A Birthday Gathering And A Video From Cuba

Despite my vow that I was not going to be leaving Lloyd for at least a week, I somehow managed to go to Tallahassee twice today. Once to go to the store and once to go out to supper for Boppy's birthday. Not all of us could be there. Jason and Hank are working and of course Jessie is in Asheville still (STILL!) with Vergil and August but May and Michael and Lily and her children came and we were a merry party despite our missing lovies.
There's a beautiful picture of May holding Magnolia June. Two beautiful girls.
I could not for the life of me get a picture of the boys and Maggie with their grandfather on his birthday. I took four pictures with them posing but they were all just about ridiculous and the one I liked okay, Mr. Moon insisted that I delete. The man is as vain as I am.

Here's a cropped picture though of Gibson and his sister in Boppy's lap.

I got the boys hats from Cuba and of course they really have no idea of the significance but I told Owen that they are very rare and that probably very, very few boys in the United States own one of these hats. He took that in stride and they both wore them with great panache if you ask me. 

Maggie wanted to chew on them. Of course. 

I am very, very tired tonight and aching in all parts of this old bad ass body but I did figure out how to upload a video to Youtube which I took of a song that Lis did at Fabrica de Arte Cubano on Sunday night. I took the video from a doorway and of course the sound is not what it could be. The room was like a bunker, all cement, but the sound guys did the very best they could and the bouncers shushed people if they were talking. The point was to listen. And so we did. 

So I give this to you and it sums up a whole lot of what the trip was about. Sharing art, sharing culture, sharing hearts. Some of the musicians which we'd seen perform while we were eating supper the night before came to hear the Americans. This is a thing I learned about Cubans- they don't say they'll "try" to do something. If they say they'll do it, they will, and these guys did. Lis had given one of them her CD and when he came to see her the next night, he gave her a tiny oil painting that he had done of her using her picture on the CD cover as a guide. 

Such beautiful people. 

Here's the video. Jim Quine (the photographer I linked before we left) and Elisabeth Williamson. 

My mind and heart are full of Cuba

even as I sit here on the back porch of my own sweet home in the south.

And now, time to rest, to sleep, to dream of it all.

Love...Ms. Moon

I learned yesterday, via Facebook of course, that my Aunt Harriet died. This was my mother's brother Davis's wife. Both of Mother's brothers, Davis and Jimmy, died before Mother did and Jimmy's first wife died years ago. His second wife is still alive, I do believe. 

We are not a close family but it is sad to think of all of that generation being gone now. I have a picture of Jimmy and Davis and Mother when they were children, Mother actually just a baby. It's one of the few things I kept of Mother's. It was always on her dresser and when her mind started to lose some of its connections, she would show it to me every time I came to visit her.
"Have you ever seen this picture?" she would ask me. "I love it." And she would touch it with her fingertips.

My mother loved her childhood. She never wearied of telling me stories about growing up on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. Her brothers were the loves of her life. After her father, that is, who never, as long as she lived to tell, could do any wrong in her eyes. Except for one thing. He was too harsh by far with her brother Davis. That, she would admit. Davis was the middle child. His older brother, Jimmy, was by all accounts a golden boy. He had talent in art and excelled in school. He was well-behaved and everyone adored him. And Mother was the baby and the apple of her father's eye and the only girl so she never had to fight for attention. But Davis- well, tucked into the middle there where he was and with a wicked sense of humor which often found its target in pranks which got him into trouble, there was no way he could ever get the validation of his father the way the other two could. And he suffered for it and he got punished for trying (I am playing armchair psychologist here) to get his parents' attention any way he could. I'm sure that my grandfather believed in "spare the rod and spoil the child" and when it came to Davis, he did not spare that rod at all.

Even Mother admitted that. 

It's so odd. I remember when I was a child and we would all get together, my grandparents, my mother and my brother and me, her brothers and their wives and children. We would usually all meet up in Vero Beach, Florida at the Sea Cove Cottages, long since gone.  

We would play in the Atlantic and on the beach and in the pool, we would sleep sandy and close in the little bedrooms. And I, who had no father and whose mother was so unhappy, would look at my aunts and my uncles and their families and I would think how happy they looked. How perfect my cousins' lives appeared to me. No. That's a lie. Not perfect. Just normal. And normal seemed perfect to me then. 

Of course, as I've grown older, I've learned that my cousins' lives were far from perfect but I still think so fondly back to those vacations, to my aunts and uncles, to my cousins. Two of them are gone now too. One, my cousin Bruce, Harriet and Davis's son, who died years ago from cancer, and before he died, his sister, Maryanne, who was murdered.  

So much tragedy. How do we humans contain it all? I do not know. And then, we die. Not to be shallow or anything. But it is the way of it. 

Harriet actually visited in this house. She had come down to spend time with Mother not long after we moved here and she and Mother came out one Sunday morning for pancakes. I'm glad I got to see her. Despite all of the sorrow and horror she had had to face in her life along with some serious health problems, she was upbeat. She was cheerful. She loved my house. 

Family.

And speaking of, I spent a good part of the day today with Lily and Owen and Gibson. We went to Target. 

That's what Gibson looked like wearing a barbecue chef's hat, drinking an Icee. 

Owen was wearing his Power Rangers costume which looks like this.

Lily had taken that picture earlier when he was posing before doing his death-defying leap off of her headboard onto the bed which gives me a little heart-attack every time he does it. 

Besides Target we also went to the Big Library, which is what we call the main branch, lunch at Welcome-To-Moe's, and Publix. It was a long day and by the end of our time in Publix, Owen wanted to get out of there and get home. "I feel like I'm breaking," he said. 

"I do too," I told him. "Hang on. We're about done."

One of the things I realize about being a grandmother is that I have a lot in common with my grandsons. I don't really care what other people think and I like to wear whatever makes me happy. And when I hear music, I like to dance, no matter where I am. 

And I hope that my grandsons remember these things about me. I remember things about my own grandfather, born in 1888, that are as present to me as what I did yesterday. Perhaps this is a sign of older age. I don't know. I remember how when it was time to go to bed and I was six years old, he never kissed me, but would show all the affection he could show by brushing my face with his own bristly face. 

It wasn't perfect and I have no idea if it was normal, but it was him and he showed me the pictures in his National Geographic books and I remember that too, especially the picture of Early Man hunting the Wooly Mammoth. I will probably think about that picture on my deathbed. That, and my grandfather's bristly face. 

Family. Again and always. The way the DNA entwines and ladders itself forever and ever as long as the blood shall survive. 

Good night, y'all. 

Happy Friday. Be at peace, Aunt Harriet. 

Love...Ms. Moon

It Is My Baby's Birthday

It is Jessie Moon's 24th birthday today. I think that at right this moment, she is flying somewhere over the Atlantic, maybe, flying home from her honeymoon, her sweet husband by her side.

At her wedding, what I wrote and read for them

 started out, as is appropriate, with her birth which was a rainy day, a day where magnolias bloomed, a day when all of my brothers and all of Jessie's siblings and my dearest friends were with me and her father when she was born, a day where, after her birth, the sky cleared and a rainbow appeared.
Sounds unlikely, doesn't it?
Well. That is just the way it happened.
I also talked about dancing. I talked about how Jessie has always been a dancing girl and how she and Vergil dance so beautifully together and how they should always, always keep dancing. In the times of light and in the times of darkness and how in those darker times, they should hold each other especially closely to that they can help each other to find the rhythm again, should it go missing. Because no one knows what the years will deliver but that if they just keep dancing together, it will be all right.
And I believe that with all of my heart.

It's my baby's birthday. She is newly wed. The twenty four years of her life have gone by like a finger snap for me. Like the lighting of a candle and a flame growing up a wick, bringing light.

I've been going back through pictures and of course I'm in tears. If you were here with me, I would show you hundreds of pictures and I would tell you the stories and the stories would involve all of us, her brother, her sisters, her father, me, our shared beloved friends, and then this great love story of her meeting and courting and being courted by Vergil.

Well. Here are a few of those pictures. I have no idea why I've chosen them above all the others but as always, I am just going with my gut. Together they tell a little bit of the story of her life. So far.

Me and that girl, a long time ago. Dog Island.

Jessie and her best friend, Melissa, also on Dog Island. Melissa was one of her bridesmaids. They have been friends and sister-friends and bandmates for forever and ever.

In high school. A picture of the Cicada Ladies being born.

Jessie and her daddy, again, in high school.

With her fairy godparents, Lon and Lis, when she got the mandolin which Lon had made for her. 

Dancing with Vergil in our hallway, the first time he came to visit.

With our dearly beloved Colin who loved her so much and who had to come and check out this Vergil guy. He approved of the Vergil guy. All was good. 

With Owen, the day after he was born.

When she graduated from FSU Nursing School with Miss Nana, her favorite teacher, a woman who had been my favorite teacher when I was in nursing school before Jessie was born.

Jessie and Vergil sitting on the front steps of their house in Asheville right after they moved in.

The day after Gibson's birth when he was still a crumpled little monkey. 

With her sisters right before she got married.

With her husband, right after she got married. 

Jessie and her grandmother, who shared her birthday. I think this is from the year that Jessie turned seventeen and Mother turned 79. Something like that. This is the first birthday of her life that Jessie will not be sharing the day with her grandmother who adored her. I hope it is not too much of a sadness in her heart because in truth, her grandmother is finally and at last in peace and at rest and all of the suffering and unhappiness of her last years are over.

She would be so proud of Jessie. Of that there is no doubt.

It is my baby's birthday. She was born to me twenty-four years ago and she has been light and love and joy ever since. I imagine she always will be. She is a dancing girl. She has found a partner to dance with throughout life. She is dancing her way home across the ocean to us from countries far away where she, I feel certain, has danced joyfully with her fella. She will come home and she will continue to do her own unique and light-filled dance as she works with mother and babies, as she tends the home she and Vergil have made, as she perhaps eventually births her own babies. 

Then she will begin to know how much she is loved. Although, actually, I think she has an inkling already.

Happy birthday, my darling, dancing girl. Happy birthday to Mean Aunt Jessie. Happy birthday to my back-pocket baby.

You are loved. 

Our Birthday Boy

 Owen is three today. Three years old. How is this even possible? 
And when I ask that question, I don't mean how did he get to be three so quickly, what I mean is- he's only been here for three years? On this earth? In our lives?

When I had my first child, I realized that in some way, in some realm, it seemed as if he had always, always been here. Yes, of course I could remember the time before when he wasn't, but, somehow, once I'd met him, I realized that in some way, he had always been here. Just not palpable, perhaps, but still, very much a part of my universe. And I am not a woo-woo person. It just surely felt that way.
And then did again when each of my babies were born and now, I have the same feeling about Owen and his brother Gibson, too.

Yes, their physical presence is relatively new, but their spirits- well. Let's just say that I recognized them immediately at their births.

Three years ago today. There they were. The brand new family. Don't Lily and Jason look like, "Yep, he's here! Our Owen is finally here!"?

So now, of course, I've just been going through old pictures and my god, the child has been such a happy and beautiful little soul for his entire life. 

Every stage of it. I could put one million pictures in here because that's how many I have. Not so many lately because he's learned to hate the camera. But occasionally he will still pose. Mostly with his brother. 

He's so gorgeous, that grandson of mine and he's brought us so much joy. Not just his mama and his daddy but his Mer-Mer and his Boppy, of course. He snatched our hearts out and kept them in his pocket from his first breath.

And of course, his uncle and aunties all adore him. In fact, Owen's entire life has been about being adored. 

 And I think that has a lot to do with the kind of person he is which is a wild, loving person. A curious and demanding and sweet and funny and glorious kind of person.

Yesterday he told his mama that he loves Baby and that he does not want her to put him back in her belly but that we should keep him always.

We feel the same about Owen.

We shall keep him always and he shall keep us. He and his brother both are the latest and most tangible of the heartstrings which bind us all together because in adoring them, we adore each other and we see the love in ever more visible ways.

Happy Birthday, Owen Curtis Hartmann. You are three years old. As impossible as that seems, it is the truth.

You are loved. You are beloved. You are our destiny, our fate, and our joy.

Happy, happy birthday. We'll see you tonight.

Love...Mer Mer

Much Better Than I Said It Or Will Ever Say It.

http://allwriteythen.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-girl.html

A Dream Of A Day On The River

We had about the most lovely day on the river imaginable. It didn't storm and we saw turtles and maybe a snake. The water was as clear as water can be and spring-fed cold. We went swimming. Well, some of us. Owen didn't. We put his feet in the water and he screamed. But then he recovered and kept looking at us in the water like, "Where are your BODIES?" He was delighted at the magic trick of disappearing bodies and smiling faces.

When we were swimming, a boat pulled up with two people and a dog in it. The woman turned out to be someone I've known since, well, before May was born. A long, long time. And I've never really enjoyed her company. She's, well, she's sort of crazy and she's a hyper-critical person. I'm not really criticizing her here, that is just the way she is. Always has been. Always will be. Her form of communication is to share her disdain about something with you. Or some one.
In other words, not a pleasant person to be around and here we were having the times of our lives in the boat and in the river and suddenly, there's this woman.
We talked for a moment and she asked if Owen was my grandson and I told her that yes, he was. She said that her daughter has moved to Atlanta and so she never gets to see her grandchildren and in fact, is not allowed to see them.

I don't know who I felt more sorry for- her or her daughter or her grandchildren because obviously, there's a reason when a child decides not to allow her mother to see her children whether it's a control issue or due to resentment or, well, there could be a million reasons and whatever the reasons are in this case, it just makes me sad that things can get so out of whack in a family that a situation like that arises.

I looked at my family, all around me, laughing and teasing each other, Hank holding on to Owen, Taylor sitting on the dock, Lily, Jason, Jessie, May and Mr. Moon and me in the water, and it struck me once more how unbelievably lucky I am.

My kids love to hang out with each other. Their memories of childhood and growing up are mostly good memories. I don't think any one of them holds any huge grudges or resentments against another. And I don't even think they hold any against me or Mr. Moon, either.

And look- we're not the perfect family by any means. God KNOWS I've made my mistakes. And continue to do so. And the kids all went through teenaged stuff and there were worries and there were fears and there were hard, hard times.
But I think the bottom line was that there was never a time when the kids doubted that we loved them. Never a time when they didn't know in their hearts and souls that we had their backs. That I was there for whatever and their daddy was there for that and whatever else.

And frankly, we still are.

And now here we are with this new boy and it's like he belongs to all of us. Not in the sense that Lily and Jason aren't definitely and without a doubt his parents and always will, but in the sense that he is OF us and that he is here with us and that we are all here for him. And oh, how he delights us.

We saw some darling little cottages on the river and the children started teasing their daddy about how he should build each of the kids one of those on our property and we could all live together.

"Fine with me," I said, "As long as everyone doesn't come to my house when they run out of toilet paper."
"Oh, we wouldn't do that," said Jason. "But we could come over every night for family dinner."

Mmmmm.... I thought. Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

But in a way, wouldn't that be wonderful? I said that everyone could have a place for Owen to sleep and he could just pick a bed in whichever relative's house he wanted to stay in each night. We all agreed that would be sweet.
And of course I seriously doubt that is going to happen.
But isn't it precious that the kids would even talk about it? That they would think it was a good idea?

I've always said that when I was growing up if I had one dream, it was the dream of having a family like the one I'd always wanted and never had. A family where there were no big, poisonous secrets. A family where there really was love at the bottom and the top and in the middle. A family where arms are wrapped around each other and where you always know you have a place to be, to rest, to recover, to be nurtured, to have fun, to be goofy, to cry. Whatever you need. Someone will be there for you. Always.
Someone will cherish you and patch you up and cheer you up and share the joke and make you a sandwich and change a diaper and let you bitch and tell you you are beautiful, you are wise, you are light in and of itself.

I have that family.

I have that family.

And for those of you who did not grow up in a family like the one I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. And for those of you who did, perhaps you know the miracle of it too. I hope so. And I hope you don't take it for granted.
Because there is nothing on this earth which can make you as strong as having a group of people who know and love you to your innermost core, the very depths of your soul.

I am allowed to see my grandson. And I am allowed to take care of him. I am allowed to love him as purely and irrationally as I do.

Yeah.

So when I'm posting pictures of my family, of my husband and my children and my grandchild, I am not just posting pictures of the people I am related to.

I am posting pictures of the only real dream I ever had, come true and visible and tangible and real.

I am posting pictures of the miracle of my life.

Amen.

This. This I never even could have dreamed. I didn't have the means.


The man who asks for this trip down the river with his family to celebrate his birthday. My eldest, my one-of-a-kind, incredibly wise, gentle, loving son.

My May who walks in grace and in light. Who is more like me than is good for her.

My Lily and my Jessie. Strong and tall and funny and loving and smart and hard-working and beautiful.

Jason and Owen. Jason has turned out to be the best daddy Owen could ever have. I am in awe of the way he loves and takes care of that boy. He calls me "Mom." Nothing could make me happier.

Owen in his Aunt Jessie's arms and our Tay-Tay in the background. She is family too.

This is what love can make.

This is how love can be.

This is what love looks like to me, the luckiest woman in the world.

When Tribes Combine

Well, we are home.

I am the lame and the halt but I am home. It would appear that dancing like nobody is watching is good as a philosophy but not so good if you have a tendon problem that has almost but not entirely healed up. Usually it's my knee I wreck when I dance these days I guess my knee must be healthier than my foot because I am back limping and in pain again but what can you do? Dancing must be done at weddings and especially if martinis are involved and a good band (I was told that the lady-singer was one of Jimi Hendrix's back-up singers and I believe it) and your daughter and husband both dance and well, okay, that's that story. Also I slammed two of my fingers in the car door when we got home although they seem fine, just a little weird looking.
Here's a picture which Jessie will hate of us dancing with the groom who is just about the cutest fellow in the western hemisphere:

You can see that by this time my hair was DOWN. All those pins in it were sticking my head. What you can't see is that by that time my shoes were off.
Hair down, shoes off. Hmmmm....

This was definitely the most, uh, well, how do I put this? Overwhelming wedding reception I've ever attended. God it was beautiful. It was a bit rainy so there were huge giant tents and the first tent was the BAR TENT and it had clear plastic and was about the size of a cathedral. Here's a picture of Mr. Moon and me in it front of some of the drape decorations which had to have been made from silk. You could of made fifty gorgeous wedding dresses from those things.

I kept sidling up to them and just feeling them.
You can see that my hair was still UP at that point. My shoes were still on too.

There was so much food. And wait staff everywhere. And bars in every tent. And the porta potties were far more luxurious than most bathrooms. There were flowers and sinks and rugs in those things. I took pictures with my phone but you will be spared those today.

But you know, when it all comes down to it, it's all about family. So here's some family pictures:


Mr. Moon and his sister, the mother of the groom. She not only looks like Lily, she acts just like her too. Very methodical, calm, and serene about everything. I am in awe of her. Her husband died a few years ago and she is carrying on with a strength and acceptance I would never be able to manage. Ever.

Here's a beautiful picture of her and Jessie. Aren't they beautiful?


And this one, my favorite, of her and her son, the groom, dancing.



Yes, they're crying. Grant cries at the drop of the hat. He couldn't even give his little speech at the rehearsal dinner. He tried twice, but neither time was he able to pull it off. When he had to give the toast at his brother's wedding a few years ago, he cried so hard I thought he was going to simply melt and fall over. And he's like six-foot-eight. I mean, how cute is THAT? Pretty darn cute. And precious.

And the bride? Well, let's just say that I can't even THINK the word "cocksucker" in her presence. Could you? I feel sort of guilty just typing it out. She is so sweet and she works with the families of dying children in a hospital. Please. So no, I said nothing at all inappropriate around her. I'm pretty sure.


It was a late night. I hear the bride and groom got one hour of sleep this morning before having to be at the airport to head off for their honeymoon. It's going to take them the entire six days to get over the wedding, I feel fairly certain. I sure do wish them the best. They're so beautiful.

We got up early this morning to visit with Brenda as she was packing up and then Payton and her mommy and daddy came in and Jessie gave Payton her bottle and Payton gave us her smiles. Here's a picture of Payton, her daddy, and her great-uncle Mr. Moon. Mr. Moon is upset because he looks so much shorter than the daddy and I'm sure he would like you to know that he is not wearing shoes, while Greg is. Also, he is in his pajama bottoms and he's probably going to hate me for not cropping those out.
Too bad.

Plus, May made Mr. Moon those pants. And he loves them.

Here's one last picture of some of the beautiful family I married into:

Beautiful AND tall. My goodness. I am such a midget around them. I sort of get lost beneath them, like a scrub palmetto in a pine forest. But they are kind to me and let me hang there, beneath their mighty height and they cast me smiles and do not not forget to invite me to gatherings and they seem to appreciate how I take care of Mr. Moon and have created two very tall daughters who are obviously of their tribe.

And they are a grand and loving family and this girl who has just married into it, this obviously beloved daughter of an obviously well-off southern family, doesn't know it but that is probably the best stroke of luck of her life- becoming one of them too.

I know it was for me.

And here I am, home in Lloyd where it's November 22nd and it's seventy-something degrees and Mr. Moon is already out in the woods, hoping for a deer because he wants to put meat in the freezer and I'm going to make some venison spaghetti tonight and we're home. We survived. I never did feel as if I belonged in that setting of the society of Dothan but I did feel at home when we were watching Payton and when we were hanging out with the relatives.

I'm tired, but I feel far better than I probably should, having just yes, survived those social events. My foot may be painful but it's that way because I danced and there are worse ways to injure a foot. There are also worse ways to spend a weekend than in Dothan, Alabama with people whom you may feel shy around, but who are kind to you even if you are small, dance with too much abandon, talk about chickens and her grandchild endlessly, drink too many martinis and wear the wrong shoes.

When you actually have them on.

Bless their hearts. I love them so.