, meeting other faculty, guest teaching in a Japanese language course.

I remember sitting in the administrative office waiting for my interview with the chair to start.

I was nervous.

A lovely woman with dark sparkly eyes stopped in front of me.

“Hi, I’m Nancy. Welcome to WashU.”

She held out her hand but gestured for me to stay seated. “Unfortunately, I have to go out of town tonight and will miss your job talk,” she told me. “I’m really interested in the topic, though.”

Her smile was radiant and instantly set me at ease.

Nancy was soon followed by the instructor in charge of the Japanese class where I’d be teaching for my demonstration.

I hadn’t taught Japanese language for over five years, and I was nervous. To offset my anxiety, and in an attempt to bond with the instructor, I asked a question.

“I just want to clarify a point,” I told her, scanning over the chapter from the textbook that I had printed out ahead of time.

I can’t remember what I asked her. It had to do with the ‘te’-form.

“Well, you’re the teacher, aren’t you?” She replied dismissively in Japanese.

For the first time on the trip, my guard went up.

My throat felt tight. That night, I kept going over and over that exchange in my head until I finally fell asleep.

And then it was morning.

I wore my tobacco-colored suit. Just as Mother anticipated, it made me feel strong and lucky. Talisman for the career woman.

This day was even more crammed with activities: a meeting with the dean and my job talk among them. Back to the triathlon training!

The building where most of the activities were scheduled was stately and old, but the room for the job talk was cramped, barely seating 30. The ceiling was low, the acoustics tinny, and the space smelled like carpet glue.

My stomach tightened.

I launched into my job talk on “Uno Chiyo: The Woman and the Writer.” I adored this topic, and I was practiced at giving it.

Somehow, though, I didn’t get that usual bounce of enthusiasm that talking about Uno Chiyo gave me. Everything seemed mechanical, like I was just going through the motions. Hanging on, hanging in there. “Breaking a leg.”

Or breaking something!

The dismissive Japanese lecturer sat right in the middle of the room and frowned. Another woman sat next to her with the same grimace. “The Grumpy Sisters”—I thought to myself, then tried to focus on Uno.

They couldn’t wait to ask questions once I finished.

The gist of their questions were of the “so what” variety.

So, why is any of this even important?

Isn’t literary scholarship about weighty questions, esteemed classics, thorny linguistic concerns?

I found myself fighting back—arguing for the significance of women’s writing—and explaining again the way Uno Chiyo, in her embrace of scandal, was subversive.

Soon, I found myself fighting back nausea.

Was it the glue smell?

I found it hard to focus. The faces before me began to swim together—the frowning duo morphing into a massive two-headed dragon.

For a second I was afraid I would faint.

As soon as I could, I excused myself to the restroom and threw up.

Something was wrong.

I knew I was nervous, but nerves alone had never made me sick.

At this rate, I didn’t think I’d be able to sit through the dinner that had been planned—the important post-job-talk dinner.
When the chair turned to direct me to his office, I explained—fighting back tears—that I was sick.

“I’m so sorry, but I am afraid I need to skip dinner.”

Reluctantly, he took me back to the hotel—the Danielle Hilton in Clayton—and I dove under the covers fully clothed, shivering so strongly my teeth rattled.

I was miserable.

The following morning I was to travel to Texas for another interview. The idea of leaving the bed (or its proximity to the bathroom) was impossible. I would have to cancel the interview.

That night, as I tossed from one fevered dream to another, the chair called my room.

“Congratulations, we would like to offer you the job!”

Was I hallucinating?
“So soon?” I practically argued.

“We’ve discussed it and have agreed, you’re our top candidate.”

He didn’t expect an answer right then—though in my delirium I may have burbled something about my delight.
He told me he was going to prepare an offer letter for me and would leave it at the front desk.

That was it. That was all I needed.

The stress of the interviews, the travel, the emotional work of saying goodbye to my Pennsylvania in-laws, the televising of Desert Storm, and the shock of seeing the United States entering another war, I was worn thin. No talismanic power, no cool, calm, collected young professional. I was spent.

I didn’t want to continue with the job search.

The WashU job was the one I had wanted all along.

With the energy I had left, I called my contact person in Texas and canceled my interview.

She was dismayed.

“Just come,” she pled.

“I’m sorry, I am just too sick.”

“We can postpone, if that will help.”

“I don’t want to waste your time,” I tried to explain tactfully.

My mind was made up.

I spent at least two extra nights in the Danielle Hilton, hosted by the Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures Department at Washington University.

I offered to pay for the additional time I took to convalesce, but I was never charged.

It’s all a bit of a blur now, but at some point—either before I fell ill or after I was feeling a bit stronger—my soon-to-be colleagues Ginger and Marvin Marcus took me out to see a play! I’m pretty sure it was about an adventure to the North Pole.

When I returned to Raleigh, I called off the last interview I had scheduled in Massachusetts. The person in charge sounded pretty put out that I had already accepted a job without even visiting her university.

I thought I was saving her time and money.

My mind was made up.

I just knew.

And I was right.

Now I’m getting ready to retire. My luck has held. Not that my path was a smooth one, but it has been a good one. And even my translation of Uno Chiyo’s Single Woman is back in print.

Break a leg.

The post An Interview Never to Forget—and Never to Repeat appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.