Monday, May 17, 2010

It's MY Tiny World

It rained last night and obviously quite well and I'm sort of pissed because I slept so hard I missed it. It's easy to miss the rain when the air conditioner is on and the windows are closed. Another reason I hate air conditioning but I can tell you this- if we don't run it, our wimpy modern selves can't take it and we don't sleep but toss and turn trying to find a cool spot in the bed and Mr. Moon gets up repeatedly to anoint himself with powder.
But I slept so hard and so well and I feel good today. I took myself out for a walk in the muggy heat and now I am sweating and am probably so stinky that I found myself embarrassed to walk into the post office at the end of my miles to get my mail. There was a very nicely dressed gentleman in there and I thought to myself that I was probably offensive so I got my mail out as quickly as possible and left without even saying "good-morning" to Miss Joann, the post mistress, or asking her how her weekend of camping went.

I got an e-mail from a relative lately, advising me that I live in my own tiny world and that I am a drama queen to boot. I have to say he's completely right about that. And other things. But what other would could I live in? I am certain there are plenty of blogs written by people who live in Big Places who extol the virtues of those Big Places but I feel quite sure that I am the only person who is currently living and blogging in Lloyd, Florida. Well, there may be more. I don't know. But none that I am aware of.
And drama queen? Oh hell yes! I am! I am as dramatic as anyone you would ever want to meet. I go crazy over toads! I am insane about my chickens! I act as if I had the only grandson on earth! That same snake was in the hen house yesterday! When I am depressed, the entire world is dark! And when I am happy, the whole world smiles.
Right?

It's funny. Instead of making me feel inadequate for writing about the tiny world I live in, that e-mail only made me feel more certain that this is what I'm supposed to be doing. And my emotions and reactions are mine and yes, I write about them and I write about my children and they write about me sometimes too! And the worlds they live in and work in and sometimes our worlds are the same, such as when we have parties or get together for one reason or another and no world is isolated unto itself, even the worlds we find on islands or on far-away mountains or in countries we've never heard of and somehow we are all connected but this is my picture of my corner of this big world and if it's a boring place, well...go read another blog about some place more exciting.
There are millions to choose from! Many of them far better written than mine will ever be!

Perhaps you can tell from all the exclamation points that I am in a good mood today. That rain must have cleared out something in my soul as well as in the air. It often happens this way, I find. And when I am in a good mood like this, my tiny world is charming to me and I am grateful to be living in it. Grateful to live in a place where I know the post mistress's plans for the weekend and where people I meet on my walk ask me how my grandson is and say things like, "Oh, you're just way too young to be a grandmother!"
Ha-ha! I tell them! and even though I know this is just sweet flattery, I lap it up like a cat laps cream and I finish my walk with a little more spring in my aging, creaky steps.
Grateful to be living such a life where even a late-blooming wisteria blossom which suddenly appears is something to be noticed and wondered about. Grateful to have this place to write about it all where people for some reason completely mysterious to me seem to like coming to visit which makes me absolutely humbly heady with delight.

Well. Owen is coming in an hour and I need to take a shower. Although that boy seems to love me no matter how I smell, I would rather smell sweet for him than sweaty. I wonder what we'll do today. We'll probably travel around this tiny world I live in which is a huge world for Owen, checking out chickens and maybe a snake and the garden and the bamboo forest and maybe even an expedition up Main Street where the other people who live in this tiny world know who we are, greet us with smiles and say, "Ain't he fine?" and other such lovely words and we will bask in it all, exactly where we are supposed to be in this great big world on a lovely, clear day after a night of rain.

17 comments:

  1. You writing about your own "tiny world" makes my world bigger. So thank you for that. And I get excited about toads too. And babies ABSOLUTELY.

    My email reply to that person would be... DUH.

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  2. My world is about to get tinier in a way but I'm okay with that. Enjoy your day!

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  3. The whole world is really only as wide as we can see.

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  4. Living in a rural county for five years now, I love the small life. I never thought I would say that.

    I love that I will always run into somebody I know when I go to the store or the library or the playground.

    I love knowing the weekend plans of people.

    And, this is nothing to do with any of the above, but I'll share it anyway. I am in love with the Southern tradition of calling adults, "Miss First Name."

    Every time a child or teenager calls me "Miss Nancy," I smile, hardly believing I get to live in such a lovely corner of the world.

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  5. Mary Moon, you are MOST DECIDEDLY NOT boring!!! The person who wrote that email sounds boring to me ~ what can be grander than appreciating the small things in life????? Than taking delight in a tiny flower, the beautiful curve of a grandson's eyebrow, a perfectly brewed cup of coffee on a rainy morning???

    We also had a glorious rain and the world around me is shimmering and bright and green. The plants are happier than a sprinkler could ever accomplish! Yes, exclamation points! Plenty of them!!!

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  6. Oh my dear! To think that there are such pitiful people out there who have nothing better to do than try to bring you down. Shame on them! You keep on writing, because I love to hear what's going on in your world, small as it is, dramatic as it is. I do.

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  7. i love you dramatic ways...i mean..hell you could be one of my tribe with your ways..:-)

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  8. My Dear Queen,

    Thank you for writing about our village and keeping record of the good the bad, the ugly and downright mysterious and cosmic.

    xo pf

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  9. We ALL live in a tiny little world, no matter how big a place we live in. I mean, I used to live in Seattle-and yet I still went to the saem grocery stores, talked to the same dozen people regularly, had my own little routines-it's just a whole group of small worlds in one big area. I would have perhaps told the relative to fuck off-but the thing to remember is that his feelings/memories/needs/desires are no less valid to him than yours are to you. Which is really a generous way of thinking, and something I don't do very often because OBVIOuslY he is, you know, WRONG.

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  10. You are such a wonderful example of how to deal with other people's smallness, jealousy, hurtful comments. I want to be more like you. I love this post. I love your attitude. You're right, we all live in our own little worlds, where else would we live? And drama queens rock on!
    Enjoy your day.
    Here's to many more !!!!!!!s

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  11. I love reading about your 'tiny world' and hearing about your grandson Owen, and the way you write encourages me to keep reading because there is feeling attached to the words.....some call it drama, I call it feeling!

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  12. Ha! HA! That is what I say to that relative of yours. Let him (her? - surely not?) read a newspaper and miss out on this.

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  13. Stephanie- And your writing makes my world bigger. All of our writing makes for a bigger world and more understanding, too.

    Syd- Are you really retiring "retiring"? Like- you're done working? Wow. Well, yoLulu'll find a lot more in your tiny world than you found before.

    DTG- And I am notoriously near-sighted.

    Nancy C- I love that "Miss" thing too. It's just so damn charming.

    Lulumarie- Isn't it amazing how one good shower beats out a night's worth of watering? It's still beautiful here and I hope it is there, too!

    Angie M- I can create drama, can't I? Not as badly as I used to when I was purely and surely insane. Now I am merely batshit crazy and THAT is different and I am so glad.

    Danielle- I may BE one of your tribe. I would hope to be.

    Ms. Fleur- How I fucked up! But I have tried to make it better with my next post. Keep blogging!

    Kori- He is not wrong for HIM. And I know that.

    Bethany- He is complicated, he is interesting. He has his own views and I understand that. But he has to understand that my views are what I see and that is okay, too.
    !!!!!

    Rebecca- Hey. I could be a lot more dramatic than I am. Believe me! And hell yes- we all have feelings and I don't bother to read blogs that don't express them.

    Mwa- Oh. He reads plenty of news. He does. He has a very broad and knowledgeable world view.

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  14. I love drama. And I love yours in particular. The world is in a grain of sand, right? There's something so beautiful and lyrical about your writing, in and of itself, no matter what you're discussing. I think I'll be selfish and perhaps a little patronizing when I say that the relative who sent you the email perhaps doesn't appreciate the value of good writing in this oft-shitty world we live in.

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  15. Elizabeth- Well, he turned the page and said he was not going to stop reading my blog because he enjoyed it so....
    Same as always with my family-of-birth: no solid ground to stand on.

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  16. Your relative doesn't know his or her ass from a damn hole in the ground. They can get stuffed.

    I love you and your world. My own world is infinitely enriched by your world. Keep writing.

    You are loved.

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  17. Ms. Bastard-Beloved- Well. I think he does know the difference. He just has issues with ME. I love it when your world and my world combine and connect and crash into each other. It's fucking awesome!

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.