Remembering

 

Last night while I was making supper, Billy and I were having a texting session, which is something we do. Billy is an excellent texting partner. It started out with him sending me a video of Joni Mitchell performing one of my favorite songs of hers, which is "Case of You" off her Blue Album. It's funny because I was just thinking about that song a few days ago, wondering if I still knew all the lyrics, and had been singing it in my head. Of course, as I discussed a few days ago, Blue is the album that I listened to constantly (in the darkness?) when I was attending college in Denver and it either saved my life as I went through a major depression or (and this is possible), pushed me even farther into it but either way, it gave me something beautiful to hang on to, something of color and sweetness and a sense of sadness that reflected my own perfectly. I knew I wasn't the only woman ever to have felt this way. She gave me that. 
So Billy and I discussed how much we love her and why and how beautiful the lyrics are on this song (all of her songs, really), and then we moved on to other things until it reached a point where I was telling him how inadequate I feel these days and he gave me wise words to contemplate. 
And while all of this philosophizing and sweet counseling was going on, I was making my soup and then the naan and finally I said, "To lighten things up, I can make some GeeDee naan," and sent him that picture. I love making making naan bread. It's truly easy and almost too delicious. 

I was worried because the dough hardly rose at all but it didn't seem to matter in the least. As soon as my flattened rounds of it hit the hot skillet, it puffed majestically. 
And I didn't burn one!

Anyway, that happened last night and today has been Sunday, Mr. Moon's and my date day, as we describe it sometimes. We spend the time together just doing what we usually do but with more loving intention somehow. I believe it's good for us. 

I took no pictures today except for the one below. Absolutely no one needs to see another shot of my Seminole pumpkins ripening on the vine or of Maurice following me around as I feed the crows. That went well, the crow feeding. This morning they yelled at me to alert me to the fact they were hungry so I fed them their mealworms and peanuts. They seem to like these peanuts. As soon as I got their food on the six stumps, the one I call the Scout came down to check it all out. I think that the same one does this every time but I really don't know, as I have said before. They all look just alike to me. But this one did a little walk around to check out the offerings and then cawed to the others in the branches, waiting for his all-okay signal, and then they flew down and began to eat. 
You are old, Father William. Or, rather, Mother Mary. 
Old enough to be entertained daily by five crows.
It's not so bad. 

I finished sewing the green heart on Glen's overalls. 

It's not done. I have not stitched together the small tear which was the reason for patching yet. I'll probably make another heart inside the green heart to do that, sewing together the edges that need to be joined as I do. 

Maggie's incredible growth spurt in the last year has made me a little nostalgic for the days when she was just the most darling cherub in the world. Here's one of my favorite pictures of her, back when she was still a horse-riding girl. 

She was already starting to really grow but she still had plenty of baby-child in her. 
I don't know if nostalgic is the word I would choose to describe my feelings about missing the little ones my grandchildren used to be. I feel exactly the same way about their parents. About all of my own children. 
It's more like a sort of homesickness, I think. Not just a fond remembering feeling but more of a very mixed emotional yearning for those days as I look back on them. They say you can't go home again but you can surely do that far more easily than you can go back in time to when your littles could sit on your lap, wanted to sit on your lap, were still so open and, if not uncomplicated, than at least more open to the uncomplicated love I could give them. 
Does that make sense?

Oh, dear Maggie. Her emotions have always been big, from so sad to so joyful. Her mother was very much the same. 

I'm thinking about all of that tonight and how it's not the young ME I miss nearly as much as the young sweeties I raised and that some of them are raising. Don't get me wrong. I love who they are now and that we can talk about stuff, both the grands, and the kids. Stuff that's quite real and quite serious and quite humorous and quite wise. 
I adore the fact that when I hug Lily or Jessie, my head pretty much comes right up to their bosoms, and I can feel like the kid for a moment, and they let me. I love the fact that May is like my twin in so many ways, only smarter and funnier, and that Hank is Hank, as wise and true to himself and to the world as he has always been. 

Still. We can adore where we are now, where we live our lives and make our days and sleep our dreams, and still look back on places we remember with such longing.

It's okay. Humans are complicated little critters, but then again, so are gag groupers. 

I'm going to go cook some shrimp and grits and trust me when I say there will not be any damn mushrooms or truffles or other hoity-toity, cheffy-ness influence in them. The grits are stone ground and as such, take about an hour to cook. 
I better get on it. 

Love...Ms. Moon