Warning Or Invitation? Nudity Ahead And Vulnerability Too

December 8th is a tricky day for me. It's a double-anniversary in way.
It's the day that thirty-nine years ago John Lennon was murdered.
It's also the day that forty-four years ago I married my first husband.
Both of these days are deeply embedded in my memory and they are entwined together.

I woke up this morning alone. Mr. Moon had gotten up at five a.m. to start his journey to Tennessee. I felt adrift and weepy. I stayed in bed as long as I could because I just couldn't face the day and it soon came to me that it was December 8th, that deeply emotional day.
I got up and nothing cheered me.
I think that the body does remember anniversaries, both the good and the bad. Maybe especially the bad. The ones I call "death days."
My first wedding anniversary is not a death day, not at all. The man I married that day gave me my first babies. We had some lovely and loving times, some fun times. We tried. And he was never physically abusive or less than loving towards the children. He was, and is, a decent man in many respects and we still love each other in some ways and are amazed at how things have turned out so beautifully. We talked about that, briefly, when I went to hear him play Thanksgiving Eve and he even said a few words to me that I have always hoped to hear but never thought I would.
Words that mean a lot, even after all of these years.
But there is still and always will be sorrow for the breaking up of a family. And the day I truly knew that we would be breaking up was on our fifth anniversary. "Double Fantasy', John and Yoko's last album together was released a few weeks before that day and I had been listening to it obsessively. It was the ultimate love letter from one partner to another in a long-lived marriage that had been through hell and back and there was such brutal honesty in it as well as so much tenderness.
It was the story of a marriage that had been through fire and which had survived and which was being celebrated with all of the genius of two remarkable artists.
And I knew that my marriage was never going to reach that place. It simply wasn't going to happen.
Not only that, we both were hoarding our own piles of resentments and disappointments which were way too sharp and painful to hold. We were so young.
We went out to supper for anniversary and on the way home we argued. I remember that so well.
And when I got up the next morning and went to take my run and then stopped at the newspaper box to get our copy and saw that tiny article bordered in black with the headline, "John Lennon Shot And Killed," something in me just died right along with him.
And not long after that we split apart, my ex and I and I made many huge mistakes and I did a few things right and I mourned for Lennon and I mourned for my family and I mourned and I grieved and I upended everything that I'd known.

I will never, ever recover from John Lennon's death. Those of you who did not grow up in the sixties and seventies can have absolutely no idea how my generation felt about the Beatles. And John was...well, I can't even describe what he was to us. He wasn't a god. But he, along with his band mates, had absolutely, as Yoko said, "changed the world."
Does this sound ridiculous?
Well. It wasn't. It was profound and it was true and I guarantee you that this world is indeed a different place for them having been here and for John and Yoko's passion to work for peace no matter how they were ridiculed or criticized.
And suddenly, John was dead.
Want to hear something funny? (Not funny.) When John was murdered, I had just finished reading some trash biography of Keith Richards which was full of lies and gossip and one of my first thoughts on hearing of John's death was, "Why wasn't it Keith Richards who got shot? He's been trying to kill himself for years!"
Well. There's a bit of irony.

So December 8th is filled with all of these emotions for me. Sadness and grief and yet at the same time, gratefulness that we DID have John Lennon. And that I did marry a man who not only fathered two of my favorite, most beloved people on earth but who has been a loving father to them. Those are two completely different things and I am well aware of that.
And as always, I have to say that Yoko Ono is in my thoughts today and my heart as well. My god, what a woman! What an artist and survivor and a true believer in peace. And in love. A woman whom the world vilified simply because she was not a blond model but a Japanese artist whose voice was as shrill and loud as it needed to be and John fell in love with her and jumped from the safe path of being a Beatle to being brave enough to bare his naked soul as well as his naked body.

And thus, he freed himself from being Beatle John and allowed himself to be exactly who he was.

On the last day of his life, Annie Leibovitz took this picture. 

Still naked. Still in love. And as vulnerable as a man can be. 

Well. Here's a love song. 

At the very beginning of it, and you have to listen closely, he says, "You hold up the other half of the sky."

There was no one like him nor will there ever be.

Love you, John. Love you, Yoko.

Always...Ms. Moon

Speaking Of The Buddha

Ah, lah, that child.
Those children.
They actually play together now, Owen and Gibson. They love and adore each other. In the picture above, Owen was making Gibson laugh by laughing at HIM and it worked, as you can see. They interact all day long and when Gibson is napping and I go to check on him (which is about every three minutes), Owen comes with me, every time. Every time.

It was just the sweetest day all around. Easy and light and there was little fussing by anyone although of course I pretty much let Owen do whatever he wants if it doesn't appear to me that it's going to lead to possible devastation and personal injury. I swear to you though, after all those years raising my own four and now three years of taking care of Owen and almost six months of taking care of Gibson some, I still worry myself silly. Last night I woke bolt upright and thought, "Where's Owen?"
I was already worrying about how today would go and one of my worst fears is that I will somehow lose him, as if he could go down the drain if I don't keep a constant eye on him or, I don't know, slip out the door and hitch a ride to Vegas.

The child has a rich imagination. (I have no idea where he gets THAT.) He was hanging my silver bracelets off the switch on the light by my bed and he said, "Oh no. The monsters won't like this decoration."
"The monsters won't like that decoration? Are you decorating?"
"Yes. For the monster birthday."
Birthdays and monsters, like poop, are main topics of conversation for him. He wanted to go through my birthday candles today to get ready for his party. I asked what he wanted for his party and he said that he wants a cake, balloons and Waylon and Shayla. This sounds very reasonable to me.

He told me to call Boppy. That he wanted to talk to him and so I did.
"You coming over, Boppy?" he asked. "I at Mer-Mer's house."
As if I just let his grandfather hang out here, you know. Boppy allowed as how yes, he was coming home to see him and Owen dragged a chair to the kitchen door so that he could wait.
Such a sweet boy he is. When he isn't pretending to be a monster. He wanted to play with a bamboo backscratcher so of course I let him. He announced that it was his "golden weapon." He ate snacks all day long including parts of two nectarines which he insisted were orange pears. Also chips, grapes, smoothie, an energy bar, and a ginger ale which he calls gingerwhale. I kept offering him a cheese toast but he kept refusing that usual favorite and he ate half my almonds after refusing any of his own.

So yes, it was a great day and I even got the dishes washed and black-eyed peas cooking and collards, too so my house smells wonderful and the boys have gone home and Mr. Moon has gone off to do some hunting-related thing, I think. We had a little discussion, he and I, a few days ago about how much time hunting seems to be taking up in his life lately and he agreed that perhaps he was a bit over-the-top with it (okay, that's a lie, he never admitted that, I just pretended he did) and then when it got cool the other day he said, "Makes me thinking about HUNTING!"
"You," I said, "have brass balls."
He does.
Well, as I told him, I plan on being with him for the rest of my life and so if that's the way it is, that's just the way it is and that's the way it's going to be and hell, I like being alone anyway.

Heartfelt shit, y'all. That's what marriage is all about.

That and a lot of other stuff including blackeyed peas and collard greens and martinis on the porch and god-if-you-can't-laugh-you-might-as-well-die and clean sheets and holding hands and walking out to check for eggs together.

And now grandkids. It's such a cliche how when you fall in love with someone and want to marry them you think about how awesome it will be to eventually become that old couple sitting on the porch and watching your grandkids play.
You just didn't really think it would ever truly happen to you- you goddess or god of eternal youth- though, did you?

Well, watch out. And buy your porch furniture with comfort for bony old asses in mind.

One day I swear you'll find yourself kissing your grandbaby's cheek while your old man is kissing the same child's foot. And it'll be sweet.

I guess that's pretty much what it's all about. Well, and sex which is what leads to grandchildren eventually in some cases.

A good day, even if I didn't take a walk. The world still, somehow, manages to spin. I figured it would but I wasn't sure.

I'll take one tomorrow, having no need to take chances with earth-spin continuity. I promise.

Trip To Lake Miccosukee

We napped and never did get around to eating lunch. When we got up, Mr. Moon started up the Cutlass and filled up a flat tire and washed it off. It's been sitting too long in the garage. It was time to take it out for a ride.


That old car just goes. Big stupid wonderful American engine. It eats up the road.

We drove down backroads where there are old plantations, double-wides, single-wides and block houses. And oak trees. And sky. And pines.

On our drive we remembered what a beautiful place in which we live. It was a drive of tires-down-roads-we-know-and-still-marvel at. Both literally and metaphorically as we held hands over the gears. I couldn't help but turn around, take a picture of where we'd been.

We drove down country roads and ended up down at a very under-used park on Lake Miccosukee. We parked the car and got out. I said, "Doesn't that just look like an advertisement for the Great American Vehicle?" It did.

On the path down to the lake we came upon a guy coming up out of the woods. He was young, wearing camo, skinny, with a knife on his belt. Tattooed. I saw a hawk feather tucked into his belt. I relaxed. We nodded heads and said, "Hey. How you doin'?"

We walked out onto the dock and it was water-mirrored, cypress-ringed.

The wind was blowing the beards of Spanish Moss.

There were coots on the water.

We held each other and talked. I told my husband that I was sorry for the way I've been lately. That demons have been haunting me. That I have no idea whether things come up that I remember now and have never remembered before or if I am creating them or what. That I don't know how it happens or why. He just held me and said, "I understand. Well, no I don't."
I love that man so much.

There was a great white bird, fishing.

The moon was up and starting to show its face.

We talked and we laughed and we listened to the wind and the cypress trees held their peace.

We were alone. We held our hands up together and compared our old skins. We agreed that our hands are still capable of a lot of strength and tenderness too. It was good.

We drove home and the sun was growing low.


We crossed Highway 90 and Mr. Moon had to, HAD TO gun it a little.




Ah-lah. Gotta live life a bit fast sometimes.

We came into Lloyd to where the truck stop is.

We took a right down our own road.

Home again.
I'm cooking chicken and pineapple. Owen will be here tomorrow. An owl is calling. Jessie is coming home tomorrow for a few days. Home.

That man. He loves me. Even though demons haunt me and threaten me into immobility sometimes. He holds me whole. He drives me fast down cool oak-lined roads. He takes me to the water. He heals me with his hands. He delivers me unto our home.

I would not be here if not for him.

There is no doubt about that.

Soup And Other Kindly Things

Owen grounded me today firmly in this world. "Hey there!" he said and he took my hand when I walked into his house and then he said, "Come on!" and I did and he showed me many things and he hid under a basket and we did a puzzle book and I am amazed at how quickly he is learning.

He is putting words together now and can make himself well understood. Lily asked him the other day what he did with his Bop in the woods and Owen told her about the four-wheeler and the tractor and the deer and he said that Bop put butter on the trees.
Lily was mystified by that last bit and asked her daddy about it.
"Peanut butter," he said. "I put peanut butter on the trees. The deer love to lick it."
(According to Mr. Moon's trail camera, the foxes love to lick it even more, but that's another story.)

I asked Owen today about Halloween and he told me that he'd had a good time and that he'd gotten candy. CANDY! He did indeed. I also asked him if he had put anything else up his nose. He said no. I asked, "Did it hurt when you put something up your nose yesterday?"
"NO!" he insisted.
That boy will NOT admit to being hurt. But he will let you kiss his bug bites if he gets them.

He did the puzzle animals so nicely. I was surprised. I didn't know he was able to do that. And I see him at least three times a week! Ah- lah. I can't keep up.

On the way home I stopped at a thrift store which used to be the best place in the world for treasure. They had no idea what they had, ever, and sold everything for pennies. They've gotten a little more educated. The store's profits go to the support of a very, very Christian home for young-ladies-gone-bad. I get their newsletter and it is full of how-I-got-saved-and-now-I-am-so-happy stories. The girls also sing gospel and sell CD's for money which goes to the school.
This of course is always a bit disconcerting to me but what the hell?
I know a woman who volunteers there. I went to nursing school with one of her daughters and I had heard that this woman's husband had died this year. When I went in today, she was there and we talked and I cried and we hugged. Fifty-two years they'd been married and they were up at their house in the mountains in North Georgia and had had a beautiful day and eaten supper on the porch and he sat down to watch a golf game on TV and she went upstairs and she heard a noise and she came downstairs and he was gone.
Like that.
She looks as if she has aged twenty years since I've seen her last. But she says she is okay, although she thinks about moving to some place like China because everything here reminds her of him. I understand. A little bit, at least.
I hope with everything in me that I go before Mr. Moon. I could not live in this world were he not by my side.
"Well," this woman said, "As my husband always said, 'We shall abide.'"
I suppose one could abide. I do not know if that would be living.

I looked at all of the stuff in the store and I didn't buy anything but some tiny fabric roses that I can use for my Virgin cards and boxes. I spent $1.61 and that's not going to buy very much toilet paper for the girls-gone-bad-who-are-being-saved but I didn't need or want another thing. Aunt Bob, the woman who runs the store and who appears to be immortal, thanked me "kindly" as she always does. I am glad I stopped by there, even if there were no amazing treasures for me to buy today.

And then I came home and I am making soup of as many colors as Joseph's coat.

Leftovers and some collards and cut-up yard-long beans from the garden all went into the pot and it is simmering now. Just what we need- leftover leftover soup. But you know me- nothing makes me as content as making soup. I wish I had some sweet potatoes to put in it or some sort of hard squash but I don't and it will be fine as it is. There is even some of the leftover chili in it and no, Mr. Moon did not win but yes, a person who brought in chili which tasted most like "chili" won. I fear that McCormick's chili seasoning and canned-everything-else was involved there. He did win a fifty-dollar gas card, though. And his chili was delicious. People just wouldn't know fucking gourmet if it bit them in the fucking ass.

I sure do swear a lot for a grandmother. I don't swear around my grandson. I promise. Although yesterday when I stepped in dog shit I did almost say shit. It came out like, "Shhhii..."
I refuse to feel guilty for that. No way, no how.

I still find it unbelievable that I am a grandmother and yet, here I am. And I keep thinking about how when you fall in love with someone you tell each other that you want to be with them when you are old and gray-haired and sitting on the porch and watching your grandchildren and well, here we are.

There are worse fates, believe me.

Especially when the one you love grows up to be as darling as Mr. Moon has. Especially when your grandson says, "Here there! Come on!"

The sun is setting. The soup is simmering. It smells real good here tonight.

If I learned anything today it is this- don't take joy for granted. It is also that fifty-two years is not enough. It is that we shall abide.

Isn't that amazing?

We shall abide.

Domesticity

Mr. Moon claims that I will not teach him to cook my recipes because I think that if I do, he will not need me around and will leave me.

We were discussing this with Lily the other night when she was here for dinner. She made the point, and rightfully so, that if Mr. Moon died, I would have no idea about the financial end of life and if I died, he would have no idea about the domestic end.

"Daddy, you'd have to move in with one of us," she said.

I said that he'd be fine and then he'd find someone to marry who would cook for him in about two months. "But not like you do," Lily said. "I see what people buy. Most people buy frozen meals and boxes of things like Hamburger Helper."

Well, quite frankly I think that Hamburger Helper is pretty darn tasty and I'm here to tell you that if my replacement fulfilled certain other criteria Mr. Moon would not turn up his nose at any of the forty (forty?) delicious varieties of Hamburger Helper but would tuck in to a nice big plate of it quite happily, especially if the woman made it with ground venison rather than hamburger.

That is neither here nor there but the point of my story is that Mr. Moon has signed-up to bring chili to a chili-contest thing on Monday at the bank where he works. White-bean-venison chili, to be exact, and he insists that HE WANTS TO COOK THE CHILI HIMSELF!
Mr. Moon has made chili exactly 0.0 times in his life whereas I have made it Gozillion point Gozillion times in my life.
Now I am not saying that Mr. Moon cannot make white bean chili. I am sure he can. The problem is is that although there is a recipe, I do not follow it exactly (are we surprised?) and that I add this and I add that and I do this and I do that and I'm pretty sure he wants to make the chili taste the way I make it and dammit, I just can't tell him how to do that. Unless I sit there and supervise the entire process and I sort of want to cry at the prospect. I have never had much patience in the kitchen and when people come over and ask if they can "help" I generally say no and not because I don't trust them or because I don't want to give up control of my kitchen but because it's just far easier to do it myself, except for with Taylor or May or Lis because they can do things better than I can and that's just the truth of it.

Well, I have a feeling that this is going to be a saga which takes up a good part of the weekend. And I already started the white beans because you know, they come in a bag and you have to boil them and I always add some stuff to them while they're boiling and he's already a bit perturbed with me because he wants to do this himself and really- he's right. I should just let him at it and let him follow the recipe because it's a good recipe and that's that.

We both slept horribly late for us today and it's already a strange day and not just because of that. The temperature is dropping like a rock and there's going to be about a forty-degree difference between what we woke up to this morning and what we'll be going to sleep to tonight. It is windy and I've already had to put on a sweater.
This is just fucking disconcerting. If I liked cold weather I would live in Alaska which I hear is about the most beautiful place in the world.
But I don't and so I don't.

Well, it IS getting chilly on this Saturday morning and already eleven o'clock and Mr. Moon is not out in the woods or on the water but right here and so he read me things out of the paper during my usual "quiet" time and I'm all discombobulated but I made him a nice breakfast because if I don't he will forget to eat and besides, I was about to die to crack that big brown egg and so I did. It looked like this:

I mean...WOW!
And I cooked him a little sausage and some toast and those eggs and they were almost orange in the yolks when they cooked and so I restored the balance of a few things, I guess, by making him some food to eat, even if I did fuck things up by putting the beans on to boil.

And the wind is whippy and my feet are cold and I might even go see The Rum Diaries this afternoon and I need to figure out where in hell I put my Goodwill cashmere because I am gonna need it.

And one more thing- if not for Mr. Moon I would be living in a cardboard box under a bridge or in a van down by the river and so perhaps he is right- I don't want him to know how to cook because he might leave me if he did. I am not saying I am the most mentally stable of all people here on earth by any means but mostly I think that I just want to cook for him because I love him and making him good food to eat which is good for him is one loving thing I can do which is tangible and positive and it makes him happy.

If there's one thing I know, it is that nothing in this life is as simple as it appears on the surface except for a very few things and even they have more shades of meaning than we may like to think.

And some of us think too damn much but we may be good cooks which makes up for a lot of stuff in the long run and that's just the way it is.

Conversation

Ms. Moon: Four loads of laundry. FOUR.
Mr. Moon: See? I can't take you out of town. You get behind in your chores.
Ms. Moon: Shut up.

Mr. Moon does the dishes.

An Excellent 24 Hours

We went and now we're back and I'm so glad I finally got my head out of my ass and let myself have what is commonly known as a good time.

From the moment I really made up my mind to go, it began to be fun. To the point where Mr. Moon said as we were getting ready, "Hello! Nice to see you again!"
Ahem.

The drive down to the coast is always a lovely thing. You go through woods and by the water and sometimes you see deer or even bear or wild boar. And of course raccoons and possums but they're usually lying very still. In the road. Where they are dead.
Cars and small animals do not mix well.

We stopped in Lanark where we bought an entire package of Cheese-It's. The orange AND yellow ones.

This is what it looks like behind the place we stopped, looking out across the bay to Dog Island. When we put the boat in to go to the island, this is where we do it. They not only sell Cheese-Its. They sell gas and beer and milk and ketchup and other stuff and have a boat ramp too.

I read some of a Larry McMurtry book out loud to Mr. Moon. It's a very old book, but one of my favorites. All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers. My copy is so old that the cover is soft and the pages are brittle. It contains one of my favorite lines in all of literature which is this: "If you're too drunk to walk you can borrow my car," she said.
I may have told you this before and I should probably not even tell you that ONE time, much less twice but the fact of the matter is that I find the line hysterical. And disclaimer: I WOULD NEVER, EVER SAY THIS IN REAL LIFE NOR DO I APPROVE OF ITS MESSAGE BUT FUCK THAT, IT'S FUNNY!
(I think I may have just channeled Ms. Bastard-Beloved.)

Mr. Moon had booked us a room at the Gibson in Apalachicola.

When we checked in, they told us there was a drink on the house for us when we were ready. What?
I asked Mr. Moon if he had told them some sort of story about us celebrating something. He claims he didn't but I'm not convinced. But what the hell? I will never look a gift drink in the mouth.

They gave us room 304 and I know we've stayed in that room before. More than once. It's a nice room. Here's a hallway at the Gibson.

The place started out back in the olden days when the rooms did not all have their own bathrooms so when they redid it in the eighties, they had to artfully rearrange things and the hallways wander around and exit doors end up on porches and you can sometimes get a little lost.
Oh. Maybe that's just me.

Here's a picture of Mr. Moon and me in another hallway.


God, that's a goofy picture. I look like Mrs. Dorkie D. McDork.
I sort of am but I really hate visual proof.

We went down to the bar and got our perfect on-the-house martinis.
I love the bar.

Now that is what a bar should look like if you ask me.

Here's the lobby where supposedly you can get wireless.

Haha! Supposedly you can get wireless in the rooms too.
Well, who cares about wireless when you've got all this charm? What I love about the Gibson is that they don't even seem to be disturbed when the wireless isn't working. "Oh, maybe it has something to do with the weather," they say, looking at their fingernails.
And maybe it does.

Well, so, we had oysters and we had dinner and we walked around some and it was all so lovely.

Here's Mr. Moon in the middle of a main road where a few minutes later we saw a bald eagle swoop and fly. I'm not even kidding you. Living in Apalachicola really wouldn't be that bad. Bookstore, library, restaurants, pretty bars, water all over the place, bald eagles downtown...
All within walking distance. And two parks on either side of where our house will be. With a dock. Which Mr. Moon can net fish right off of. And shrimp, maybe. And set out crab traps. And have his boat right nearby.
And the sky looks like this at sunset.

Not a bad place. Not a bad place at all.

Oh yes. It was very good and very loving and very sweet and we had a huge breakfast and there was bacon and a biscuit bigger than Zeke's head, and we sat by the river and the waitress who was old enough to be our daughter, maybe, kept saying things like, "More coffee, loves?" and she had tattoos and we never ran out of coffee or grape jelly either one and we left the Gibson in an excellent mood, renewed in spirit and in hearts and then we drove by our lot and it's right there, just waiting for us and so is the Gibson, so is all of it, right down the road and we came home and bought shrimp on the way to eat here in Lloyd and my favorite- cocktail crab claws, too- and it's raining, sort of, drip, drip, drizzle and the chickens are all still here and the dogs, too, of course, and sometimes, SOMETIMES, you just have to pack a bag and get in the car and go away with the one you love and come home loving him even more.

Spring Spillover

Wisteria is an invasive, as is the honeysuckle. Wisteria can grow dozens up feet up into the air, its vine wrapping itself around a tree. It can take a tree down. It can make your heart leap as far into the air as its purple reaches. It can make your world smell like heaven.

I can't help it. I love it.

I love the honeysuckle, too.
Is there a more beautiful word than suckle?

Good morning. How is it where you are?
It is beautiful here. Click on this:

Thank-you. And you're welcome.

I cleaned last night until...I don't know. Barely dented it.
Then I made supper. With biscuits. Don't ask me why.

Mr. Moon went out into the garden when he got home and got those tomatoes in the ground and worked the earth and pulled some weeds and when he finally got in he was tired and I was so happy to feed him.

I'd roiled the waters of marriage yesterday when I asked him to bring me enough potting soil home to fill that hollow log and then, when he said that really, we should just use yard-dirt and that he'd get around to filling it for me, I said something snippy about "his priorities."

We've been married for twenty-six years so things like that don't become big blow-ups like they might in the early days of a relationship when you're trying to figure out whose corners are whose and you have to pee in them repeatedly to claim them.
Nah. You just say what you say and then you feel bad and hopefully he doesn't feel too bad and you go on.

But I could tell I'd hurt his feelings. He tries so hard to make me happy. And I do the same for him but sometimes what makes the other person happy just doesn't seem so very important to you, you know. Priorities.

So after dinner (and he washed the dishes!), he brought me the flashlight and said, "Now come here." Then he took me out to the porch and shined the light on the hollow log out by the fence and said, "How are you going to keep the chickens out of that?"

I took a glance at the log in the darkness and shrugged and said, "I'm not worried about it," and turned to go back into the house and he said, "No, look."

And I did and he'd filled it with dirt.

I'm so glad I made him biscuits.
I'm so glad he had clean sheets to sleep on.

He made me cry, that man.

I'm going to run to town to buy impatiens of all colors and we are down to one martini glass and that is an emergency, especially with company coming.

Owen's coming later and he can help me plant. Oh boy! His first planting experience! He's going to need a bath tonight.

And then my old friend Kerry is coming. I've known him since high school. He was my senior year prom date. He gave me Bob Dylan. I gave him the Rolling Stones.

I'm listening to Bob Dylan's Chronicles on tape as I clean and although I've read it before, I'm enjoying it again. I took special note last night when I heard that Dylan's only real confidante in his younger days was his grandmother. She was wise and she listened and she gave him good advice.
His grandmother.

Okay. Wisteria, honeysuckle, love, marriage, grandparents, Dylan, The Rolling Stones, High School prom.

I think we've covered the bases here.

Love...Ms. Moon

Arthur, I Love You

Mr. Moon has no idea sometimes how close he comes to seeing me go up in flames. This morning was one of them.
He stayed out late last night, playing poker while I stayed at home, which is fine with me. I got a lot done and went to bed pretty early.
But this morning he came out to the porch to tell me that although he noticed I did remember to shut the chickens in, I had forgotten to turn off the porch ceiling fan.
"I know it's hard to remember," he said sweetly.

"Arthur," I thought to myself. "Oh, Arthur."

I read a book once, an autobiography by Gloria Stuart, called I Just Kept Hoping. Ms. Stuart is a remarkable woman who played the very old woman in Titanic. In the book she said that when she got really mad at her husband she would say, quite reasonably, "Fuck you, Arthur!"
And that amused me and so our code, Mr. Moon's and mine, for not being amused when one of us does or says something that pisses the other off is simply, "Arthur!"

Yes. I forgot to turn off the ceiling fan.
But. I weeded, I did some plant trimming, I did some laundry, I cooked an entire meal so that he could have a lunch and a dinner tonight while I'm at rehearsal and cleaned up the kitchen and oh, who knows what all else I did?
And thus, the "Arthur." Which I did not say out loud but sat and just looked at him and nodded and said, "Oh yeah. I'm sorry."
I sat and seethed a bit for a few moments, thinking of all the things I DO remember, such as to do his laundry and buy food and then remember to prepare it. I remember to buy toilet paper and sometimes even remember to put it on the holder when he, for some reason, forgets. And I remember to buy the dish washing soap and the laundry detergent and light bulbs and cat food and his supplements which I also remember to hand to him because he never remembers, and I remember to take the trash and do whatever housecleaning gets done around here and all the things I do but that no one ever even thinks of because...well, it's done.

ARTHUR!

And then I stop and I think about the fact that he works so hard to make the money for all of these things and he remembers to go to work every day and he remembers to go work out every day and he remembers to thank me for the meals I make and cleans up after sometimes and how he always remembers to buy chicken food and dog food and beer and how he takes such good care of Owen and even changes poopy diapers and how Owen is in such bliss when his grandfather kisses the back of his neck with his beardy face and then, and THEN, when I took the dogs to the groomer this morning and came back and found this note:

well, what could I do?
Sigh and say, "Arthur. I love you."

Marriage. It's a funny thing and there are bumps in the road and then there is such sweetness your heart melts all over again.

Good-morning, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

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.

Keepin' It Real For You, Folks

That's what Mr. Moon and I picked last night. I already had half a dozen cucumbers in the refrigerator.
And today would be a fine day to make pickles but I have no water.

Sigh. It's one of those days.

You move to the country so you can grow cucumbers and then your well breaks so you sign up for the community water and then you wake up and there's no water flowing from your taps and you check the place outside where the community water hooks up to your meter to see perfectly good water boiling into the street so you go down to the water office and there's no emergency number and you know darn well that the entire county has one man to go around and fix things and who knows when that guy'll get here after you leave a note on the door?

And besides that, Mr. Moon has already asked you how you could spend all the money in the bank account that he put in there on FRIDAY and all you can say is...Target.

And he gives you the speech about buying what you NEED versus buying what you WANT and so then you ask him what he needs and wants for supper and he says he probably doesn't need anything and he doesn't know what he wants and so you say, "I knew you'd say that," because you've been asking him the same question for 26 years and he's been giving the same answer.
And then he says, "Cucumbers," and you're tempted to give him a bowl of cucumbers for supper, unpeeled and undressed and say, "Here you are."
And then he says, "Clam spaghetti," and again, you knew he was going to say that too.
It's almost like you're psychic or something. Haha!

So. You can't do laundry, and the dirty overalls from Sunday are in the basket, mouldering like John Brown's body in the grave and you can't make pickles because pickles require a hell of a lot of water to process and you can't even boil pinto beans because you have no water to boil them in and let's not talk about flushing the toilet and you'd take a walk but it already looks like hell out there, the sky gray and ominous and by god you'll not be caught out in a forest in one of the thunder storms we've been having lately.
Certain death, for sure.

And you can't go to town because you'd just end up buying a lot of things you don't need but suddenly decide you want.

Perhaps you should just go back to bed which requires no water and no storm protection and no money whatsoever. Sleeping is about the cheapest thing you can do. Did you realize that? If you already own the bed and the sheets, it's free.

Grumble, grumble, grumble. As if I didn't need a bathing suit and some t-shirts and I damn well needed a new trash can because the whole bottom of the old one rusted off and stayed on the floor when I went to pick it up to sweep under it and okay, I did not need a new begonia, I admit that but it only cost $4.99 and it's one I've never seen before, much less owned, okay?


Sigh and sigh again.

But before he goes to work you both giggle a little because you've had this discussion so many times in your life together and you kiss and say I love you, and that's life, that's marriage, and you hand him his lunch and he goes out the door to go to work to earn the money for you to buy things you want as well as need and you, well, you get another cup of coffee and decide to write about it all because this, this is marriage, this is life, this is the way it is some days in Lloyd and probably in every house and hut (did you NEED a new pot to boil cassava in? really? my mother's pot, god rest her soul, wasn't good enough anymore?) in the world.

Keepin' it real, folks. That's my job.

Did you go read what my son wrote about the Stonewall Riots? If not, please do. You NEED to.

No running water required.

Marriage

Last night, under the influence of phyto-estrogens, dong quai, black cohosh and vodka I let loose on Mr. Moon. I hurled words so sharp and heavy they cut his flesh into the bone. These were words that had I given them to him when they were newborn, would have been soft and tender, like baby greens newly rinsed and wrapped in linen napkins.
As it was, because I am no good at confrontation, they were like Napalm and I could hear his flesh sizzle as I hurled them.
Now me? I do this sometimes. I hold my emotions and insanities and hurts close to my heart until for some reason they insist on being voiced. Oh. I know as I say them that this is not the way to do it. That yes, they need to be said, but not like this.
Not like this.
And yet. I can't help it.
"You never..." I said.
"You don't..." I said.
"I feel..." I said.
And every time I opened my mouth, flames flew out and also denseness, like hot, heavy lava, like huge chunks of flaming meteors.
And then a friend came over to watch "the game" and I washed the dishes and he came into the kitchen and put his arms around me like a mother, like a father, like a brother, like an angel.
I went to bed and he tucked himself in, quietly beside me after the game and then got up early to go turkey hunt and by the time he came home, I was fine. It was all out, I was purged, I was clean, I was in love with him, with spring, with my life.
But he. Oh, poor thing.
We walked to the post office and he wanted to hold my hand.
"What? What? What?" he asked. "What can I do?"

At sunset time, he started up the motorcycle that we need to sell and honked the horn as I was weeding the camellia bed. I stood up and stretched and put my new weeding tool aside and opened the gate and went out to where he was, on the bike and and ready to ride down the road. I swung my leg over and figured out the pegs and wrapped my arms around him. Helmetless and jacketless and bootless (I was wearing my Crocs with the two tiny straps) we left the yard and went down the street, under the blooming dogwoods, the massive oaks with their new taffeta gowns of tiny green leaves and I trusted him with my life.
As I always do and always will.
He drove slowly and we passed cows and the creek and then, the air as cool as water on our bare arms, we turned around and came home where I had lentil soup simmering on the back burner, where we'd left the front doors open to whatever life had to offer.
I made muffins and he ate three with butter and strawberry preserves and two bowls of soup and washed the dishes.
And I am sitting here, on the back porch, tranquil as the Buddha, sitting in the dripping forest after a storm.
It's night in Lloyd.
I am with my love. And I think he is with his.

This Too Is Love

That is what I look like after crawling around under my house and tacking up electrical wire to one hundred and fifty-year old beams.
I must be the craziest crazy person in the world because really? Crawling under the house and tacking up electrical wire doesn't frighten me as much as, oh say, going to Walmart would.
Or driving to Jacksonville.
Those things give me the heebee-jeebies just to think about but somehow I can slither on my belly like a reptile wearing an industrial-strength face mask over centuries old dust-fine dirt with shards of glass and metal in it underneath spiders and who-knows-what-all without worrying too much.

I'm not saying it's pleasant, but there are plenty of things I'd rather NOT do.

Like driving to Jacksonville. Or decorating for Christmas.

And I felt like I had to. Mr. Moon's been doing it for the past few days, trying to figure out and fix an electrical problem and since he's twice as big as I am, the space is half as large for him under there. And he really has a problem with small spaces so it's been one big getting-past-fear-fest for him. I didn't get too freaked out until I crawled into a space where only my head would fit in order to try and get a visual on a line. I was wedged between an old brick pillar and some ductwork and oh yes, there was some sort of animal burrow in there too.



But it was okay, although I couldn't see what I needed to. It's dark down there. And the dusty dirt rises up and gets in your nostrils and mouth, even with a mask on. When Mr. Moon blows his nose it's not pretty and there's blood involved.

It was almost exactly five years ago that I crawled under this house for the first time. Mr. Moon insisted I go under there with him to see all the old termite damage, the rot, the...oh, I don't know, proof that we shouldn't buy the house.
We slipped under the floor and into the dank darkness and he shown a light on all the beams we could get to and poked them with his knife to show me what was there. We slithered and we crawled on our bellies and we were under there for quite a while, poking wood and taking note of all the ductwork that had been destroyed by some critter.

When we got out and dusted ourselves off in the drizzly January weather he said, "What did you see under there?"

And I, being the optimist in the family for the very first time said, "I saw an awful lot of really good wood."

And I had. Acres of it. Beams of the size that they don't make anymore made from hunks of pine trees with the original axe markings still on it because they were hewn by hand. There was no sawmill in Lloyd when they built this house and there was no Lowe's in Tallahassee.

And that was when he gave in. He let out a big sigh and said, "Okay."

And he bought the house. And today I crawled back under there again today, five years later, as a sign of solidarity and to help him.

Because that's love, baby.

He loved me enough to buy this house and I love him enough to crawl under it with him.
After twenty-five years of being together and raising a family and having good times and bad times and wonderful, glorious, amazing times and crying together for joy and for sorrow, I find that just looking at him, covered in dirt and snotting out dust and blood, I love him more than ever.

Oh honey. If you had to promise to all the things you'd end up doing for love, standing up there in front of the person marrying you, you'd never get through it all. "In sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer...."

Those words don't even begin to scratch the surface of what all love will take you though together. You'll go into some deep places together, places you'd never expect to find yourself, both physically and emotionally. It's like becoming a parent- no one can tell you, no one can prepare you. Which is probably a good thing.



Do you, Ms. Moon, promise to love and honor and cherish and accompany your husband under your dream house and hammer tacks into beams to hold electrical wire?"

"Uh. Hmmm. Let me think about that."

And do you, Mr. Moon, promise to love your wife so much that you'll buy her a house that you'll have to crawl under despite panic attacks and a bloody nose to keep the electricity on?"

"Not sure about that. I'll get back with you."

Yeah. That's how it would go.

But you do it. You do things you'd never imagine doing because you love that person so much that you can't let them go into dark places alone. You love that person so much that you'll buy her a house that you know is going to take more work than you want to put into it because it'll make her feel cherished and loved.

And you feel lucky to be able to do those things. Because you're doing them with the person you love.

Hell. Anyone can sit on a beach in Mexico and drink rum and be grateful and in love.
It takes a couple well-seasoned and aged to crawl under a house together and be grateful. And more in love than ever.

It's a crazy path, this love thing, this marriage thing.
And I may be the craziest crazy person on earth, but I know what I have and I have the awareness to appreciate it and the sanity to celebrate it.

And that's what I'm thinking about on this Sunday evening as the rain drizzles down outside and the electricity is working in the house where I live with my love.