Hello, Hello! Are You There?

No. A child did not draw that. I did.

I started a new journal last night. My old one was not filled but it was so full of last summer's crazy fear that I cannot bear to open it, much less write new words in it.
May got me the new journal for Mother's Day and until last night, I had not written a thing in it except for my name and address and where it said, "As a reward $...." I wrote, "You will go to heaven."

But last night I was in the middle of writing my last post and the electricity went out as the thunder and lightening cracked and the air became chill and the sky let loose all the water it had in it, I got out the journal and began to write real words with real ink on real paper. I used to journal quite a bit before I started this blog. Now I hardly ever do, but I know I will want a journal in Cozumel and so I began it last night.

It's funny how a pen in my hand can loosen my mind up. There is something completely different about writing words on paper than writing words on a computer. I have always loved to hand-write, although my words weren't so neatly done last night. It was fairly dark, even on the back porch, even after I lit a candle, and I am out of practice, which seems absurd. I hardly even write checks anymore, I just use my debit card and as to letters- well, e-mail has replaced them which is so sad. There will be nothing left of so many communications when we are gone.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. What I wanted to talk about was the realization I had when the rain was pouring and the dog was cowering on my lap and my pen was in my hand and that was this:
I believe that some women deny their aging with plastic surgery and cosmetics and hair dye and constant gym-attendance and even the taking of a younger lover, while I have gone another way. I think the seemingly obsessive need I have to work outside in the heat, to garden, to dig, even my walks, are the way I keep myself in denial about getting older. If I can do this, I think, as I walk down the dusty lanes, in this heat, then I am NOT old.

I honestly think that my yard work and another woman's having a young boyfriend probably have more in common than you would imagine.

And it's funny how both are such southern stereotypes.
There is the stereotype of the aging southern woman with a gin and tonic in one hand, the other flat on the chest of some young buck half her age and then the other stereotype which is summed up by the Ouiser character from Steel Magnolias when she said, as my son pointed out the other day, "I'm an old Southern woman. We're suppose to wear funny old hats, ugly dresses, and grow things in the dirt. I didn't make the rules."

And this old southern woman definitely belongs in category two. I am genetically incapable of putting the moves on any man besides my husband. I'm hardly able to do that!

And as I wrote about this upcoming trip to Cozumel, I wondered what it will be like to take my crazy old southern yard-working, ugly-clothes wearing self to the island where all my visits have had so much to do with being a girl. A girl who dresses up and puts on her silver to go out to dinner every night, a girl who wears eye-shadow, a girl who has no house or yard duties at all. A girl who used to charm the boys. Once, when we visited, a guy who worked at the hotel where we were staying fell a little bit in love with me. He wrote me love poems in fact, and bravely and boldly gave them to me, all signed with my husband's name. I suppose he thought that way Mr. Moon would not pummel him into a bit of Mayan porridge.

It was funny but it was sweet and here's the thing- Mr. Moon used to write me poems in Cozumel too. They were short and silly and funny as hell and I'd print one here but he'd kill me. He would. He'd kill me.

But where is that girl, that sunset-drink girl, that mermaid-eyed happy girl who inspired poetry, who felt such a woman, such a pretty woman, on those trips? Is she still in me or have I killed her with mulch and chicken shit, dirt-stained overalls and ugly hats?

And that's what that picture is all about. I tried to draw the overalled me holding a chicken, standing under a tree in the hot sun on one side and a pretty-dressed me, holding a seashell under a moon beside the water on the other.

Obviously, I cannot draw. But I like to try sometimes. Just like I like to try figuring things out that should probably be left to instinct.

Ah well.

We shall see if there is still a girl inside of this old liver-spotted woman. I pray that there will be at least a glimmer of her in the moonlight as I walk with my husband, wearing a dress and my silver. I do. I think my husband truly misses that girl which is probably why he's taking me to Mexico.

I miss her too.

I hope I find her, there on the island of Cozumel set inside the beautiful Caribbean sea like a jewel.

I hope she's waiting. Wouldn't that be lovely?

If she is, I'll write about her in my journal. I'll even try and draw her picture.

I think she'll have a big smile on her face. And she will definitely not be wearing overalls.