Strangely Serene

It's so foggy the leaves are dripping and I am packed up and just about ready to go. Yesterday the water pump on the car we're taking to Nashville started leaking and Mr. Moon spent hours last night trying to replace it and lost a bolt and so he's off somewhere right now, looking for one. We'll hit the road as soon as he gets back and finishes the job and we get the car loaded up.

For some reason I have had about as much anxiety concerning this trip as I would have about a trip to the library, which is to say, almost none. This is so odd and so unusual for me that I am wondering if I might have a brain tumor but I don't think so. For whatever reason, I'm taking it and I'm happy and I'm grateful and who knows?

All I have to do is tag along, show up, and be reasonably pleasant, meaning I will try very hard not to curse in the presence of those whom it would offend which is most everyone, actually, but I can do it. Perhaps there is some comfort in knowing that I am an older woman now from whom no one really expects much of anything, not beauty nor charm and in this instance, not comfort or cooking either. Mr. Moon's immediate family is almost all gone although his sister will be there and it is a very good and important thing for him to keep in contact with his cousins and be present for things like weddings. Blood is blood and these people grew up together and so it is.

I think when he and I first got together, everyone was startled. I was a hippie, single mother and definitely nothing like Mr. Moon's first wife. But his parents were gracious and loving to me from the very moment they met me and did not waste one moment judging me on anything but my heart which they judged to be just fine and they told me as much and told me straight out that they were glad their son had found me. And my children.
To love and be loved by.

I miss them so much.

Anyway, we are about to travel back up to his heart-land to attend the wedding of a cousin's daughter and it will be good to go to a wedding and not a funeral because there have been too many of those. I think the last time I was in Nashville was after the death of Glen's other sister and that was as sad a time as I can remember so it will be lovely to be there for a happy occasion.

Lily and Jason and the boys are going to stay out here while we're gone and Owen informed me yesterday that he was going to take good care of my "chickens, dogs, goats, birds, and squirrels." I have no doubt that he will.

I better go and finish up getting everything packed and zipped up and ready to load into the car so that when a new bolt is located and bolted into place, we can go. I was informed last night that this is a TEN hour trip and so I shall keep my ibuprofen at hand. I have books to read aloud as we travel and they sell coffee from here to there. We shall travel through the south and perhaps we shall see spring blooming once again as we did when we traveled to Asheville. At least a little of it.

Let us all be safe and let us all be grateful for good roads, for water pumps which work, for fine and loving traveling companions, for flatlands and fruit stands and mountains and for comfortable black dresses which are more like nightgowns than we might want to admit.

And gas station restrooms which are cleaner by far than they were when I was a child.

I will report in with stories from the road which I will collect in my mind and in my heart. There are always stories from the road and they are different than the stories from my backyard which, as always, I am a bit loathe to leave, but not so much as I know that it will be here when I return, having been taken care of by my three-year old grandson and his brother, his mama and his daddy.

Peace, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon