Pleased To Meet You

Well, it's been an excellent day for me. I did go to town and pick up Owen with Lily and Gibson and we told Owen that we were going to Japanica! which we thought would make him so happy but he declared that no, he doesn't like Japanica! any more and he didn't want to go there.
Tough titty, said the kitty, and we went anyway.

We did our routine. We got our edamame beans although to be truthful, I should say Gibson's edamame beans. He ate 90% of them.

Owen did indeed eat miso soup but he didn't want his salad.
Sigh.
Lily got sushi, I got the green curry bento box and almost died with the pleasure of it. The curried tofu and vegetables, the little shrimp cakes or whateverthehell they are, rice, sushi. Perfection. Then we went to Big Lots where we discovered that Santa had passed out

which was another sort of perfection. I bought some cleaning stuff for Hank's move and a little string of battery operated star lights and a bag of Reese's halloween peanut butter cups and some hair thingees. I love Big Lots so much. I mean, I wouldn't buy a damn sofa there but it's a great place to buy pickled miniature patty-pan squash and esoteric Bob's Red Mill grain things you wouldn't buy at the regular store because they cost so much but which are dirt-cheap at the Big Lots.
Owen found a five buck transformer toy that was SO BEAUTIFUL that he dissolved into pitiful tears when he had to leave it on the shelf and so I, being the completely stereotypical and cliched grandmother, bought it for him. Amazing how fast he went from crying real tears to raising his arm up in the air and shouting, "SCORE!"
Yeah, I'm a sucker. So what? He gave me about fifty kisses when I left their house. It was so worth it.
Lily's been turning into some domestic goddess that I barely recognize as my daughter. She's been doing cross-stitch that I can't even SEE the stitches in, they're so tiny, and she's cooking all sorts of amazing vegan meals and she made some awesome Halloween costumes. Gibson is going as Daryl Dixon whom I don't know shit about but she does. She took apart a Goodwill vest and made it into a D.D. vest and Jason made him a crossbow and I think it may all have something to do with The Walking Dead. Is that right? I'll post pictures if she sends them.
And she herself is going as Ursula.
Okay! Breaking news! Here are the pictures!

Wolverine at the preschool party.

Daryl Dixon as a bad-ass child.

Ursula! (Is she not gorgeous?)

Uh. Really scary dad. 

All my kids are getting together tonight at Jessie and Vergil's to take the kids trick-or-treating and I should probably be there but I wanted to get home and plant my pansies which I did. This involved taking things out of pots and planting them in the actual ground and watering and snipping and so forth. I had a wonderful time doing all of that. 

And then my across-the-street-neighbor and friend, Paul, called to tell me that three of my chickens were in his front yard. Say what? Those chickens have never once crossed the road and why should they? But cross the road they did and I have no idea why. 

So I went over there and herded them back across the street and had to stop five o'clock traffic in Lloyd (which is more traffic than you might think) and they all made it safely. Miss Butterscotch, Miss Lucille and Miss Eggy Tina. I will be honest with you here- I felt like a celebrity. I mean, if I was driving somewhere and a crazed woman wearing overalls was herding chickens across the road it would make my day. I suppose I have to start closing the damn gate to the driveway now. What a pain in the ass. Just when you think there's one fucking thing you don't have to worry about...you have to worry about it. 

Anyway, they've all gone to roost now and I have a little piece of tuna marinating in Soy Vay Veri Veri Teriyaki sauce (highly recommended) and here's what my new lights look like:

My little constant altar place.

And another costume picture.

Now I remember. Jason is Zombie Superman. Half evil, half good. 

And to just finish it all off, here's a picture which you know charms my damn heart. 

As my friend Kati said, "Their sexy Satanic Majesties." 

I sort of love Halloween, even if I don't really participate. 

And here, for your Halloween rock 'n roll enjoyment. 

The band at the church next door is rocking, it's chilly in my house, the chickens are all in bed and the Stones are playing tonight in Perth.

This is the time of year when the membrane between worlds gets a little thin.
I can feel it.
Can you?

Much love...Ms. Moon

It's Halloween!

No. That is not my family. That family looks like a nice family.
However, I swear to you, I had that same exact Halloween mask. JESUS we hated those masks but we loved them too. It was usually hot on Halloween in Roseland and we sweated like little bad demons behind them and it was hard to breathe out of that tiny mouth hole, so we'd flip them up between houses and then the cheap elastic would come undone and we'd have to hold them to our faces which made candy retrieval difficult, to say the least.
I have a very visceral memory of all of this. Mrs. Ferger, my best friend's mother, would load us all up in their brown station wagon to hit the houses of Roseland. We'd sit on the open tailgate and bump over the sand roads and of course you couldn't get away with that these days but it was so much fun. And better than riding IN the car because to be frank, it stunk.

Well, Happy Halloween. I have not decorated one bit although, as Vergil pointed out recently, I don't actually need to, what with all the spider webs on my porches. The spiders themselves are gone now, mostly, although what may be the biggest one of the year is still alive, right outside my back porch.

We don't get a lot of Trick-or-Treaters here in downtown Lloyd but I always get a little candy, just in case. Then of course, I eat it.

I did go into the little Harry Potter closet under the stairs to get the skeleton decorations but they're so little that I just left them where they were. But they look pretty cool in there. The skeletons in my closet:

They're really creepy, aren't they? I swear, I think I got them at the Dollar Store.

Well, I was going to stay home today and plant pansies but Lily called and I think I'm going to go with her and pick up Owen at school and then we're going to Japanica! because we love it and because it does my heart good to watch Owen eat miso soup and salad with ginger dressing. Plus, the couch and disco ball.

The fucking NRA keeps robocalling me to tell me to vote for Prick Scott. As that guy on Curb Your Enthusiasm always says, "That's just a big bowl of wrong."
Scott is so scary looking that he doesn't need a Halloween costume.

I'm also getting a huge number of robocalls from Steve Southerland, the local congressional candidate whom I loathe. Why does anyone think that robocalls persuade voters to vote for them? The other night when I was trying to get the boys to bed, I got yet another one from Southerland and as he was "talking" to me I snapped, "Suck my dick, Steve Southerland!" and hung up.
I wish he could have really heard me.

Lord. What am I going to have to bitch about when the election's over? Oh, I'll find something. Trust me. I haven't gone after religion in quite a while. Here's a little taste of that for you.

I don't know. Just made me laugh.

Dang. This post is all over the place!

I better go get dressed for my Japanica outing. Have to look good for my grandbabies.

Happy Friday, y'all. And have a lovely Halloween whether you dress as a witch or a princess or a zombie or an old woman in overalls drinking gin from the bottle.

Love...Ms. Moon

This Does Not Suck, Part XXXIV

It's been a good day and for the most part, I have moved very lightly. As lightly as possible. I dropped off a pumpkin at Lily's and then went to Fanny's for lunch because I wanted to hug May and we did hug over and over and deeply and tightly. I ate cream of potato and leek soup and it was perfect and then I hugged Taylor too. I was in need of hugs. And soup. Taylor's thick, wonderful soup. With saltine crackers.

I missed Kathleen's birthday because we were down in Roseland so I went to the nursery and bought a pretty little tea olive to take her. Everyone needs a Tea Olive. I wandered around the nursery in a dreamlike state of lusting and craving. Flowers and trees and bushes and herbs and the pots. Oh, the pots! The shiny turquoise and blue ones, the terra cotta ones. The tiny pots only big enough for a cactus, the huge ones, big enough to hide both Owen and Gibson. It occurs to me that I need to recognize that on my list of favorite things are pots like these. They go right up there with my other womb-like favorite things: baskets, bowls, purses. Things which hold things. I did not buy any of the pots but I bought some pansies, some violas to put in here and there. And a Bleeding Hearts of my own.

I went to the grocery store to buy fresh pineapple and brown sugar and butter and almond extract. I came home and made two pineapple upside-down cakes.  One big one to take to Kathleen and her honey, one small one to keep. Here is what they looked like, right out of the oven, still in their skillets.

I love to make pineapple upside-down cakes. I remember the first one I ever made. I was stoned and had fierce munchies and was living in an apartment in Denver. I had no real idea how to do it, no recipe to follow, but the spirit of some benevolent cooking goddess must have guided my hands because I made one and it was so damn good. My roommate said, "How'd you do this?"

"I have no idea," I said, as shocked as she at how it had turned out. 

I still have the skillet I made that first cake in. I did not use it today, but it has held many, many others in the ensuing forty-plus years. 

Gosh. I guess I should add iron skillets to my list. Another beautiful thing which holds other beautiful things. 

Here is what the big cake looked like after I had flipped it over and put a few violas on top.

My whole house still smells like heaven. 

I took the Tea Olive and the cake to Kathleen's and we sat for awhile in the beautiful patio area that her husband has built her. There is a tiny pond and a fountain, an enclosing two walls of fence which is made out of some of the most beautiful rough-cut boards I've ever seen. He's hung pretty things on the fence and there are plants around the tiny pond and there is the view of the chickens beyond. Their whole house is the most welcoming and homey thing you can imagine. Kathleen has made new cushion coverings for some of her wicker furniture. It is a home which speaks of love and life and they have done it almost all by themselves. The chickens and the ducks were getting ready to roost and Bug let me help him feed the fish in the big, real pond. I threw dog food out to them and they raised up to eat it and it looked like raindrops in reverse as they did, circles arising as if by magic on the surface of the water, spreading out in beautiful patterns. 

I felt peaceful and at home, being there. Kathleen looks beautiful and I am in awe of the way she is living her life. So many gifts she has given me. So many gifts she continues to give. 

I drove home and now I'm here, a hunting widow again. I remember when I used to rail and fret and bitch and moan about all this hunting. How hurt I used to be that this man focused so much of his time and attention on that activity instead of...me.

I am glad that I'm over that. I'm glad that I've come to the realization that he has to do this and that it has nothing to do with me. I'm glad that I now know that I love him so much that it would be a cruelty to try and change him and why would I really want to? As Lyle Lovett said once, "If I were the man that you wanted, I would not be the man that I am."

I want the man that he is. I believe this is one of the best things about long love. You reach a place of acceptance and peace with things. 

Mostly. 

Talk to me around Thanksgiving when he's been to Georgia a few more times and up to Canada for ten days to hunt. We shall see how accepting I am at that point. 

I am not perfect, trust me. In fact, I am so far from perfect that I can't even tell you in what direction perfection lies. But, one does learn a thing or two over the years. The sharp edges do get worn away to a gentler surface. One does begin to understand that there are things worth getting riled about and things that are hardly worth more than a little bitching here and there. 

Besides, he puts up with shit of mine that he would definitely rather not. And has been all these years. And that is another reason to love him.

And I have Maurice, my by-now familiar. She stays close but not too close, her presence a comfort but not a burden. 

I have chickens at roost, all thirteen of them safe and dozy. I went out and closed them up and stroked a few. They are so soft. 

"Good night, my little loves," I said. I am a fool for my chickens. Another gift that Kathleen gave me- chickens. 

Night is falling.

Rice is cooking, I have pansies to plant, Hank to help move on Saturday and then a movie date with a girlfriend to see St. Vincent's.  On Sunday there will be a birthday party for Waylon. 

My husband is in a deer stand in Georgia. 

He'll be home on Sunday. 

I'll probably survive. 

Quiet Heart

I'm thinking about a lot of stuff this morning, trying to answer my angst with calm sanity, with openness of heart.
I am also cooking sausage and grits and have a pan of biscuits in the oven.
Mr. Moon got up before I did and went to Monticello to pick up his deer sausage from the processor's and he also early-voted and I am proud of him for that.
He pulled back into the yard just as I was opening the hen house to let my chickens out. I found one perfect brown egg right by the door, dropped by whichever hen it is who does this- just drops an egg wherever she may be, never taking time to sit on a nest.
So. Fresh sausage, grits, eggs, biscuits. Not a normal Thursday morning breakfast but he's going up to Georgia today and I won't be making his weekend breakfasts and, well, fresh sausage, right-out-of-the-chicken eggs.

I've already cried this morning, reading what May wrote in her comment on my last post. If I think about it, I will cry some more.
Of course I will think about it.
Sometimes your heart is just too full not to overspill out the eyes.
Today is one of those days.

I am thinking of the energy of the universe and wondering if it changes when a baby is born, when someone dies. We know that the amount of it cannot change but I think that the balance of it can.
Rodd died, Liz Sparks' son and his wife had a new baby girl.

And colors. I am thinking of colors. Tie-dyed reds and purples and yellows, and baby girl pink. Brown of eggshell, gold of yolk. Red of Bradford pear leaves as they fall. Green all around me.

This is a day I plan on taking minute by minute, as if there were actually any other way to do it. I plan on being as easy with it as I can be. Delicate, even. I feel a strange and powerful need to let the balance of the universe's energy be as undisturbed by me as I can.
Is that even possible?
I don't know but I am going to try to dance lightly.

Love...Ms. Moon

Love Makes A Family. Love Goes On

The high school that both May and Jessie attended in Tallahassee is an alternative school, although publicly funded. It is an amazing place and a place where students who value truly individualized learning and teachers who care find a home. Everyone in the school is called by their first name, from principal to custodian to the security officer to students. Everyone knows everyone. It is a family.
Hell, they even talked me into being the president of the PTSO at one point if you can imagine that. And I loved every minute of it.
SAIL high school. A School For Arts and Innovative Learning.
It's where Jessie learned to play mandolin (the school band is a bluegrass band) and May found a home with peers and teachers when she needed them. It's a school where every student is treated with respect and every student's talents and needs are recognized and honored.
And as you can imagine, the teachers are very, very special.

The SAIL family lost one of its most valued and respected members this morning. His name was Rodd Moorer and he was known always and forever as Brother Rodd.
Here's a picture of him at his retirement celebration last year.

I love that picture. It sums up the energy and just damn love that SAIL represents and of course, Brother Rodd is right in the middle, hand over heart. 

It makes me cry.

Isn't it odd how some people can die and you're sad but you have no real emotional reaction and then someone else can pass over and even if you didn't know them that well, it just jerks your heart right out of your chest and you can't help but cry? 

Brother Rodd's death did that for me. He was just always such a presence with his dreads, his rasta cap, and mostly his beautiful, beautiful smile. He walked with his soul wide open and had no need to keep any of it from his physical bearing. Here's a picture of that smile. The student was wearing his cap. He was generous with his very heart. 

I could write a book about SAIL but the person who needs to write it is a woman named Rosanne Wood who was its first principal and who, with a band of teachers who were as colorful and varied in every way as the student body, made such a difference in so many people's lives. Rosanne is retired now too and every time I see her I tell her to write that book. 

In these days of such confusion and let's face it- failure in our educational systems- SAIL is a model that needs to be studied and emulated. Although- how do you find educators like Rosi and Rodd? 

I don't know. But instead of so much teaching about testing and teaching TO the test, maybe teachers could be nurtured to be more like the teachers of SAIL because in my heart, I think that people go into teaching because they do want to make a difference in students' lives. They DO want to be able to teach with heart and soul. It's certainly not for the money or the ease of the job. 

Here's what Rosanne wrote on Facebook about him today.

Brother Rodd Moorer, beloved SAIL High School teacher, colleague and true friend "transitioned" early this morning after a fierce, but thankfully brief, battle with pancreatic cancer. Rodd was the most transcendent human being I've ever known. He was very clear before he "crossed over" that he would always be part of everything and in each of us, forever. He changed so many lives in his brief 63 years. Everyone who knew him is grateful to have had him on this earth; he will always be our "Brother".

Thank you, Rodd, for making a difference and the earth was better off for having your smiling face, your shining grace upon it.

I didn't really know you that well but I didn't have to. That's the sort of man you were. 

I mourn you but I trust that your spirit is just damn fine. I trust that with every molecule of my soul.

Love...Ms. Moon, Always And Forever, A Member Of Your Family

I NEED Them

It was an interesting night. The boys were very good through supper and shower time and story time and then a little Tarzan movie time. Owen wanted me to tell him the Mr. Peep lullaby, as he calls it, and scratch his back and so I did and it was a bit of sweetness. He prompts me as to which animal to talk about and he remembers this story from when he was a very young boy, a baby, really, and I would tell it to him as he fell asleep for his nap.
Owen, once asleep, is asleep.
Gibson, however, is a different matter. I transferred him to his bed beside his brother and he did sleep there for approximately two hours at which time he woke up and cried and said, "I NEED you," in that plaintive voice he uses for just that phrase and so I took him to our bed where he basically slept on me all night long. When a train went by, he would whimper and cling to me and finally, around quarter to five I moved him over a tiny bit and we slept pretty well after that.
Mr. Moon texted me this morning to ask if Gibson had slept all night in his own bed which made me laugh.
I got up at seven and collected the paper and fed the cats and let the chickens out to their coop and poured a cup of coffee and sat down and Gibson...woke up.
Sigh.
"I NEED you," he said again. And onto the hip he went and the morning got started truly.

I woke up Owen a little while later and he was in a great mood until he asked me if I was making pancakes and I told him no, I wasn't, we didn't have time because he had to go to school. The Cheerios I gave him were not a good substitute for pancakes according to him and I am sure he is right but eventually the boys did eat their cereal and drink their juice and I got them dressed and they brushed their teeth and I brushed their hair and packed up their clothes and pillows and stuffed animals and got myself ready to go to the dentist for yet another follow up and we let the chickens into the yard and loaded into the car and drove to town and Owen was checked in to school by nine and he kissed me quite sweetly and told me good-bye and I took Gibson back to his mama and daddy who both have the day off. He settled right into their bed and he, too, kissed me good-bye and hugged me hard.

So it was all pretty perfect and then I went to my dentist and if there is a sweeter, kinder dental office in the world, I can't even imagine it and my jaw is healing perfectly, all is well, and now I'm home, feeling as if I've swum the English channel and taken a shower and prepared dinner for fifty, simply because I did a few basic human tasks.
I plan on doing a few more of those today and I am thinking that a nap may be one of them, not that napping is a task but instead, a basic human joy.

This is life in Lloyd this morning where two boys spent the night with their grandparents and when they were having supper, one of them said, "Do you know what I like most about coming to Mer Mer and Boppy's?" and when we asked what, he said, "Mer Mer and Boppy."

Ah, the boy's a charmer.

He also said, when he walked onto the back porch in the gloaming last night and I was standing right there, "Lord, GOD! You scared me!"

And Maurice just caught another lizard.

Love...Ms. Moon

Spending The Night

The boys are here to spend the night because they've been wanting to for a while now and Boppy's not at the hunting camp or auction and so here they are, making a fire to cook the steaks because steak is something that Owen does say that he will eat along with carrots, celery, and cut up bell peppers which we also have.

They are so beautiful to me. All three of them. The boys have their rituals for overnights and they must be attended to faithfully. Feed the chickens bread, drink chocolate milk, help Boppy with the fire. When Mr. Moon was splitting the wood, I said, "Remember, it's just three little steaks."
"I know what I'm doing," he said.
"Mer! We've been doing this since I was FOUR!" said Owen.

What do I know? Not much.

But that I love them. That I know.

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Pictures. Because

Miss Nicey is the nicest chicken. Owen wanted her to sit on his arm but he wanted a towel to prevent claw and poop damage.

Gibson was taking a nap on the Chinaberry tree. You can tell from his goofy eyes.

My little cubs.

And how they love their Aunt Jessie.

Lloyd Ain't Bad

Home and home and it is beautiful and I took my walk and reveled in the sunlight as it filtered down lace onto the earth under the trees and I am about to hang towels out on the line and get things ready for the boys although they don't need much to be ready. The playset is there for them to climb and swing on, to twist the swings and grow dizzy from the unraveling, the eggs will be there for them to gather and the chickens will take bread from their hands and Mer will be here to do their bidding, to kiss their faces, to hug them whether they want her to or not.

It is good to be home but oh, I how do think of that river, the blue against the green and the leafy bowers of bamboo and palm.
The link to the information to rent the little cabana house in Roseland is here. 
You, too, could go stay in heaven.
I highly recommend it.

I don't know about you but I will be so glad when this election is over. Here in North Florida it is truly getting vile. The ads on TV and the mail I get are simply disgusting. This candidate looks like Nancy Pelosi so you certainly don't want to vote for her. This candidate is the only one who will protect your right to bear arms, so vote for him. This candidate wears a pilot's uniform so vote for him. The Obama Liberal Democrats don't want you to vote so be sure to piss them off and get out and vote for The Fucking Right Wing Conservatives.
Okay, that one I sort of added to.
Hell, the NRA sent a mailing with a picture of Rick Scott that makes him look vaguely human. How the heck did they do that?
Dear god, please let it end.

In other news, I have GOT to get control of my diet again. I have been eating like I expect to be imprisoned on an ice floe and will have to live off my own blubber. I mean, it's been fun but good god. I love how when we start out our trips I begin by eating things like salads with grilled chicken and by the time we end them, I'm eating potato salad with as much mayonnaise as potato salad can be made with and please, yes, more pork.
Pass the blue cheese and hey! Might as well finish up this ice cream! Hand cut potato chips? Oh, yeah, baby.

I wish I could say it's made me feel like shit but I feel fine, to tell you the truth. Still, I should live off of beans and greens for about a month. Maybe a tomato now and then. A slice of pineapple. Etc.

Well, Jessie's coming out this afternoon too. She's bringing Greta which is great because Greta can keep the boys occupied and we can chat, chat, chat. I need to hang those towels and, um, go soak some beans.

Back to real life and I'm not complaining. Well, except for the election ads. Those I will complain about. And with great enthusiasm and vigor.

The rest? Nah. I love beans. And hanging towels out. And my woods where I walk are pretty fine too.

The colors of fall- purple and gold. Royal and sweet and the great oaks rise up to the blue cloudless skies and the nights are cozy cool and the cat slept on me all night and the chickens are out scratching, and politics aside, it is lovely to be alive.

Hope all is well with you.

Love...Ms. Moon

Sweetness and Light And Sadness And Joy

It was so hard to leave this morning. So hard.
The owner of the place came over before we left to bring us some banana bread he'd baked from Roseland bananas and Lloyd eggs. And we started talking. I could talk to that man for hours. Days. About Roseland, about that property. About mangos and Surinam cherries and sulphur water and a million other things that we haven't even begun to discuss. I wish he was my brother. I wish he was my next-door neighbor. He used to own a restaurant in Atlanta and he makes marmalade from the Seville oranges he gets from a tree that was on the property when they bought the place. He goes to the Mango Festival in Miami every year.
MANGO FESTIVAL!!!!
Are you freaking kidding me?
I love walking around the property with him telling me what he's planted. I notice. I see. I could learn so much from him.

But anyway, dammit, we had to leave. I cried a little as we left. "Good-bye, good-bye," I said, as we took a right off the sandy river road and left that wide, flat current behind me again.

Reading South Moon Under out loud on the way home eased my pain.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings loved that part of Florida as much as anyone on this earth and she was such a fine, fine writer. The lives of her characters are as real to me as the lives of the characters of McMurtry and that's saying a lot. And her description of the scrub, the hammocks, the rivers, the forests, the swamps, the plants, the birds, the water, the sky- her writing is what I would aspire to if I had an ounce of her talent, which I do not. The people she writes about are people she knew and imagined lives for. The way they made their grease and grits. The crops they planted, the game they hunted, the travails they suffered whether of heat or freezing or drought or nor'easters or disease and death are a testament to the human spirit and especially to the pioneers who, with nothing more than the sweat of their brow and a fierce determination, managed to live in the deep wilds of Florida before Deet and air conditioning and malls and Publix and electricity and indoor plumbing and paved roads. Who managed to eke it out, stay alive.
And I knew some of those people, or at least, their descendants.
And I honor them.

So. We made it home. And all of the chickens and the cats are alive. And I've unpacked mostly and have laundry going and have given the talky Maurice several treats and the chickens too and gathered eggs and have my rootlings which were given to me and which I dug from the Roseland jungles in water. I've washed the four plates and eight martini glasses we bought at thrift stores.

It was a beautiful trip and the thing I believe I will remember most is sitting in that beautiful little enclosed jungle courtyard with the bamboo rubbing and swishing and knocking above me, the lizards skittering about with the cry of ospreys as they flew overhead.

I got to see the Sandhill Cranes again this morning. I said goodbye to the staghorn fern, the hibiscus, the palms, the lion pool, the stucco walls of the Goodrich mansion entranceway. I am home. I have water going on the garden. I need to get in there and work if I want greens this winter. The boys, my beautiful boys, are coming tomorrow. My husband will sleep with me tonight in our own bed. I hope Maurice will sleep snuggled up to my hip.

I am thinking of my grandparents who moved to Roseland when Granddaddy retired, not to languish and be lazy in a condo overlooking a canal or the beach, but to start a new life in a jungle, to keep a compost pile and a garden, to battle mosquitoes and, for Granddaddy, at least, to wield a machete, to wear snake boots and a pith helmet, to welcome his daughter and her children when she needed help and to build us a house and to teach me and my brother to fish off a dock with a cane pole, a bobber and a shrimp.

I owe them so much.

James Marshall Alexander and Ruth Alexander.

I went home. I came home.

Love...Ms. Moon

Sometimes You Get What You Need

I've spent so much time on the water in the last few days. We had lunch today at a place over the Indian River and as we waited for our food, I sat and watched the water, taking in the sounds of the waves, the sight of the rippling breast of water. It occurred to me once again that so many of us self-medicate with the water. Why do you think there are so many creative, artistic people who live on the beach? And I'm not calling myself one of those. Just one of the crazies who feel drawn so strongly to the borders between water and land and sky.
And oh, how the wind chimes of the giant bamboo have comforted and enchanted me as it sways in this cooler-weather-coming in wind. It thrashes and dances and clangs and bumps and rubs and talks.

There's a vase I bought on Thursday at the Methodist thrift store for fifty cents. In it are bleeding heart, a piece of snake plant Mr. Moon dug me from the jungle and a few sprigs of bamboo.
Bleeding heart.
That's me.

The man who owns this place along with his husband has done such a beautiful job of planting and maintaining this lush piece of property. There are so many varieties of palms and lilies and hibiscus and I could go on and on. I could talk to him about plants for hours. He has planted all of these magical plants and has nurtured them and the native ones so beautifully and valiantly. And I, being someone who tries to do the same in my own different geographical area but on a much smaller scale, recognize and appreciate this. Every time we come back, I notice new and beautiful plants. I try not to take too much of his time to show them to me. But I love every minute of it when he does.

I'm becoming one of those talky old women. "When I lived here as a child..." Blah, blah, blah.

Jesus.

Anyway. Last sunset over the river from tonight.

More time on the water.
I feel like I grew up on a dock. I wouldn't mind dying on one but hell- how lucky can you be?

I've been in good touch with my brother White these past few days. He is two and a half years younger than I am and he remembers Roseland with as much love and yearning as I do. That, too, has been a sweetness.

The train is coming over the Henry Flager trestle. My granddaddy would have stood on his porch and counted the cars. I feel him here and my granny too. Another beautiful thing.

The best anniversary. Relaxing and re-living and living and sensuousness and bawdiness and gratefulness and wonder and discovery and comfort and laughing and so much love. And watching the herons fly from the river to roost. And the mullet jumping. And laughing so hard I can barely stand it.

And tomorrow we'll drive home to Lloyd and I'll read more of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings as we cross this beautiful state where there are still jungles and rivers and crazy people and scrub and pines and stars and the moon and and the oceans which pound the shore and creeks which flow through it, tea-colored and pure and sink holes suck all the way to the depths of the aquifer and cypress trees thousands of years old and I love this place. Disney and Universal and Rick Scott can try to tame and monetize it but they'll never (God, I hope) be able to ruin it entirely.

And I love this man.

And I love this life.

And if my father hadn't been such a damn son-of-a-bitch I wouldn't have ended up here when my mama had to leave him and so...there you go.

Love...Ms. Moon

Roseland, Florida. October 25th, 2014

Anniversary Celebrations

It was such a beautiful day yesterday. After our Sandhill Crane adventure we took a walk around Roseland. I love doing this. Seeing what has changed, what has not. I remember specific trees, if you can believe that. Beloved trees. Houses, of course.
I talked to a man who lives in my granddaddy's old house. He said he'd invite us in but that he had dogs.
Jeez.
Oh well.
They've put up a new sign at the Roseland Community Center.

Learned stuff I didn't know but I do remember a very, very old lady telling us children that her daddy had named Roseland. Aunt Katie. So...a link to history. Aunt Katie had long white hair and she washed it with the rain water that collected in a barrel from the gutter at the back of her house. She used to tell us stories about Indians borrowing their dogs on their way to hunt up the river. They'd stop in their canoes and the settlers were afraid to say no to the Indians. They promised to share the meat with the settlers but when they returned the dogs, they always said they didn't get anything. But they did return the dogs. Aunt Katie told us about panthers peeking in the windows at night.

I grew up in a barely tamed place, y'all. And I realized yesterday that what I always thought of as woods here are really jungle. I grew up in a jungle on a river. How many people can say that?

We went to the Ocean Grill in Vero for our dinner last night. I've been going there since I was a child. It's an amazing place. Right OVER the ocean and the Atlantic was pretty wild last night, it was windy, and we stood outside and watched the breakers coming in and the wind tangled my hair and every one we talked to seemed to be from Connecticut and they have all moved here because it's so beautiful and yet, they don't know a damn thing about it. But they think it's heaven and they're right about that. Until summer and then it feels like hell.

Here's what we looked like. I took that picture of me in the restroom because it's my favorite ladies room in the world and I've talked about it before and it's a long story so I'll skip it now.

After supper we drove back through the jungle with the ocean on one side of us and the river on the other and when we got to Sebastian we decided to stop at Earl's Hideaway, a bar that was here when I was a child and that place was hopping! I can't believe we stopped. It was like old days. A band and people dancing and yet ANOTHER guy from Connecticut who just moved here. And damn if we didn't run into the two women we'd eaten next to the night before at the crab place and they're from Connecticut too!
Fuck! Crazy!

Anyway, here's what it looked like at Earl's.

Outside on a beautiful night. White sand dance floor. The band was okay but not nearly as good as the guy from Connecticut thinks they are. "I've seen Eric Clapton live!" he said. "And this guitar player is better!"
Uh. No. No he wasn't. But he was quite adequate and the vocalist had a fine gritty wailing voice and the bass player was aces. So that was fun.
We didn't get home until midnight. Our actual anniversary.

And look what my husband gave me.

The emerald ring that Lily and I saw while out shopping the other day. I love it. I adore it. Simple, simple, beautiful green like a tiny chip of the water of Cozumel, like the tear of a jade goddess.

It reminds me of some of the recovered treasure they have at the museum in downtown Tallahassee from wrecked Spanish galleons. 

Ah me. 

I am thrilled. My daughters are going to fight over this one when I'm dead but I'm going to enjoy it now.

And this morning we got up early and went to the Methodist thrift store flea market and bought nothing and then we went to breakfast and let me just say this- EVERYONE in this part of Florida is a Yankee. Nothing wrong with that but it's just so true. And mostly old. I mean, I feel relatively young and spry. 

And now we're back in this tiny piece of paradise.

Our real true anniversary and I am so happy to be here. Our last day and I want to cook our dinner tonight myself in this perfect little kitchen overlooking the pool and the river of my childhood which, like my life, continues to flow, this place that fueled my imagination and curiosity and mind when I was a child and always and forever will, these jungles, these waters, these skies. 

And this man to share it with. 

Luckiest woman in the world. That is me.

And I sure do know it. 

I Love Him So

Those Poor People At Disney World

This morning, here in the Magical Kingdom of Roseland, Mr. Moon and I were having our breakfast by the pool

when two Sandhill Cranes flew in.

We went from being worried we'd scare them off to realizing that this lady and her fellow were not afraid of us at all. In fact, they walked up the lawn to say hello.

The male is studying Mr. Moon closely. 

It was so magical. They dined on bits of seeds and bugs from the grass and then I watched the female catch and eat a lizard. But what happened next stole my heart. The male caught a snake and he shook it and pecked it and broke it into pieces with that fierce beak of his and then he gave the female the biggest part of it.

Sandhill Cranes, not unlike chickens, tidbit.

I can not imagine being happier or more enchanted and charmed than I am this very moment. And now I know exactly what it looks like when the breeze ruffles the gray-brown feathers of the Sandhill Crane from a foot away. 

Glorious. Soft. 

This is heaven.