The Mircle Of Acceptance, Even Yes, Of The Very, Very Good

Even though it is definitely chilly, there is a very strong feeling of spring here. Could have something to do with the fact that things are blooming, just as they might in...spring.
Those are Japanese Magnolia, above, and they, like the camellias, are early bloomers.
And the redbud, which also chooses to open in flower before any real hint of heat arrives but which is a definite sign that it will.
I have seen the redbud blooming in other places in the area, but just noticed that my very own trees are blooming as well.

They are not a showy flower, the redbud, but more of a mist of color, if viewed from a distance.

I noticed that the dogwoods are even knobbing up

and that the trillium is opening. I love the trillium. It looks ancient and otherworldly to me.

I am so grateful that a former owner planted them here. The chickens scratch around them daily but leave them alone.

I woke up this morning, this chilly pre-spring morning, still achy and feeling slightly feverish, worrying about the play, but still with an overall feeling of okay-ness.
Jessie and Vergil were asleep upstairs, the house was quiet, Mr. Moon already gone to the gym and then to work, and birds were whistling outside my window a song which brought the word "spring" to my mind. I do not know my bird calls but after fifty-seven years on this planet, my mind associates certain bird songs with certain seasons, just as my skin can register the humidity and the simple feeling of the same. I cannot explain it. It just is, as I am sure many of you know and can recognize exactly what I am talking about. It's not unlike a good midwife who can walk into a room where a woman labors and know exactly where she is in her progress without having to check her dilation.

The calender may say winter, but the air and dirt and birds and bushes say spring. Or at least- spring-soon. That train has very much left the station.

And now Jessie and Vergil have eaten their breakfast and gone to town and again, I am alone and the house is quiet and I so grateful for this day of nothing-much-to-be-done in front of me. I have beans simmering on the stove for soup and I am going to warm my aching body in a tub of hot water as they cook. I am surrendering today. To my body's need for rest and for my mind's need for ease. I am making the soup as a therapy, which is one that works for me. The eating of it will not be anywhere nearly as restorative to me as the making of it. I have greens to go in it and tomatoes and deer sausage and a little bit of left0ver chicken. Garlic, onions, carrots, celery- they go without saying. And some sweet potatoes. I may grate some fresh ginger into it and I may not. We shall see.

There are years where spring comes before it is "time" and yet of course, whenever it comes is the right time. We can do nothing to change that and can only respond to it as do the birds and the dogwoods, the redbud and the buckeye. There are days when it would seem that there is much to do (I was invited to go to town to be with Jessie and Lily and Owen and Hank) but the wisest thing to do is to simply accept the fact that the body needs rest and to do that and also, to rest happy in the knowledge that my children are all in the same geographical area, the same one I am in, and to be glad that they are getting to spend time together. There is great peace in that for me. I do not have to participate in it to feel pleasure in it.

I can do nothing to change this play and its repetitive dialogue and subsequent dragging but I can study my lines and do my best with the part I have in it. I am only one of four in the play, I am not the director, nor did I write it. We will and have all done our best and it will get better as time passes and even in its imperfection, there were moments of magic in it for me last night and I readily acknowledge that.

You know, spring is a miracle whenever it happens and so are days when nothing much is required of me. I intend to take this miracle for what it is, even with the small aches and worries.

My children are all in town, my daughter Lily is beautiful and blooming with new life about to be born, I have spoken to my husband this morning and we love each other, there are beans simmering on the stove and chickens scratching around the emerging trillium and all of this fills me with great peace and gratefulness. The rest I will let go of as I truly cannot change much of any of it. I refuse to be frantic today. I refuse to obsess about the small things which are not perfect.

I sound like a walking serenity prayer, don't I? Well, so be it. For today that's plenty for me. It is quite obvious to me that today is a day to restoreth my soul.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Baby, Baby, We Can Hear Your Heartbeat. With Captain America

If Music Be The Food Of Love....

Well, it's all over except for the vat o' turkey soup in the refrigerator and a cooler with some oysters in it.
Okay, that and the new roll of fat that makes buttoning our jeans even more of a challenge. I swear, next year we're having pinto beans and rice for Thanksgiving dinner and maybe, if I'm feeling really productive, I'll make some cornbread and if you want dessert you can pour some syrup over a chunk of that.
I say this because despite the fact that on Thursday we had a feast that couldn't be beat, the real Thanksgiving, the good part, the sweetest part, the most magical and joyous part happened the night before and had nothing to do with turkey or sweet potatoes or even pecan pie.
There was food, but it was just a big bowl of pasta with jarred sauce and some salad. And a cooler full of oysters. There were beverages too.
But what made it so special and what made it so magic was the people and the music.
A sort of spontaneous party arose Wednesday night that made me about as happy as I've ever been in my life. The sort of party that almost never, in my experience, actually happens. The sort of party that warmed this old house and this old heart in ways I can't explain. There was family and sort-of-family and friends so old that they might as well be family and new people that are now family and we all had the very best time. I think everyone did, anyway. It sure seemed like it.
There was music- fiddle, guitar, mandolin and singing. There was dancing. There was hugging and oyster-eating and beer drinking and rum drinking and soda drinking and there was a lot of laughter and there was a lot of light and the dogs went from lap to lap, getting the overflow of the love.
It reminded me of the old days when we were younger and music was made for the joy of it and the babies were little and our hearts were lighter and our feet were too. The babies have grown up and it brings me more joy than I can say to have them sing and play and dance to the old songs with us old folks. Really, more than I can say.
It was the kind of night that I wished could never end, but of course it had to. The musicians played Good Night Irene and we all sang and then begged for ONE more and we got it, but then it was really time for the instruments to be put away. Folks started thinking about the turkeys they had to get in the oven the next morning and the pies they had to make and so it all ended. There were more good hugs and promises for same-time-next-year and drive carefully's and my husband washed the dishes and we all made a desultory attempt to bag up the bottles and cans and paper plates and then it was time for bed.
I laid there awake for a few minutes, buzzing with it all. I thought about how good it had been to see folks that I've known and loved since high school, about how proud I am that my ex-husband and his wife and my husband and I are all good friends and how our kids have benefited from that. I thought about how precious it was to see my daughter playing music with folks I've been lucky enough to listen to for over thirty years. I thought about how wonderful it had been to meet a few new people whom I felt like I'd known forever. I thought about how I'd been wanting to have a party like this since I laid eyes on this house. And I thought about how damn lucky I am. How rare it is to have an evening where so many parts of the whole cloth of a life come together to make one vibrant, glowing quilt of joy.
It was as if the whole map of my life had been laid out right there on my back porch and I could trace the history of it through this person, through that bloodline, all the while listening to the songs that have made me happy for a lifetime. The songs that may have, at one time or another, saved my life, played by the people who may have done the same.
And then I slept in my house where all my children were, and when I woke up I felt the same way.
I still do.
You just can't get better than that. The feast we had the next day was terrific and the people there were other parts of the quilt, the map, the whole of my life, but it was different. It was more work and less music, more clean-up and less joy. It was more about the food and less about the love.
But I got both parts and that makes me just about the luckiest woman on earth. Friends and family that blur into one, along with a feast.
And now I have the memories and the turkey soup and it's really good turkey soup. And the oysters, which I will make into some oyster stew tonight for my husband. He loves oyster stew because his mama used to make it for him. He swears she didn't put a thing in that stew but oysters, cream, butter, salt and pepper. I am almost congenitally unable to make a dish so simple, but I'll try to recreate his mother's oyster stew as best as I can because I know what it's like to taste something that brings back the memories of happy times. His mama and daddy are gone now but I can hopefully bring them back in his heart just a little with the taste of salty oysters, sweet butter and black pepper.
Because food is love. And music is love. And on Wednesday night, everywhere I looked was love. I drank it in, it filled my heart and it spills out now.
I swear, I could have done like my dogs and gone from lap to lap. Well, maybe not. Only dogs can get away with that sort of thing. We poor humans have to get ours in other, a bit more subtle ways.
But we clumsy humans do get it sometimes. Sometimes, we do.
Wednesday night I sure did.
And it has left me filled with Thanks-giving in a way that pecan pie never will.

One Week's Life Lessons

This is what I've learned this week so far ( and it's only Saturday!):

I love the empty nest so much it's almost embarrassing. Why did it take me so long to raise these young'uns up?

Places that sell wedding dresses are a world unto themselves and they all have a riser for the bride-to-be to stand on with mirrors all around them to that they will feel like a queen when they are trying on the dresses AND that when they put that veil on the magic is complete. Also, that for some reason, the veil can cost almost as much as the dress. Throw in a tiara, and it does. Let us not discuss shoes, jewelry and so forth.

Even the daughters of old hippie mothers sometimes want to have Cinderella weddings, which completely confuses and baffles the old hippie mothers who may have gotten married in a skirt made of a pair of men's Levis back in the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

They aren't kidding when they tell you it works best if you write every day.

For some reason it is more important that the septic drains be cleared at the house on Dog Island than it is for the roof to be fixed on the house where I live. This fact was proven to me when the husband took off for the island this morning dragging the boat behind him, leaving me here with a leaky roof. And what's the deal with those fishing poles, honey?

The combination of exhaustion from watching a daughter try on wedding dresses and too much to drink does not lead to gourmet cooking.

Friends who really love you will not complain or criticize you when you do not present them with gourmet cooking after having too much to drink while being exhausted.

Husbands who really love you will wash the dishes after you overcooked the beautiful flounder they caught, due to exhaustion and having too much to drink.

I can make really good sourdough bread, even if I'm exhausted and have had too much to drink.

I love life the most when I eat right, exercise regularly, write every day, don't have too much to drink, and don't leave Jefferson County.

It is possible for a child to be too honest with her mother. For example, telling her mother that yes, she IS too old to be playing the part of Yvonne in the upcoming production of Casablanca, and that's just the truth.

The Marseillaise is a song that will stick in your head like peanut butter to the roof of a dog's mouth.

It is a glorious thing when the oppressively hot days of August give way to the cooler days of September and you can feel the breath of fall all the way from Canada where it is waiting for its cue to start moving down.

When you somehow manage to cram a chest of drawers into the back of a Mini Cooper and it leaves just a few tiny brown marks on the car's interior, your husband may not congratulate you on your ingenuity.

Magic eraser really IS magic!

Sometimes when a teenager doesn't talk to her mother for almost an entire year, it is not because she doesn't love her mother. It is because she has gotten her tongue pierced and doesn't want her mother to notice this.

When those teenagers grow up, they sometimes tell you things like this when you take them shopping for wedding dresses.

Somehow it looks better to wear a wedding dress that displays your tattoos prominently that to wear one that sort-of but not really hides them.

Girls who get tattoos still sometimes want wedding dresses that look like something from a Disney movie.

Same as above for girls who get their tongues pierced.

Sleeping with two dogs on the bed is not as much fun as you might think.

I would rather be at home on my porch watching the bird feeder than almost anywhere else on earth.

There are some mighty fine people out there in the Tallahassee blogger's world.

And one more thing I've just learned:

Don't do a google-image search for "tattooed bride" with safe search off before your first cup of coffee.

Reality Check Please!

After those last few posts about child-bearing and how amazing and holy and wonderful it is to be a mother, I had a real reminder of what it's like to actually have a child (or children) around the house 24 hours a day and the experience sort of kicked my ass.

Let me just say that my youngest is eighteen so it's been quite a while since I was the actual mother of an actual baby or toddler. We can all do that math. And I remember it as being fairly difficult and thinking that if I didn't get some sleep pretty soon I might die. And I do remember having a very real fantasy, detailed and rich, about what I'd do if I could get away and spend a night all by myself in a hotel. I mean, I knew what the bed would look and feel like, I dreamed about those curtains that don't let one slip of light into a room, I even knew what the soap would smell like if I got oh, say 18 hours to myself to bathe in privacy and sleep an entire night.

I'd say this was strange, but I've heard other mothers report the same fantasy. Forget Brad Pitt, if most mothers of small children had the opportunity to spend the night in a hotel without their children, they'd opt for the time in sweet, sacred solitude.

So I know it's hard but like they say about childbirth- I had sort of forgotten the pain.

A friend of mine who has two children, however, stayed with me this past weekend while our men went off to the Father's Day fishing tournament and all of a sudden, the whole business of what it's like to have little ones came back to me with startling clarity. And let me just say this- it's harder than hell!

This friend is an amazing stay-at-home mom and her children are two-years old and five months old and boy, does she have her hands full. Her husband is out of town more than half the time with work and she is mostly alone with the children. Frankly, I don't know how she does it and weirder yet- I don't know how I did it.

Her children are darling and smart and cute and wonderful and I love them so much I could die, but the amount of care they take is positively mind-blowing. If the two-year old isn't crying because she needs a nap but thinks she wants to watch Shrek for the eighteenth time in three days, the baby is crying because he can't get his hands and mouth on everything within eyesight. And babies have really good eyes, let me just say. And a much longer reach than you could possibly imagine that anyone with six-inch arms could have.

Over the course of the weekend, we made about a thousand snacks, cleaned up about fifty spit-ups, cooked about thirty regular meals, did about twenty-two loads of laundry, got the dogs off one child or another (my dogs love babies) at least once every ten minutes, sang songs, read kid books, filled the kiddie pool, went blueberry picking, went to Lake Ella, experimented with what a five-month old could eat, watched the aforementioned Shrek over and over and over, and went to see a production of The Three Little Pigs in Monticello. And I was totally exhausted and the mama did at least ten times the amount of all of the above than I did, plus nursed the baby and changed the diapers. One or both of them would be in tears and she'd look at me and say, "Who knew?"

I think that's the thing- if anyone really knew what taking care of babies and young children was like, they'd say, "Uh, not for me. Thanks!" I mean, this friend knows what hard work is. She worked in the very real world for years before she had children and handled that fine. Now, however, she walks around from one crisis to another with a look of baffled exhaustion on her face, wondering how in the world she'll get to bedtime without jumping off a bridge. And yet, nothing in the world makes her as happy as the sight of one of her children smiling and she thinks (she thinks she thinks, anyway) that it's all quite worthwhile and she wouldn't trade a minute of it.

I kept telling her that it would all get easier and it does. Sort of. It gets different, anyway.

And as they grow up, you do get more sleep.

But the whole experience reminded me of why I prize my time alone so much and fight for it so fiercely. Why I am still exhausted. Why I can't always follow an entire thought through from start to finish. I mean, I had FOUR kids.

They left yesterday when the men got back from fishing, to go home to Tampa and my house is once again relatively quiet, the dishes are all washed, there are no bits of zwieback glued to my shirt, and once again I can be ignorant of the line-up on the Disney channel and can cook a meal without worrying about stepping on a baby playing on the kitchen floor. I miss those babies and I'm so glad I got to know them and hug them and love on them and be with them and their mama for a few days. It was a wonderfully chaotic and terrific few days.

But boy, am I glad I've been there and done that and that it's someone else's turn now.