Friday, October 9, 2009

Imagine


Do you see that tiny blossom there? That's the tea olive, or as they call it in New Orleans, the sweet olive. That small flower must be packed with more densely with smell-molecules than anything else in existence besides maybe a skunk's butt.
But the tea olive's scent is heavenly.
It's so small that you don't realize it's blooming until you walk by it and smell it and then you check and yes, it's blooming. I can't really describe the way it smells- sweet, yes, for sure. A bit of citrus, maybe. It's just...heaven.

The butterfly ginger lily is also blooming and it not only has a heavenly scent but it is beautiful, too. The flowers are purest white and so delicate that they look as if they might fly off from the plant into the fall air. They are named rightly, I believe.



After both Mr. Moon and I have been stressing out for days about our two weekend trips- mine to Gator Bone and his to a hunting camp in Georgia, we are both acting extremely laid back this morning. We have much to do and yet, here we sit on the back porch, talking about the chickens and reading the paper and me checking the blogs and seeing that our president has been awarded a Nobel Peace prize.

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," said Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Committee.

And there you go- even if he is vilified by some right here in his own country, threatened and questioned even as to where he was "truly" born, the world recognizes the hope he represents not only to us here in the United States, but to everyone, everywhere.

He sure represents hope to me, I'll tell you that. His inauguration will always be remembered by me as the day I learned that Lily was pregnant with my first grandchild and that, like the naming of the butterfly lily, is fitting. Presidents get elected every four years and every minute of every day someone finds out that they are going to become a grandparent but this president represented something very special and made me very proud and this grandchild is mine.

I went to see him yesterday and after he'd eaten I took him outside and patted his butt the way babies like their butts patted and sang silly songs to him with the main lyric being, "Owen, Owen, Owen. I love you, Owen," and he looked at me with his dark wondering eyes and the sun made him blink and I felt like I was standing on the mountain with a clear view of where I'd come from and where I was and what the future looked like, the whole world in my hands.
When I left him with his mama and papa, I cried because I wasn't going to see him for at least four days. I have to physically force myself to leave him. I could sit and watch him nurse all day, he and his beautiful mama. He's such a tiny thing- like the tea olive- but he changes the very air around him with this newness, his life-force.

He'll be here when I get back, as will the butterfly lily, as will the tea olive. Mr. Moon will be back from Georgia and will be going to Orlando and I may or may not see him before he leaves.
Four days without seeing him, too.

And so it's Friday and I need to get up off this chair and get ready to go. Kathleen is going to come stay with my animals and I love the idea of her sleeping in the Panther Room with all the dogs on the bed with her. She needs rest, that girl, and I hope she gets some here.

And it's John Lennon's birthday. He would have been sixty-nine years old today. Is that possible? I still do not find it possible that he was killed twenty-nine years ago. As his wife said, "With your mind you changed the world." He wasn't a politician, he wasn't a king, he was a musician. And he changed the world.

Obama is changing the world. Owen is changing my world. The tea olive blooms and changes the air around it. I am going away, I will be back. My children live here, my husband lives here, in sixteen days we will have been married twenty-five years. Here we are, growing old together, our grandson born, living in this place where the tea olive blooms, in a country where our president offers us such hope.

Who could have known that all these things would be made manifest when we met?

Not me.

Imagine.



20 comments:

  1. 29 years - that's exactly half of my life. Where did it go?

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  2. Look at Owen's crazy fingers! That boy is gonna be long.

    I remember waking up and you were crying at the table in our house in Lloyd because John was shot.

    What a crazy life we all lead.

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  3. Safe travels!

    It's lovely that you have flowers still blooming. It's getting rarer here as the temperature is dipping now. At 9 a.m. (now) it's only 42 degrees. I think we'll have frost tonight.

    Last night somehow Ben managed to find and pick two jonquils for me. He umm, came up with the from the church yard across the street he said. It was really shocking as it's been so wet and the leaves are falling, covering the ground, that a jonquil might be there.

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  4. *SIGH* Blooming flowers in October. Sometimes I wonder why we live here, way up nort', where we woke up to the sound of our furnace and the thermometer reading 28 degrees on October 9, when there are places we could live where flowers are BLOOMING. In October. Thanks for the photos, anyway :-) And really, I do LOVE the fall here...crisp air and colorful leaves, that feeling of battening down the hatches. And a little part of me is even excited to go outside at midnight and stand in the still night air in the middle of the street in a foot of snow, the bright moon only made brighter by the pure white coating on the ground...yeah.

    Safe travels Ms. Moon - and Mr. Moon too.

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  5. I agree with justme, blooming? Ain't nothing blooming up here in the Catskills.
    Obama, That's great but we have been signing petitions and making phone calls to get Pete the nobel peace prize for three years and the man is only getting older ( 90.5 yrs) like us. Oh well, maybe the swedes not more then we do.
    And Owen, he is still going to smell great when you go back..ah the baby smell.

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  6. I can almost smell the flowers, and have to console myself with fall colored mums here, eye candy at least.
    I was thrilled to learn of our President's Peace Prize, the world needs a little hope.
    Have a wonderful trip, you'll be back singing to Owen before you know it!

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  7. What a beautiful post. Your happiness is infectious. Have a wonderful time on your trip, Ms. Moon. We'll miss you!

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  8. Thank you for remembering John, my dear Ms. Moon. He was one of my favorite people.

    Owen is so adorable. I have long fingers, too!

    Have a safe trip, and I hope you don't get overtired. That's a lot of folks to feed.

    I love you very much.

    SB

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  9. I feel Obama does represent a change in the world. I'm not so sure what that change is yet. But I feel a lot more hopeful because of him.

    I found out recently that he actually read out his two books, so you can buy them on CD and listen to him tell you the stories by himself. Doesn't that just sound like the most amazing thing to listen to?

    Now the problem is I have read Dreams from my father already, and I'm not sure the other one is as good for a non-American, since it seems like it's some kind of plan for America. You don't happen to have read it, have you? I want to know if I would like it as much as the other one.

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  10. Hurrah for the Lovely Kathleen to stay in the house and take care of the animals! But I do wonder, who is in charge of her menagerie?
    I'm so glad the tea olive is blooming again. I'll have to find some to take to DTG for smelling.
    We'll miss your everyday, Mama. Come home safe. I love you.

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  11. The LSU Camous in Baton Rouge used to have tons of sweet olives! I loved the smell of them! I planted on in my front yard here in Texas, but it doesn't bloom enough to fill the air with that heavenly scent of home!

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  12. Looks like Owen is practicing his evil scientist plot to take over the world!

    I love newborns.

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  13. Dang-look at those fingers. You said they were long, but yikes he's gonna be big. Look like good fingers to nibble on. Mmmm I bet he smells good. Even better than your biscuits.
    Have a wonderful weekend adventure.

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  14. I just wanted to share with you something my older sister wrote on her facebook page regarding Obama's receiving the Nobel Peace Prize:

    Ok, I know over half of my friends TOTALLY DISAGREE and I don't freakin' care! I get chills I am so excited about this. I can not in any point in my lifetime remember someone who has ever been this dedicated to taking care of the "little problems" that our country has. No one sees Obama's big picture, and until he gets the backing he needs to do so, it will never happen. SO BACK HIM UP! He knows what he's doing. And if you still disagree with me and the whole Obama situation, I will still accept you as a friend because you are entitled to your own opinion, even if I disagree wholly with you.

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  15. This is such a lovely picture of your grandson Owen and his grandpa. & I love it that you wear make-up when you go to visit him so he'll know you're beautiful. I think he'll know it by your amazing soul!

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  16. Have a safe journey, dear Ms Moon.
    Everything will be just fine awaiting your return home. You enjoy your visit and make everyone swoon over those biscuits. Then come home and tell us all about. Miss your company, and your wise words already.

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  17. Ack, this just made me cry.
    So eloquent.
    Sometimes I pick one to read, and it goes straight to my gut.

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  18. Bethany- I wrote it straight from my gut, so there you go.

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