I have no photos from today but I found this one on my phone from a long time ago and it bears repeating. Those three bebes.
Facebook gave me a memory from five years ago the other day that I reposted there because it makes my heart just melt.
Maggie and August cutting up at the Costco. That first picture with their little feetsies just breaks me. And the look on their faces- as if they're getting away with something absolutely wicked and wild. Levon was just a tiny thing and was in the cart in his covered-up carrier, not yet the grinning imp he would soon become that you see in the first picture.
It is the most cliched thing in the world to say but goddamn it- they grow up so fast! Now they're reading and writing and doing arithmetic and beating me at gin rummy and they're all the boss of me.
Lord. How does this happen?
It's been a quiet day here in Lloyd. Cold. We slept warm though, me with my duck and a cat. Maurice has slept with us two nights in a row now, laying right by my side and not moving all night. Of course if I move she tells me in no uncertain terms that this is not acceptable behavior but I just ignore her and we both go back to sleep. How she and Jack have made this agreement on the change in sleeping arrangements is another cat mystery to me.
Mr. Moon did indeed get up and go duck hunting at 4:30 a.m. He called me a little after ten to ask if he could bring me breakfast from the restaurant where the men had gone after hunting. He's sweet like that. But I was already making my own Sunday breakfast so thanked him kindly and told him I was fine. I've learned to make the fastest easiest biscuits in the world. Well, except for the kind that come out of the pop tube. The good thing about biscuits is that you can cut down the amount of ingredients to whatever you want for however many servings you want. If you're making biscuits for a crowd, you might want to use three cups of flour but if you're making them for one, you can use half a cup of flour. And then I bake them (or it) in the airfryer/toaster oven and they only take about ten minutes. They rise and brown and are lovely. So I baked myself two biscuits and cooked some bacon and heated up leftover grits from last night's fish supper and cooked one egg and it was perfect. It's held me all day.
Mr. Moon did indeed get up and go duck hunting at 4:30 a.m. He called me a little after ten to ask if he could bring me breakfast from the restaurant where the men had gone after hunting. He's sweet like that. But I was already making my own Sunday breakfast so thanked him kindly and told him I was fine. I've learned to make the fastest easiest biscuits in the world. Well, except for the kind that come out of the pop tube. The good thing about biscuits is that you can cut down the amount of ingredients to whatever you want for however many servings you want. If you're making biscuits for a crowd, you might want to use three cups of flour but if you're making them for one, you can use half a cup of flour. And then I bake them (or it) in the airfryer/toaster oven and they only take about ten minutes. They rise and brown and are lovely. So I baked myself two biscuits and cooked some bacon and heated up leftover grits from last night's fish supper and cooked one egg and it was perfect. It's held me all day.
Mr. Moon has been doing his usual post-duck-hunting thing which is to snooze in his chair in-between reading the newspaper. He deserves this time. He worked so many hours for so many years and was as involved in his family as he could have possibly been all the while. I look back on those years when the kids were young and his business was young and I can't imagine how we did it. How we survived intact. And yet we did and here we are, in our golden years which are not nearly as golden as one would think they'd be and thank god we have all this practice in surviving despite hard things because there are a million hard things about getting older. I guess the miracle is that we still make each other laugh, we are still kind to each other, we still accept each other as we are, we still have a lot of sweetness and even passion, and we still respect each other.
Mostly.
For whatever reason, I've been having dreams about my very first true love. I am not going to denigrate how kids feel about that first relationship because it's as real as rain. It may be fueled by hormones and an incredibly innocent and misunderstood definition of love, but no one forgets it. And some of the longest and best relationships I know of started in Jr. high or high school, were first loves and now fifty years or so later- obviously last loves.
Obviously I am not still with my first real sweetheart and I haven't really thought of him for years. But I can remember thinking that we would marry and live in a little stucco and tile-roofed house that I loved in Winter Haven. We had two friends who married very young because she was pregnant and their life in a tiny apartment seemed idyllic. Which of course, it wasn't, and they did not stay together for very long. But I so longed to live in a house that was truly a home where I was loved and could love freely. I desperately needed an escape. I think that many, many women get married for that very same reason.
Thankfully, I did not get pregnant, I did not marry that boy. He was a bit insane, I think, but so was I. I escaped by going to college in Denver, Colorado and that did not work out well but somehow it all ended up with me here, meeting Glen Moon.
Obviously I am not still with my first real sweetheart and I haven't really thought of him for years. But I can remember thinking that we would marry and live in a little stucco and tile-roofed house that I loved in Winter Haven. We had two friends who married very young because she was pregnant and their life in a tiny apartment seemed idyllic. Which of course, it wasn't, and they did not stay together for very long. But I so longed to live in a house that was truly a home where I was loved and could love freely. I desperately needed an escape. I think that many, many women get married for that very same reason.
Thankfully, I did not get pregnant, I did not marry that boy. He was a bit insane, I think, but so was I. I escaped by going to college in Denver, Colorado and that did not work out well but somehow it all ended up with me here, meeting Glen Moon.
So why these dreams now?
Oh, who knows? The brain giving me memories like Facebook does, perhaps.
Oh, who knows? The brain giving me memories like Facebook does, perhaps.
"Here. Remember this?"
Oh. Yes. Yes I do, now that I think about it, now that you've reminded me.
Oh. Yes. Yes I do, now that I think about it, now that you've reminded me.
But unlike FB memories, I have no longing to go back to that time except for perhaps the pure innocence and wonder at what it felt like to be in love and that close to another human being.
And surely, that's enough of that.
Love...Ms. Moon
you didn't mention whether Mr Moon was *duck* successful......but he deserves a nap, either way! I would never make biscuits just for myself, so kudos to you! And that throwback pic of the 3 grands......Levon is the one who has changed the most since that time, I think. Hope you are warm, sounds like cats are good.... we are oK w/ rain but not horrid cold.....fire going in woodstove.....pinto's simmering.....cornbread baked....and we've been binge watching Daniel Craig James Bond films all day. It's OK to be slothful for a day (or two) LOL!
ReplyDeleteSusan M
He and I don't discuss ducks much. That's just the way it is. Not sure why. And I don't know why someone would make themselves a biscuit if they wanted a biscuit and had the ability to do so. Why not? It's not very hard.
DeleteLevon has changed a lot but I still see that little imp in him now.
It's warmed up today considerably. But it's so gloomy!
Perhaps it's just the way my mind works but I often find myself pondering upon girls or women I met long ago. There was love and there was also potential love that slipped away like silvery fishes. I often want to slap myself and say, "Stop it! Stop wallowing in thoughts of the past. It has gone and you can never get it back. Look forward!"
ReplyDeleteWell, it's just human nature to look back. We have memories. Some of them fantastic, some sad, some so horrible that we've lost them for a good reason. It's the wallowing, I guess that's perhaps not healthy. I understand that.
DeleteAs usual, it's miss Maggie's dear little arm!! With the bracelet. It's perfect.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, Liz! She was a truly living doll at that age.
DeleteMy goodness....where did you go to school in Denver???
ReplyDeleteDU. Not good memories. Not entirely DU's fault.
DeleteI love those Facebook "memory" posts as they always make me smile at sweet times in my past. Time does fly by too quickly especially now when I feel age piling on. Your post reminded me of old friends that weren't actually boyfriends but "friend boys" as we used to call them. Guys that you could laugh with and flirt with and talk to. I miss some of those guys.
ReplyDeleteI had friend boys too, some whom I did truly love dearly although not in the romantic way. I think of them sometimes and smile.
DeleteWell...I guess that I don't have that. I think about people. I wonder how they are. I wonder if they've changed, as I have changed. I wish them well. I hope that they think of me sometimes and wish me well too.
ReplyDeleteWe're all so different. And your way of remembering may be healthier.
DeleteYour low last night was almost 10 degrees colder than ours up here in Boise. That must be some sort of record. Looks like you'll be warming back up starting tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteThose shopping cart photos are priceless. What little imps all three of those little bebes were. No longer bebes, still impish.
Chris from Boise, the weathernut
It was colder here than in Boise? That is crazy. It's warmed up today though.
DeleteI am so glad I got those shopping cart pictures. Some of the best photos I ever took of the kids were taken at Costco!
Those three certainly were and still are too sweet for words. I don't have any "first love" memories. I remember crushes and I've been married twice, but have never really "loved". Except for the children and grandchildren, but that's a different love.
ReplyDeleteReally, River? That makes me sad. Romantic love is in a different category for sure. I'm glad you've known the children and grandchildren kind.
DeleteI love that picture in Costco!!!! And I've thought over and over about first love and to be honest I think that my first love would have turned out to be a happy marriage, except that I was NOT staying in England and he wouldn't leave. He actually contacted me a few years back to say he was thinking about my dad and how good he was to him, since Mark lost his own dad at age 14. Funny how life works out isn't it!
ReplyDeleteLife is just one conundrum after another. You're right.
DeleteThat first Image is a Melt Your Heart one for sure!!! They do become the Bosses of us in so many ways, don't they? *Smiles* The Joys of a Child are so simplistic and us Adults could learn something from how much Joy can be had in something as simple as doing silly things like the Shopping Cart Images... tho' I'm sure we wouldn't fit anymore... which is a shame. *Ha ha ha*
ReplyDeleteI bet we could fit INSIDE a Costco shopping cart. Those things are huge. But fitting underneath would be a trick indeed.
DeleteOh, those kidlets sure are adorable. Great photos.
ReplyDeleteI don't have those sweet first blush of love memories from childhood because they were all girls and I was just going through the motions, doing what I was supposed to do.
Oh, Mitchell. That makes me so sad. And I know it's true- gay men and lesbians are often cheated out of first loves because of social and cultural bullshit. I'm sorry.
DeleteI occasionally have dreams about my first friend/boyfriend (the relationship was never very well defined). I wake up and think, "Where did THAT come from?!"
ReplyDeleteI too coveted a little stucco house with terra cotta roof in Winter Haven. I wonder if it was the same one?!
That photo with the feet is very cute!
These memories come from some damn warehouse in the deepest regions of our brains, I think. Sometimes the just need to pop out and get some air.
DeleteThe house I remember was in the middle of a rather empty block near some sort of huge power thing. As I recall. I doubt very much that it's still there. WH had a lot of nice little stucco houses.
I love those little sneaker feet.
I find myself rifling through memories a lot more as I get older. It's a strange thing but a common thing I'm guessing.
ReplyDeleteMy first live, I feel badly how I treated him. I was a histrionic young girl. Nough said.
I'm sure I was fairly histrionic too. I do think you're right- as we get older, it's almost like we are taking inventory of our lives.
Deleteit's why I got married to my first husband. it was the only way to escape out from under my father's thumb. If I'm being honest I knew when I married him that I would divorce him later. and then when I did I had to move back into my parent's house because I had no job and had been isolated out on the acre in the woods so no place to live either. but by then I was an independent adult and while my father tried to impose his rules and morality on me I shut it down pronto. I don't have dreams about my ex (who was not my first love anyway) or even think about him though occasionally I wonder if he's still alive or ODed. my first love was my high school boyfriend. we reconnected about 6 years ago via FB and the summer before the flood he was in Houston visiting a friend from HS and we sort of talked about meeting for lunch but when it came right down to it, I backed out. didn't really want to see him after all and revisit those times. there were reasons I broke up with him. although it took several times before it was permanent.
ReplyDeleteWhen I married my first husband I can remember thinking, "Well, we can always get divorced," which is never a good sign, is it?
DeleteI bet your father had no idea what to do with you. You were more daughter/woman than he could deal with.
My first boyfriend and I broke up several times too but then we would get back together. The breakup really occurred when I moved to Denver and he slept with one of my supposed best friends and then started a relationship with another woman. Oh my god, my heart was so broken. Shattered.