I'm Sorry. I Almost Forgot

Now go make your Irish Soda bread.

Sweet Rain

Well, yesterday's light-drenching turned in the night to another sort, and the rain patters, it falls, it touches the house and the ground and the trees and the blossoms with gray, wet fingers.

I was surprised, I have to tell you. Yesterday was so clear and beautiful and it was somewhat shocking to wake up to the dancing kitty feet of the rainsounds on the roof. But as I walked outside to get the paper I could only think how happy the garden must be and I could feel those sweet and sugar snap peas in the ground, swelling and making their miraculous change, delivering on their promise of life.

As I reached into the cat food bin to fill the dish, I wondered if there has ever been a human being on this planet whose life was perfect. I do not mean perfect like the life of Jesus supposedly was. I mean perfect like if that person planted a garden, it was guaranteed that rain would fall the next day. Like, every child that she had was perfect in all regards and grew up to be a good and strong person himself or herself, and if the love of that woman's life was perfect and and strong and true and she and that love died together in each other's arms without pain or struggle. If every jar of peaches she canned sealed and if every meal she made came out the way she intended and if the amount of money she had was exactly what she needed and so forth.

Well, of course not, and the old saying that "Into every life a little rain must fall," came to mind as the water dripped off the shed where we keep the cat food.

But sometimes it does seem that things do work out, and I'm not talking about how when a flight may be canceled, another one arises which allows you to get to a funeral or a wedding on time. I'm talking about the rain falling on recently planted peas, on the right people coming together at the right time to become friends, at the catching of someone's eye in a bar, perhaps, late one night, and a shiver of the inevitable, the fated, the meant-to-be passes through two bodies and the distance between them shrinks and is gone forever before even a word is spoken.

I am talking about the making of love on a certain day at a certain moment which results in some sort of planetary alignment and a child is born of the act who, from the moment of her birth, is recognized as someone deeply loved, dreamed of in a forgotten dream.

I am speaking about finding the right teacher at the right time, of opening the right book at the right moment, of sitting down with the right pen at the very instant the poem wants to come to life. I am thinking of walking on the beach at the exact moment the dolphins pass in the water, rising and falling, the sun making the slick gray bodies luminescent as they rise, and sometimes, some of them are babies, following their mothers' bodies exactly in the arc of ascent and descent.

And the strange thing about all of these events, these somehow perfect events, is that they are so unplanned and often, even undreamed of, the small ones and the large. It is if we have been waiting sometimes all our lives, plotting and toiling to make something else entirely happen and then, there you go- a small, perfect miracle occurs and I think it is our responsibility to notice and be grateful.

It seems to be mine, anyway.

A woman came to my door on Monday and the dogs went insane, barking and trying to burst through the screen and I was in the middle of doing four things and I finally got outside to talk to her and she was nicely dressed and holding a Bible and some pamphlets and she tried to hand me one.
"No thank-you," I said. "I am not religious at all."
She said, "Okay," and got in her car and drove away and that was that but I think I lied. I am NOT religious at all, but I believe in miracles. They happen every day.

Of course, they go the other way too. The accident which occurs and you think, "Oh, if I had just pulled him back off the ledge, if I had just told him I loved him, if I had just put down my foot, if I had just kept him at home for one more moment, it would not have happened."

One never knows which way the balance will fall. One never knows where this timing or that will lead. Some of it we seem to have control over, much of it we have none. Most of it.

But here we are, tossed as surely by the universe as the pear blossoms were by the winds. Warmed by the sweetest things that happen as certainly as by the sun that shines on our skin. Chilled by the breath of just-misses or did-not-miss as absolutely as the day can turn cold and we shiver, not having put on enough clothes because we thought the day would be sunny.

Ah yah. I do not know how any of this happens. I no more give credence to coincidence than I do to god. I just live. I just observe. I just put on my socks or take them off as the temperature requires. I love what is given me to love with all my heart and I think about the impossibility of all of it- this life which seems so huge but which, in reality is not even the barest speck of visibility in the vastness of the universe while at the same time, is as inevitable as spring because, well, here we are and how could it be any different?

The rain falls, the seeds swell, the roads become slick, the sky counsels us to stay inside, the heart swells when the voice of the lover is heard, the words call, the words come, the hands open and close, grasping and releasing, the soul is peaceful, the soul cries out.

And it is perfect, sometimes and if, into every life some rain did not fall, it would not be.

That's all I know today. That's all I came to talk about.

Owen And Grandmother Share An Apple With The Chickens

Sure beats going to the mall.

Just Another Day In This Paradise

Well, this morning is just drenched in light. Drenched I tell you.
I realize sadly that the Bradford pears are not going to give us their usual show due to the hurricane-like winds we had last weekend. Winds that pushed Owen's hair up and ruffled it like a chicken's comb and made him gasp in the parking lot of Publix.

March has certainly come in like the lion it is supposed to come in like but today things are more lamb-like and that is sweet. The bat appears to be gone and I slept well although I woke up from a dream wherein Mr. Moon had taken a mistress and was living in a cheap tourist court in a bad part of town and hanging out in front of it wearing his flannel boxer shorts and looking, by the end of the dream, surprisingly like my first husband.

I am trying to taper off my anti-depressants and it is interesting to see what the mind does as its chemicals change. So far my main observation is that my dreams have taken a decided turn for the trashier. Instead of dreaming of a beautiful house with secret rooms, I dream of trailer parks and low-rent dives. Although this is disappointing, it is hardly a reason to stay on anti-depressants. I am trying to ignore the obvious fact that the Lexapro gave me an inflated sense of self wherein my ego played on gleaming wooden floors covered with wine-colored Oriental rugs instead of the cracked and worn linoleum it seems to truly feel at home on.
Bah.

Speaking of trailer parks, there is one right in the center of Lloyd. Not exactly a park but just a small piece of land where some ancient and slowly unpeeling single-wides are rented out. I noticed last week that one of the trailer's occupants were moving and this made me incredibly happy. There were small children living there and I hope with all my heart that they are moving somewhere better. Somewhere with a real yard and better windows than the ones the little children peered out of as I walked by, tearing my heart and tugging it, too. If the mother was outside, I would always smile and say hello but she never even acknowledged my presence. I wanted to tell her that I lived in a trailer once myself and just because I live in a beautiful house now doesn't mean I don't remember. Doesn't mean I can't recall what it was like to live in three rooms in a straight line. Doesn't mean you can't be friendly and it doesn't mean you can't do the best you can with it. I hope they do a better job of picking up their trash, wherever they are moving. I could never understand the massive accumulation of trash bags in that they lived virtually right across the road from the trash place.
Well.
It would be a fine thing if that whole piece of property took fire, although of course with no one living there. I can't believe the county thinks these trailers are safe to rent. They are not decent housing by any standards and I have seen some funky houses in my life. Frankly, I would much rather live in a house made of sticks in the Yucatan than in one of these tin boxes. I have lived in a single-wide myself, had a baby in one, in fact, but these trailers are not fit for human habitation.
Well, what are you going to do?

It's an Owen day and here he is:


I know. He's all depressed and worried. Poor baby. I better go play with him.

My god, it's a beautiful day.

Babies and Bats

All right. Do you see that picture above? That is Owen, my grandson. But for some reason he looks so much like his daddy in that picture I can hardly believe it. Lily has a handsome husband. One who looks a bit like Elvis (not the rooster) and who can dance like Michael Jackson, which is saying a lot for a white man with Italian heritage.
I just can't wait to see who Owen grows up to be. And when I say "grow up," I am basically talking about a year from now when he's walking like a Homo-sapiens. Or maybe tomorrow. He's growing so damn fast that I can't keep track of it all.

I dropped by Owen's (I mean Lily and Jason's) house this afternoon after I'd been to the library because you know I hadn't seen the boy since Saturday and I can't let him go two whole days without seeing his Crazy Chicken Grandma because he might forget me. I knew that Waylon would be there too and I was looking forward to seeing him because I may not be his Crazy Chicken Grandma but I am his Crazy Aunt Chicken Grandma, although Billy and Shayla call me his Grandma Mary.
Oh my Lord! After almost twenty years without babies I am now surrounded by them and let me just say I could not be happier.
Unlike Waylon who started wailing the moment I walked in the house. Now normally I do not have this effect on babies and I am not going to blame Waylon's crying on my presence. I think he is cutting teeth. He sounded as if he was in pain to me. I gave him a bottle and he would suck and suck and then stop and just cry his little heart out. It broke my heart, it broke Lily and Jason's heart, and it upset Owen. He is not used to his BFF crying. They usually have a great fun time together, studying each other and wondering at the fact that oh my god! there is another baby on earth!
So when I left, Lily was pushing Waylon in a stroller down the street, trying to calm him, and Jason was pushing Owen in a stroller down the street and Crazy Chicken Grandma ran ahead to snap that picture of Owen which makes him look like the Sultan of East Tallahassee or something. Doesn't it?

He's all, "Yeah, I'm cool. I'm lounging. Got the 'rents pushing me down the street.Wish this other baby would stop crying."

And then I came home and got Mr. Moon's snack bag and coffee drink ready for his trip down to Orlando for the auto auction and after he left, I went out into the garden and started weeding. Well, I weeded for about an hour or so and then I decided to plant some peas, which I did. Peas need a fence to climb up and I now have four sides of fence which is just excellent and I planted a fence row of English peas and a fence row of Sugar Snap peas. I felt very good about that, too.

I was still feeling good about it when I was sitting on the porch a few moments ago, answering comments when something started flapping around the porch. Since I'd seen a sweet little wren or sparrow or one of those tiny birds earlier this morning on the porch with a bit of chicken-butt-down in its mouth for nest building, I was not concerned. I did open up the porch door so the poor confused bird could get out but I sat back down to the computer and then, and then, and THEN, it flapped by me again and I realized, ah shit, it's another bat.

I did not freak out. No. I did not. I went and got the camera and when it thudded back onto the screen, I took its picture.

This is not a baby bat. This is a full-grown bat. They do look soft, don't they? Still, I am not going to touch it if I can help it. In fact, I hope it's found its way outside by now.

And then Mr. Moon called and I told him about the bat and he told me that last night before he came to bed he put one outside himself. But then I told him I'd planted the peas and he got very quiet and I could tell he was upset. Mr. Moon does not like peas. And he is so proud of his garden fence and how straight and true it is, as am I, and beside the fact that he does not like peas, he knows that the rows I plant are not straight and true and I think the idea that I planted something without stretching a string, something which he does not even like, was more than he could bear. I suggested that he do all the planning and all the planting and I'll just weed the fucking garden but he said that's not what he wants but I know it is. As I have pointed out before, he is a farmer gardener and I am a hippie gardener and well, the twain does meet but there are issues.

But we told each other that we love each other and hopefully the bat is gone and hell, if Mr. Moon hates the peas, he can take them out. Whatever. Green Giant makes some nice frozen peas and I can eat them when he's out of town.

And there you go. I had two pictures I wanted to post- one of my grandson and one of a bat and I have done that and written about both of them and now I'm going to go eat my supper of leftovers and then I'm going to bed because I've had about all the excitement one woman can have in Lloyd, Florida on a Monday night.

I am not kidding you.

Love...Ms. Moon

Mostly Pictures, Spring Version

Spring is like a baby in that every day there are changes. Every day a progression forward towards growth. There is no stopping it. There is only noticing it, being grateful for it, being amazed.

The dogwoods that were tight buds three days ago are starting to show tiny green pointed tongue-leaves. This time next week? Oh. Watch out. Blessourhearts will be dogwoods, dogwoods, dogwoods.

And azaleas.

Here is the velvet glove of the ash magnolia.

And the blowsy blossoms of the Japanese magnolia.

I let the chickens out to graze. Really, they do graze, snipping and eating the tiny yellow clover flowers.

And no, that is not a giant pecan shell. It's a small one.

Oh, how I love to watch them ramble and march.

Dolly, Sukie, Mabel, Betty. I think.

And scratch in the hydrangea bed:



The sturdy gate and new, tight fence which will keep those chickens out of the collards and which has allowed them their freedom. May we paraphrase Robert Frost and point out that good fences make happy chickens?

And finally this:

My front porch which has empty pots and pots with plants I'm going to take a wait-and-see attitude about before I begin to uproot and toss brown remnants of last year's green. Some will come back. You just wait and see.
I spent a good half-hour at least, yesterday, trimming back my porch ferns and sweeping and making things tidy, even if they are not profusely blooming. Still, it is beautiful to me and ready for a porch-sit as the evening sun goes down or the morning sun comes up.

Spring. Hold your horses, people. It's galloping into view.

Addendum And Time Shifts

Mr. Moon and I have worked outside all day long, he on the irrigation, me on picking up old downed branches and hauling them to the burn pile and trimming the Confederate jasmine. It's the sort of Sunday I really enjoy. It's not unlike picking up your house before you really begin to clean. I will get inside the garden tomorrow. I'm pretty sure about that. It's funny. I go about my gardening by a sort of internal clock. All of a sudden, I know it is time to get on my knees and and plant my seeds. And then there is little that can stop me.

And speaking of clocks- well- what do I need to say? According to the clock, it is 5:18 pm but of course I keep translating- well, it's really only 4:18, and so forth but frankly, I will be glad to go to sleep when the clock says 10:30, even if it is "really" only 9:30. I am exhausted already and have more to do before bed. Plenty more.

But I know this for sure- my chickens, instead of going to roost at 6:30, will head to the chicken coop at 7:30. They are not fooled, those wise birds of mine! The clock does not dominate their lives nor proscribe their actions. And it has been a lot of fun to watch their actions today as they've hunted and pecked and made dirt baths and rested in the shade and sunned themselves, too. I think Elvis got a little bit of sexy time with Miss Carol and that is sort of amazing- it's not like he doesn't have nine hens of his own. But, there you go, a rooster is a rooster.

But anyway, I went into the garden to tell Mr. Moon that I was DONE. DONE and EXHAUSTED from my labors and that I was going to try and tidy up the front porch and then that was that! Except of course to make supper and get the clothes off the line and put them away and wash the dishes and make his lunch for tomorrow and oh well, we all know about the third shift, don't we?

He was exhausted too, that man, and we both stretched out on the warm dirt of the garden and we gazed at the sky and sighed deep sighs of comfort, laying there in our overalls. I reached over for him and he took my hand. It was, well, it was what I was writing about this morning.

Isn't that what we want? Someone to hold our hand when we are tired and happy, laying on our backs and looking at the sky above us?
I don't know about you, but that's what I want.

And of course, because he's a man, he had to get up and pretend to get sexy with me, lying there on my back like a turtle. I giggled and said, "Are you going to put a bed in here?" He considered it. I suggested that a hammock would be nice. Of course it would be now but it no one would want to lie in a hammock in the garden in late June, much less August.
But still, it was a nice moment, considering that and the implications.

He laughed and said, "Can you turn the water on by the pump for me when you go in?"
I allowed as how I could but first I had to get up. "That would be my first problem," I said.
He grabbed my hands and sort of tugged-flung me upright so fast that I felt as if I had been hurtled into a new dimension, which made me laugh. I told him that and he said, "I'm a bit dizzy myself."

And isn't that a relationship? One minute you're in this world, and the next you're in that, the two of you dizzy and laughing.

I think I'll take him a beer. It's "really" only 4:30 but actually, it's 5:30. Or something. Whatever. We've worked hard today. It's been a good day. The clock says one thing, the chickens say another, agreeing with the sun. I say, whatever, and decide that like love, this random time shifting is mysterious and out of my control.

And that's okay with me. Right now, it's just fine.

We all have our internal clocks, we all have the external ones too. The lucky of us have love and chickens and warm black dirt and cube steak (very expensive cube steak!) marinating in milk.

That would be me.
And I would wish the same for you.

The Script

It's been a morning already. First thing I did wrong was to mistakenly assume that Mr. Moon had already gotten up because an alarm from his side of the bed was going off at a frantic, heart-racing pace and so I flung myself across the expanse of where we sleep to find it and shut it off only to discover that no, he was still there and I had body-slammed him right in the chest.
He gave a great whoof! and I don't know who was more surprised, Mr. Moon or myself and I felt just terrible. I mean, I know the man has some hearing loss- who doesn't at our age?- but this was ridiculous, the alarm pounding, pounding, pounding and he sleeping soundly right through it as the sun poured into our room.
But still, like I said, I felt terrible. I hadn't hurt him but I surely did surprise him and wake him most rudely.

Then over breakfast I informed him that I was out of funds in my account. So we had to go through the "how can that be?" discussion over our eggs with onions, peppers, tomatoes and cheese, our biscuits, our sausage, our grits, with HoneyLuna right there between us. I told him that the deer meat I'd picked up at the processor's (ground and cube steak) had cost fifty dollars and he couldn't believe it. "You mean fifteen, not fifty," he claimed, as my biscuit stuck in my gut. I hate defending my expenses. And I thought it was fifty-something, and certainly not fifteen, but I have been known to make mistakes. So after breakfast I went out to find the receipt which was in the garage in the box they packed the meat in and sure enough, it was for $58.89, almost SIXTY, and I showed it to him and he transferred his anger to the processor.

But my stomach still hurts.

I think of myself as such a thrifty housewife, you know. I did go to Goodwill the other day because I had been thinking about some blue clear glass plates they'd had and I wondered if they were still there. They were but I didn't buy them or anything else either. The grocery store bill is always the biggest but I swear- I buy store brands, I compare prices, I buy on sale, I but mostly food ingredients and not packaged prepared things, but it's hard for a man who never enters the grocery store to understand that a loaf of bread can cost three dollars and a package of toilet paper can cost ten. I mean- it's the way it is. And that I get so much more than food at the grocery store. Light bulbs and paper towels and storage bags and shampoo and laundry detergent and cat food and well, you know.

Ah. Marriage. We have this script which we are not even aware we've written and we follow it closely although situations and people change over the years. And if we don't, if we deviate, the other partner is completely confused and so, perhaps, are we.

Last week Mr. Moon came in from work and I had taken care of Owen that day and I was sick and I was just exhausted and was trying to make dinner with my fever-boiled brain and before he even got in the door all the way he was trying to describe a plumbing problem at Moon Plaza to me and the ways he thought it might be fixed with air-finger-traced diagrams and there I was, standing at the sink, trying to get the pre-dinner dishes washed and finally I just wailed, "Why are you telling me this?"
And I saw his face fall and he shut his mouth and walked on and I think I was kinder to him this morning when I body-slammed him in his sleep.
Really, it was about the same thing. Same-same.
One I did with my body, one I did with my mouth.
And I'm not beating myself up for saying what I said but in our script, Mr. Moon's and mine, I listen to the things he is processing in his mind. Truthfully, I don't even have to listen because he knows that I'm not going to give him any helpful imput. I'm just there while he works it out in his own mind by saying it all out loud.

I suppose I do the same but truthfully, this blog does more of that than I ask him to. That's what works for ME.

But the money thing- ah, that one is so hard. It's in the script that he earns the money and I spend it and I suppose that's true, although of course he buys things too. And I will admit that I used to spend more than I do now, at least relatively. I used to buy clothes from catalogs and the occasional piece of furniture and of course there were the children's things to buy and school fees and lessons and all of that stuff but now it's mostly just the two of us and I can understand how he is bewildered that I can spend more at the grocery store now than I did twenty years ago when I was feeding six rather than just two. And we try, both of us try, not to upset each other or the apple cart or anything at all, but it's hard to change the script. It's hard.

But you know, it's also in our script that we are loving to each other and I think that's the first line of whatever it is that we follow. We are constantly doing things for each other, both small and large, that we know will please the other. Because honestly, if there is a title to our script, it is: We Love Each Other.
And whatever follows from there is most directed to keeping that true.
Sure. There are the the little things- the things all couples bicker about and get their feelings hurt about but in the end, isn't the most important thing the fact that we remember that we both have feelings and that feelings are important and it does no good to tell someone you love them if your actions don't show that daily?
Listening to something that has nothing to do with you, being patient and rational about money, understanding that the other partner has interests which you may not get at all but because you love them you cheerfully and full-heartedly give them permission to pursue them whether they be hunting or acting or spending hours daily on a computer?

I think so.
After twenty-five years of marriage I think so.
But it's still shocking to me how upsetting it is to hurt, even unintentionally, my husband. How my gut can roil and my spirits fall and perhaps it is even more shocking to me to see how my husband experiences the same thing when he realizes he has hurt me.

Because we love each other. I look at couples who seem intent on always being the winner of an argument and I think that neither one of them is going to win in the end. Because no matter how much we think it's important to be right, it's actually a lot more important to be loving.
In the end it will have been. I'm pretty sure.

And that's really all I have to say today. My tummy is more settled and I've just been out to help Mr. Moon hold a piece of PVC while he glues it to set it into the ditch he's dug beside the newly finished garden fence. The PVC will be part of the irrigation system for our garden. The chickens have been allowed out of their coop today since they can't get to the collards anymore unless they remember they can fly and being outside is even more of a pleasure because we can watch the hens and Elvis as they travel about the yard, scratching and eating and sharing bugs and tender shoots. We have worked together, Mr. Moon and I, to make this shared vision of a yard come together and we will continue to do so and we have made compromises and we have both worked in our own roles to do what we can to make it all real.

And we have loved doing it and we love each other all the more for what we have shared as a vision, what we have worked towards to create it.

And that's a good thing, a good life, a good day, a good morning. In the end, it is. Even if we unintentionally hurt each other, feelings and so forth and everything else. We're human. But we love each other. We apologize, we learn, we go on, we read our scripts. Occasionally we even change them.

Because whatever it takes for We Love Each Other to work is what we need to do. Not because we have to but because we want to.

That's what I think, anyway. And what I try to live by.

Spanish Moss

Every night the old Spaniards knit their beards in the darkness
They speak to each other as the old gnarled fingers work at their chins
Twigs flying as they work and
They speak of great cities they remember
Seville, Madrid, Valencia and so on.
They speak of streets they walked down which all somehow lead to the sea
Where great ships waited to take them across
To a different land where their feet touched white beach sand,
Black jungle dirt, swampy grasses growing like lakes forever and always as far as the eye could see.
They speak of the days they road huge white horses through the strange land
Which stretched so far their beards grew and grew as they rode,
And when they died (remember when we died? they ask, deep, old man chortles coming out of their throats)
They stayed where they fell of disease or hunger or the spears of an another kind of men,
and their comrades rode on
Some to cross the sea back to the streets of Spain
But not these men who knit their beards every night
In the trees
Great cypress trees, older than Christ would be if he were still alive,
Great oaks, older than fifteen saints,
Tiny dogwoods, younger than they were when they first saw the ocean
Their eyes still brown before the sun bleached them to palest blue
When their hair was still black
Before the years bleached it to mossy gray.

And they knit, they knit
They talk, they laugh
Remember? They ask
Ah, si, they sigh
The sighs tangling in the branches, in their beards
As the night moves on, inky like their hair once was
Until the dawn begins and pale light begins to paint
The east and they yawn and throw away their twigs



And cut the ends of their knitting, making sharp points of it everywhere
And they fade back into the trees themselves
And leave their work out for anyone to see
Anyone at all
Even me
As the sun takes over and daylight travels from east to west as they once did
They rest, they sleep, they turn in their slumber in the trees, great ones and small
Old ones and young
Depending on where they were when they died, perhaps
I do not know if they can still travel
But I know this-
They knit their beards every night and grow them again every day
As their snores rumble quietly, trembling the knitting
They did the night before, the leaves, too
And when the sun sets they take up their twigs again and work them in their beards
And they take up their conversation where they left off

Do you remember? Ah, si,
That Ponce de Leon he was a bastard and a fool,
That Balboa he was one too
They nod, they knit, they chuckle in their beards
As the trees tremble and the birds nestle in nests made of tattered lace
Which they stole the day before
As the old Spaniards slept in the trees
As the old Spaniards slept in the sun.

Dreaming of before they had beards
To knit.
Dreaming of before they slept in trees.

A Conspiracy Of Happiness

It's a ridiculously beautiful day here in Lloyd and if I could bottle the way the cool air feels on newly bare skin I would be richer than my wildest dreams. The past days' steel-gray skies have given way to purest blue and it seems to me that even the birds are somewhat in awe. The finches chatter but I think that for the most part, the other birds are too busy doing what birds do in spring to give much voice to the day. But the wind in the Bradford pears is doing a fine job of it and then suddenly, a cardinal remembers to sing and does, then a mockingbird, then a blackbird with his liquid notes.

I say newly bare skin because I have traded my overalls for the men's linen cargo shorts and boy, you know that's a big wardrobe improvement. Actually, it's not at all but it feels good on a day like today. I've made Mr. Moon an egg sandwich and fed and watered the chickens and opened up the front doors and put the meringues I made last night in containers to take to the Sex Please, We're Sixty cast party this evening. They are lovely, light and crisp with tiny chocolate chips in them and I think they'll do fine. I left them in the oven all night, as you are supposed to do. I'm making guacamole too but I'll do that later on this afternoon. I'm looking forward to the party although as I told both May and Kathleen yesterday, I'd rather go to a rehearsal than a party which is odd. I am still going through my lines in my head at night in bed and it's a sure-fire way to put me to sleep. Never fails. And by golly, if we had to do the play tonight, I think I could.

*************************

And then, suddenly, the day did grew even more beautiful because Lily brought out Owen and then, just as she left so very reluctantly to go to work, Aunt Jessie showed up in her overalls to help her daddy finish up the garden fence.

And now I am not thinking about what my worth is or what it is I do or don't do to measure it. This boy is here and we have been outside and to the post office and into the chicken coop and in the camellia bushes and under the great live oak tree out front.

My heart is as happy as a heart can be and the kitchen is filled with dishes and I don't give a damn. The boy wants a bottle and I am going to hold him close to me and give him one and that is that and then, as if the Universe is conspiring to make me crazy with how funny-good things can be, when I turn on the TV to watch it while I am giving him his bottle, there are Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello at the Apollo Theater and Bruce is talking about Sam and Dave and how Sam's voice was up in the heavens and Dave's voice was down in the DIRT, man, and then they sing together, Bruce and Elvis, and Owen falls asleep and I leak the camera of its pictures and put them here and well, this is today, Saturday in Lloyd today, March 13, 2010.

Owen and Pop-Pop, in the kitchen.

Madonna and Child

He is smushing my nose!

The center of our village.

Inside the post office.

Daffodil and the boy.

Owen and the matriarch oak.

That mean Aunt Jessie.

Please don't tell his mama I let him eat a camellia as big as his head.

The dogwoods, still budded-up tight. Not for long, though. Not for long.

He Is Dancing In The Light

When I think of really fine Christians- Christians who live according to what I think Christ may have actually been saying- I have always thought of two people. One is Jimmy Carter for obvious reasons and the other was a man named Carroll Teeter.

I always called him Mr. Teeter because he was the father of friends of mine in Winter Haven when I was in high school. I think I may even have written about him before. He and his first wife were two of the people whom I did feel loved by entirely for who I was and for no other reason. Once, when I had not seen them for years, I stopped by their house in Winter Haven and just as I was knocking on their door, they pulled up into the driveway. Mrs. Teeter got out of the car and said, "Is that our Mary?" And she said it with such JOY that my heart just broke.
It was as if I were one of theirs, come back to see them after long, long journeys away.

I think that was the last time I saw either one of them, although Mr. Teeter and I had a bit of an e-mail correspondence back in the nineties. He took to e-mail as if he had invented it and if you read the article below, you will see that he even used it to romance his second wife.

Mrs. Teeter died some years ago and I just got an e-mail from an old friend today telling me that Mr. Teeter has now died too.

I KNOW Carroll Teeter was not afraid to die. His soul was joyful, always, and he was smart and he was a doer of good deeds and he was a bleeding heart liberal up 'til the end and he knew how to love.

I wish his children and his grandchildren and his wife could know how very much he meant to me. They know how much he will be missed. No need to point that out.

I mourn the loss of him, I celebrate the life of him.
And instead of saying, "Rest In Peace," I am going to say, "Dance In Joy!"

I found this article online from a publication in Central Florida. You may view it in its original from here, or you can just read it below.




Finding love a second time around
Couples kindle new romance in golden years

By Paula Stuart

	L O V E spells it all. Illustration provided by Featured Families.

This month, it's hard to miss all those cupids fluttering through the air and the bright red Valentine hearts all around. Perhaps someone you know, or even you yourself, is lacking a special someone with whom to share this romantic holiday. Or perhaps you're single again and think it might be this way forever. Well, think again.

Four couples were handed lemons in their lives. Instead of mourning the past, they turned their lemons into lemonade and discovered romance can be found in one's golden years.

Carroll and Lucy Teeter

Lucy H. Jackson-Teeter, 86, enjoyed 49 years of marriage before loosing her first husband in February 1999. Carroll Teeter, 91, lost his first wife in August 1999. Both attend First Presbyterian Church in Winter Haven.

	Carroll and Luc Teeter will celebrate their 10-year wedding anniversary this year. They each are in their second marriage. Provided by the Teeters.

"We were both at a church supper, very casual," Lucy says.

That casual gathering in 1999 was the beginning of an e-mail marathon between the two.

"E-mail is a great way to start a relationship," says Carroll, who then was 81 years old. "We had a lot in common. We had a lot to write about. It started off as a comfortable beginning."

Carroll says the two of them both love to read and write, so he started using very intriguing words in his e-mail correspondence that he knew a lady would like.

The couple say they e-mailed frequently - up to several e-mails daily, even though they only lived six blocks apart.

"I couldn't wait to get on the e-mail every morning," Lucy says. "My son thought I was getting senile because of my actions. I was so anxious to get started on the e-mail."

After six weeks of primarily electronic courting, they accumulated a stack of correspondence two inches thick.

On Jan. 26, 2000, Carroll invited Lucy to his home on Lake Roy for tea.

"I drove six blocks, and when I got there, there was a big sign on the door that said, 'Marry me!,' not will you marry me?" Lucy says. "I walked right in. I didn't falter at all. I walked in the door and into the door of my heart."

Carroll says, "I had two glasses of wine and the Bible on the table. We were sitting in the living room looking out the picture window at the lake, and I read St. Paul's ode to love in Corinthians, and Lucy read 'How Do I Love Thee: Sonnets from the Portuguese,' by Elizabeth Barrett Browning."

They married on May 20, 2000, just a little more than a year after Lucy lost her first husband and less than a year's time after Carroll's first wife passed away.

"It takes nothing away from either of the previous marriages," Lucy says. "It's such a meaningful way to live these elder years."

Carroll says, "We feel sorry for people who say they'll never marry again. That's unnecessary loneliness."

In any new relationship, whether it's a second or even a third time around, or the type that seems like it's going too fast, the couple may soon realize that they aren't the only ones in the relationship.

"One of my sons didn't accept it at first. He didn't come to the wedding, but he has come around since, and he calls every day to see that we are OK," Lucy says.

Carroll has four children and Lucy has six, and they each have five grandchildren.

The couple, who will celebrate their 10-year anniversary this year, advises a sensible pre-nuptial agreement for anyone wishing to wed later in life when adult children are involved. They say it's important to each have a lawyer to protect the estates of each person for their children.

"That is the chief reason," Carroll says. "It doesn't have to be complicated. It can be pretty simple. The children approved of what we were doing."

Something else they've done for their children is to keep their own phone numbers, since they each have had them for many years.

"That's not a disagreement, just an accommodation," Carroll says. They also are both writing stories about their first marriages to leave to their children.

Lucy says this new beginning has restored them both.

The couple works together beautifully. Lucy proofreads all of Carroll's writings for him, with such stories about the history of the beginning of hospice, as well as the history of the Friends of the Winter Haven Public Library, and his current work on the history of Habitat for Humanity of East Polk County. They are each other's encouragers.

"I told him that he is the only one left alive with this kind of information, like names of people and so on," Lucy says.

For dating, the couple enjoys picnics, book reviews at Polk State College, visiting state parks and conversations with each other. They also read books to each other at bedtime.

With a combined 112 years of marriage, this couple recommends always going to doctors' appointments together to hear together and go through news together, and get the doctors' orders and prescription instructions together.

More Thinking About Doing

Zeke is harking up his guts all over the house, just clear bile, and I suppose I should feel sorry for the poor little Yorkie but all I can do is sigh and get another paper towel and despair my fate in life.

It's gray today and I woke up from the sort of dreams you shake your head in wonder at and it takes all damn day to shrug off their residual emotional fallout. The kind that make you brush your teeth with tears in your eyes, not really crying, just leaky stuff that originates in the soul and finds its way out of your body in this ineffectual and silly moisture.

I also cannot shake what I wrote about yesterday. About how I have suddenly realized this thing- this sad fact- that I define my worth on my output. Really. That's what it is. And I got so many wonderful replies and comments and all of them made me think and many of them made me say, "Yes, that's part of it."
I don't think there is one answer here. I do not. As Michelle said- the more you think about it, the more complex it becomes.

And what Ms. Fleur said about how if we are raised not to value ourselves just for being here we tend to judge ourselves for what we do for others and how Lopo pointed out that in Mexico the babies are praised not for their accomplishments like we do (my child walked at eight months!) but for their cuteness, their fatness, their, yes, just being here. This is part of it too. It's not just American culture, I am sure of that. Look at the Japanese and how much weight they give to success in school and in business and how much shame is attached to not doing well in their work. I am expecting Mr. Toyota to impale himself on his sword any day now.

And I am thinking of my grandfather on my mother's side. I don't think I ever saw him in repose unless it was for that sunset-watching before supper with his small bottle of 7-Up in his hand or in his chair after supper as he studied a National Geographic book on early man. And believe me, before these restful moments, he had spent an entire day of his retirement working like a slave outside in the hot Florida sun, trying to tame and train his small part of the jungle of Florida or building something in his unairconditioned shop with wood and nails and saws and vise and levels and shellac. How even when we went on "vacation" with him he would rise well before the sun to go out and walk on the beach, miles and miles of walking. How he would spend his days fighting the waves, the tides of the Atlantic as if it were his job to do so. Another piece of work to do, just in a different place, with a different medium. Salt water instead of earth or wood.

I think of my paternal great-grandfather whose picture you see above. I never met him, as far as I know, but look at that face. I not only do not see one molecule of my own DNA in there, I do not see one iota of a smile, of pleasure, of any expectation of that at all. He worked hard, he made money, he made lots of money. That's all I know about him.

I think of myself and I realize I haven't had a manicure, a pedicure, or bought a new garment for myself or a new piece of jewelry or a book or a new plant or sat and listened to music or gone dancing in so long that I can't remember the last time these things happened. I think of how if I do something as frivolous as watch Wife Swap I have to iron my husband's shirts while I'm doing it in order to justify the time spent.

I know, I KNOW that I have pleasure in my life every day. But it is always pleasure associated with work of some sort. And it is good that I can take such pleasure in such simple joys. The pleasure I take in my chickens, my garden, the camellias I have planted and tended. Clean sheets I have washed and dried and put on the bed, stretched tight and made ready for sleep. A meal I have cooked, especially if it involves something I've grown myself. Even the pleasure I take in taking care of my grandson, which is, without a doubt, the purest pleasure of my life, is wrapped up in the tending and nurturing of another and let's face it- I was put on this earth to do that BUT, it is taking care of another. I am not complaining about the tending and nurturing I do. I would not be who I am without doing it. I need to do it.
But doesn't a great part of my pleasure in all of this belong to the fact that I deserve it because I have worked at it?
I deserve the good meal I cooked. I deserve the sweet sheets on the bed because I washed them. I deserve the smiles of my grandson because, well. Okay. That one? No. That's just a gift and I have done nothing to do deserve that and I can't even talk about it because it makes me cry.

But in everything else, I feel I might be too much like my grandfather and when I do sit on the front porch with Mr. Moon and my own version of a 7-Up, I can enjoy it mostly because I am looking out at the yard I have tended, I am sitting on the porch I have swept and grown plants to decorate it with and make it beautiful. Because I know that the supper I have cooked is simmering on the stove. And then, maybe then, I deserve to relax on the porch with my husband and enjoy it.

I remember once, as a little girl and my mother was going through one of her depressions and she was vastly unhappy and I determined that if I was perfect and did everything right and changed the toilet paper roll and washed the dishes and didn't have to be reminded to do my chores and so on and so forth, that this would make her happy. My mother would not be sad. She would not be angry. She would finally and at last stop crying, stop yelling. My experiment failed but in my child mind, it was not because the idea was a faulty one and that I could not make another person happy with my actions, but that it had failed because I could not, no matter how hard I tried, be perfect. I just could not. But if I had been, why then, my mother would have been so glad. And so would I have been.

THAT I think is the most telling memory I have of why I am the way I am. I don't think I ever once in my childhood felt that just my being on this earth was enough to give my mother any sense of happiness but that sometimes my actions did. Actions like being smart, like reading books that were "too old" for me. Like taking care of my brothers. Like cooking a meal, baking a cake.

And there you go. There is culture in this sensibility as well as genetics, most likely, and lessons learned from birth and ingrained in my very bones.

And I agree with very much with Ellen's comment yesterday and think that part of it, too, as in Ellen's life, is the fact that every bit of the work I have done on this earth, almost without exception, has been unpaid work which means work that, if you get right down to the real bottom of it- has absolutely no value in our society except for lip service. And so there MUST be physical proof of my toils and labors or it has not occurred. An empty laundry basket, a clean floor, a weeded garden.

That, too, is one of the pieces of the puzzle which I find myself pondering.

Anyway, I am going to be thinking about all of this more I can tell. I am going to TRY and let some of this negative bullshit thinking about myself go and I hope you all do too. I am going to try and remember that each of us deserves to have happy times unrelated to any work. Sometimes, at least. Hell- it's our right as Americans to pursue happiness! Isn't it odd and wonderful and beautiful that the founding fathers put that in the Declaration of Independence?

And to remember what Allegra said in her comment which was, "Living with cancer has taught me many things, but being kind to myself has not been one of them. I am learning that life is truly a brief episode in the book of time. And that what we write in it has little to do with doing, but most of all with being."

Thank-you, all of you for your comments and your thoughts on this subject. I think that it is one that if we truly consider and truly examine for what it is, we may actually make our lives happier and fuller and most importantly, learn to appreciate our very own selves for who we are and what we are instead of what we do.

All right. I'm done. For now.

Have a wonderful Friday, y'all.
Love...Ms. Moon

And P.S. I think I just figured out why I love the image of the Virgin so much. I think it represents that love which is purely for ourselves. A mother's love. Accepting and without boundaries or conditions.


Sort of like Mr. Rogers, who liked us just the way we are. Whom I also loved.

And, who is, in the Church of the Batshit Crazy, a full and beloved saint.

Epiphanita

I was walking across my yard today in the rain with Owen in the sling on my hip and the big umbrella above us. We had just been across the street to tend to the neighbors' dogs who refused to go outside to pee and poop and well- that's just too bad for them. You try picking up a squirming thirty-pound dachshund with an eighteen pound baby in a sling on your hip and try to get that dog outside while manipulating a huge umbrella.

Yeah. Go ahead. I'm waiting.

But anyway, there I was, walking across our yard to the chicken coop so that Owen and I could feed Elvis and the hens and I had a realization and it may not be exactly an epiphany but it's as close as I'm going to come on a day like today.

What I realized is that I see my own worth entirely and I do mean entirely, on my actions and accomplishments. Is this normal?
When I can't get my tasks done, when I can't do what I'm supposed to get done, I feel like a failure. I literally cry when my husband hugs me and says, "It's okay, honey. You're sick." I apologize like a fool for not getting the peas planted and for not getting the laundry done. Do I think that my husband only loves me for the work I do around here? Is it possible that I really do, in my heart, believe that? And that if I stopped doing it for any reason, he would cease to love me?
Would he?
Do I have a slave mentality? Have I been watching too much Wife Swap where women are always discovering that their families take them for granted?

I don't know. I think about my friends. The people I love. I don't judge them as failures if they don't get their dishes washed or garden weeded. My kids could do practically anything or nothing at all and I'd still love them as much as I love them now. I'd be concerned but I'd still adore them.

I suppose I've been thinking about this a lot today as I've spent my hours with my boy. He just left a few minutes ago and we had a good day. Every day with Owen is a good day. I talked to Lis on the phone and I told her that if Owen hadn't been here today I probably would have hung my head and cried. It's been that sort of day, mostly due to the fact that it seems as if all I've done is clean up pee and poop, both boy and dog-produced. Now I do not mind cleaning up Owen's pee and poop one bit. Nah. I love our diaper change times. But I did let him pee DURING a diaper change and ended up having to change all of his clothes, mine, and the sheets and mattress pad. And when we went back over to the house across the street there was a small river of pee which the dachshunds had produced.

And of course my dogs decided that their butts were too cute to go outside to pee and poop in the rain and so...
Well. It's been that sort of day.
And although I do feel somewhat better, I am certainly now what you would call all well.

But, Owen WAS here and so it was a good day and I've taken some pictures and I'll give them to you here. And thank those of you who have gone to visit over at Gatorbone. It's made Lis very happy and making Lis happy is a wonderful action and if we are indeed judged by those, then I judge you to be a very fine person. Also, as soon as she figures out how to reply to her comments, she will.

And one more thing- I have definitely not had time to go check y'all's blogs today or respond to your comments but I hope all is well and that your day was a good one too and that it didn't have as much dog shit and dog pee in it as mine did although there are worse things.
Catshit and cat pee for instance but I we won't be discussing that.

And if you have any ideas on the are-we-only-as-good-as-our-actions thing, let me know because you know I'm here, judging myself as a blog failure because I haven't returned the love today.

Well, I am comforting myself thinking of the lilies of the field and how they neither sow nor reap, etc., etc. and here are some flowers who don't do those things either but I love them. And some chickens and a baby and although I think both chickens and babies work pretty hard at their tasks, that is certainly not the only reason I love them.



Bradford pear blossoms against magnolia leaves.


Azalea buds.


White chicken (Daffodil) scratching in black dirt.


Miss Betty in the oregano.


My heart.

Love...Ms. Moon

It's Spring At Gatorbone and You're Invited

Lizzie and Lon have started their own blog. You may find it here.

They have put out the welcome mat and it would be lovely if people went over there and said "Hello!" and "Howdy!"

If you are an old reader of mine, you know these people and their music and their love and the joy they bring to me and my family.


And maybe now you can let them be a little bit of the joy of yours.

Thursday

Really. What right does anyone have to be this happy at six-thirty on a rainy morning?

Babies.

Don't worry. He's already back asleep and now I'm going to go join him as the rain pours down and the earth receives it.