Thursday, June 3, 2021

Well It's All Right

 I didn't take pictures today, I haven't answered comments. The day has been full although it doesn't seem like I've done very much. We had a little good-bye luncheon for Jessie at El Patron- even May and Michael got to come, as did Hank, Lily, and Mr. Moon, Jessie and the boys and me. And after lunch I hung out with August and Levon so that Jessie could get a few more things together for the tiny home they will be hauling to North Carolina to live in this summer. 

It was a good time, although I was mostly quiet, I think. My heart feels like a rock in a tumbler, my head is a whirling dervish of dancing devils as I try to be sensible and get over myself with my silly worries and fears, even as I feel numb with the knowledge that part of my family is going off for a few months. 

It'll be all right. It will be fine. It will be terrific for the Weatherfords to spend time on Vergil's mountain where he grew up, where his family is. Those boys need to know all about that and they need to know their cousins and other grandparents, their other aunt and uncle. They need to explore the mountain creeks and rivers, they need to experience bear sightings, not just gator sightings. They need to help Vergil's mother in her beautiful garden and hear the stories she needs to tell them. They need to take fiddle lessons and engage in the sort of amazingly creative and artistic play and life that the other side of their family is so very good at. 
And we'll be up to see them next month. 

I know all of this but I also know that I have to go through a time of grieving. A little time of being quiet with my own turmoil and thoughts and my own life as well as the lives of my other children and grandchildren. Owen and Gibson and Maggie are now out of school for the summer and it is time to have new adventures with them. 

When I had my second child I was made aware of how a heart is never too small to hold all of the love it is presented with. It grows with each new person to love, each child, each grandchild. Unlike with money, with time, with resources, there is no limit to love. With each new beloved, the capacity of the heart is magically enlarged, as if part of the gift of a new love is that each of them open wide a door which had been shut in our souls that we had not even known was there to reveal a whole other room, a space, a sanctuary just waiting for that new love to settle into. 
And those rooms, those spaces, are endless. Even in our often broken, battered hearts. Maybe especially in those. 

At least this is what I think and this is what I'm contemplating tonight. 

Meanwhile the chickens are pecking about the bird feeder, hunting for every seed kicked off by the wild birds as they dine. Liberace is standing tall guard, knowing that the end of the day is the most dangerous time of all as the birds of prey are on the hunt for food. Yesterday at the river we saw a pair of swallow-tail kites, as elegant as any bird who ever lived, their bodies streamlined and clothed in simple and sharp lines of black and white, they can fly so high your eye loses them and I watched them dive into the river for fish and it was one more reason that I have been feeling more and more grateful to live where it is green and alive with the wild things we can see and that we cannot see, hidden in the woods and underneath the water, moving slowly and swiftly, living entire lives of their own as the sun and the moon make their cycles of appearance and disappearance, as the tides rise and fall, as the water bubbles up from the deepest depths of the aquifers, as the resulting rivers flow slowly to the Gulf, as the winds and the breezes perform their own eternal dances, as the seasons step onstage at their prescribed times to perform their specific parts in the story, as the planet spins and hurtles through space and time, as we hold on and try to understand and make sense of it all with our eyes that see and do not see, our hearts that yearn and reach for the truth of it, the comfort of it, the enormity of it, the microscopic meaning of it. 
All of it. 

All of it. 

Love...Ms. Moon

24 comments:

  1. You create such marvelous word pictures! You are such a joy to read! ❤

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  2. What a beautiful bit of pondering. You are the truly a Florida philosopher. A trip to the mountains to see your loves will be a nice change and escape from the heat. Much love.
    Xoxo
    Barbara

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  3. A beautiful post. Your writing is a pleasure to read. ❤

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  4. As much as you understand that your grandsons need to spend time with their other grandparents, it still hurts. They are a part of your heart and you will miss them and your daughter and your son in law. And you can't say anything because then you sound small and overly sensitive, but it hurts a lot. Sending hugs.

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    1. It's so true! Especially around the boys I have to be cheerful about it because I want them to go with entirely eager hearts. And they will!

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  5. What a wonderful word journey you took us on. A poet in prose.

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  6. I remember, when I learned I was pregnant with my daughter, standing over my sleeping son and feeling sad because how could I ever love another child as much as I loved him. Imagine my wonder when I discovered that my daughter would build her own mansion in my heart and I would love her as magnificently as I did my son, each in full measure. This post took me back there. It's a beautiful reflection on love and nature and motherhood though I know your heart is aching at your beloveds pending departure. You will hold them in your arms again soon. And in the meantime the arms of your other beloveds will surround you. Lovelovelove

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    1. me too, pregnant with my son, holding my daughter in the rocking chair, I had the same thoughts.

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    2. Exactly! I spent my entire pregnancy with May feeling so damn guilty because I was completely convinced that I could not love another baby the way I loved Hank.
      Ha!
      I wish someone had told all of us how normal this is.

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  7. yes, it's good for the boys to know their other family and you will be visiting as well.

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  8. I know you will relish having time with Owen and Gibson and Maggie, and you'll enjoy all the stories August and Levon have to tell you when they come back to Florida. I'm jealous of them, having such adventures with their parents!

    I can identify with the need to connect to nature. I hope that's not something our younger people lose. It seems essential to our humanity. (And yeah, I love swallow-tail kites, too!)

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    1. Isn't a wonderful thing to have adventurous parents? I love it. And I love that Vergil can work from anywhere with wifi. It's just beautiful to be able to get up and go.
      I, too, hope that younger people can still enjoy nature. That they learn to love it for all the things it brings us and that they learn to protect it- better than we have, hopefully.

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  9. You have written a fine piece today, Ms. Mary Moon. Thoughtful and loving words. Thanks for sharing your heart with us too!

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  10. Sending you big, big hugs today as I know how hard this is! Hang in there grandma!

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  11. What a beautiful, heartbreaking post. You know what popped into my head? On my youngest daughter's 24th birthday, she was waiting to be picked up by friends to go out to celebrate. She was watching the news, and heard that a res life director at the American University of Kabul had been killed in a bombing. And Cara became aware that she could use her degree in other parts of the world. She applied for and got the job. I thought I would die. I literally thought that my heart was going to fall out of my chest. Watching her go through the gate guarded by machine gun toting guards just about did me in. She was there for 3 years. She survived multiple earthquakes and a terrorist attack, and the kidnapping of two professors. And every time, I thought it would be the death of me. Yet it wasn't. The hearts of grandmas and mamas are made of pretty sturdy stuff, aren't they? Our hearts take a beating, but keep on beating. My best thoughts to you tonight.

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  12. I could feel both the joy and the heartbreak in this lovely post....... you are a mistress of conveying your deepest thoughts.
    Susan M

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  13. Summer is such a time of Adventure and making of Memories with Family. I too could feel both the heartbreak and joy in your Post, perhaps that's why you only needed Words and no pixs?

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.