Excuse Me While I Kiss The Sky

Well, I think I am seeing the pecans begin to swell which means that we can safely say that winter is over. Done. Gone. No more freezing here, baby.
And it's so fucking beautiful today that I almost want to puke. Dogwoods and wisteria climbing up the bamboo and spilling over in purple haze


(Thanks, Jimi, Thanks Owsley).




Sometimes I can't believe I'm this old. How many of YOU know what Owsley acid was? Much less DID any? How many of you were alive when Jimi Hendrix drifted down from whatever star he came from and grabbed a guitar and changed things forever?
Huh? I'm asking you.

Well, let's see. Spring. Oh yeah. It looks like this out my backyard:


It's so fucking beautiful that as Daddy B might say, I want to punch someone.

My ashe magnolia which I bought in a small pot six years ago is finally as tall as I am. Here's it's annual grand opening:

I wonder how many blowsy blossoms it'll have this year.

I think I have spring fever. The symptoms are grieving that I am not creating. My writing room is calling me with a voice of strident demanding. And yet, here I am, on the back porch, blogging and planning my trip to town to buy flour, buttermilk, and other ingredients necessary for the things I'll be taking to Gator Bone tomorrow for the Big Party.

This is a wonderful, gorgeous party where almost everyone plays music and there is music, music, everywhere. People come from as far away as Colorado to come to this party and I supposedly know many of them and yet, of course, I can't remember exactly and so what I do is follow Lis around with a lipstick in case she needs it and when I'm not doing that, I hide in the kitchen and cook and drink beer.
Then Mr. Moon and I drive a few miles down the road to a state park where we get to stay in the coolest old cabin ever on a lake in the woods. Why do I even leave that cabin?

Oh yes. To see this:

My darling Lis with glittery shamrocks in her hair and flowers and guitars and banjos in her hands.
Now I remember.

Okay. It's spring. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Purple Haze, all that jazz, bust-up-a-guitar, make a biscuit, plant a row of something, set out your tomatoes, the pecan trees say it's time, kiss an Irishman or IrishWoman, pick a flower, put it in your hair, spend the night in a cabin in the woods with your old man, get up, make coffee, drink it looking at the lake with mist coming off it, hide in the kitchen, keep a lipstick in your pocket.

That's my advice.

Love...Ms. Moon

Someone Got Married

I think this picture was taken on Friday night. Lis was getting the wedding cake ready for its crumb coat or whatever you call it. It's quite a process. The cake layer must be sliced, which she does fearlessly and accurately, and then frosted smoothly to prepare it for its final frosting and decoration. I had not seen her sit down from the time I got there Friday afternoon until she may have sat down around ten at night to eat a bowl of soup. Honestly.

I can't begin to tell you how hard Lon and Lis worked to pull off this wedding. And here's the funny thing- they did the wedding for love.
They prepared their yard for the ceremony, for parking, for music playing. They prepared their house, cleaning it to within inch of its life. They made a place for the bride to get ready. Lis's kitchen, which is not the biggest kitchen in the world by any means, was filled and busy and used for days and days and days getting the food ready, the cake baked. They arranged for the tent rental and chair rental and dish and glass and cutlery rental.
They did all of this and so much more.
And it was a beautiful wedding.

Well, I didn't attend the actual ceremony. I was baking biscuits. The ceremony was so quick that I had a batch of biscuits in the oven when the bride left to go get married and they weren't done by the time the bride came back to the house.
"Are you already married?" I asked her in astonishment, holding open the door. Not quite the words I would have used if I had thought about it for more than one-hundredth of a second.
"Yes," she said, and I said, "Well! Congratulations!"

Honeys, it was hot.
And although the wedding party was not the most formally dressed in the world, there were ties and jackets and long pants and pretty dresses and of course underwear had to be worn under all of that and a lot of these people were from up north and I doubt they'd ever experienced quite this level of heat combined with humidity outside of a sauna. I mean, WE were wilting and bitching.

The groom is from a family of ten siblings. TEN. And they were all there. Plus others. This family has adopted (or more accurately, BEEN adopted by) Lon and Lis who are obviously crazy. I mean, if I'm going to adopt a family, I think there's a two-sibling limit. Lon and Lis first met their older brother whose name, if I named it, many would recognize as a founding member of a band that all of you would recognize but which I will not be naming because I am NOT a name dropper nor a celebrity hound (unless you count my shameless name-dropping of Lon and Lis Williamson who are HUGE celebrities in my book and who should be in everyone's but that's another story) and so he will remain nameless, this former famous band member dude. Besides, I doubt he could pick me out of a line-up of two and so I can hardly claim to know him.

So it was an interesting event. I believe that most of the people there thought I was hired help, the woman who made the biscuits and I did get a lot of compliments on those.



At one point, a woman came into the kitchen and said something like, "Oh my. You do not overwork the gluten on your biscuits, do you?"
And I could really think of nothing to say to that although I wish I'd said what Lon told me later I should have said which was, "Oh, hell no. Last time I overworked my gluten it came back to bite me in the ASS!" in my best fake southern accent. Sometimes the real one just isn't enough. Know what I'm saying?

But overall, it was a stunning achievement. We fed the masses.



Another friend of Lon and Lis's had caught the most delicious fishes and he and another friend fried it up, true southern-style, and that was the most amazing fried seafood I'd ever eaten in my life. Those people had no idea the delicacy they were being offered in that fish and shrimp and conch. The conch was caught in the Bahamas and as the man who'd caught it pounded it into tenderness with a wooden mallet, he told me the story of the unexpected and sudden death of his son who had been diving with him in the Bahamas. I stood there in my floured apron, listening to this dear man telling me of his son's last moments, of the blessings their family has received since his death, the blessings of having had the son for the years of his life, as he pounded the meat with that wooden mallet, gently, almost more of a tapping than a pounding and I listened, tears in my eyes, my heart filling over. And when I ate some of that conch later, it was the sweetest sea-meat I have ever tasted, as if it had never been near salt at all, sweeter than lobster or crab. Sweeter than anything but life.

I got to hold and talk to a baby who is three months old and I thought so much about Owen and how much he is going to change in the next three months. I watched that baby in his grandfather's arms, I watched him and was so grateful for the joy he's brought to his family, his community. Later, I watched the newly-made bridegroom hold that baby and I could see in his eyes what he wants and I hope the adventure begun for him and his new wife yesterday lead to that desire's fruition.

It was a wonderful trip for me. I don't know if I've ever had any more fun with Lon and Lis, despite all the work, despite the heat, despite the worry and tiny crises that popped up. I planted plants and I cut up fruit and I made biscuits and I washed dishes and really, I could not have been happier. I was with two people I loved, and then I got to be with other people I loved, and I got to hold a baby and feed people and I got to sleep in Lon and Lis's guest room which is like sleeping in the best bed and breakfast in the world, only when you wake up, there's Lis standing there with a cup of coffee and a kiss saying, "How did you sleep, my love? What can I do for you?"
I mean, seriously. There's even a stained glass window over the bed and a cunning little pocket door and the room is so small and cozy and the sheets are so soft and the bed is so welcoming and well, I doubt I've ever slept better in my life.

And I got to do work that I love. With people that I love. There was no worry about whether or not anyone was having fun or being entertained. We had a purpose, we had jobs, we had problems, we solved them. AND we got to drink beer and rum while we did all of this!

And then last night, when everyone was gone and we'd stacked all the chairs and cleaned up all the food and the bottles and cans and all we could say was, "Oh god, oh god, oh god," because we were so hot and so tired, we sat down to eat our leftovers and Lon popped in a copy of this:

Which I had never seen.
And suddenly the power of the blues was upon us and we ate and we sipped our drinks and we arranged ourselves in the living room in front of the TV with the giant, gentle black labs, Buck and Daisy, and we watched and listened to the spirit of a very different sort of music than the kind that Lon and Lis play, but for which they have a great respect and I saw people play that I've seen in concert, people who have literally saved my life in small dark smoky clubs back when I used to go out to hear music and then, my daddy, Mr. B.B. King finished it all up for us and it was the perfect ending to the perfect day.
And no, Mr. King is not my biological daddy but because I didn't really have a daddy, I have chosen him to represent what a daddy would be for me.

And then I slept for about eleven hours and got up and we had coffee and I packed up and Lis kept putting things in an ice chest for me and saying, "What can I do for you?" and Lon kept saying, "Thank-you, thank-you," and I kept saying, "Thank-YOU, thank-YOU!" and I left and drove home on the back roads.

I got home and unpacked, greeted my dogs, went out to see my chickens and feed them some grapes, called every one of my children, heard about Owen's two-week check-up (he is growing tremendously and is PERFECT!), had a lovely few moments with Mr. Moon before he left to go to auction, and I have watered my plants and it is evening and I am already missing Lon and Lis and their beautiful home in Gator Bone where they made me feel so welcome, so safe, so needed, so appreciated.

I just feel so fucking rich. I have these friends. I have talents (okay, one talent- for biscuit baking) which people appreciate and which I got to use, I have this place, these babies of mine, this grandson of mine. Mr. Moon shot a deer this morning and we will have more meat in the freezer, my garden's greens are big enough to start eating, my chickens are laying two dozen eggs a week, and I am sitting here on the porch of my dream house, a house which is 150 years old and the sky is streaked with pink as the sun is setting and although it is still hot, it will start to cool down by the end of the week and I am going to go see Owen tomorrow.
The ceiling fan is whirring. There are delicious leftovers in the refrigerator including a piece of lemon-buttermilk wedding cake with white-chocolate frosting, and honestly, there is nothing on earth I could want for.

And there you have it- the report of a trip from one little piece of Florida paradise to another and then back again.

I keep thinking about how one of the wedding party people asked Lon yesterday as he was doing something to clean up if this was the hardest work he had ever done.
I have no idea what he said to her in reply. But if she really knew Lon, if she really knew Lis, she would never have asked this question. Because Lon and Lis make their living from the very sweat of their brow. The house they live in which people find so charming they almost pee themselves being in has been restored and perfected by thousands of hours of hands-on work. They make their living with their musical talents and abilities, recording and playing and the gigs they do in hundred-degree heat, and the love they shower on the people they love- these things are all the hardest work that anyone could ever do. Throwing a wedding for close to a hundred people is just one more tiny link in a chain of the work of art which is the beauty and sustenance of their lives.

I feel so honored to be a part of this. I feel so honored to be able to have woken up in that room and to have Lis hand me a cup of coffee.

There are so many things I do not believe in, do not care one damn thing about. But there are so many things I DO believe in and this weekend I got to experience so many of them. They all seem to begin and end with food, with laughter, with music, with family, and with friends who are family.

And so I feel as if I was on a holy mission. Not to convert people to a religion, but to revel in my own religion- the Church Of The Batshit Crazy where love reigns, where biscuits are the holy flesh, not of god, but of life, and where I could sleep under a stained glass window with the moon shining in, blessing me in goodness, in light and in love. Where I could come home to that which sustains me.

Those people better stay married forever. And if they don't- it ain't our fault. We did our job and I am hoping that Lon and Lis are at home tonight, stretched out together and looking into each others eyes and saying, "Oh god, oh god, oh god."

Whatever that means and however they may be saying it.

Amen, y'all. Amen.

De Light Shines On

Really and truly I should just post pictures because they tell the whole story and because I did NOT get a Jitterbug but a phone that takes pictures, I have a lot. And since I am a terrible photographer you can tell no essential difference between the ones I take with a "real" camera and the ones I took with the phone, I'm not too worried about their quality.
The one above was taken at night in a fairly dimly lit room and so it's not especially clear but I love that picture. That was Friday night in the living room of Lon and Lis's house and this was but one grouping of musicians who had come together to play for the joy of it.

That night and in that room, Will The Circle Be Unbroken was played and sung and I sang it too.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The drive over was uneventful and we got to Gatorbone in the daylight and dropped off Miss HoneyLuna and the giant pot of greens and kissed and hugged and greeted people we love, some we hadn't seen in two years, and then Mr. Moon and I drove the few more miles down the road to the state park where we were in the Cedar cottage (they all have tree names) and it was as lovely as I'd remembered. The smell of woodsmoke from the old Florida rock fireplace, the pine paneled ceilings and walls. The tiny kitchen, the perfect little porch with two chairs. It was a serene nest on a quiet little lake.



We unpacked and made a drink and sat on the little porch and wondered why we needed to go back to the party, but we did.

The music was going full swing on porches and on the stage out back and in the living room and food was being served out in Lon's mandolin shop and let me just say that it was so good to be back. The dogwoods were in bloom and the house looked so beautiful and there were old friends and so many smiles and so many notes pouring forth from strings and throats to float through the warm piney night sky.

We stayed for a couple of hours then made our way home back to the cabin where we slept for a ridiculous number of hours. We got up in the morning and made our coffee and I made our breakfast while Mr. Moon tried to catch a fish in the lake where there are obviously no fish- he's never had so much as a strike there but he keeps trying. We ate out on the picnic table and the birds were fussing and flirting overhead and then another friend staying at the park ambled over and had a biscuit and we ended up talking for an hour about everything from the weather (of course) to God and Obama and the Mormons and business and the economy and every durn other thing you can think of, fueled by coffee and the perfect weather and the pure joy of sitting outside on a Saturday morning, nowhere you needed to be, nothing you had to do, visiting with someone you like but don't get to see very often.

We eventually made it back to Gatorbone and Mr. Moon set up the oysters and I visited and was as purely lazy as I think I've ever been, talking, grabbing hugs, meeting children, patting dogs, listening to music, thinking I should get off my ass and make the corned beef and cabbage for the next day's dinner.

Oh. It was hard. But I finally did and once I got in the kitchen and let my hands do what they needed to do and got the corned beef cooking and the Irish soda bread in the oven (and that dough, rich with lemon peel and caraway seeds was the most fragrant, beautiful dough you ever patted) I finally felt completely at home. A woman that I'd met there two years ago joined me in my cooking and we caught up on the past two years a little bit and occasionally Lis would come through and then a small group of us women would share what Lis calls Valentinis (don't ask but they are pink and cherries are involved) and once again, there was music, music, everywhere.

We slept like rocks that night, Mr. Moon and I, with the door open to the little porch and I could see the lake from where we slept, shining in the moonlight.

The next morning I had an actual task to attend to- the making of the angel biscuits and my new friend Anna and I rolled out and baked 120 of them, cutting them with one of Lis's crystal glasses and sausage was cooked on a grill and it all came together perfectly and by lunchtime (okay, it was Sunday brunch by the time it was ready) everyone was happy and full.



We usually leave in the early afternoon to come home, but Mr. Moon wanted to watch FSU play basketball so he left for awhile to go find a sports bar that got the game and HoneyLuna and I happily stayed behind, to sit and chat and graze the food that kept coming in. I heated up the corned beef and cabbage and potatoes and we sliced that soda bread which was as heavenly as the dough had promised it would be (and I am going to post that recipe because it is so good and so easy) and there was more music on more porches



and then Lon got out the preborn mandolin he's working on for HoneyLuna and we all touched the wood and oohed and awed and HoneyLuna almost fainted with the promise of all the notes that she'll be playing for the rest of her life on this labor of love instrument.



Does that face tell a story or what?

And there were piped deviled eggs
and more and more food and by the time Mr. Moon got back and we loaded up everything to go, there was still music being played and oh, it was hard to leave. It was so hard to leave.


But now we're home, promises of visits to come, and the wisteria has busted out purple and I've got so much to do here because it's spring and my heart- oh, my heart- it feels like some healing was put upon it by all the smiles and hugs and songs and by the sheer joy of all the comings-together of all the sweet people who carry their instruments in their hands and the knowledge and talent of how to play them in their bones and fingers, and the kisses of Mr. Baby, Lon and Lis's grandson, and the woman-sharings in the kitchen and the bird calls over the little lake and the stepping back and the taking it all in, or as least as much as I could hold.

We shall see if it was a healing which has taken real root. I hope so and there's part of me which feels that if it hasn't, there is truly no hope for me because there was so much just damn plain goodness and grace laid upon my soul that there is no way I can express it.



It's spring. There is an unfolding of beauty all around me.
I have brought it all home in my heart and I am surrounded and filled with it still.
Thank you, Lizzie. And thank you, Lon. Thank you for pure love, for beauty, for the boundless joy and gift of allowing me to be your friend and taking us all in to your home and your arms and into your world.

You have no idea what you've done for me.
And for all of us who where there. The beauty of your souls and the sweetness of your hearts and life together shines on all of us who are privileged to know you.

Thank-you.
I wish I had better words than just those two, but I don't.

But wait- how about this? I now pronounce you two as The Rulers of the magical kingdom of Bless-Our-Hearts because really, you do it better than anyone I know.

Thank-you for blessing our hearts.

Thank-you.