What Is Best For the Empty Nest?

When a woman gets pregnant, her body is no longer her own. It is taken over by what some may call "the developing fetus" but which I will call the alien life form. And everything the mother-to-be does or eats or inhales or takes or thinks or does has to be considered with the perspective of what will this do to the baby?
Not to mention the fact that her up-until-now familiar organs will no longer function as they have done for her entire life as the burgeoning life form within her grows and takes over. Her intestinal system will not be the reliable and trouble-free bit of plumbing she has always known. Her bladder will be squeezed and punched and kicked from the inside. Her stomach will be pushed up into her chest and heartburn will become a part of her life experience.
Her entire blood volume will increase by approximately fifty percent, resulting in headaches that cannot be treated because medication can affect the baby.
FIFTY PERCENT, PEOPLE!
Her hormones will go off the charts in ways she's never considered, making her do insane things like scream at her beloved husband, weep with despair over Publix commercials, have dreams that would make a Freudian analyst furrow his brow with worry, go out and buy a washing machine, and eat combinations of strange foods she would never consider eating pre-pregnancy.
Ankles swell as will bellies. Belly buttons pop. Stretch marks appear. Tiny fists and butts will be seen through the skin of the belly, punching, rolling, and generally traveling across the plains of the uterine wild west.
Then the baby is born. This requires a complete and utter giving up of any sort of control on the part of the mother as her body contracts and opens, squeezes and pushes and causes her the most unbearable pain she can imagine.
And then, and THEN, folks, the sight and sound and feel of her new baby completely rearrange the mother's heart, soul, and life.
And thus, it has truly begun.
The mother cannot sleep unless the baby is asleep, no matter how weary and psychotically tired she may be. The mother's breasts become engorged with milk that her tender and darling child will drink with lips and gums and a sucking strength that it is impossible to believe could have developed without Olympian training while in the womb. Her hormones will do another complete flip as she transitions from being a pregnant woman to a nursing mother. She will weep at the thought of babies in orphanages. She will weep at the thought that her baby will grow up. She will weep at the thought that her baby will never grow up. She will be overwhelmed, fatigued beyond belief, and hungrier than forty-five billion locusts. She will fall so in love with her child that she will truly believe that her love is stronger and more real than any mother's love in the history of primates. She will also believe that her child is more precious, more special, more beautiful, charming, intelligent, advanced and just plain HOLY than any child ever born, even counting Jesus.
Thank God she feels this way because her schedule, her wardrobe, her privacy, her thoughts and passions and very life will no longer be dictated by her own needs and desires, but by those of her child which would be completely unacceptable if her child weren't more special even than Jesus. And then, if she has more than one, she thinks the same thing about each and every child.
This belief does not completely fade, either, even when the teenaged years begin. This fierce and abiding love hangs on so strongly that the mothers of our species do not do what would seem to be the sensible thing to do and just kick the children out into the snow, but instead, she continues to love them and fret about them and buy them school supplies and pay for therapy.
This goes on until the very last child moves out of the house. And by the time this happens, the mother has quite possibly lived under the dictates of these children for far longer than she did under her own.
Which brings us to the point of this little essay- what happens when those children move out? What happens when they no longer need her to attend to their every need? What happens when a woman can decide what to do with her time, her life, her diet without having to think about what the children might need?
I'm not sure.
Although my fourth and last baby moved out of the house (sort of) six entire months ago, I have just recently realized that I have no idea how to live my life without being needed by a child.
And I'm sort of freaking out.
Throw in menopause and general life changes that are associated with (Oh God!) aging and let me tell you- it gets weird.
Here I am, on a Sunday night, and my husband is away and I am living the dream of a mother-with-small-children, which is to say I can do anything in the entire world I want to. I could eat pancakes for dinner or stay up and drink vodka all night long if I wanted to, or go to bed right this second or paint a picture or write a book or READ a book or watch an R-Rated or an old Bette Davis movie or play Bruce Springsteen really loud or take a bubble bath or, well, I'm about out of ideas.
The thing is- I can do whatever I want, which is what I've been dreaming about for all those years and frankly, I'm not sure what to do.
And why should I know what I want to do? I haven't had that option for thirty-one years.
Phew.
It's a process. And I'm not getting through it real fast.
But here's what I know- all of life is a process and just as we get used to one situation or circumstance, everything changes. As soon as you gather the knowledge and skills to deal with one thing, that thing changes and you need an entirely new set of skills and knowledge.
Being really good at breastfeeding doesn't help at all when your child brings home a fellow wearing an Insane Clown Posse T-shirt.
Insane Clown Posse?
And learning what to do about that doesn't help when you're all alone on a Sunday night and the world is your oyster and you have no idea where the oyster knife is.
But I'll tell you this- it's exciting. It's not boring. And I never thought I'd live this long.
So I'm not complaining. I'm just saying.
Wow.
And I'm grateful to have my body and my life back as my own, although this is certainly not the same body that I had when I got pregnant for the first time.
Nor is it the same mind, heart, or soul.
For which I am eternally grateful and owe every bit of thanks to those children.
Whom I will learn to live without needing to take care of every moment of my life.
I think.

Another Day, Another Role

Well, Valentines Day was successfully navigated and no deer heads were mentioned in any context except for when I read my husband my last blog entry. He never reads my blog and I think he's quite happy to pretend that I don't have one. It makes him understandably nervous, and I believe he's afraid I'll start getting all personal and write things about him that would make him look bad to the ones and ones of people who read this.

But I thought it would be sort of romantic to read it to him and so after I got the tuna marinating in the Yucatan Citrus Grilling sauce, I opened the MacBook and read it out loud, him leaning up against the kitchen counter. I was practically in tears before I was through with the whole long thing (where is a good editor when you need one?) and except for occasionally telling one of the dogs to shut up, he was quiet and seemed to appreciate it, although I think he was more interested in the comments people had made so thanks to all of you who took the time to do that.

Then we had a nice grilled tuna and some mashed potatoes and a salad with avocado and I made a salsa of fresh mango, pineapple, red onion, garlic, lime, salt and cilantro for the tuna.

Can I just say yum?

No pretzel salad.

And so, once again, Valentines Day is over and I have to admit that yesterday while I was running around Tallahassee buying things like mangoes and pineapple, it was sort of nice to see people buying flowers and candy and picking out the fattest artichokes and the thickest steaks and it occurred to me that it's not such an awfully bad idea to have one day a year set aside to tell the person you love how you feel about them and to celebrate that together.

Love is a good thing to celebrate. Probably the best thing.

But the hearts and flowers are over for another year and tonight I'll be at the Monticello Opera House, doing the sound effects with my friend Kathleen for what they're calling Live Radio Theater.

I didn't set out to be doing sound effects and thought I'd be reading a part but due to the recent deaths we've experienced here I called the director and told her that I just didn't know when I'd be available for rehearsal but that I'd like to come and help in any way I could. Kathleen said she could use some help with the sound and so...next thing you know, I was on stage trying to make hoof beat sounds with two coconut shell halves in a tray of gravel and making jello at home, not for salad, but to create the sound of a giant amoeba being dumped into a bathtub, which is not as easy as you'd think and we're still sort of hit or miss with that one.

I'm having the time of my life and it turns out that Kathleen and I are the comedic relief and when she waps the hell out of a head of cabbage to recreate the sounds of a good, old-fashioned fist fight and cabbage is flying all over the stage and we're picking it out of our hair, it's pretty funny.

The best, though, is the avalanche which is worth the price of admission, I do believe.

Throw in the two of us making slurp sounds for the amoeba as it eats its victims and well, let's face it- we have no pride and we like it like that.

And my husband is coming to see this performance and again, I have to say that's true love because mainly what I do besides making slurp sounds is open and shut a miniature door to make door-opening-and-shutting sounds, and in-between my opening and shutting I just sit on stage and knit. And Abbott and Costello may have been hysterically funny back in the forties but times have changed. I will say that there's some real talent in the cast and oh yes! I do have a few lines. I get to read "young Dan" whoever he is, and that's fun, too.

So! Life moves on and after tonight I'll be able to add "Foley Artist" to my burgeoning resume and just like all my other skills and talents, it's one that has absolutely no use anywhere in today's job market, but at the Monticello Opera House makes me a pretty important member of the cast which is far more rewarding and fun than you can possibly imagine unless you've been there and done that.

My ex-husband's wife, the other-mother of two of my kids, has just been tapped as the Film Commissioner of the Office of Film and Entertainment which sounds like an extremely important and hopefully well-paying job and one she richly and certainly deserves because she is dedicated, hard-working and smart. Not to mention beautiful. Although she passed up on my offer to be her personal assistant (I pointed out that I can iron, answer e-mail and mix martinis), perhaps she can keep me in mind if the job of Foley Artist ever comes available.

You never know.

Valentines And Other Follies Of The Human Heart

"Without love, you are nothing."

That was the sign posted on a church marquee that my husband and I saw as were driving home from the airport on Sunday night.

"Good Lord," I said. "As if being alone on Valentine's Day wasn't enough, now churches are telling people that without love they are nothing."
"I don't think they were talking about that sort of love," he said.
"Well, it didn't say what sort of love," I replied. "It just said love. I can see some poor lonely person reading that sign and deciding to just go sit on a railroad track until a train came along to put them out of their misery."
"Huh," he said.

Valentine's Day is a screwy holiday if you ask me. From the earliest days of grade school when the pretty, popular girls got the good Valentines that came in the punch-out Valentine's card kits and I got the stupid dumb ones because I was fat and the teacher's pet, it's been nothing but a soul-sucking disappointment to me.

I've been in love with the man I'm married to for twenty-three years and we never, ever get Valentine's Day right. Last year we decided to just cook something on the grill, have a drink and let that be it. I'm sure I cooked something special to go with whatever was going on the grill (my memory- it's a sad, sad loss) but by the time the grill got cranked up and the meat was done, we'd had too much of the drink and I was in tears and had taken the opportunity to do what I do best, which is to get psychotic.

"There's no more romance in our relationship!" I wailed.

"What?" said my husband, standing there with the platter of high-dollar meat that we surely didn't even need unless you're talking about the fact that it was food and I certainly needed to eat something.

"You used to pursue me. When you met me you were all about the romance. Then you caught me and that was that. That's all you needed to do. Now I'm like one of these," and here I nodded towards one of the many deer-heads on the wall. "Just, a thing."
"What are you talking about?" he asked.

And I had no idea, quite honestly. He doesn't treat me like a thing at all but I suppose that because dinner was late and I'd had one martini too many and he didn't buy me something from Tiffany's, I had determined that I was now nothing more than a dead trophy, stuck on a wall.

And if the truth be known, there is probably nothing any man can do that will proclaim his love for his woman (or a woman for her man or a man for his man or a woman...okay, you know what I'm saying) on one specific day of the year that shows the depths and breadths of his love.

Okay. Maybe if he surprised his love with a trip in a private jet to Paris where he had made reservations at some amazing restaurant and on board was a beautiful new couture dress that fit her perfectly because he knew every inch of her beloved body, along with a small token of his love in the form of platinum and diamonds for her to wear to dinner and bottles of wine and small perfect little bites of the most delicious food on earth to nibble on before they got to dinner and, well, yeah, maybe that would do it.

But short of that, how can anyone come through on Valentine's Day? Because the purpose of the day is supposedly to show the one you love just how MUCH you love them and that can't be done with flowers, candy, dinner reservations or even jewelry, although in my book, jewelry can come close.

Nah. It's not Valentine's Day where we prove our love.

It's every other day of the year when we prove it by earning the money and cleaning the toilets and thanking each other for doing these things. It's coming home every night and it's making dinner every night and it's going together to meet with the wedding caterer for the daughter's wedding. It's saying "I love you" at the end of every phone conversation and it's holding each other's hands during a funeral as tears run down your faces.

It's taking your mother wood for her fireplace and it's saying, "Sure honey, go fishing this weekend." Or hunting or going off to visit a friend or coming to see you in a play.

It's lying down together at the end of every day and saying, "I love you," again because you can't say it too much.

It's being together every minute for ten days and nights on a vacation and then getting back and realizing that you miss him when he goes to work and where is your best friend, your lover, your buddy to play with?

It's standing up in front of friends under a clear blue sky on a beautiful October day and saying "I do," to all sorts of crazy promises that you have no idea what the implications of are and it's creating a family and working insane hours and raising children and going to school plays together and it's having problems and it's staying and doing the hard work and making it better.

It's seeing each other age and not letting that get in the way and it's planning for the future and it's living in the day.

It's shared jokes that go back decades and memories, too, of crazy times and funny times and good times and rotten times and times you wouldn't repeat for all the money in the world and times you keep in your heart in a velvet-lined box and only open up and look at once in a while because they're so beautiful that you don't want to wear them out.

It's changing the oil in the car and it's planting camellias together and it's putting in a spring garden and it's shoveling chicken shit. It's being patient and tolerant and it's using good manners when that's the only thing that'll get you through something. It's acting sillier than you'd ever want your kids to know their parents act and it's being respectful even when you don't understand.

It's not walking out the door when the other one gets psychotic and starts wailing about romance.

It's about putting flax seed in his smoothie so he'll live forever and it's knowing that neither one of us will. It's about listening to his breath and his heartbeat and knowing that one day one of us will be there when the other one's breath and heartbeat cease and it's holding each other closer because of that knowledge.

Love is about all of those things and it's about dreams and reality and fantasy and hope and despair and joy and death and having someone to hold tight to through all of that. It's about someone to share it all with.

And by golly, it may not be true that there is nothing without love but it's knowing that it's easier, it's sweeter, it's a blessing beyond compare to have it.

And even though I know all of this, I know myself and that I will have a small breakdown tomorrow because we haven't planned anything for Valentine's. We haven't made dinner reservations, we haven't planned a get-away, and I seriously doubt any jewelry's been bought.
Which is not to say he hasn't bought me plenty of jewelry over the past two decades. He's bought me enough jewelry for a lifetime.

And he also chose not to take a bulkhead seat on the flight home on Sunday because it would have meant splitting us up on the plane even though he had to sit with his unnaturally long legs wedged into a space barely big enough for a midget's.

And that is LOVE, baby.

So I'll try to remember all of that and leave the deer heads out of it this year.

Because I have love and that is truly something.

Tuesday Haiku (Sorry, Jon)

Afternoon rain here
Soup in the pot simmering
Bread rising. All's well.

When Wishes Come True

Long story about the trip and it was a good trip and I'm sure I'll be writing about it soon but of course, life goes on and I'm so far behind with mine.
BUT, I had to relate a small blog-related incident which I swear is one of the strangest things that has ever happened to me.
If you've read the last post you'll know that I was really enjoying the thought of the plethora of Jello salads that would be at the post-funeral meal. I even included a recipe I'd found in a church cookbook for a Jello Pretzel salad and stated that I "desperately" hoped someone would make that salad for the lunch.
So after the service, we all filed out of the "worship" hall at this mega-Baptist church in Allen, Texas for the luncheon portion of the day and there were tables of really fine Texas food- barbeque, ham, macaroni and cheese, casseroles galore, breads, pies, cakes, you-name-it.
There were also salads but only ONE Jello salad and folks, I am here to tell you that it was none other than the Pretzel Salad, same exact recipe (had to be, just had to be) as the one I blogged about last Thursday. In an oblong dish.
I couldn't believe it and it was like maybe there was a God or something except for the fact that no, it didn't taste like it had nuts in it and really, it was not as good as you'd think it would be although it wasn't bad.
One other thing- I wished for a liquor store to be right next to the hotel and there wasn't. In fact, no liquor store in the entire county- it was a DRY county and how do you account for something like that in TEXAS? You could buy beer and wine and buy drinks at restaurants but that was that.
So instead of wishing for pretzel salad I should have gone out and bought a lottery ticket and wished to win with it but of course we can't know these things in advance.
Pretzel salad.
Whoa.

Air Travel and Jello Salad

My husband and I are flying to Texas this weekend for the funeral of his brother-in-law. As you may know, it has been a bad year so far for us when it comes to losing people we love. This funeral will be held in a Baptist church in a town not far from Dallas and we will be flying.

Frankly, I hate air travel, unless I'm traveling somewhere like Cozumel, Mexico but who doesn't? The airlines have determined that we will still pay their outrageous airfares to get from Point A to Point B even though they don't serve food or guarantee that your plane won't sit on the runway for less than ten hours before take-off, and that you'll desperately wish you could detach your legs and stow them under the seat in front of you before the trip is over. Also, it is a proven fact that the terrorists have won because otherwise, why would we let ourselves, like cattle being led to the slaughter, be wanded, frisked, and interrogated before boarding an airplane to fly to a funeral?

You can't wear jewely on a plane because taking it off and putting it in the little dish would hold up the lines and you can't wear shoes that take more than three seconds to take off for the same reason (thanks! Shoe Bomber) and you can't take liquids on the plane that are in anything but one ounce bottles. Or is it eight ounce? I can't keep up. No scissors, no pocket knives, no bombs. Well, you could probably get a bomb through security but those fingernail scissors will definitely be confiscated.

BUT, we will get on that plane at some god-awful early hour on Friday morning and we will fly to Texas and we will rent a car and we will drive to this town where the funeral is and we will stay at the Holiday Inn Express where hopefully, there will be a liquor store right next door.
And we will do this because we loved Ron and we love his wife and we love his sons and that's what you do when someone you love dies.

I have bought a new dress which is so soft and comfy that traveling in it will be like traveling in my nightgown and I'm sure that will help. I am hoping that we won't go through any storms like the one I flew through once where the flight attendant sitting in front of me discretely fingered her rosary, her lips moving silently in prayer while pretending to read as the plane bucked, jumped, dropped, rose and dropped again as we flew through torrential rain and crashing lightening. I also hope I will not suffer a gall-bladder attack like the one I had on the way back from Las Vegas once that was so bad I thought I would surely die, although I never let out so much as a peep. I did turn to my husband and say, "Honey. I think I'm dying."
"Really?" he said.
"Uh-huh," I answered, as sweat beaded on my upper lip.
"Well what should I do?" he asked.
"I don't know," I said in a quiet scream.
"Okay," he said and turned back to the in-flight magazine he was reading.

I lived and we're still married.

So I'm not really looking forward to the trip but I'm sure there will be some good moments with family and I wouldn't not be there for the world.

And another thing I'm sure of is that we'll eat some Jello this weekend because as far as I know, there has never been a Southern church funeral in history where Jello was not present in one form or another with a host of other yummy ingredients of which vodka, sadly, is not one, and labeled as a salad.

I was discussing this with my husband tonight who didn't realize this fact. I don't know why, since he was raised in the South and I'm sure he attended a few funerals. I pointed out to him that almost all salads at Southern funerals have Jello in them. He REALLY didn't believe that, but I got out a wonderful cookbook his aunt gave me that was one her Methodist Church put together and turned to the "salad" section.

There are thirty-six salad recipes in this cookbook and seventeen of those have Jello as an ingredient. There is one with Jello pudding listed as an ingredient but I didn't count that.

I found one that sounded so outrageously good that I decided to copy it here. Read it, weep, and get out your oblong pan. I am desperately hoping someone makes this recipe for the funeral we're attending.

I'll bring my own vodka.

Pretzel Salad

1st layer: 1 and 2/3 cups pretzels, crushed
1 and 1/2 sticks margarine
3 Tbsp. sugar

Mix and bake 15 minutes at 350 degrees

2nd layer: 1- 8 oz. carton Cool Whip
1/2 cup sugar
1- 8 oz. package cream cheese

3rd layer: 1- 6 oz. package strawberry Jello or 2- 3 oz. packages
2 cups water (I presume for making the Jello)
1 package frozen strawberries

Pour the 2nd layer on top of the pretzel mixture, then the 3rd layer of Jello and strawberries.
Pour this in large oblong dish. Keep refrigerated.
It tastes like it has nuts in it.

Enjoy!

Comin' On Spring

I just wrote an entire blog about spring coming and coming soon. It was full of redbud and dogwood and bare feet and azaleas and open doors and warm breezes and how it got to 78 degrees here today.

Seventy-eight, y'all.

Oh. Heaven.

It was about the almost-indecent swelling of the Japanese Magnolia blossoms and the hundreds of birds flocking around the feeder and that soon the browns and grays of winter will be replaced with all the colors of new-born green the eye can take in.

It was good.

And then I lost it. I did it. Technical dumbfoolery on my part.

But hell, I think I'll have lots of time to write about the glory of spring when it is actually spring.

What I would like to say, though, is that for a lot of us North Floridians, nothing could make us happier than to have actual proof that spring and all that it promises is surely coming. We're not the hardiest bunch of folks here when it comes to winter. Or, some of us aren't, anyway. We couldn't tolerate a winter in Alaska or perhaps even in North Georgia and that is why we live here, my friends.

Right here where on February 4th, 2008, we thawed out, took off our coats and sweaters and socks and opened up the house.

Some of us had bare toes and happy hearts.

Okay. At least I did. And it's been glorious.

Dog-Related Disaster Averted

The other night I got home from play practice (and there may be a blog here soon about what it looks like when two middle-aged women bend over and slurp together into a microphone to make the sound-effect for a giant amoeba) and had eaten my supper and had just settled down on the couch with my laptop to see what was happening in the world and maybe do a little e-bay search for Coach leather backpacks, vintage, which is sort of a hobby of mine, when the dogs started arguing fiercely about a bone.
I quickly set my laptop down on the coffee table in order to grab my smallest dog, Zeke, before my next-to-the-largest dog, Buster, ate him, but my husband beat me to the quickly-escalating violence and picked up Buster. Unfortunately the dogs were attached via Buster's teeth and Zeke's forearm and as I tried to pry the teeth from the forearm, Zeke dropped like a rock and hit the coffee table, sending a glass of water flying across the table, dumping its contents onto my laptop.
You knew this was coming, right?
And here's what you have to know- my laptop is my baby. I treat it as gently as I would a real baby, always handling it with kid gloves, never leaving it plugged in when I leave the house so that if a storm should magically spring up while I'm gone it won't get its little logic board zapped, and never, ever leaving it near a glass of anything.
This is not my first laptop and I have learned all of these lessons the hard way.
But in the heat of the growls and biting and barking, I just set it down right next to that glass of water and that was all it took for the unintentional water-boarding to occur.
Being as I have four dogs and only one laptop, I immediately grabbed it up, ignoring the smallest dog and raced to the kitchen to get a dry, clean cloth to begin some sort of futile rescue on it. My husband followed me, grabbed the computer and held it upside down and began to shake and pound on it as if delivering a sort of clumsy CPR and Heimlich maneuver to a choking child. I watched in horror, quivering and trembling as water poured out of its precious keyboard, and all I could think was, "Dear Lord, he's killing it."
At that point, I remembered the dog and went to check on him. He appeared to be fine, although he did have a few small puncture wounds in his leg. Big deal. He's always getting beat up by Buster and he's always lived.
My laptop, however, had never had anything poured into it and of course it had gone all-blank-screened by this time. No vital signs at all.
I removed the battery and very gently and with very low heat, attempted to dry it out for about an hour with a blow dryer. My husband and I set it up in front of a fan and a small space heater, put Neosporin on the dog's leg and then we all went to bed, exhausted from the emotional distress of watching a laptop possibly die, knowing we'd done all we could and that only time would tell.
The next morning I was in a state of high anxiety but I waited until I'd read the paper and had some coffee and my husband said the laptop was as dry as it was going to get before I put the battery back in and tried to start it up. With my husband watching anxiously over my shoulder, I held my breath and hit the "on" button and I've never been more thrilled in my life to hear that sweet Mac chime and see it start to boot, just like normal. Before we knew it, everything had sprung to life- my desktop and all the icons- and I ran it through a few tests and tried to type and go online and everything, everything worked. Its magic was intact.
Phew.
So here's what I'm saying- no matter how careful you are, unforeseen disasters can occur and if you're lucky and these disasters involve water and not something like, oh- rum and coke, and if you have a beautiful little machine like say- a MacBook, a little water down the keyboard won't kill it and you will live to blog again.
And by the way, Zeke is fine and isn't even limping and we've thrown all the bones away.
That's him in the picture above which I took with the nifty camera that comes in the MacBook and which still, as you can see, works fine.

But Really

I think that what's going on is not really bitterness or anger or even fascination with another woman's life.
It's the fact that I'm really, really sad.
Even though Lynn's and my brother-in-law's deaths were blessed releases from what had to be living hells, they are gone. They are totally gone and I will not see them again.
My friend Lynn will never show up here on Thanksgiving morning and make me drink a shot of rum and dance with her in the hallway and then take a plate of whatever foods I've finished making with her to eat later in the day, taking also a lot of the sun and joy from the house with her when she goes. She's never going to go to LeMoyne with me and the other gals and stand in the gazebo and talk about her year. She's never going to pole dance again. She's never going to stand on the deck of a sailboat and laugh at the sheer joy of being alive and on the water with the wind blowing on her face. She's never going to walk around Lake Ella with me and raise her arms up to catch the breeze, her face turned up towards the new-blooming dogwoods. She's never going to listen to my woes and tell me she loves me. I'm never going to hear her laugh again or walk on the beach with her again or swoon at the sight of Johnny Depp on the big screen with her again.
I'm never going to hear her tell the story of walking around a puddle with my son, Hank when he was a just a tiny thing again.
And that just makes me so sad.
And I'm never going to sit and laugh with Ron again, either, or enjoy his sweet and gentle presence. And I don't know what to say to his wife, my husband's sister because I have no idea how anyone can take in what they took in when the doctors told them that Ron had ALS and would, in fact, be dying soon. I don't know how she managed that year of his illness, the constant trying to keep up with the different failures of his body and going to work and staying sane. I don't know how she manages to wake up every day, her husband of thirty years not there in the bed right beside her, and somehow get up out of that bed and go to work as if the world hadn't ended.
I am so sad for her.
And I'm so sad for all of us somehow. The whole human race because we all die and we all go through that dying and the ones that are left behind have to miss us and we all have the consciousness to realize that very true fact.
And what do you do with this sadness?
I guess you just go on and do whatever it is you have to do. You read the blogs of strangers, you make dinner, you do the laundry, you go to yoga and you do the neck rolls.
Grief will take you down some strange paths and will make you feel some uncomfortable things and I guess and I hope that it all ends up in stretching our hearts out a little bit more, making them capable of letting in more.
Bless our hearts. Bless our sad little human hearts.

All Right

I'm feeling angry and bitter today for no apparent reason. I went to yoga and the whole time, instead of being on Namaste Vibe Cruise Control, I was having angry thoughts like, "I don't want to do neck rolls, okay? Seriously, I don't." All the while doing neck rolls, but not very effectively. My heart wasn't in it the way it usually is.

And I think this bitter anger (and I'm sure it's somehow related to grief but it's an ugly side, I have to say) has a lot to do with my resistance to giving you the web site of this woman's blog I've been obsessed with. She already has about one million readers a day.

Probably more importantly, though, I know in my bitter little heart (compounded by the fact that she and her husband support their family and multiple Mac-related purchases by the ads sold on their sites) that if you read her blog, you'll truly realize what an inferior blog-product you're getting here at blessourhearts.

But what the hell? Go, read, know the joy that is Dooce.com.
Experience with Heather her life in LA and her national-media-covered expulsion from the company she worked for due to her blog. Gape in wonder at her goddess-like beauty. Laugh at her particular brand of former-Mormon dark humor. Worry about her depression and chronic constipation. See the pictures of her wedding. Read about her labor and delivery. Chuckle at the stories of her leopard-print-wearing Mormon granny and her insanely loved dogs. Be in awe at her honesty and the way she can use profanity. (I know I am.)

Go on. I know you want to.

Me? I think I'm almost over it. Phew.

I wonder what the next obsession will be. Hopefully, something I can blog about.

And soon, hopefully, I'll revert back to being the sweet little old wise woman I used to be who loves her life and home in North Florida.

Post Mortum Reaction

I think I may have mentioned in a former post that after my friend Sue died, I spent at least a month incapable of much more than lying in a fetal position on the couch watching infomercials on TV. Although I knew this was not a life nor was it an appropriate response to the death of a friend, I just could not help it. I suppose, looking back, it was better than simply lying in a fetal position in bed.
I feel now, after Lynn's death, that I am not as profoundly affected in such an incapacitating way. However, upon observing my latest major time-sucking activity, I think I may be in error in thinking that.
I found, by chance, a blog site that I have spent more hours reading than I would admit to anyone in the entire world. Thank God my dogs can't talk and report me to the authorities on this one. And you'd think, wouldn't you? that reading one person's blog would be a sort of self-limiting activity because there is an actual end to the entries. However, in this case, this person has been blogging since 2001 and has put up a new blog at least daily for most of the past seven years.
It's mind-boggling and I am nowhere near caught up to the present time, although of course I have been "cheating" by reading the newest ones too and let me add- this person's spouse has his own blog so I can read two different takes on the same situations and, well, I think I need to get to a meeting or something.
I am not going to mention the name or address of this site because although I think I am only doing this obsessive blog-reading in a weird sort of grief reaction, it may be that the site is actually crack you can consume without the use of a clumsy pipe.
I really don't want to contribute to anyone else's addictions. I'm sure we all have more than our share of THOSE.
I need to get out of the house and I am going to do that. Right now. I'm telling you the truth.
And let me also add that all the flowers that came into the house for Lynn's party have now died and I've taken them outside and dumped them in the woods and emptied their vases of the smelly ick-water and swept up the petals from the floor.
This seems profound somehow, although I'm sure it's not really.

Ashes To Water

The first time I ever heard the word "cremains" it was coming from the lips of a funeral-home employee with stiff blond hair wearing a brown suit, tan hose and sensible heels.

Please dear God, I thought, let her have made that word up.

But no, she didn't. It's a real word.

Cremains: " The ashes that remain after cremation of a corpse."

Eck, right?

Not really. Have you ever seen any? They're like angel's dust (not angel dust) but heavier.

We scattered Lynn's today. Her cremains. I'd rather call them ashes, though. It was a beautiful day down at St. Marks and everyone took a handful and said something and flung them out into the water which was lapping the rocky little point where we stood, winter-clear and chuckling itself against the shore.

Each brother, her sister, her mama. Her son.

Here's what I said, "Lynn! I joyfully release you!" And I did.

Or at least that one handful of ashes I was holding, anyway.

I almost hated to let it go but it was beautiful, seeing it fly and fall into the clear salty water, salty water like we all come from, the salty water that bathes our planet, salty water that forms our tears, both of joy and of sorrow.

I could sort of hear Lynn giggle as she flew.

Southern, Hippie, Peasant Cooking

Call me an old hippie, call me a peasant, call me Southern gal. All part of the glorious mix of the mongrelness that is Ms. Moon.
I love long, colorful skirts, can't abide jeans that don't say Levi's, love to get my hands in the dirt and my favorite meal is made up of beans, greens, rice and some sort of bread.
This morning I told my husband that really, I didn't feel like making dinner. Morning might seem a bit early to be thinking of dinner but one of the first things I do every day is decide what our evening meal will be. Yes, I am food-obsessed and I know it.
Of course as soon as I said that, I decided that what we really needed to eat tonight was my favorite meal and I went out to the garden and picked some collards, some mustards and also pulled a few cabbage leaves to put in the pot together. I thought to make another pot of black-eyed peas, but could only find half a bag, which I'm sure would have been enough for me and the man's supper, but I cannot bring myself to cook only one half of a small bag of beans. What's the point?
I found some dried soybeans and started those in a pot with some Dale's Seasoning (I love this stuff- it's like soy sauce on steroids) and a bit of olive oil. Soy beans, being the king of all beans, need plenty of time to cook. Hours and hours and hours. So they've been simmering away for quite some time now and will be ready for tonight's meal. I make a goop (honestly, this is what I call it) to go on them which I base loosely on a recipe from a very old and very cherished cookbook I own called The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook and although it sounds weird, it is extremely yummy. You just mix up some mayonnaise (they use that vegan kind but I use regular-people kind, only low-fat), soy sauce, a little balsamic vinegar, and garlic powder. I usually use fresh garlic for all of my garlic needs, but for some reason, I use the powder in this recipe. Put this sauce on top of your soybeans and brown rice and you will have a delightful dish of goodness. Well, unless you use too much of the goop, in which case you've negated all the nutrition with fat.
But really, the beans are great with just some soy sauce and/or hot sauce of your choosing, as are all beans.
The greens I wash very carefully (mustard greens can TRAP some sand, folks), cut then into bite-sized pieces and put in a pot with water, a little olive oil (my oil of choice) and a cut-up onion. Today I also added a can of diced tomatoes. Sometimes I use fresh. I just like the flavor of the tomatoes and greens together and as a matter of fact, the vitamin C in the tomatoes actually makes the iron in the greens more available if consumed together. Did you know that? Cool, huh?
I also cook them with a bit of the Dale's and some balsamic vinegar and I'm sure I cook them too long but I do not like a crunchy green and think they're unnatural. Don't you remember your granny's greens? They were so good and she cooked them all day.
I am taking poetic license here. If my granny ever cooked a green in her life I don't know about it but if she did, it was probably spinach and no, that should not be overcooked. My granny believed in the goodness of the canned green bean and also the nutritional value of the iceberg lettuce leaf. But in my imagination, my granny simmered greens all day long on a big old woodstove in her country kitchen while she sat and made quilts.
I'll probably make a pot of brown rice to go with this meal and I have leftover bread from last night which I made from such an improbable mix of grains and other ingredients that you wouldn't believe it if I told you and it wouldn't sound good, either, but believe me- it was FINE bread and it will be tonight, too.
And that'll be our dinner.
What are you having?

A Sight To See

Every time I woke up last night it was raining. That gentle, steady sort of rain that gets the job done, soaking the ground and going straight to the still-tight buds of the dogwoods and azaleas and the roots of the oak trees.
That same rain must have called up the bugs of the dirt, too, because when I got up this morning and went outside to feed the cats and get the newspaper I could barely believe what was going on in my side yard. There were hundreds of chirping birds: brilliant cardinals, fat robbins, doves, crows and even the guinea hens from next door, walking as they do in a line, chuckling in their rusty tongue as they marched along.
But it wasn't just birds I was seeing. There were squirrels perched on stumps who would suddenly leap down and run across the yard and skitter up the pecan trees like they were playing some sort of child's game of I-Dare-Ya.
The horses and chickens and goats next door were out, strutting around in their respective pens, looking sassy and glad to be alive and I swear it was like a damn Disney movie and I expected to see a lion and a lamb stroll by together any moment, or at the very least, Bambi and his mother, tentatively nosing their way into the midst of all this animal life, nibbling at the wild violets and Florida betony growing crazy-green here in the middle of winter in North Florida.

Just As I Thought

Okay. I'll just haul my old butt down to the truck stop and see if they're hiring.
Damn.
At least I'll be able to walk to work.

And Getting Even More Serious

I need to figure out what I'm doing for the rest of my life.

This is no joke. After thirty-one years of constant mothering duties, I seem to be out of work. The kids still need me, but on much more of a limited basis than when their diapers needed changing or their classrooms needed cupcakes. Know what I mean?

Frankly, I'm sort of happy just doing what I do now, which is taking care of a house and a husband and four dogs, but these days you get absolutely no respect for that plus the pay is abysmal. So I've been thinking a lot about maybe trying to enter the work force but I just can't figure out how to go about it. My resume would go something like this:

1970: Worked as a file clerk in doctor's office. Also ran errands and read charts of patients when no one was looking.

1972: Worked at MacDonald's. Worst part of job: Manager named Fat Steve. Also, having to wear puke yellow uniform made of polyester. Also, tourists from Michigan with seven children who all wanted to order separately. This was in the days when we added everything up in our heads.

1972-1974: Attended University of Denver for no apparent reason beyond learning how to smoke pot. Roomed at one time with Gale Norton, former Secretary of the Interior under George Bush.
Seriously.

1974-1976: Moved to Tallahassee and waitressed at various local restaurants.

1976-2007: Full time mother. During this time also spent four years at FSU getting a degree in nursing, passed nursing boards, got divorced, got married, had two more babies, worked at a birth center, worked for Weight Watchers, volunteered in classrooms, and was president of my daughter's high school PTSO for one year.

Special skills: Cooking. Helping women have babies. Breastfeeding. Diaper changing. Grocery shopping. Dish washing. Laundry. (My whites sing!) I type pretty fast, but not the numbers or symbols part. Just the letters. Am also good at decorating homes with things found at Goodwill and on the side of the road. Can garden and keep plants alive in pots. Very good at giving un-asked for advice which can sound wise and mean nothing. Excellent listening skills if you're talking about NPR. Also am good at officiating at weddings. And oh yes, going on vacation in Mexico. Do not speak Spanish, however.


Interests: Food. Books. Magazines. Blogs. Tim Gunn on Project Runway. Caffeine. Sleep.


Weaknesses: Diplomacy and people skills. For example, just this morning I told two lovely women who had come out in the rain to stand on my doorstep and tell me about Jesus and how He would guarantee my place in heaven if I would just admit to being a sinner and join them in Bible Study that I am not religious because I HAVE read the Bible already. I used to be a fast learner but I am not anymore. Still have current nursing license but get physically ill at the thought of hospitals. I actually plan my driving routes so as not to pass one. Seriously.


So. What do you think? Think maybe potential employers are lining up to pay me the big bucks and offer me health insurance based on this information?

I can't even think of what I'd like to do. What I'd like to do is what I do now, which is hang out at my house and write only with the added bonus of getting paid and maybe getting to go on a book tour now and then. Maybe have someone buy me a lunch occasionally to celebrate Tom Hanks wanting to make a movie of my latest book.
Something like that.

Any suggestions? All offers will be considered.

Seriously.

Let's Get Serious

I'd like to discuss politics now.

Not in depth, you understand, but just some general thoughts I've had about the subject, seeing how it's the year we get to pick our new president. Are you as excited as I am about this prospect?

So what I've been wondering is What Kind Of A Crazy Person Would Want To Be President At This Point In History?

I mean, really. Bush has fucked up things so badly that it seems to me it's going to take at least four years just to get things vaguely back on track. Where's the fun or glory in that? Are there really people who have such a desperate need to perform public service that they're willing to spend millions and millions of dollars and all their time and energy to get elected to a job that they're completely bound to fail at?

And what kind of an egomaniac does it take to believe that straightening out the country is even within the realm of their capabilities?

The economy is now in world-wide panic mode, we're still in Iraq, the middle east is, as always, threatening to blow, we've forgotten all about our constitution, our schools suck, our bridges are falling down, our highways are crumbling, our health-care system is a joke unless you're rich, our reputation in the world is pathetic, we're torturing people in secret prisons and not-so-secret prisons, we're limiting basic human rights in our own country while threatening other countries with war because they're not protecting theirs, the entire planet is on the verge of major catastrophe due to global warming, we're in hock to our eyeballs to China and the countries that supply us with our lifeblood-oil, and people who believe that their Imaginary Friend created the universe in seven Earth-days are fighting to get science out of the classroom.

Barack- you ready to take that on?
Hillary- you want the job?
Huckabee- you think you the man?

Why?

So as I see it, anyone who wants to be president has go to be a little bit insane. At the very least.
And beyond that, I'm not believing a word I hear fall from any candidate's mouth. I've gotten to the point where I'm so cynical about the whole thing that I believe everything they say is the result of some focus group study and if I hear the word "change" one more time I'm going to puke.

I'm not saying that all the candidates are big liars, just up there parroting the words they think people want to say but...
Oh wait a minute. Yes. I am.

This is not to say that I wouldn't much rather see Hillary, Barack or John in the White House than Rudy, Mitt or Mike. Please. Don't even say the word Republican to me.

BUT, at this point in time, I'm ready to have a system for electing the president that involves a Oija Board or a telephone book. We're spending crazy money and we're all acting like monkeys, listening to these people make promises that we all know damn well they can't keep.

It's just not working for me.

Is it working for you?

Time Out

Well, the inevitable has happened, I suppose. I have a cold. One of my daughters had it last week and a few of the people who came over on Saturday did too. Add in the emotional roller coaster I've been on for a week and the weather and you have the perfect equation for getting sick.
But it's not so bad. I'm here at home, the sun is shining outside, the big tub is waiting to be filled with hot water, epson salts and lavender oil. I've been doing a little laundry, watching some crazy daytime TV and crocheting a hat.
I'm a lousy crocheter, but I'd have to be on death's door to simply sit and watch TV, especially in the daytime.
It's strange how guilty I feel, not doing something I consider to be productive. I don't have soup simmering or bread rising and I'm not outside cutting back frozen plants or working in the garden or even going to the grocery store or library. I'm not walking or doing yoga.
I'm just sort of taking care of myself in a quiet and slow way, which in my world, is something that does not come easy.
But for today, or at least for right now, I am going to let the rest of the world take care of itself. And guess what? I have a strong feeling that it'll do just fine without me, which is a nice thought, and reassuring and yet, at the same time slightly scary.
Maybe I better make some bread.

What A Wonderful Life

Despite the rain and the cold and the pewter gray skies, they came.
I think perhaps a hundred people came to wake Lynn and I do not mean try and awaken her, but to celebrate who she was, to gather and remember. This old house took them in all in and gave us her hallways, her rooms, her ceilings and floors and porches as a place to gather, sheltered from the cold January rain- her sister and brothers, her mother, the relatives from Atlanta, the old hippie friends, the mother's church and bridge friends, the folks who'd worked with her back when she could work, her child, her stepson, their friends and posses. Later on in the evening when most of the crowd had gone home to their own houses, two of the people who'd tended her at the nursing home came and that's when we danced.
And sang karaoke, which Lynn would have loved and definitely would have done.
My daughter and Lynn's niece wore dresses that Lynn had kept from the old, old days, vaguely Indian, certainly hippie, and they looked beautiful, as young as Lynn had been at one time, as full of life as we had been when we met.
My ex came with his wife and their beautiful granddaughter and he and my daughter played some music. This time he didn't break down, this time he sang all the words without crying.
People looked at the pictures her sister had brought- Lynn as a baby, Lynn as a child, Lynn as a young, dancing woman, Lynn in the crazy sunglasses she used to make, Lynn with friends, Lynn when she was pregnant, Lynn as a new mother, Lynn with her four siblings at every age and every stage. Finally, Lynn in the nursing home, even as recently as a few weeks ago, smiling that gap-toothed smile that some say means sensuality.
I say it too.
Remember? Remember? Remember?
Everyone who came had one piece of the puzzle that was Lynn. We all remembered together, we put pieces together, another picture was formed, another dozen, a hundred, and yet, still, all together they weren't entirely Lynn.
Outside it was so cold and so wet. I went out to one of my porches for a few moments and watched the rain fall on the matriarch oak out front and thought how much we need rain. I was grateful for it and was grateful for the flowers and food and warmth and light everywhere in the house when I slipped back inside.
The first guests showed up before one p.m., the last left after one a.m.
She would have loved it and I wonder why we waited until she died to do this thing, to gather these people, to play this music, to eat this food, to dance, to drink, to praise, to laugh, to honor. Why didn't we do it as soon as we knew the day of her death was to come so much sooner than any of us would have believed? When she could still have eaten, heard and understood the praise and joined in the laughter, could have taken in the hugs and kisses, could have danced and drunk rum?
Well, that's not the way we do things. We get that diagnosis and somehow pretend that it's not real or that it doesn't mean anything and we put off the fun and we put of the honoring and celebrating until it's all too late to mean a damn thing to the one we've gathered for.
And don't tell me she knew it was happening. You can't prove that and neither can I.
But two years ago, I know she would have.
But we did it up as best we could without her. And even if she wasn't here, she was the reason all those people left their warm houses and drove all the way to Lloyd with covered dishes in their hands and memories in their hearts.
We did it.
And now we go on. The sun is shining today, the house is back to being just a home, the flowers are still beautiful, the glads and poppies and sunflowers and tuberoses and I'm all alone here and I think I'll go for a walk and it'll be quiet in the woods and because I'll think of her, Lynn will be there too.
As much as anywhere except for in the bones and face and blood and soul of her son.
And there I know she lives on, no faith needed to believe that.
Here's the funny thing about death- it brings with it more good than you can imagine. Peace and celebration and joy, too. For me it brings the knowledge that nothing and no one lasts forever. Not me, not you, not Lynn.
And it's okay.
Rain falls, the trees grow stronger, the sun comes out, it warms the ground, the flowers start to wake up in the wet earth.
We remember to live after death comes. I can't say more than that.

This is a picture called The Blue Door by someone named R. Wintz. Lynn had a print of that picture, framed and hung, everywhere she lived. It was hanging above her bed at the nursing home when she died.
A few weeks before Christmas, I found another print of it in an old pretty silver wooden frame at a antique store. I bought it and considered it a gift from Lynn to me. I'll put it on the altar we're making for Lynn.
Today's the day we're having the Memorial Party for Lynn, for lack of a better term. When I offered to do it here, I imagined somehow that the weather would be beautiful and we could all go from house to yard and the bluebirds of happiness would be flocking in the trees above us and the sweet, warm breeze would remind us of Lynn and how much she loved to feel it on her face and there would be so much joy.
Instead, it's supposed to rain all day, the sky is pewter, any birds in the area are huddling somewhere warmer than my backyard and it's cold.
So much for MY plan, huh?
I have no idea how many people are going to show up. There are enough plastic cups and styrofoam plates in the kitchen already, bought and delivered by Lynn's sister-in-law and oldest brother, to serve hundreds. Also two giant bags of tortilla chips, same for Chex Mix, and an industrial sized can of mixed nuts. I've made the worst looking cake I ever made. Seriously, I made better looking cakes in the third grade. Also some hummus and banana bread- all Lynn favorites. My shed is filled with beer and wine and sodas. Two of her brothers are supposed to be coming out to get those on ice.
Where we'll put all the food, the drinks, the chairs and tables is sort of beyond me at this point. My house is large, but there are many small rooms in it. Dancing will have to happen in the hallway, and dammit, it better happen, otherwise we might as well have just had a damn service at the Bevis Funeral Home.
I had wanted this party to be an event to honor Lynn's ability to always imagine herself, no matter what the circumstances of reality she might find herself in, standing there in front of a beautiful door, looking out at a turquoise sea with a blue vase of red flowers right there.
Sunshine required. Breezes necessary. Bluebirds optional, but a nice touch.
Instead, it's dark as the gloaming, I can't imagine where I'm going to put the food, my heart is sad, my husband is out of town with his grieving sister and my cake looks like a joke.
I don't know what I'm trying to say here, but I think it has something to do with the fact that Lynn never got a damn break, ever, and I don't think she's getting what she deserves today, either.
But you know what? I know she would have found the best in it. She would have managed to have a great time and there would have been dancing and she would have drunk rum and said, "Whoop-ai-ay!" as she tossed down a shot and she would not have worn black.
I better get working on this situation.
And by "situation" I mean my attitude which I can change, although the weather is beyond my pitiful ability to do anything about.
Candles. Flowers. Pictures. Shalimar. Music. Food. Friends. Family.
Whoop-ai-ay, Lynn, my always-joyful friend. I like to think that you're living in that house now and you know what every room in it looks like and that every one of the rooms looks out onto that sea and that the breeze is blowing into every window and you are standing there, smiling, the wind blowing your hair, your eyes closed, a huge smile on your face and your arms stretched up in joy and you are dancing, dancing, dancing.

And Then....

Another good one died last night of another deadly neurological disease. My brother-in-law, my husband's sister's husband. He was less than one year from diagnosis to death, I think. ALS. Lou Gehrig's Disease. Let me tell you- it's not a good way to die.
Ron was a huge man, over six feet five and had two enormously tall sons and was as good a father and husband as anyone I ever met. Gentle and kind (as men of his size so often are), loving, funny, and just pure of heart.
He'd gotten to the feeding-tube/respirator stage of his disease and suddenly, last night, his blood pressure dropped and his respirations increased. They took him to the ER and he was dead within a few hours, leaving his wife in a S. Florida hospital, one moment a wife, the next a widow. They'd moved there recently and had no support system yet. Their sons were in other states, his sisters in Texas. He was retired, my sister-in-law had found a good job down there and planned to work for a few years before they settled into their long-dreamed of retirement in their nice home with a pool and a yard where they could grow citrus and palm trees.
She called my husband when Ron was admitted and so my man hit the road even before waiting to hear the outcome.
"Is it okay if I go?" he asked me and what could I say? Lynn's made the journey and he needed to be there for his sister. They're the only two left from his family and there was no decision to make except which shirts to pack.
I cried while I was making him some sandwiches and coffee, but I knew he had to go. He got the call that Ron had passed less than an hour after he left.
Death is taking no holidays around here.
But there sure are some beautiful souls adding their light to the universe. I'm trying hard to remember that.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking of Ron and how we sat on the beach at Dog Island a few years ago, watching the sunset and talking about the things that matter.
I would never have guessed. I would never have guessed.

What He Said

Tallyhassle

Gray Is The Color

Last night the words "Lynn died today" came into my mind and suddenly, all the gold dust and exuberance that Lynn's flying showered upon me is gone, or at least I'm not feeling it. I feel old and tired and sick myself, but I know it's just the grief.

After my friend Sue died, years ago, I probably spent a month in front of the TV watching infomercials. That seemed to be the only thing I was capable of. Couldn't even read and for me that's like saying I couldn't eat, which didn't come easy either, thinking back.

But I have to get off my ass. I'm having the memorial party here on Saturday and looking around, I realize my house is not fit for humans. And the weather is supposed to be cold and wet on Saturday so being outside won't really work, not that outside looks too good right now anyway. Things are brown. Brown and stick-like, which looks like I feel, but not appropriate to celebrating a joyful life. My youngest daughter did comment that perhaps this is a good thing because at least people won't be stepping in all the dog poop out there. She's a Pollyanna sort of girl and I don't know where she got that. Not from me and that's for sure.

So anway, I should be cleaning, tidying, and going out to buy flowers and candles and rum and making banana bread and carrot cake and creating altars and dancing to the Beatles.
Yeah. I should. But no, I'm not.

But I'm going to do what I can and forget the rest. I sort of hate to think about people coming to my house and thinking I didn't even try and that I'm a lousy housekeeper and so forth, but I also keep thinking about something one of my kids said she heard recently which was "It's not my business what others think of me," which is good advice in many a situation, this one included. It's not about the house or the yard but about the purpose of the party which is to celebrate a life which brings us back to my original thoughts- Lynn's life is gone and dammit, I'm just sad.

Joyful

My friend Lynn took off this morning at five-fifty-five a.m. and I have no idea what happens when we die, but my feelings about the matter in this case are that she is dancing in the light and she IS the light.
It was a beautiful and peaceful dying. She took her time but she got it done.
I am joyful and I am exhausted.
I'm sure there will be more words later but for now, I will just say that there are angels on this earth and there surely were some of them taking care of that girl at the end.
I'd say rest in peace, but I can't see Lynn resting at all. Now that she has no need for that body and mind which haven't worked right in a long, long time, she has a lot of dancing and kissing and hugging and smiling and talking and laughing and singing and cooking and sewing and sailing and hair-brushing to do.
The world is a poorer place. The heavens a more joyful one.

Saturday Morning Musings

During my visit to Gatorbone, we were discussing memory, specifically as to how we are losing ours. We forget where we put our keys, our purses, and what we had for dinner the night before. Things like that.
"Did we always forget things like this?" I asked Lis.
"Yes, and so much more," she answered reassuringly.
"You're right." I said. "Like- we used to forget to use birth control."
This cracked us up and we continued to think of other things we used to forget such as to ask for last names and arrest records. Also, on occasion, we might have forgotten to hide the roaches.
Things such as that.
Forgetting where the keys are isn't such a big scary deal compared with memory lapses like the ones we had in the old days.

I'd also like to talk about women who pee on toilet seats. This is a warning: The next time I sit down on a toilet seat at Target and find that the woman who used it before me squatted over it in order to avoid butt-contamination and who, in doing so, contaminated the hell out of it, I am going to find that woman and I am going to kill her.
Ladies- if you sit on a toilet seat properly, and it is dry, your risk of disease is fairly nill but if you pee on a toilet seat that I unwittingly sit on, the risk of death or at least massive public embarrassment is huge.
You have been warned.

People who drive without their headlights are another thing that bother me to no end. When it is dusk or dawn or when it is raining or foggy, USE THOSE HEADLIGHTS. That is why we have them. It's not like you're going to use more gas if you turn your freaking headlights on. There's nothing like seeing, at the last moment, a gray car come out of the mist without its lights on to make me insanely angry. My grandfather always said that if you can't see the sun, you should use your lights.
He lived well into his nineties. Need I say more?

Chain letters are another thing that I cannot abide. Of course these days, that includes e-mail forwards that instruct you to send the mailing on to others. Sorry folks, nothing gets me to use that delete button quicker than a "send this message on to eight women whom you love" message.
Yep.

On to things that delight me:
Small children and babies who grin and gurgle at you in the grocery store. I have to stop and flirt with all of these darlings. I promise I won't grab your baby up and run, I won't even touch the little darling. But I am going to stand there and make a fool out of myself. Can't be helped.

The dog who lives on my walking route who never fails to get up out of her patch of the sun and wiggle her way to me for a belly rub and ear-scratching. "Lucy," I croon. "You are the prettiest dog in Lloyd." And she is, but don't tell my dogs I said so.

Prairie Home Companion. There is nothing so soothing in the entire world as the words, "It's been a quiet week in Lake Woebegon," as spoken by Garrison Kieller. I know some people hate him and sometimes his stories loop and circle and go off into real tangents and never really make it home, but I don't care. It is one of the high points of my week, listening to the news from Lake Woebegon and dammit, I like the rest of the show, too. And his column.
And I loved the movie, although that Angel of Death was a little over the top and unnecessary in my opinion. Who knew Sue Scott was so cute?

Laundry additives. As my daughter said to me today, "Laundry additives are the condiments of the washing process." Or something like that. She's right. I love me some bleach. Whites should be white. I like to use Oxyclean, too, although I'm not sure it really does anything.
And this leads to hanging the clothes on the line which is another thing I love. I will never, ever, EVER live in a place that doesn't allow this basic human freedom.

Seeing wildlife on a walk. Foxes, rabbits, and deer, of course, but I also include bluebirds, hawks, and eagles in this catagory. Bluebirds are so damn blue. It's like the entire winter blue sky was condensed into the size of a small bird. As my friend Tommy pointed out to me once, they don't call them the bluebirds of happiness for no reason. Once I saw an alligator while walking the Miccosukee Greenway. The thing about this sighting that made it rare was the fact that the gator wasn't anywhere near a body of water. No, it was about three feet from the trail I was walking. Whoa! Scared me to death and I don't think he was too comfortable about it either.
And of course seeing dolphins, although we have none here in Lloyd. But no matter how often I see them in the Gulf or bay, it's always a very special moment when I spy one and I always stop and watch its progress for as long as I can.

New magazines that come in the mail. There is no better bang for your buck than a subscription to a magazine. I get Florida Gardener, Esquire, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and the Oxford American. If you do not have a subscription to this magazine, go here immediately and whip out your credit card. The Southern Music edition is going to come with TWO CD's this year and that alone is worth the price of admission.

And you know what? I guess that's all I want to talk about right now.
Hope you're having a nice weekend. I am. I think I'm going to hang my clothes on the line now. And then I'll take a walk. And I was going to do something else, but I can't really remember what it was.
I'm sure I'll think of it eventually and I'm certain that whatever it was, it will not result in an unplanned pregnancy.

Love Your Local Artist

I'm back from the far-away mystical land of Gatorbone, Florida where I was treated as lovingly and as graciously as the proverbial Prodigal Son, although in this case, it would be the Prodigal Daughter and I am better for it.

The trip was just as good as I thought it would be, and the baby-kissing just as sweet. It had all the elements of a great get-away which are: wonderful food, a cozy bed, terrific music, big, black loving dogs to pet, and people whom you love to share perfect days and jovial nights with. The shopping was good (the Scratch and Dent food store in St. Augustine is NOT to be missed, my friends) and the weather couldn't have been better. There were several themes to the trip, one of which was "It only burns for a minute," and the other, "These martinis are not getting any colder!"

And I just can't tell you how fabulous the young grandson was. Perfect in every way, and amiable to letting me, a perfect stranger, feed, hold, burp and dandle him.

And the drive over and the drive back were uneventful and I could get NPR on the radio the entire way!

Did I tell you it was the perfect trip?

But now I'm home and glad to be. As much as I love my friends, I am at heart a hermit and I have the potential for an entire weekend to myself. The Man is off hunting in Georgia. I think it's the last weekend for does or something like that. I'd think that he had a girlfriend except for the fact that he asked me to go with him. Although it was a terrifically sweet offer, I had to turn him down. There is no electricity or bathroom up there at the hunting camp and really, I'd rather be here with my stove and my lights and my plumbing.

I'm old.

So this weekend I plan to write the Great American Novel and get it published and maybe do a little yardwork. Take some walks. Make some fish, create a soup, ponder what the hell I'm supposed to be doing on this planet.

Same as usual.

I'm thinking a lot of artists and how they have to work so hard and be so brave to do what they have so obviously been put on this planet to do. It's weird. Brittany Spears, who is famous for falling apart in a spectacular and often void-of-panties way is richer than hell while people who are actually talented and work their asses off have to scramble for day jobs and live with the worry of having no insurance or retirement plans or regular incomes and yet somehow manage to keep on believing in what they do to the betterment of us all.

Support your local musician, folks.

And artist and writer and actor and so forth. All the people who take the basic, common items of life like words, notes, threads, color, paper, wind, metal, glass, wood, corn meal and oysters and create the things out of them that make us stop and think and rejoice or get angry or cry or pray or smile or dance or swoon with sheer pleasure.

Good for the heart, good for the soul, good for the economy, good for the artist.
Buy a painting, go see a play, buy a t-shirt, CD, book or hand-crocheted shawl, eat at a restaurant that a local chef works her magic in.

It only burns for a minute, feels good forever.

And do I hear someone saying that this martini is not going to get any colder?

Here's to those who live the dream, which is much, much harder than you would think.
God bless them and I thank them, these people who make the art that makes our lives worth living.

With Friends Like This, Life Is Sweet

I have a very good woman friend who is one of those people you'd hate if she wasn't so joyfully wonderful. Her talents range from organizing and putting on a major folk festival every year to baking the most stunning and delicious wedding cakes you've ever seen or tasted. She also gardens, is incredibly smart, is wicked funny, dresses with a sense of style like no one else's, AND is beautiful. To top it all off, she's also a musician who plays what I guess we could call new grass, although recently she started writing her own songs which have sprung forth from her completely formed and amazing both lyrically and musically. In fact, she's already won several song-writing contests so I'm not just saying this because I'm blinded by love. She plays guitar, she plays banjo and fiddle and piano and probably about fifteen other instruments that I'm not naming here. But her true gift, in my opinion, is her voice.

She sings like an angel. I'm telling you, the woman can make you cry. Especially when she's singing one of her own songs.

Despite all her gifts, she's incredibly unassuming and modest. She certainly never says anything to the effect of I'm a musician and you're not, although if I were her, I definitely would.

But it's funny- no matter how close we are, when she goes onstage and begins to play, the fact that we share hearts, secrets, recipes, shoes, dresses, giggles, drinks, hopes and dreams- all of that fades away and suddenly, I am struck with awe and she is, for that time onstage, someone that I can barely look at. She is a creature of wonder and mystery to me.

Our joke is that when she goes on break, I can hardly speak to her. It's more truth than joke, however. I find myself tongue-tied and might as well be in the presence of Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan.

Anyway, I'm going to drive across the state tomorrow to see this friend and I'm really looking forward to it. She and her dear husband, who is also a fine musician and songwriter, live in a small house in the Florida scrub down near Gainesville and they are the perfect hosts. They are gracious and kind and go out of their way to make me feel at home and loved and I always do.

And now, to make it even more apparent how clearly superior this woman is to me, she's managed to have a grandchild and we'll be going to see him while I'm visiting.

So I'll be off in the great world, or at least a tiny corner of it, for a few days, visiting and being in awe and kissing a baby and listening to music, and I'm sure I'll come home a new woman, one determined and inspired to practice my own art and to strive to be the sort of person my friend is- one who brings light to the world and joy to the hearts of the people she loves.

Or at the very least, a woman who is even more intrigued with the idea of becoming a grandmother than ever. I'm certainly not about to develop any musical talent at this point in my life, nor am I about to start putting on folk festivals or baking wedding cakes and I'll never be, like my friend, beloved by thousands, but I'm lucky enough to have a friend who does and who is and with a little more luck, like her, one day I'll be a grandmama because all you need for that, thank God, is children.

You too can visit Lis, in the virtual sense anyway, by going to http://myspace.com/elisabethwilliamson
It's a trip worth taking.

Where ARE Those Ducky Diaper Pins?

I am thinking that perhaps there is a biological clock for grandmothers just as there is one for mothers. Do you think that's possible?
I ask this because despite the fact that I'm not consciously craving grandchildren, I've been dreaming about babies lately. And in the dream I had this morning, besides the cutest, darlingest little dumpling of a babe you ever saw, there was an older woman wearing a T-shirt that said, "I can't get pregnant anymore."
Although that doesn't sound particularly clever or T-shirt-worthy, in my dream it was one hell of a chuckle-inducing bon mot.
Ha-ha! I said in my dream. How funny!
What's funny, of course, is that my mind quite recognizes the fact that I am not about to have another baby but believes, dammit, that there must be one somewhere around that somehow belongs to me.
I have three daughters who are all of child-bearing age. They too, are reporting baby dreams. One of them is going to be married next April and I wouldn't be surprised at all if she didn't present me with my first grandchild within the following year.
Surprisingly, I am not exactly sure how I feel about this. Having just spent thirty-one years in fairly constant child-rearing, I'm not certain that I'm ready to be enlisted in baby-sitting at this point on a regular basis. But as a friend and I agreed recently, discussing just this topic, there is probably some switch that gets flipped when a grandchild is born similar to the one that gets flipped when one's own child is born and the heart is flooded with all sorts of lovely light and hormones that make you love that baby more than life itself and indeed, reveals the meaning of life in a way previously undreamed of.
I'm hoping.
And frankly, I think that all of this is beyond our control and has a lot to do with our evolution as humans and has deep roots in our ape ancestors and it's something we have no need to try and figure out or worry over because it just happens.
When I think of my ancestral mothers, I think of a long, long line of women, holding out a hand to the next one in line, all the way back to a woman who looked very much like Flo, one of the chimps that Jane Goodall studied so intensely in the Gombe. Flo was a mother of outstanding devotion who spent her life raising her many offspring up to become high-standing members of their community up until the day she died, and I have often asked myself in situations with my children where I was unsure how to act, "What would Flo do?"
It is a great comfort to me to think that somewhere deep inside of me there is a mother-wisdom that stretches all the way back to a mother like Flo and if I just relax and get out of my own overly intellectual internal meanderings and believe in what I know to be the truth, all will be well.
The human race still exists because women know, instinctively, a lot of things that they aren't aware of.
And I'm just becoming aware that all of this mother-wisdom might come in handy if a grand baby were to suddenly appear.
At least my dreams are leading me to believe that.
Tick-tock.

Finally. After weeks of holiday madness and cooking and cleaning and shopping and wrapping and following rules I don't even believe in and trying to be not the perfect wife and mother but the adequate wife and mother (and daughter and aunt and sister and friend)....
I got an entire afternoon to myself.
So what did I do?
I wrote. I opened the story that I've been working on for months and months and haven't looked at in weeks and just sat down and let the words flow.
It was as painful and ecstatic as it was going to yoga for the first time in two weeks was yesterday.
Okay. That's not true.
It was a hundred more times more painful and a hundred more times more ecstatic.
Now I'm gonna go cook me some salmon.
Oh yeah.