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Jesup, Georgia 31545
75¢
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Janisse Ray’s writing invites you inside her soul
My Opinion
▼▼▼
“Eyes that look
are common.
Eyes that see are
rare.”
—J. Oswald
Sanders
When you venture off asphalt
and wander into
the wilds of
Georgia, what do
DINK
NeSMITH
you see? Or, are
Chairman
you just looking
around? There is
a difference. Few are better demonstrating that than Janisse Ray.
Imagine growing up with a junkyard as your backyard. No tree
house. Just hundreds of battered
Fords, Chevys and Plymouths—a different playhouse for every day of the
year. On the edge of Baxley, the Ray
children didn’t have a trampoline
either. Instead, they bounced and
bounded from one car hood to the
next.
While airborne, Janisse could see
farther than the weeds in her father’s
cash crop of used auto parts. Out in
the distance was a mystical place,
near the Altamaha River. She’d
heard the stories and wouldn’t be
happy until she could see it, really see
it.
Saturday, I gathered with 100 others under a massive live oak, listening to Janisse. One moment her
words flowed as majestically as the
river, just down the dirt road. The
next moment her chin quivered as
she searched for the right words of
joy and appreciation for The Nature
Conservancy (TNC) leading the way
to save that mystical place of her
childhood—Moody Forest.
When Uncle Jake Moody died in
1952, he handed the 3,500-acre deed
to his brother’s three unmarried children: Causs, Wade and Elizabeth.
He trusted them to not cut a stick of
wood, unless absolutely necessary.
From time to time, paying taxes
made it necessary to crank the saws.
Otherwise, the trio lived pioneer-like
lives and kept their word.
When the last, Elizabeth, died in
1999, the multitude of heirs decided to
sell not divide Uncle Jake’s sacred
woodlands. Eight suitors came
knocking on auction day. TNC’s
sealed envelope was the last, containing the highest bid—$8.25 million.
Janisse seldom struggles with
what to say, but telling that outcome
caused her to pause and wipe a tear
more than once on Saturday. Moody
Forest is a rare treasure. So is
Janisse. Not only does she have the
extraordinary vision to see the value
of conserving and protecting our natural resources, she possesses the
extraordinary gift of expression.
Nature comes alive through her
words. That’s why Janisse was invited to speak, celebrating TNC’s and
Georgia’s Department of Natural
Resources 10th anniversary of ownership of Moody Forest.
Janisse and I are of a kindred
spirit. We love the Altamaha’s chain
of oxbow lakes, linked like sausage
and snaking its way from Lumber
City to the Atlantic Ocean.
Our friendship is ancient. We joke
that we’ve been buddies since those
gnarly cypress knees were just tiny
toes sticking up in the swamp water.
I asked Janisse to autograph
another stack of her wide-acclaimed
first book: “Ecology of a Cracker
Childhood.” And I couldn’t leave
without five more copies of “Moody
Forest.” You don’t just read Janisse.
She invites you inside her soul, chiding you: “Don’t just look!”
Through her words you can hear
the wind whispering in the longleaf
pines. You taste the berries as she
walks and snacks in the woods of her
native Appling County. She puts you
inside a gopher’s shell as it ambles
along and then claws its way to a
dark, cool spot beneath the wiregrass. Janisse gives you a swallowtailed kite’s view as her prose sweeps
you over 600-year-old tree tops of
Moody Forest.
You can see, really see.
Photos by Dink NeSmith
In 2007, Janisse Ray collected and edited 37 essays about Appling County’s fabled
Moody Forest. The design, illustrations and many of the photographs were by her husband, Raven.
[email protected]
From “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood”
“In South Georgia everything is flat and
wide. Not empty. My people live among
the mobile homes, junked cars, pine plantations, clearcuts, and fields. They live
among the lost forests.
“The creation ends in South Georgia, at
the every edge of the sweet earth. Only
the sky, the widest of wide, goes on, flatness against flatness. The sky appears so
close that, with a long-enough extension
ladder, you think you could touch it, and
sometimes you do, when the clouds
descend in the night to set a fine pelt of
dew on the grasses, leaving behind white
trails of fog and mist.”
–Janisse Ray
Photos by Dink NeSmith
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has protected almost 300,000 unique acres like
Moody Forest and Broxton Rocks in Southeast Georgia. The most-recent is the
14,000-acre Rayonier Murff Tract in Long County. A key partner has been the
Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR). DNR’s new commissioner,
Mark Williams, right, spoke at last Saturday’s event, along with Mike Harris, left,
DNR’s Chief of the Non-Game Conservation Section, and Dr. Shelly Lakly, center, executive director of TNC’s Georgia chapter.