Home.
Is there a more beautiful word?
Oh sure, maybe, probably, depending on one's state of mind, one's inclinations but, home is home and it tugs us back as surely as the moon tugs the tides.
We are home.
And the boys and their parents are on their way to their home. Owen cried bitterly when it was time to leave Lloyd. The men had spent a few hours washing the boat and cleaning some fish and doing all the things necessary to do when we get home from the island and he had completely reinstated himself back here. Chickens were fed and dogs were patted and toys were played with and juice was drunk and he could not understand why everyone couldn't just stay here, keep this party going, as he might say.
Yes, he really says that.
But I let him take a stuffed lizard home and he was satisfied with that and the promise that he could come back soon.
He did as he always does when they leave. He yells out the window at me.
"Mer! Take care of you goats and you chickens!" and then he thinks some more. "And take care of you dogs and Luna!" And then, he remembers one more thing for me to take care of. "And take care of you bluebirds!"
"I will!" I yell after them as they leave the driveway. "I will."
Oh, Owen.
Oh home. Oh peace and chickens and bluebirds and my own bed and these giant trees and a trip to the island done and done and done with the boys and Owen will remember it, surely, and we'll go back. Not tomorrow, as he said we would when we left today, but one of these days.
When we crossed the bay to come home today, it was a fast, easy trip, unlike the one out to the island on Thursday and I held Gibson to me, wrapped in my arms and when Mr. Moon started up going fast, fast, Gibson slumped against me and was completely relaxed, his fat little hands on my arms, his head against my bosom. And there he stayed until we pulled into the marina and I never want to forget that, what it felt like, holding my grandson to me as we crossed the water, the air rushing past us so quickly, the boat skimming over the water, the labial wake we left behind us to dissolve back into the water of the bay, the roar of the motor putting us all into a place of isolation, each of us in perfect freedom to think or create myths or fantasize or make up poetry in our heads as we sped toward shore, as we left behind one world to step firmly onto another, even as we were all in the same world together.
We are all going to sleep good tonight.
I hope you do too.
Love...Ms. Moon
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Sunday
It's the day to leave the island and let the house rest until the next group of folks come to open it back up, fill it with life again,
It's time to head on home. 
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Keeping It Real
The annual White Trash Bash is tomorrow here on Dog Island and we are already seeing boats gather and people arrive and the children are melting down and the no-see-ums are out and biting with the invisible jaws of death and the sink cabinet in one of the two bathrooms is falling apart, the particle board is sort of melting, if you will, and something stung Mr. Moon's foot out in the bay and my potato yeast rolls ARE NOT RISING, not one bit.
Garrison Keillor is talking about Lake Webegon and Owen is in a puddle on the floor screaming about having to take a shower.
Oh wait. Now he's laughing.
I take a sip of my vodka/tonic/blueberry/pomegranate /lime drink and look out over the flat bay and I have clothes going in the washing machine and the sun is still far from setting and I hear Gibson saying Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-UH and I can't help but agree. 
How We Get Up On The Island
Men up and out to go and fish and the women and children slumber on until they don't.
Owen wakes up and asks for cookies.
"Oh, Owen. I have made a Cookie Monster out of you."
"Are cookie monsters always hairy?"
"No. Sometimes they look just like you."
And he falls back asleep but Gibson is awake and I cut up watermelon and Owen wakes up for real and now he wants cheese toast and we all share watermelon and Gibson wants a fork to eat his with.
It is morning on Dog Island and little boys are in pajamas and we make our way to the porch and then outside and Owen says, "Mer, you have to come out here. The water is so beautiful."
And he is right and I do. 
Friday, May 24, 2013
The bamboo chimes are knee-knocking like merry skeletons and the tide is going out to reveal the secrets of the flats. 
The men went fishing and I napped with Gibson and Lily napped with Owen and when we got up I made cookies and then we went down to the water again and played with the naked babies. 
I really can't think of anything much better.
The men went fishing and I napped with Gibson and Lily napped with Owen and when we got up I made cookies and then we went down to the water again and played with the naked babies. I really can't think of anything much better. As with so much of my life these days, I am thinking deeply about what these boys will remember either consciously or -un. I deeply and truly hope that they do retain some sense of what this part of planet Earth is like. The water, the sea creatures, the sand and the great, wide sky. The way their parents and grandparents love them.
This, I think is the best thing they could take with them as they grow into adults. And selfishly, I realize that in this process, they take their parents and Glen and I too into an ever-more deep appreciation of it all and in doing so offer us whatever genuine joy there is in this thing we call life.
The whole messy, chaotic, simple grandeur of it.
That's the report from Dog Island, Florida tonight.
And happy birthday, May. And Bob Dylan too. Let's all live long and prosper.
Love...Ms.moon
Thursday, May 23, 2013
We Made It
Low tide. Baby covered in sand like a cookie is covered in sugar and the moon is rising, fat, full belly and we're here.
Almost A Birth Day
I'm supposed to meet Lily in an hour and a half and I need to scramble into town and do something first because May is having a birthday tomorrow, my second baby's birthday, coming right up, and that was another lifetime ago, when I had that child.
I was talking to Anna, Hank's friend last week and I said, "All those people who say they feel exactly the same as they did fifty years ago- I don't get it. I don't even REMEMBER the person I was a long time ago." And of course I do vaguely remember but who WAS that? That hippie girl who gave birth after a long, long day of labor and then a night of it too, and finally, as dawn broke, my May was born and we were all so happy, so glad, and there she was. Perfect, in my arms, and the main midwife had had to leave in the night to deliver another child and made it back just in time, her trusty little VW pulling into the yard a few miles from here in Lloyd, as I was already pushing.
There we were, a contingent of women determined to take back the sacrament of birth as our own, girded with a copy of Spiritual Midwifery and a few other births under our belts.
We were crazy, we were brave, we were inspired, we were right.
Anyway, yes, I need to honor that child who was born to me, came so sweetly into this world, barely cried, just arrived and was there, right where she was supposed to be.
I don't have internet on the island so I make do with the iPhone and it's not easy, blogging that way, my fingers fumbling at the tiny keyboard. I did update my Blogger app in hopes that I can once again post pictures with it because pictures are the very best way to share Dog Island with its sunsets, it's pines, its flat bay and whippy Gulf. We shall see. But my online presence will naturally be more quiet while I am there.
And see- there you go- I can't imagine not being able to write here, to be in touch, to read your blogs, and when I had May all those years ago, thirty-five years ago! I am not sure I even knew the word "computer" and if the internet had been invented, I sure hadn't heard about it. I considered myself pretty ooh-bip-potato-chip because we had recently moved from a house with no running water into a trailer with a bathroom and a kitchen sink.
Who was that girl? I was twenty-three years old, already the mother of a just-short-of two-year old.
No. I am not the same but yes, I guess I am. I don't know.
Anyway, I have to run. So much to do before we leave and thirty-five years ago today I was frantically trying to go into labor because my water had already broken and it was so hot and I had a garden with potatoes and peas in it, just as I do now, but now my grandsons help me in the garden, or at least eat the peas and we are taking potatoes I dug last night to the island and when May was born, that very night, I cooked a meal of barbecued chicken and peas and potatoes and it was delicious and my then-husband washed the birth sheets in our washing machine which I was so proud to have, and it was attached to the trailer in a little thrown-up shed and the day I realized I was pregnant with her, I was digging a ditch to lay the pipe from well to washer in that red-clay dirt.
There. That. I was that girl, that ditch-digging, hippie mama girl, and now I am a grandmother and not the same person at all but I still believe in the Holy Sacrament of Birth, the garden, the running water, and I remember my baby being born and the face of the midwife, Ellen, and I named my baby May Ellen and here we are now.
I am so lucky. And always have been.
Love...Ms. Moon
I was talking to Anna, Hank's friend last week and I said, "All those people who say they feel exactly the same as they did fifty years ago- I don't get it. I don't even REMEMBER the person I was a long time ago." And of course I do vaguely remember but who WAS that? That hippie girl who gave birth after a long, long day of labor and then a night of it too, and finally, as dawn broke, my May was born and we were all so happy, so glad, and there she was. Perfect, in my arms, and the main midwife had had to leave in the night to deliver another child and made it back just in time, her trusty little VW pulling into the yard a few miles from here in Lloyd, as I was already pushing.
There we were, a contingent of women determined to take back the sacrament of birth as our own, girded with a copy of Spiritual Midwifery and a few other births under our belts.
We were crazy, we were brave, we were inspired, we were right.
Anyway, yes, I need to honor that child who was born to me, came so sweetly into this world, barely cried, just arrived and was there, right where she was supposed to be.
I don't have internet on the island so I make do with the iPhone and it's not easy, blogging that way, my fingers fumbling at the tiny keyboard. I did update my Blogger app in hopes that I can once again post pictures with it because pictures are the very best way to share Dog Island with its sunsets, it's pines, its flat bay and whippy Gulf. We shall see. But my online presence will naturally be more quiet while I am there.
And see- there you go- I can't imagine not being able to write here, to be in touch, to read your blogs, and when I had May all those years ago, thirty-five years ago! I am not sure I even knew the word "computer" and if the internet had been invented, I sure hadn't heard about it. I considered myself pretty ooh-bip-potato-chip because we had recently moved from a house with no running water into a trailer with a bathroom and a kitchen sink.
Who was that girl? I was twenty-three years old, already the mother of a just-short-of two-year old.
No. I am not the same but yes, I guess I am. I don't know.
Anyway, I have to run. So much to do before we leave and thirty-five years ago today I was frantically trying to go into labor because my water had already broken and it was so hot and I had a garden with potatoes and peas in it, just as I do now, but now my grandsons help me in the garden, or at least eat the peas and we are taking potatoes I dug last night to the island and when May was born, that very night, I cooked a meal of barbecued chicken and peas and potatoes and it was delicious and my then-husband washed the birth sheets in our washing machine which I was so proud to have, and it was attached to the trailer in a little thrown-up shed and the day I realized I was pregnant with her, I was digging a ditch to lay the pipe from well to washer in that red-clay dirt.
There. That. I was that girl, that ditch-digging, hippie mama girl, and now I am a grandmother and not the same person at all but I still believe in the Holy Sacrament of Birth, the garden, the running water, and I remember my baby being born and the face of the midwife, Ellen, and I named my baby May Ellen and here we are now.
I am so lucky. And always have been.
Love...Ms. Moon
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
If I Had A Title, I'd Use It
I am a weak, weak-ass woman. As proof I offer this:
1. I turned on the AC.
2. I am drinking a beer midweek.
Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it.
I girded my loins and took my walk. Some asshat had dumped fresh trash in the woods. I came home and called the Jefferson County Sheriff's department and reported it. Maybe the asshats are so stupid that they left some sort of identification in there. I hope so. The deputy called me. I gave him all the information I had which wasn't much. The deputy was a very nice man. When we hung up, I told him to take care.
I hope he does.
The boys came and we played everything. We talked a lot about Dog Island and what all we're going to do. Owen seems excited. Gibson is always excited. Whenever Owen does something these days that he shouldn't and I bust him for it, he says, "Don't tell Boppy!"
I mostly agree that I will not. He knows that MerMer is not going to get mad at him. Unless MerMer is deadly tired and I was not today. Not really. And the things he does are mostly not so bad. Lamps fall over. Sometimes that just happens. Doors slam on baby brothers' arms. I understand. But..."Don't tell Boppy." Cracks me up. Like Boppy's going to make him go cut a switch and then beat his ass with it.
Sometimes he adds, "And don't tell Daddy." And if he really feels guilty, he says, "Don't tell Mommy either."
He knows I keep his secrets.
Here's me trying to get Gibson to take a nap.
Could you just die?
Boppy came home with kites for the beach and a sun shade thing to put up. We have so much to do to get ready. We're going to be up to the gunwales on that boat with all the stuff we're taking. A pack-n-play for instance. And all the food and all the water and all the beer and all the clothes and books and games and puzzles and toys and, and, and...
We might end up taking two trips across the bay.
It'll be okay. Whatever happens, it will be okay.
After the boys left, Mr. Moon went out to get things ready boat-wise. I don't know what all. Life jackets, batteries, fishing stuff. I went out and dug potatoes and brought them in and washed them. And squashes. And started dinner and tidied up the house. And turned on the AC. And cracked a beer.
I have to pack clothes (no bra) and pillows and stuff. My own books and books for the boys and tomorrow Lily and I will go do the real grocery shopping. I have an entire long list of things we need to take over including dish scrubbers and Kaboom! and Miracle Whip and pot holders and brown liquor. Getting to Dog Island is always crazy and I've never gone over with two small children although I have gone over with a boatload of teenagers. That's a whole other story but Lily was one of them and Dog Island is not unlike Las Vegas in that what happens on Dog Island, stays on Dog Island.
Owen's secrets are not the only ones I keep.
Shit happens.
We survive.
I have to go finish dinner. I should have gone with the can-of-tuna idea but I'm trying to finish up leftovers. Again- we will survive.
This is life. This is the great, messy, complete hallelujah of life.
Maybe we'll see dolphins tomorrow. I want to show my grandsons dolphins. Wouldn't that be something? And osprey and eagles and minnows and sunsets.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Love...Ms. Moon
1. I turned on the AC.
2. I am drinking a beer midweek.
Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it.
I girded my loins and took my walk. Some asshat had dumped fresh trash in the woods. I came home and called the Jefferson County Sheriff's department and reported it. Maybe the asshats are so stupid that they left some sort of identification in there. I hope so. The deputy called me. I gave him all the information I had which wasn't much. The deputy was a very nice man. When we hung up, I told him to take care.
I hope he does.
The boys came and we played everything. We talked a lot about Dog Island and what all we're going to do. Owen seems excited. Gibson is always excited. Whenever Owen does something these days that he shouldn't and I bust him for it, he says, "Don't tell Boppy!"
I mostly agree that I will not. He knows that MerMer is not going to get mad at him. Unless MerMer is deadly tired and I was not today. Not really. And the things he does are mostly not so bad. Lamps fall over. Sometimes that just happens. Doors slam on baby brothers' arms. I understand. But..."Don't tell Boppy." Cracks me up. Like Boppy's going to make him go cut a switch and then beat his ass with it.
Sometimes he adds, "And don't tell Daddy." And if he really feels guilty, he says, "Don't tell Mommy either."
He knows I keep his secrets.
Here's me trying to get Gibson to take a nap.
Boppy came home with kites for the beach and a sun shade thing to put up. We have so much to do to get ready. We're going to be up to the gunwales on that boat with all the stuff we're taking. A pack-n-play for instance. And all the food and all the water and all the beer and all the clothes and books and games and puzzles and toys and, and, and...
We might end up taking two trips across the bay.
It'll be okay. Whatever happens, it will be okay.
After the boys left, Mr. Moon went out to get things ready boat-wise. I don't know what all. Life jackets, batteries, fishing stuff. I went out and dug potatoes and brought them in and washed them. And squashes. And started dinner and tidied up the house. And turned on the AC. And cracked a beer.
I have to pack clothes (no bra) and pillows and stuff. My own books and books for the boys and tomorrow Lily and I will go do the real grocery shopping. I have an entire long list of things we need to take over including dish scrubbers and Kaboom! and Miracle Whip and pot holders and brown liquor. Getting to Dog Island is always crazy and I've never gone over with two small children although I have gone over with a boatload of teenagers. That's a whole other story but Lily was one of them and Dog Island is not unlike Las Vegas in that what happens on Dog Island, stays on Dog Island.
Owen's secrets are not the only ones I keep.
Shit happens.
We survive.
I have to go finish dinner. I should have gone with the can-of-tuna idea but I'm trying to finish up leftovers. Again- we will survive.
This is life. This is the great, messy, complete hallelujah of life.
Maybe we'll see dolphins tomorrow. I want to show my grandsons dolphins. Wouldn't that be something? And osprey and eagles and minnows and sunsets.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Love...Ms. Moon
And On This Day Six Years Ago, Another Part Of My Heart Opened Up
Damn. I almost missed realizing that today is my blogoversary. Six years.
Six years, 4109 (now 4110) posts.
Four gazillion words.
As I have said before, I may not be a great writer but I sure am fucking prolific.
And I do not feel like waxing poetic about what this place means to me. Just please know that it means the world. You people who come here, whether you've been coming here for the entire six years or just somehow found your way here recently- you are, well, I'd say something really stupid like the wind beneath my wings but you know that's not me.
But you are.
Thank-you.
I had no idea when I started using that picture on my blog anniversary that I would eventually begin to resemble that old lady. Or maybe I look more like the old man. Whatever.
We've been through some stuff here, haven't we?
And at your places too.
As always, thanks most especially to Hank for pushing me. In doing so, he gave me about the best gift I've ever received. And to Mr. Moon for making sure that I have a device to compose and send all these words out on. I, Ms. Prolific, have no actual words to express how much I love you.
This year, in lieu of my usual requests for gifts of fine leather goods, genuine gold and platinum jewelry with precious stones, chocolates and flowers, I am asking you all to just say a little prayer for my immortal soul.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
All joking aside, I'm the one who owes you.
All right. Let's get on with it and lead our lives and let's keep talking about it. Let's keep holding out our hands to each other. Let's keep telling our stories. Let's continue to keep each other tenderly in our hearts.
Our incredibly blessed hearts.
Love...Ms. Moon
Words To Fucking Live By (Or Not)
I give up. I just give the fuck up.
That nap I had yesterday? The most heavenly nap of my life? One of the nicest experiences of my life?
It came back and bit me in the ass and I couldn't fall asleep last night and this morning I hurt everywhere as if I'd spent all day working in the yard yesterday and I ache and I just feel terrible and okay, it's one thing to maybe drink too much and feel like shit the next day but to have a nap and feel like shit the next day?
So I give up.
Well of course I can't give up. What would that even mean?
Would it mean that I lay in bed all day and watch reruns of "The Golden Girls"? I hated "The Golden Girls". So sue me.
Would it mean that I put on that white slip and rat my hair and sit on the porch and drink gin all day and yell at people walking by the house? That actually sounds okay.
Would it mean that I give my husband a can of tuna and a can opener and tell him, "Here's your dinner?" (That was a real fantasy of mine when I was younger and there were six of us at the table every night and everyone involved had different dietary needs. That I would just put a can of tuna and a can opener at everyone's place and announce, "Dinner's ready!")
Would it mean I never take another walk? Never get involved in another play? Let the potatoes rot in the ground? Let the laundry pile up to the sky? Let the roaches take over the kitchen?
Okay. So while I was waiting at the dermatologist's office yesterday I read an article in the New Yorker by Susan Orlean about treadmill desks. Have you heard of these? The idea is that sitting for prolonged periods of time is like the worst thing you can do for your health. Forget gluten and simple carbs and oh, you know, heroin...NO! It's sitting. For prolonged periods of time. Doesn't matter how much time you spend working out or running or whatever. Nah. That eight hours at the desk is going to kill your ass. So now you can buy a treadmill desk and while you go about your daily desk-business you can also walk constantly at a low rate of speed.
Oh yeah. Just give me one more fucking thing to feel guilty about. I AM NOT WALKING CONSTANTLY ON A TREADMILL WHILE WRITING OR READING.
Fuck. Jesus.
I'm a little leery of this theory. Wouldn't this mean that servers and nurses would live forever?
When you get to be my age, you've seen so many theories come and go. You've seen so many studies indicating this and that and then go on to be disproven. Eat wheat germ. No. Wheat germ will kill you. Coffee is evil. No, coffee is like a miracle substance. Fat makes you fat. No, CARBS make you fat.
Do the fucking crossword to preserve your brain. Eat blueberries. Be in relationships. Laugh a lot. Meditate. Do yoga. Balance your fucking chakras. Drink green tea. (I hate green tea.) Dance like no one's watching. Get rid of toxic relationships. Stay involved. Volunteer. Take time for yourself to nourish your soul. Keep a positive fucking attitude! Remember your dreams! There is no failure in failure! There is only failure in not trying! Keep a gratitude journal. Check for bedbugs. Just say no. Just do it! Say YES to life! Wear sunscreen, bug spray and remember- moderation in all things. Live hard, die young, leave a beautiful corpse. Be Keith Richards and live hard, live long, and get really old and wrinkled and beautiful and keep playing guitar.
Whatthefuckever.
Whatever works for you.
Here's a magnolia. Magnolias work for me.
I need a nap.
Yours truly...Ms. Moon
That nap I had yesterday? The most heavenly nap of my life? One of the nicest experiences of my life?
It came back and bit me in the ass and I couldn't fall asleep last night and this morning I hurt everywhere as if I'd spent all day working in the yard yesterday and I ache and I just feel terrible and okay, it's one thing to maybe drink too much and feel like shit the next day but to have a nap and feel like shit the next day?
So I give up.
Well of course I can't give up. What would that even mean?
Would it mean that I lay in bed all day and watch reruns of "The Golden Girls"? I hated "The Golden Girls". So sue me.
Would it mean that I put on that white slip and rat my hair and sit on the porch and drink gin all day and yell at people walking by the house? That actually sounds okay.
Would it mean that I give my husband a can of tuna and a can opener and tell him, "Here's your dinner?" (That was a real fantasy of mine when I was younger and there were six of us at the table every night and everyone involved had different dietary needs. That I would just put a can of tuna and a can opener at everyone's place and announce, "Dinner's ready!")
Would it mean I never take another walk? Never get involved in another play? Let the potatoes rot in the ground? Let the laundry pile up to the sky? Let the roaches take over the kitchen?
Okay. So while I was waiting at the dermatologist's office yesterday I read an article in the New Yorker by Susan Orlean about treadmill desks. Have you heard of these? The idea is that sitting for prolonged periods of time is like the worst thing you can do for your health. Forget gluten and simple carbs and oh, you know, heroin...NO! It's sitting. For prolonged periods of time. Doesn't matter how much time you spend working out or running or whatever. Nah. That eight hours at the desk is going to kill your ass. So now you can buy a treadmill desk and while you go about your daily desk-business you can also walk constantly at a low rate of speed.
Fuck. Jesus.
I'm a little leery of this theory. Wouldn't this mean that servers and nurses would live forever?
When you get to be my age, you've seen so many theories come and go. You've seen so many studies indicating this and that and then go on to be disproven. Eat wheat germ. No. Wheat germ will kill you. Coffee is evil. No, coffee is like a miracle substance. Fat makes you fat. No, CARBS make you fat.
Do the fucking crossword to preserve your brain. Eat blueberries. Be in relationships. Laugh a lot. Meditate. Do yoga. Balance your fucking chakras. Drink green tea. (I hate green tea.) Dance like no one's watching. Get rid of toxic relationships. Stay involved. Volunteer. Take time for yourself to nourish your soul. Keep a positive fucking attitude! Remember your dreams! There is no failure in failure! There is only failure in not trying! Keep a gratitude journal. Check for bedbugs. Just say no. Just do it! Say YES to life! Wear sunscreen, bug spray and remember- moderation in all things. Live hard, die young, leave a beautiful corpse. Be Keith Richards and live hard, live long, and get really old and wrinkled and beautiful and keep playing guitar.
Whatthefuckever.
Whatever works for you.
Here's a magnolia. Magnolias work for me.
I need a nap.
Yours truly...Ms. Moon
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
I just woke up from the most heavenly nap of my entire life, I think. I woke up and I didn't know if it was daytime or night time or if I was in Lloyd or in Cozumel or in a bed I've never before known in my life but it was so perfect, my skin cool with fans blowing on me, my mind quiet and peaceful, smiling. Can your mind smile? Mine smiled and I didn't care where I was or when it was and even when all of that came back to me, I was perfect and I drowsed a little more, not even checking the time and I haven't even washed this morning's coffee pot, my husband's cereal bowl and I don't care. Who cares? It's okay. The crickets are buzzing, they are like an orchestra, their wing-voices rise and fall, their conductor is the temperature, the air, the sun/humidity/light.
I went to the dermatologist. Do you remember this whole story? I have these things on my face, everyone does who grew up in Florida or on the water, little rough patches and they may or may not turn into cancer one day and so the idea is to eradicate them now, you know. There are options and two of them were chemicals and one involved light and one is freezing them off, fast, fast. I chose that one because the one chemical that sounded least harmful cost $750 and forget that. So the doctor came into the room with a full, unopened tube of that chemical, the $750 one and he gave it to me because a patient had been given it by the VA, way too much of it, and he brought it back and so I guess I am a charity case now, and am going to be using government paid-for drugs and that is fine with me. I asked the doctor if this chemical was better (forget the cosmetic situation of having the things frozen) and he said it was because it got to all of the places, seen or unseen, felt or unfelt.
We shall see. And feel. I guess.
I told the doctor he had restored my faith in many things and also, that he has beautiful skin.
He really does.
After the doctor I went with Lily and the boys to a new pizza place and I got a whole-wheat crust pizza with vegetables and no cheese and the guy behind the counter asked, "How does that taste? With no cheese?" as if it were the craziest thing he'd ever heard of, and I said, "Fine." And it was. We ate, all of us with our nice little pizzas and then we went to Walmart and it was horrible as always and I showed Owen a hideous fake flower arrangement in colors of red, white, and blue for people to buy in order to express their patriotism, I suppose, and I told him, "See this? This is crap. Do not buy crap."
Then I bought him a Thomas The Tank Engine beach chair.
It's crap and he loves it.
And then we went to Costco (we are getting ready for the island) and the boys were whiney and we didn't know what we were buying and so we got a watermelon and some peppers and two chickens in a bag and sun screen and bug spray, etc. At least the employees at Costco seem cheerful and they wear what they want and I hear that they start people off at better-than-average wages and offer good benefits. I hope so. They do not appear to be barely breathing until their shifts are over at the Costco, they are open-eyed and they smile and they talk to you. Gibson waved the divider thing around at the check-out like a young, pudgy king, and the cashier said, "How you doin', Little Guy?" and Gibson grinned and showed him his teeth, his perfect little teeth and I thought, "Oh. That is my grandson."
And then I came home and unloaded everything and lay down on the bed in the room where we are sleeping which doesn't have one bedroom thing of mine in it, still, just the printer and the sewing stuff in an old dresser and the scattered VHS tapes of kid movies and we sleep in there so well that it's crazy and I'm almost afraid to move a thing but when I walk back into our old room, our "real" bedroom, that still feels like our bedroom so I don't know. And it doesn't matter. Like the cereal bowl- so what?
So what, so what, so what?
Nothing matters and it all matters and we do the best we can and we get through the crazy-terror times and we don't exactly know where they come from and we hold on as long as we can to the sweet, cool moments of nothing short of bliss and we don't know where they come from either but they do.
That's all I have to say tonight. I am a woman alive on Planet Earth in the 21st century and I have been alive for close to 59 years and I don't know shit, but I am here.
And so it is.
I went to the dermatologist. Do you remember this whole story? I have these things on my face, everyone does who grew up in Florida or on the water, little rough patches and they may or may not turn into cancer one day and so the idea is to eradicate them now, you know. There are options and two of them were chemicals and one involved light and one is freezing them off, fast, fast. I chose that one because the one chemical that sounded least harmful cost $750 and forget that. So the doctor came into the room with a full, unopened tube of that chemical, the $750 one and he gave it to me because a patient had been given it by the VA, way too much of it, and he brought it back and so I guess I am a charity case now, and am going to be using government paid-for drugs and that is fine with me. I asked the doctor if this chemical was better (forget the cosmetic situation of having the things frozen) and he said it was because it got to all of the places, seen or unseen, felt or unfelt.
We shall see. And feel. I guess.
I told the doctor he had restored my faith in many things and also, that he has beautiful skin.
He really does.
After the doctor I went with Lily and the boys to a new pizza place and I got a whole-wheat crust pizza with vegetables and no cheese and the guy behind the counter asked, "How does that taste? With no cheese?" as if it were the craziest thing he'd ever heard of, and I said, "Fine." And it was. We ate, all of us with our nice little pizzas and then we went to Walmart and it was horrible as always and I showed Owen a hideous fake flower arrangement in colors of red, white, and blue for people to buy in order to express their patriotism, I suppose, and I told him, "See this? This is crap. Do not buy crap."
Then I bought him a Thomas The Tank Engine beach chair.
It's crap and he loves it.
And then we went to Costco (we are getting ready for the island) and the boys were whiney and we didn't know what we were buying and so we got a watermelon and some peppers and two chickens in a bag and sun screen and bug spray, etc. At least the employees at Costco seem cheerful and they wear what they want and I hear that they start people off at better-than-average wages and offer good benefits. I hope so. They do not appear to be barely breathing until their shifts are over at the Costco, they are open-eyed and they smile and they talk to you. Gibson waved the divider thing around at the check-out like a young, pudgy king, and the cashier said, "How you doin', Little Guy?" and Gibson grinned and showed him his teeth, his perfect little teeth and I thought, "Oh. That is my grandson."
And then I came home and unloaded everything and lay down on the bed in the room where we are sleeping which doesn't have one bedroom thing of mine in it, still, just the printer and the sewing stuff in an old dresser and the scattered VHS tapes of kid movies and we sleep in there so well that it's crazy and I'm almost afraid to move a thing but when I walk back into our old room, our "real" bedroom, that still feels like our bedroom so I don't know. And it doesn't matter. Like the cereal bowl- so what?
So what, so what, so what?
Nothing matters and it all matters and we do the best we can and we get through the crazy-terror times and we don't exactly know where they come from and we hold on as long as we can to the sweet, cool moments of nothing short of bliss and we don't know where they come from either but they do.
That's all I have to say tonight. I am a woman alive on Planet Earth in the 21st century and I have been alive for close to 59 years and I don't know shit, but I am here.
And so it is.
No Real Point Here But I Love Mel Brooks And President Obama
I'm going to the dermatologist this morning to get those precancerous (possibly) places frozen on my face and of course I'm experiencing high anxiety merely because it's a doctor thing and also, we are going this weekend to Dog Island with Lily and Jason and the boys, and the men are going to fish to replenish the freezer with grouper (hopefully) and that is causing me a little anxiety, too- three days in that tiny house with two small boys and it's going to be hotter than blazes and there's only so much time little ones or big ones can be outside in that, even with sun screen and my god, I haven't had a second's downtime, it seems since January or even way before then, and then I look at the pictures from Oklahoma, people carrying children out of the devastation and I think, "Oh, shut up, Mary. Shut up, shut up, shut up."
Which doesn't work. Not really. It only adds fuel to my fire which of course is built on the flames of life's uncertainties and fragility.
Well.
Speaking of High Anxieties, we watched the PBS Master's show last night about Mel Brooks and it was a good program. One of the things I liked most about it was a clip from when Brooks received the Kennedy Center Honor from Obama a few years ago. I heard him yesterday on NPR, talking about receiving that award and how they had offered it to him when Bush was president but he politely refused it then, saying that he thought he'd wait for another president to give it to him. Which cracked me up. It turns out that Mel Brooks has suffered anxieties and depression his whole life and yet, with his comedy, he has created so much laughter which to my mind, is one of the best antidotes to those two horrible devilments of the human mind ever devised.
Here's sort of a fuzzy clip of that video. I love the part about God creating every tenth Jew to be crazy in order to relieve with amusement the perpetual lamentation of the Jews.
I wish I could be amusing today but I am not and now I need to go and take a shower and get ready to present my old, wrinkled, sun-stained and blemished skin to the doctor.
My perpetual lamentation goes on, even as I know I am crazy.
Be well, y'all. Let's all try to find something to laugh about today.
Love...Ms. Moon
Which doesn't work. Not really. It only adds fuel to my fire which of course is built on the flames of life's uncertainties and fragility.
Well.
Speaking of High Anxieties, we watched the PBS Master's show last night about Mel Brooks and it was a good program. One of the things I liked most about it was a clip from when Brooks received the Kennedy Center Honor from Obama a few years ago. I heard him yesterday on NPR, talking about receiving that award and how they had offered it to him when Bush was president but he politely refused it then, saying that he thought he'd wait for another president to give it to him. Which cracked me up. It turns out that Mel Brooks has suffered anxieties and depression his whole life and yet, with his comedy, he has created so much laughter which to my mind, is one of the best antidotes to those two horrible devilments of the human mind ever devised.
Here's sort of a fuzzy clip of that video. I love the part about God creating every tenth Jew to be crazy in order to relieve with amusement the perpetual lamentation of the Jews.
I wish I could be amusing today but I am not and now I need to go and take a shower and get ready to present my old, wrinkled, sun-stained and blemished skin to the doctor.
My perpetual lamentation goes on, even as I know I am crazy.
Be well, y'all. Let's all try to find something to laugh about today.
Love...Ms. Moon
Monday, May 20, 2013
For now my babies are staying in town.
Jason has done the math and added everything up and decided that the move would not make financial sense. I know that both he and Lily are somewhat disappointed. They are young and they crave adventure and change and so they should at their age.
But for me. Well.
I am just incredibly grateful that they are going to be here for awhile at least.
So grateful.
I feel as if I've been wound so tightly about this situation that it's going to take me awhile to uncoil, for the twitch to leave my eye, for me to relax back in to it. Or for me to relax as much as I ever do, which isn't much but everyone has their level of normality and I shall try to reattain my own.
After my bitch-a-thon this morning I actually got quite a bit done. I took my walk and remembered the hell of walking in Florida in the summer although we are not nearly as hot as we're going to be. The chill, however, is definitely gone, and I came home soaking wet from sweat and stinking to high heaven. I showered and raced to town to get a few things and return a few movies to the library, and then raced back home to get things in order before that baby boy got here. He fell asleep on the way over and his mama got him down on my bed and I laid down with him and got a short nap, such heaven. When he woke up we read some books and visited with the goats and collected eggs and sat on the porch swing and he happily ate an apple and looked at the trees and babbled away in his own Gibson language. He is an easy boy, that one. It is a treat to have time alone with him. The second child never gets the undivided attention the first one does. It's a fact of life.
And now he's gone and my body is rebelling against this heat. I feel incredibly languid and slow, despite the nap. I could easily lay back down on the bed, the fans blowing over me, to read, to nap some more, to do nothing but lay as still as possible. Mr. Moon is on his chair in the Glen Den and I think he may be resting his eyes. I have some plants to water and supper to make and those two things together seem a completely impossible task but I'm sure I'll rally. I always do. We could turn on the air conditioner but it still gets into the sixties at night which makes the AC seem ridiculous and besides, I absolutely hate shutting the house up. Even with the heat, there is glory in the open doors, the open windows, being able to hear the birds, the chickens as they move around the house, scratching and talking about what they are finding under the leaves in the dirt.
It's a trade-off and soon, the heat will make the balance tip and again we shall live in the comfort of the wonderful and beastly cold air machine which makes life possible here for us, we weak forms of human life who are so very spoiled.
I feel so very grateful to be spoiled by air conditioning and refrigeration and ice at my fingertips for cold water to drink and by water that I don't have to pump and haul, spoiled by my car which I can drive to grocery stores filled with food to choose from. And spoiled by my husband who brought me a magnolia blossom today, huge, white and smelling of lemon to place in a vase in the hallway.
But I am especially grateful to be spoiled by grandsons, close at hand. Grandsons whom I can nap with, read to, teach chicken-tending to, and also and yes, most assuredly...to spoil.
Monday
Monday again and our strange, cool spring seems to be over and the heat is returning and I need to get out and walk before it gets too hot and Gibson is coming over today, just him, his brother is going to Gainesville with his father.
The birds are so noisy this morning that it's like an aural wallpaper, there is an actual denseness to it.
It's Monday and so it's time to go back to my better ways. Everyone is gone and there is no excuse for biscuits and butter, no reason whatsoever to indulge in simple carbohydrates and blah, blah, blah.
Why is being a human so fucking complex?
Why did Billy bring me cheese and Buddha beer?
(Thank you Billy, and meanwhile you're all thin and looking good and meanwhile I'm all not.)
It never did rain here, I went off on my husband last night for no apparent reason out of the blue and it made me feel terrible and I want to reach back in time and pinch my own head off. I think maybe it's just all too much, or at least all too much for me who can barely handle doing the laundry and cooking a meal in one day (and we know that's not entirely true but sort of) and at eleven o'clock at night when I've finally and utterly exhausted myself in every physical and emotional way, there is no one else to go off on but him and he doesn't deserve that and he doesn't treat me that way.
You'd think, wouldn't you, that by now I'd have learned a few things about myself, about marriage, about...anything?
Well, I obviously haven't.
Move, Mary, get moving. Off the ass, sheets off the bed, into the washer, it is Monday, it is time to move and if not groove, at least plod along. Jessie left her phone charger, her red flip-flops and the sourdough starter which I was going to hand off to her to take custody of. Would that be a good enough excuse to pack up and get in the car and drive, drive, drive? Not that I really want to do that but, oh, Mondays sometimes. The very essence of them makes me want to flee, especially when I feel this way, as if human life is too complex and having the simple goal of getting from one place in time and space to another with a cooler with sourdough starter in it sounds like a plan.
It is not. Not really.
What are you doing today? Are you filled with energy and focus and are you grooving and snapping your fingers and checking your e-mail and sorting out your day and making plans for your week and GETTING IT DONE? Are you increasing your reps, your miles, your sets, your weights and are you unrolling/rolling up your yoga mats and are you EATING ALL HEALTHY AND SHIT? Are you glad for the week to be begun are you looking forward to the challenges ahead? And have you been an exemplary wife/mother/daughter/son/husband/partner/etc.? Have you written a new chapter, a new poem, are you reading a good book, is your garden weed-free and are your tomatoes ripening nicely? Is your bed made, the sheets stretched tightly across the mattress, your handmade-by-local-fabric-artists quilt spread over it all, your pillows fluffed and aired? Is your feng shui correct and are all of your fucking chakras balanced? Have you had your green tea in a porcelain cup and have you meditated this morning?
If so, please don't bother to tell me because my thighs are suddenly blobby and my hair needs trimming and I was a terrible daughter and I was mean to my husband and no, I certainly didn't win the lottery.
Except that I did, in all actuality, in so many ways and I need to remember that and I need to yes, get off this ass and I can move even if there is no groove, get going, get going, get going, it is Monday and it may yet rain this week and Gibson is coming.
Good morning.
The birds are so noisy this morning that it's like an aural wallpaper, there is an actual denseness to it.
It's Monday and so it's time to go back to my better ways. Everyone is gone and there is no excuse for biscuits and butter, no reason whatsoever to indulge in simple carbohydrates and blah, blah, blah.
Why is being a human so fucking complex?
Why did Billy bring me cheese and Buddha beer?
(Thank you Billy, and meanwhile you're all thin and looking good and meanwhile I'm all not.)
It never did rain here, I went off on my husband last night for no apparent reason out of the blue and it made me feel terrible and I want to reach back in time and pinch my own head off. I think maybe it's just all too much, or at least all too much for me who can barely handle doing the laundry and cooking a meal in one day (and we know that's not entirely true but sort of) and at eleven o'clock at night when I've finally and utterly exhausted myself in every physical and emotional way, there is no one else to go off on but him and he doesn't deserve that and he doesn't treat me that way.
You'd think, wouldn't you, that by now I'd have learned a few things about myself, about marriage, about...anything?
Well, I obviously haven't.
Move, Mary, get moving. Off the ass, sheets off the bed, into the washer, it is Monday, it is time to move and if not groove, at least plod along. Jessie left her phone charger, her red flip-flops and the sourdough starter which I was going to hand off to her to take custody of. Would that be a good enough excuse to pack up and get in the car and drive, drive, drive? Not that I really want to do that but, oh, Mondays sometimes. The very essence of them makes me want to flee, especially when I feel this way, as if human life is too complex and having the simple goal of getting from one place in time and space to another with a cooler with sourdough starter in it sounds like a plan.
It is not. Not really.
What are you doing today? Are you filled with energy and focus and are you grooving and snapping your fingers and checking your e-mail and sorting out your day and making plans for your week and GETTING IT DONE? Are you increasing your reps, your miles, your sets, your weights and are you unrolling/rolling up your yoga mats and are you EATING ALL HEALTHY AND SHIT? Are you glad for the week to be begun are you looking forward to the challenges ahead? And have you been an exemplary wife/mother/daughter/son/husband/partner/etc.? Have you written a new chapter, a new poem, are you reading a good book, is your garden weed-free and are your tomatoes ripening nicely? Is your bed made, the sheets stretched tightly across the mattress, your handmade-by-local-fabric-artists quilt spread over it all, your pillows fluffed and aired? Is your feng shui correct and are all of your fucking chakras balanced? Have you had your green tea in a porcelain cup and have you meditated this morning?
If so, please don't bother to tell me because my thighs are suddenly blobby and my hair needs trimming and I was a terrible daughter and I was mean to my husband and no, I certainly didn't win the lottery.
Except that I did, in all actuality, in so many ways and I need to remember that and I need to yes, get off this ass and I can move even if there is no groove, get going, get going, get going, it is Monday and it may yet rain this week and Gibson is coming.
Good morning.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
The sky is turning purple bruise and the wind is coming up and the ceiling fan on the porch is whipping the air like egg whites and Judy and Denise just left and Mr. Donkey next door is doing his series of hee-haw songs and the smallest leaves are caught in the wind and making sssh-sssh sounds and yes, oh yes, I need to go make supper but it's so beautiful out here on the porch and I smelled the ozone and somewhere nearby it is raining and it's like knowing that somewhere nearby someone is having The Sex, it's that powerful, that beautiful.
Oh, come on rain. We want you.
Oh, come on rain. We want you.
They Have Come And Gone Again
Jasmine still assaulting our senses, birds singing out that it's the first day again, Jessie in the kitchen making breakfast, she and Vergil are packed and ready to go.
It was such a good party. I took almost no pictures but snapped that one above as the girls blew out the candles on the cake, Owen in the middle, I hadn't even noticed he was there, so much chaos everywhere, kids and folks and everyone, everyone, it was happy.
Here's one more I got, Kati and Owen and Jessie, right before the eating truly began:
All the salads got eaten and all the hamburgers and all the fish and most of the bread and it WAS a fiesta and the boys had gone fishing earlier in the day and a small alligator followed their boat around, looking for a handout and they brought home bream but I haven't cooked any yet. They cleaned those fishes though, the men, and Owen said they were cleaning "off" the fishes, and I envisioned Glen and Vergil wiping the little bream's faces with a washcloth, delicately getting them clean behind the gills.
There was a spontaneous picking of snow peas which occurred during the party and when Owen went out with Boppy to shut the chickens up he left the Spider Man that Sweet Uncle Matt had brought him
on the ground when he latched the door and you would have thought the world had come to a spontaneous and fiery end but Boppy helped him find it and the world was restored to its natural, fine state. When Whaylon got here, Owen screamed with joy, "Whaylon's here! Whaylon's here! WHERE MY SHOES?" and the boys raced around the yard and climbed the Chinaberry tree and Waylon shared ice cream with Gibson so sweetly.
After the last people left, Liz Sparks showed up. She'd been down the road, still midwifing her ex-husband into his death. She has decorated his room and cooked all his favorite meals and played cards with him and engineered everyone coming to say good-bye and played music for him. I came up with a new saying last night and it is this: It takes a village. Or...Lis Sparks.
I gave her a shot of tequila and we sat around and talked for a little while and then she and her former sister-in-law took off for town and we all fell out, Vergil already asleep on the couch, Mr. Moon sitting in his chair. I slept so deep and when I woke up once it was merely a joy because I knew I could go right back into it. That deepness, that falling away from trouble or worry or anything at all. Just sleep.
And since I started writing this, Jessie made our breakfast and Hank and his friend Elisha came out because she lives in Asheville and Vergil and Jessie are giving her a ride home and we all ate eggs and sausage and wonderful biscuits under the trees where we ate last night, one meal after another in this house, all of them I am grateful for, each and every one but especially those shared with family both blood and not.
There is always cooking going on and always the washing of dishes and there are arrivals and there are departures and hugs on both ends and kisses, too, and the newlyweds and Elisha have already pulled out of the driveway, they are on their way home and I hugged Hank to me and I said, "You GeeDee kids. You are always coming and going. Coming and going. And I always cry."
And he just laughed because he knows not to take my tears seriously. They are as plentiful and meaningless as rain and signify very little except that Mama is that way.
I just watched a daddy cardinal feed one of his younguns with seed from his very own beak. Mr. Moon is finishing up the dishes. He says he is going to complete the pressure washing of the house today and I claimed at first that I would do nothing at all except to clean out the hen house but then I realized I need to water the plants- so what? that's nothing- and also, oh yes, there is laundry and it is a perfect day to hang clothes on the line. We shall move slowly through this day in this house and this yard, now empty again but for us, now quiet, no Rolling Stones, no kid shouts, no baby fussing, no door slamming as people come and go, come and go, dancing in and out, greetings and catch-ups and I-love-yous, just us, and so sure, there will actually be I-love-yous and hugs, and thank god for that, and it is quiet again in Lloyd except for the buzzing of the crickets, the occasional crow of Elvis as he guards and collects his hens, here where I live in this house which is for me the very essence of home, that thing I always longed for and here it is, here it is, here we are and everyone has gone except for us but I know they will come back and here we shall be and ready.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
The Women
The hippie apple cake is out of the oven and bread dough is rising (I have no idea why I'm making bread it seemed necessary) and the water for iced tea is on the stove and I've made the bean salad.
It is a bean salad which is reminiscent of the three-bean salad I remember from my childhood. That salad's beans were canned green beans, canned wax beans, and canned kidney beans. There were also green peppers and onions in it and the dressing was a very, very sweet vinaigrette with so much sugar in it that you could have marinated grass in it and it would have been delicious.
My salad is not quite like that. I still use canned beans but there are black beans, garbanzos, kidney, edamame, green beans, two colors of pepper and red onions. And my vinaigrette has no sugar whatsoever but the balsamic and rice wine vinegars give it some sweetness.
I think back to my childhood when every recipe had cups of white sugar and sticks of butter and cream cheese and mayonnaise and cream and that included the salads. Or what passed for salads in those days. And I don't recall that many fat people, either. Except for me. I was the fat child. The one my grandmother's friends would give gifts of jump ropes to encourage exercise. The one they would say of, "She has such a pretty face."
Ah. Cliche. Hurtful and sharp, still to this day. But, they were the same ladies who gave me copies of books to read- Treasure Island, for one, the same ladies who told me I was smart and I believed them. Some of them had blue hair and cat glasses. Some of them wore silver bangles and rhinestone pins and simple strings of pearls. Many of them kept their little cardigans attached like a cape with a chain and clip device which was also bejeweled. Their accessories fascinated me, and when they all started wearing hair nets with tiny beads on them, I thought that they were beautiful and I asked my grandmother to get one, too. Most of them had long hair which they wore up in complicated buns and braids but some of them, like my grandmother, simply went and got their hair trimmed and permed and set and dyed blue.
Simply.
And they all wore hair nets, night and day I think, in order to protect their hairdos.
Well. I am just thinking, for some reason, about those ladies. Maybe the bean salad, or maybe it's just that I am approaching the age they were then when I thought they were so very, very old. Ancient. And yet, I thought they were beautiful too. And some of them, without a doubt, were.
They have made sharp comments at times, but they meant them kindly, and even then I knew that. And when I look back on those days in Roseland, which is where we lived when I knew these women, I realize that it was mostly they who cushioned my existence. If there was any human comfort, a great deal of it came from them.
I remember their names.
Helen and Irene and Katie and Betty and Rosa and Garnet and Ruth. There were others, I am sure, but these are the ones I remember.
There were other women who made my life better, younger women. Aunt Dottie who ran a daycare and made clothes for my Barbie doll and took me camping and taught me to swim and Martha Hendry, my most beloved school teacher. Aunt Flonny, who drove the school bus and let me work in the cafeteria with her during the worst year of my life. I believe they saw something very needy in me and because they had great souls, they offered me what they could and if I am a person of any worth, they and the older women are the reasons.
So. There. Just that.
Make bean salad and a childhood appears, the river, the jungle, the birds, the other children, the snakes, the armadillos and my grandfather and his tuneless whistling as he worked his compost. The school with its oiled wood floors and two staircases, the kitchen of the cafeteria where Aunt Flonny made huge batches of yeast rolls and I scraped plates into the trash and dried and stacked those green plastic, partitioned lunch plates, turned chairs up onto tables and swept the floors.
Mostly though, today I am thinking of the women and silky dresses, their hair nets, their soft voices and wrinkled skin, their face powder, their eyes, magnified beyond all reason behind the lenses of their cat glasses.
I am remembering them. I am realizing, as I cut and chop and mix and bake the great debt I owe them.
These words aren't much, but today, they are what I have to offer to that debt.
I thank them, even as they are long, long gone. They are not gone to me, though but in some ways are as living and alive as anyone I know because as cliched as THIS is, they live on in me. The best parts of me. They gave freely and I somehow knew enough to take.
And I am so eternally grateful.
It is a bean salad which is reminiscent of the three-bean salad I remember from my childhood. That salad's beans were canned green beans, canned wax beans, and canned kidney beans. There were also green peppers and onions in it and the dressing was a very, very sweet vinaigrette with so much sugar in it that you could have marinated grass in it and it would have been delicious.
My salad is not quite like that. I still use canned beans but there are black beans, garbanzos, kidney, edamame, green beans, two colors of pepper and red onions. And my vinaigrette has no sugar whatsoever but the balsamic and rice wine vinegars give it some sweetness.
I think back to my childhood when every recipe had cups of white sugar and sticks of butter and cream cheese and mayonnaise and cream and that included the salads. Or what passed for salads in those days. And I don't recall that many fat people, either. Except for me. I was the fat child. The one my grandmother's friends would give gifts of jump ropes to encourage exercise. The one they would say of, "She has such a pretty face."
Ah. Cliche. Hurtful and sharp, still to this day. But, they were the same ladies who gave me copies of books to read- Treasure Island, for one, the same ladies who told me I was smart and I believed them. Some of them had blue hair and cat glasses. Some of them wore silver bangles and rhinestone pins and simple strings of pearls. Many of them kept their little cardigans attached like a cape with a chain and clip device which was also bejeweled. Their accessories fascinated me, and when they all started wearing hair nets with tiny beads on them, I thought that they were beautiful and I asked my grandmother to get one, too. Most of them had long hair which they wore up in complicated buns and braids but some of them, like my grandmother, simply went and got their hair trimmed and permed and set and dyed blue.
Simply.
And they all wore hair nets, night and day I think, in order to protect their hairdos.
Well. I am just thinking, for some reason, about those ladies. Maybe the bean salad, or maybe it's just that I am approaching the age they were then when I thought they were so very, very old. Ancient. And yet, I thought they were beautiful too. And some of them, without a doubt, were.
They have made sharp comments at times, but they meant them kindly, and even then I knew that. And when I look back on those days in Roseland, which is where we lived when I knew these women, I realize that it was mostly they who cushioned my existence. If there was any human comfort, a great deal of it came from them.
I remember their names.
Helen and Irene and Katie and Betty and Rosa and Garnet and Ruth. There were others, I am sure, but these are the ones I remember.
There were other women who made my life better, younger women. Aunt Dottie who ran a daycare and made clothes for my Barbie doll and took me camping and taught me to swim and Martha Hendry, my most beloved school teacher. Aunt Flonny, who drove the school bus and let me work in the cafeteria with her during the worst year of my life. I believe they saw something very needy in me and because they had great souls, they offered me what they could and if I am a person of any worth, they and the older women are the reasons.
So. There. Just that.
Make bean salad and a childhood appears, the river, the jungle, the birds, the other children, the snakes, the armadillos and my grandfather and his tuneless whistling as he worked his compost. The school with its oiled wood floors and two staircases, the kitchen of the cafeteria where Aunt Flonny made huge batches of yeast rolls and I scraped plates into the trash and dried and stacked those green plastic, partitioned lunch plates, turned chairs up onto tables and swept the floors.
Mostly though, today I am thinking of the women and silky dresses, their hair nets, their soft voices and wrinkled skin, their face powder, their eyes, magnified beyond all reason behind the lenses of their cat glasses.
I am remembering them. I am realizing, as I cut and chop and mix and bake the great debt I owe them.
These words aren't much, but today, they are what I have to offer to that debt.
I thank them, even as they are long, long gone. They are not gone to me, though but in some ways are as living and alive as anyone I know because as cliched as THIS is, they live on in me. The best parts of me. They gave freely and I somehow knew enough to take.
And I am so eternally grateful.
A Fiesta Of Sorts
Today is going to be a very full day. We're having a family gathering/birthday party since the newlyweds are in town and Jessie's birthday was a few weeks ago and May's is coming up next Friday. There's going to be bean salad and hamburgers of both the meat and veggie variety, and grouper and regular salad and fruit salad and apple cake with caramel icing.
If I get moving here, that is.
And there's also talk of Boppy taking Owen fishing this morning.
My right eye has developed a twitch which is not surprising.
It's so funny how, when I was younger, I truly thought that life would become more settled, less complicated when the kids grew up. This has turned out not to be true in the least. I keep having fantasies of running off to live in a shack in Mexico, my entire day consisting of a walk by the ocean to the mercado where I might buy three tortillas, an egg and a mango, and then taking them back to my shack to eat them.
Of course this will never happen and I have no idea what will happen as this life progresses but no matter what, I do believe I will be spending time in a kitchen for the rest of my years. This is fine with me. There is no place I feel more at home than in the kitchen.
Last night before Owen left and we were having a Friday night cocktail hour, I asked him if he would like for me to make him a frozen pizza. He thought about this for a moment and then he said, "No. I want a hot pizza." Which only makes sense and reminded me of when Jessie was a little girl and was best friends with the little boy next door. They were playing at the house one day and Jessie wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. I asked Lewis, her friend, if he, too, would like a grilled cheese sandwich.
"No," he said. Lewis was a man of few words.
"Mommy," Jessie piped up, "Lewis doesn't want a GIRL cheese sandwich. He wants a BOY cheese sandwich."
"Do you want a boy cheese sandwich?" I asked Lewis.
"Yes," he said.
And so I made him one.
And last night I heated up a frozen pizza and made it into a hot pizza and we all sat on the porch and the adults had martinis and Owen had an orange and pineapple juice in a fancy glass with a straw and he insisted that we all bump glasses, which we did, and someone said, "What are we toasting to?" and Owen said that we weren't toasting anything, merely bumping glasses.
There may be some bumping of glasses today along with the eating of many salads. And so it will go.
It is a beautiful day, Mr. Moon has already taken the trash, the chickens are out scratching and pecking, the kitchen is full of things for me to chop and slice and combine and prepare and as long as I can do these things, I know I have a purpose in life.
Time to go sharpen the knives and look up my recipe for MeMaw's caramel icing.
Much love...Ms. Moon
If I get moving here, that is.
And there's also talk of Boppy taking Owen fishing this morning.
My right eye has developed a twitch which is not surprising.
It's so funny how, when I was younger, I truly thought that life would become more settled, less complicated when the kids grew up. This has turned out not to be true in the least. I keep having fantasies of running off to live in a shack in Mexico, my entire day consisting of a walk by the ocean to the mercado where I might buy three tortillas, an egg and a mango, and then taking them back to my shack to eat them.
Of course this will never happen and I have no idea what will happen as this life progresses but no matter what, I do believe I will be spending time in a kitchen for the rest of my years. This is fine with me. There is no place I feel more at home than in the kitchen.
Last night before Owen left and we were having a Friday night cocktail hour, I asked him if he would like for me to make him a frozen pizza. He thought about this for a moment and then he said, "No. I want a hot pizza." Which only makes sense and reminded me of when Jessie was a little girl and was best friends with the little boy next door. They were playing at the house one day and Jessie wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. I asked Lewis, her friend, if he, too, would like a grilled cheese sandwich.
"No," he said. Lewis was a man of few words.
"Mommy," Jessie piped up, "Lewis doesn't want a GIRL cheese sandwich. He wants a BOY cheese sandwich."
"Do you want a boy cheese sandwich?" I asked Lewis.
"Yes," he said.
And so I made him one.
And last night I heated up a frozen pizza and made it into a hot pizza and we all sat on the porch and the adults had martinis and Owen had an orange and pineapple juice in a fancy glass with a straw and he insisted that we all bump glasses, which we did, and someone said, "What are we toasting to?" and Owen said that we weren't toasting anything, merely bumping glasses.
There may be some bumping of glasses today along with the eating of many salads. And so it will go.
It is a beautiful day, Mr. Moon has already taken the trash, the chickens are out scratching and pecking, the kitchen is full of things for me to chop and slice and combine and prepare and as long as I can do these things, I know I have a purpose in life.
Time to go sharpen the knives and look up my recipe for MeMaw's caramel icing.
Much love...Ms. Moon
Friday, May 17, 2013
I'm Doing The Best I Can
For a week and a day we've known that there is a possibility that Lily and Jason and the boys might be moving a few hours west of here for Jason to be promoted in a different Publix.
I've been in complete denial but that's been harder and harder to maintain, especially today since Jason actually went over to check out the situation.
I'm trying very, very hard to be positive and supportive of my daughter and her husband because that's what mothers do and it's the right thing to do.
But.
As you can imagine, I am having a very, very hard time with the concept that there may be a move which would preclude me from seeing my grandsons every time I get the notion to see them.
Very hard time.
And Mr. Moon is having the same hard time and let me just say this- you are, oh, twenty-something years old. Or thirty-something. Whatever. You are in love and it's amazing and you have the sex with the one you are in love with and maybe even married to. And a beloved baby happens. And then, another million years (one second later) another baby happens and you are a grandparent and this is way more unexpectedly joyful than anything you could possibly imagine. And you fall head over heels in love in a way that you were not aware was possible.
And your life is never the same. Ever.
Sex. Mother Nature.
One day at a time.
I'm doing the best I can.
Me and the old man. We're hanging in there.
I guess what I'm saying is- when you have The Sex, you have no idea what can happen.
You may quote me on that.
Love...Ms. Moon
I've been in complete denial but that's been harder and harder to maintain, especially today since Jason actually went over to check out the situation.
I'm trying very, very hard to be positive and supportive of my daughter and her husband because that's what mothers do and it's the right thing to do.
But.
As you can imagine, I am having a very, very hard time with the concept that there may be a move which would preclude me from seeing my grandsons every time I get the notion to see them.
Very hard time.
And Mr. Moon is having the same hard time and let me just say this- you are, oh, twenty-something years old. Or thirty-something. Whatever. You are in love and it's amazing and you have the sex with the one you are in love with and maybe even married to. And a beloved baby happens. And then, another million years (one second later) another baby happens and you are a grandparent and this is way more unexpectedly joyful than anything you could possibly imagine. And you fall head over heels in love in a way that you were not aware was possible.
And your life is never the same. Ever.
Sex. Mother Nature.
One day at a time.
I'm doing the best I can.
Me and the old man. We're hanging in there.
I guess what I'm saying is- when you have The Sex, you have no idea what can happen.
You may quote me on that.
Love...Ms. Moon
Religious Education
Yesterday when Lily brought the boys over, Owen had a Christian tract that someone had given him. He had insisted on bringing it over for me to read to him. Lily apologized and said, "Try not to go off too bad," and I laughed and we set the thing down in the kitchen and I thought that Owen had forgotten about it but no, after a fun morning of goat-feeding and egg-collecting and pirate-playing and sitting-on-the-backsteps-and-eating-Chex Mix-and-being-delighted-at-the birds,
he remembered it and went to fetch it for me to read to him.
Okay. This thing was ridiculous. The Ten Commandments for kids. Cartoony and definitely geared for young children.
"For Kids Who Like To Think!" said the cover.
And here I was, me with my Pagan Ways, about to read this damn thing to my precious, pure grandson.
"Owen," I said. "This is what some people believe. That does not make it true. Okay?"
"Okay," he said.
I read him the Ten Commandments. As presented.
And sure, there's some good stuff in those commandments. I'm right onboard with Thou Shalt Not Kill. Although this tract used the more easily rationalized, "You shall not murder." With a bomb. Are we talking terrorist attacks here? Stealing and lying are wrong in my opinion too. I like the idea of honoring your parents. If they deserve it. But not having other gods before The Big Guy? Not making idols? Eh, not so much.
And how to explain committing adultery to a three-year old? He didn't ask and I didn't try.
So we went through the commandments and I said, "Okay, that's it," and went to put the tract down. He said, "No. There's more."
So we flipped over to this page:
I sighed and began to ask him the questions.
"Okay, Owen. Have you always obeyed your parents?"
"No," he admitted without hesitation.
"Have you ever lied?"
"Yes." Again, no hesitation whatsoever.
"Have you always loved god?"
"No." As solemnly as a...preacher.
"Have you ever stolen anything?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever been greedy?"
"Yes."
He showed no remorse for any of these answers. He was just being truthful.
I pulled him closer to me and laughed and laughed and said, "Owen, I adore you so much. I love you. You are perfect."
And he is. And I did my job and read the stupid thing to him because that's what he wanted and when Gibson brought me a book entitled "Farm Animals" I read that to him. And later, Owen wanted to hear Danny and the Dinosaur and we read that too.
I am a grandmother. This is what I do. And then I come here and write about it because this is who I am. I dreamed last night that I was looking for a hard copy of this blog (which I do not have in real life) and I found part of it on one of the shelves of a changing table that I had in real life when Hank was a baby.
I don't need to consult a psychiatrist to figure that one out.
Happy Friday, y'all.
Love...Ms. Moon
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Bless
There's so much in my heart and a meatloaf in the oven and I need to get to the potatoes and the salad so for right now, this second, there's this.
Which will do.
Which will do.
Random Thoughts In A Random World By A Random Woman
Jesus. I slept so hard that I can't seem to wake up this morning. It's like I was drugged, which I was most certainly not. The boys will be here in about an hour and Jessie and Vergil should be getting in sometime in the early afternoon. They split the drive up and started from Asheville after Jessie got off work last night and if all went according to plan, stayed the night a little bit south of Atlanta. They try to time things up so that they'll be in Omega, Georgia at lunchtime. According to Wikipedia, Omega has a population of 1,340 people and it is a small town but within it is the Maria y Jesus Tacqueria and it's worth the effort to get there for lunch.
They do not serve Tex-Mex. They just go with the Mex. Stepping in that little room is like being back in Mexico and it fills up fast at lunch time.
I love immigration!
So there's a lot going on in the news. Angelina Jolie and her preventative mastectomy has created a small firestorm. She wrote an op-ed for the NYT about why she did it and what the procedure was and I have to say that the woman is incredibly pragmatic and even though my breasts are not world-famous I think I would have a very hard time doing what she did and I admire her for it.
If you have been in ICU with your eyes taped shut and your ears stopped up for the last few days, you can read the op-ed here.
Also, in a sort-of related but sort of-not way, the latest issue of Vanity Fair magazine has Angelina's world famous fiance on the cover and I'm keeping that thing around because, well, here you go:
Dude is pretty.
Dude is really pretty.
On a good-looking male-human being scale, he's right up there. In my opinion.
Then there's also all this other stuff lighting up the internet and news services, mostly White House stuff and Obama is being compared to Richard Nixon and the Republicans are going crazy and to be honest, I'm letting it all happen without a lot of thought or contemplation on my part. I can't seem to parse what's real which I should get all huffy about and what's a bunch of pro-active crap on the part of the Republicans to slur Hilary Clinton before the next election and the whole Democratic party in general.
I am very happy that Minnesota has become the 12th state in the nation to legalize gay marriage. Good for them! Slowly but surely things are changing. One day (I swear!) we will look back on all of this and just be all What the FUCK was that all about?
Meanwhile, Florida is still as firmly stuck in the Old Testament Bible Belt as surely as a tick stuck up the butt of a fat old redneck but Florida is a pretty strange place and maybe even here things will change one day. I sure hope so.
And so here I am, just taking care of what I have to take care of and barely adequate to that. I better go get ready for those boys. I wonder what sort of devilment they will get up to today. One never knows.
To be quite frank, one can never be quite sure about anything, to tell you the truth, except that the sun will come up, we were born, we shall die, and the inbetween can be interesting, boring, incredibly difficult and unbelievably joyous.
And there will be taxes and tears and if we are very lucky, some really good tacos now and then.
Yours truly...Ms. Moon
They do not serve Tex-Mex. They just go with the Mex. Stepping in that little room is like being back in Mexico and it fills up fast at lunch time.
I love immigration!
So there's a lot going on in the news. Angelina Jolie and her preventative mastectomy has created a small firestorm. She wrote an op-ed for the NYT about why she did it and what the procedure was and I have to say that the woman is incredibly pragmatic and even though my breasts are not world-famous I think I would have a very hard time doing what she did and I admire her for it.
If you have been in ICU with your eyes taped shut and your ears stopped up for the last few days, you can read the op-ed here.
Also, in a sort-of related but sort of-not way, the latest issue of Vanity Fair magazine has Angelina's world famous fiance on the cover and I'm keeping that thing around because, well, here you go:
Dude is really pretty.
On a good-looking male-human being scale, he's right up there. In my opinion.
Then there's also all this other stuff lighting up the internet and news services, mostly White House stuff and Obama is being compared to Richard Nixon and the Republicans are going crazy and to be honest, I'm letting it all happen without a lot of thought or contemplation on my part. I can't seem to parse what's real which I should get all huffy about and what's a bunch of pro-active crap on the part of the Republicans to slur Hilary Clinton before the next election and the whole Democratic party in general.
I am very happy that Minnesota has become the 12th state in the nation to legalize gay marriage. Good for them! Slowly but surely things are changing. One day (I swear!) we will look back on all of this and just be all What the FUCK was that all about?
Meanwhile, Florida is still as firmly stuck in the Old Testament Bible Belt as surely as a tick stuck up the butt of a fat old redneck but Florida is a pretty strange place and maybe even here things will change one day. I sure hope so.
And so here I am, just taking care of what I have to take care of and barely adequate to that. I better go get ready for those boys. I wonder what sort of devilment they will get up to today. One never knows.
To be quite frank, one can never be quite sure about anything, to tell you the truth, except that the sun will come up, we were born, we shall die, and the inbetween can be interesting, boring, incredibly difficult and unbelievably joyous.
And there will be taxes and tears and if we are very lucky, some really good tacos now and then.
Yours truly...Ms. Moon
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Pretty Good Day
I was going to show you what my grandsons looked like at 7:30 a.m. this morning but I appear to be having image problems. Anyway, let me just say this- they looked WILD!
By the time they'd been here an hour they'd had smoothies, cheese toast, torn up the kitchen, and were well into pretending to camp. With all of the stuffed animals. I seriously wasn't sure I was going to make it. However, there may be a god. As proof I offer the fact that they both, for the first time since I've been taking care of Gibson, took a nap. At approximately the same time! There was some overlap. I knew Gibson was going down so we all piled on the bed and I put a movie in and Gibson fell asleep and I sort of dozed while Owen was pitching and twitching but then he finally fell out too. I couldn't believe it! The main problem was that the movie was Tarzan, music by Phil Collins and he annoys me. He's like an emory board to my nervous system. Not a pneumatic drill or a hammer, but definitely an emory board. I finally got up and cut the damn thing off.
But another nice thing was that Gibson woke up before Owen and so I got to spend some time with just him, which is also very rare. We read books and he proved to me that he knows what eyes are by poking mine and saying, "Eye," and he realized that I have breasts and went searching but couldn't really find them and I blew bubbles for him and we just had a fine time.
Then Lily got here and Owen woke up and there was watermelon and they left and Hank and some of his posse showed up and well, it's been a good day.
So okay, I remembered why this Eating All Healthy And Shit diet works. It's because if you're not eating crap food which ALWAYS TASTES DELICIOUS, you realize you're not really that hungry.
"More salad, Mary?"
"Nah, I'm good. Thanks!"
"How about a few more raw almonds?"
"Oh, I think I'm full!"
Let's face it, there's not only always room for Jello, there is also always room for cheese toast and leftover blackberry cobbler.
I've been cooking soybeans all day and the brown rice is almost done and I have broccoli and tomatoes in foil in the oven with a little olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and Bragg's Liquid Aminos which is pretty tasty stuff and I suppose it must be good for us. The sun is going down and painting the magnolia leaves gold and things are real quiet and peaceful in Lloyd. I've got two movies from the library for us to choose from to watch and the boys won't be here until a little after nine tomorrow so all is well. The Confederate Jasmine is having a banner year in the scent department and I can smell it all over the yard and on all the porches and it finally warmed up some today. My hot water heater is making hot water and since hot running water and libraries are, in my opinion, the apex of civilization, I'm feeling pretty sassy and civilized and shit.
All right. Talk to you tomorrow. The newlyweds will be arriving in the early afternoon, I believe, and that'll be a whole other party.
Sleep well. I intend to.
Love...Ms. Moon
Just When You Need It Most
Thought I'd pretty much licked that insomnia problem and have been sleeping peacefully and well for weeks now, even in different beds, even away from home. Even before trips.
But of course last night, with the boys coming early this morning, I awoke and awoke and awoke and finally just gave up and got up and the dawn is cracking, the roosters are crowing, two boys are coming soon and it's going to be a long day.
I hope it's a good one.
I hope Owen's brain worm has been left at home.
But of course last night, with the boys coming early this morning, I awoke and awoke and awoke and finally just gave up and got up and the dawn is cracking, the roosters are crowing, two boys are coming soon and it's going to be a long day.
I hope it's a good one.
I hope Owen's brain worm has been left at home.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
What We Do Not See
I took that picture on my walk this morning. It is of the old, hidden graveyard in the woods. Every time I visit that place, it seems different to me than the time before and not in a way that can be easily explained by the changing season.
Anyway, there it is and it is a beautiful and restful place, I think.
I also saw a fox on my walk. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something which registered as different in a field of blackberries and weeds and I stopped and it was a fox. He was huge, as foxes go, and he saw me and for that one timeless second, we looked at each other, eye-to-eye, a wild thing and a domesticated one. It seems to me that there may well be a communication in these quick eye meetings. There is certainly a great deal of cognition going on in both parties.
He seemed rather bold to me in that he did not dash away immediately upon seeing me but held his ground as he held his gaze. I, not really afraid of foxes but seeing no reason to disturb him, turned and walked the other way. I have plenty of options as to where I can walk and he seemed intent on something in that field. Probably a rabbit he had caught. I have seen them too, but they always dart away after their initial freezing upon recognizing my presence.
I am always amazed when I think of the number of creatures we share our world with, mostly completely unbeknownst to us. It is only the rare encounter which reminds me. There is so much to this world that we move in that we are in complete ignorance of. I try to humbly remember as I walk down the dirt path and through the woods that I may well be being observed by an animal with watchful, thoughtful eyes, that behind a stand of overgrown bushes and a line of trees, there may well be the bones of humans lying quietly beneath the dirt.
Inheritances
When I was a little girl and my mother and my brother and I lived in a little house in Roseland, Florida which my grandfather had built for us on the other side of his property, he would come over every evening to check on us and would announce his arrival with a two-tone whistle. As close as I can tell with an old, very out of tune piano, it was sort of a B-flat, A-flat thing. And that has been our family whistle for as long as I can remember. Mr. Moon uses it when he comes home and I use it when I am trying to locate him in the yard and I guess that Lily has adopted it as well because when Owen shows up at the house now and bursts out of his car seat and runs up to the door, he sings it. He can't whistle yet but he whoo-hoos it with his voice, those exact tones and it charms my heart.
"You always excited when you see me," he tells me.
"I am," I say, as I gather him into me for a hug and a kiss.
I saw Kathleen yesterday and her father has recently died and as such things go after a death, there has been some trouble among the siblings as to possessions and the will and such. It is a cliche, but a true one, that there will be trouble after a death and I'm sure it's age-old resentments and bitterness, disappointments and grief, all tossed together in a funky salad of divisiveness, just at the very time you'd think a family would come together.
And it's always a bit of a shock, I think, and new alliances are redrawn and established and old resentments are sometimes almost magically resolved and it never goes as one would have predicted. This is the way it has been with me and my siblings since my mother's death and it is a heart-tearing thing.
Kathleen has walked away from the whole thing in her family's case and I have pretty much done the same in my situation. The siblings to whom it all matters the most hold on to it all and the siblings to whom it just doesn't matter that much release it and in my case, that has felt right and correct. It's simply not worth it to me. Mother drew up her will the way she wanted it and that is that and I have great hope in my heart that eventually all of this will be resolved and we can return to the relationships we had which are, in my opinion, what is important above all.
I wonder what will happen after my death. I would hope with all of my heart that my children will be able to amicably divide whatever possessions I leave and that they will all indeed want some of them. I know it would make a lot of sense to make a list and assign things now but really- who wants to do that? And in every parent's heart I would think that the idea of handing this over to one child and that over to another is just too daunting a task. Will this one feel short-changed? Was it that child who really wanted this piece of jewelry, that picture, this piece of furniture?
When my children were little (and sometimes even not so little) they would hold something of mine and say, "Can I have this when you die?" and I would always say, "Of course!"
It amused me that they would even have these thoughts and I would wish that it would always be so easy, so unencumbered with emotion and memory and weight.
Ah, but life is so messy here on earth from the very first gush of amniotic fluid and blood until the final breath is taken and that is just the way it is and will always be. But no matter how things shake down after that final-breath moment, some things are just going to be passed down.
The genes, for one thing, both the good ones and the bad.
And things like the family whistle. I wonder if my grandfather's father also announced his arrival back at the house after he came in from the fields of his farm in Pennsylvania with that same two-tone whistle. I wonder if Owen, when he is a grown man, will use it and his children, too, should he have some. If, of course, he ever learns to whistle, which he probably will.
These are the things which no one puts in a will, no one can even argue about. Everyone gets the genes they get, everyone will use the family whistle. We will all fold towels the way our mothers did, we will all respond to certain things in certain ways which were set in place before our memory was able to take hold.
There is no dictating these things. And that thought brings me both comfort and a tiny bit of despair because there is no doubt that I have passed down things to my children which I would have rather not but in some cases, could not possibly have prevented.
Well. So it is.
It is a beautiful day in Lloyd again. Still way chillier than I can ever remember for this time of year. The chickens are so very ready to be let out of the coop and I need to take a walk and go to the grocery story and I am thinking about all of these things. The water heater appears to be failing and must be attended to. The sheets on the bed that Jessie and Vergil will sleep on need to be washed. Plans need to be made for their visit. The world hurtles on and this is my tiny, small part of it which I attend to and when I am gone, someone else will take that job over. Or not, and yet the world will not halt in its hurtling, the stars will not fall from the sky. Someone else will wear my rings, someone, I hope, will touch the pages of my old beloved copy of Little Women before putting it on their shelf, someone else will cook in my skillets and someone will look in a mirror at some point and see my face looking back at them.
And when they go away from their own home and come back, they will whistle two tones which will alert whoever is waiting for them that they are home, their arms perhaps full of whatever they have gathered in the world to bring back to that place where they live, where their own loved ones wait for them. "I'm home," the B-flat, A-flat song will announce. "I'm alive, I am here, I am home."
And someone will be excited to hear that song, that simplest of two notes song because it means that someone they love is there, eager for a hug, a kiss, a welcome-back-in to where you are loved and where you belong.
Good morning, y'all.
Love...Ms. Moon
"You always excited when you see me," he tells me.
"I am," I say, as I gather him into me for a hug and a kiss.
I saw Kathleen yesterday and her father has recently died and as such things go after a death, there has been some trouble among the siblings as to possessions and the will and such. It is a cliche, but a true one, that there will be trouble after a death and I'm sure it's age-old resentments and bitterness, disappointments and grief, all tossed together in a funky salad of divisiveness, just at the very time you'd think a family would come together.
And it's always a bit of a shock, I think, and new alliances are redrawn and established and old resentments are sometimes almost magically resolved and it never goes as one would have predicted. This is the way it has been with me and my siblings since my mother's death and it is a heart-tearing thing.
Kathleen has walked away from the whole thing in her family's case and I have pretty much done the same in my situation. The siblings to whom it all matters the most hold on to it all and the siblings to whom it just doesn't matter that much release it and in my case, that has felt right and correct. It's simply not worth it to me. Mother drew up her will the way she wanted it and that is that and I have great hope in my heart that eventually all of this will be resolved and we can return to the relationships we had which are, in my opinion, what is important above all.
I wonder what will happen after my death. I would hope with all of my heart that my children will be able to amicably divide whatever possessions I leave and that they will all indeed want some of them. I know it would make a lot of sense to make a list and assign things now but really- who wants to do that? And in every parent's heart I would think that the idea of handing this over to one child and that over to another is just too daunting a task. Will this one feel short-changed? Was it that child who really wanted this piece of jewelry, that picture, this piece of furniture?
When my children were little (and sometimes even not so little) they would hold something of mine and say, "Can I have this when you die?" and I would always say, "Of course!"
It amused me that they would even have these thoughts and I would wish that it would always be so easy, so unencumbered with emotion and memory and weight.
Ah, but life is so messy here on earth from the very first gush of amniotic fluid and blood until the final breath is taken and that is just the way it is and will always be. But no matter how things shake down after that final-breath moment, some things are just going to be passed down.
The genes, for one thing, both the good ones and the bad.
And things like the family whistle. I wonder if my grandfather's father also announced his arrival back at the house after he came in from the fields of his farm in Pennsylvania with that same two-tone whistle. I wonder if Owen, when he is a grown man, will use it and his children, too, should he have some. If, of course, he ever learns to whistle, which he probably will.
These are the things which no one puts in a will, no one can even argue about. Everyone gets the genes they get, everyone will use the family whistle. We will all fold towels the way our mothers did, we will all respond to certain things in certain ways which were set in place before our memory was able to take hold.
There is no dictating these things. And that thought brings me both comfort and a tiny bit of despair because there is no doubt that I have passed down things to my children which I would have rather not but in some cases, could not possibly have prevented.
Well. So it is.
It is a beautiful day in Lloyd again. Still way chillier than I can ever remember for this time of year. The chickens are so very ready to be let out of the coop and I need to take a walk and go to the grocery story and I am thinking about all of these things. The water heater appears to be failing and must be attended to. The sheets on the bed that Jessie and Vergil will sleep on need to be washed. Plans need to be made for their visit. The world hurtles on and this is my tiny, small part of it which I attend to and when I am gone, someone else will take that job over. Or not, and yet the world will not halt in its hurtling, the stars will not fall from the sky. Someone else will wear my rings, someone, I hope, will touch the pages of my old beloved copy of Little Women before putting it on their shelf, someone else will cook in my skillets and someone will look in a mirror at some point and see my face looking back at them.
And when they go away from their own home and come back, they will whistle two tones which will alert whoever is waiting for them that they are home, their arms perhaps full of whatever they have gathered in the world to bring back to that place where they live, where their own loved ones wait for them. "I'm home," the B-flat, A-flat song will announce. "I'm alive, I am here, I am home."
And someone will be excited to hear that song, that simplest of two notes song because it means that someone they love is there, eager for a hug, a kiss, a welcome-back-in to where you are loved and where you belong.
Good morning, y'all.
Love...Ms. Moon
Monday, May 13, 2013
A Heavy Subject
When we were on the road yesterday I actually ate something I haven't eaten in so long that I don't even remember the last time. A Hardee's cheeseburger.
My god, it was good.
And I ate some french fries too.
And honey, the madness stops there.
I hope.
Despite the fact that we eat fairly healthy around here and I make my own breads with oats and flax and whole wheat and I bake any desserts we have with fruit in them and we eat plenty of vegetables and fruit, and despite the fact that five pounds of sugar can last me for six months or more and despite the fact that we eat all whole wheat pasta and never eat white rice and despite the fact that I haven't drunk a soda in a dog's age and despite the fact that the stop at a fast food restaurant is an almost-never, ever event, we gotta tighten it up around here.
Sigh.
I've gotten lazy. I've given in to my baser instincts and allowed myself the occasional Cuban sandwich, the now-and-then-plate of barbecue, the extra slice of bread with (homemade!) preserves on it. And my body tends to roundness. It wants to be that shape. And honey, it is certainly getting there. And I don't like it.
So. Back to eating closer to the dirt. Time to quit making bread and serving it every night. Time to remember what real, honest food tastes like. Okay. I haven't forgotten THAT. But it's time to tame the beast within who wants the sweet, the salty, the fat, the easy. You know what? You can starve that beast for years but it never really dies. Never. And you give it a little bit of cheese here, a few M&M's there, maybe a handful of Chex Mix or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and the next damn thing you know, you're sitting in Hardee's eating a hamburger with mayonnaise all over your face and you realize that things are definitely, without a doubt, no shame-in-admitting-it, OUT OF CONTROL and the beast not only lives, it is happy, happy, happy and wants a milkshake too.
(No. I did not get a milkshake but Mr. Moon might have. Strawberry. Maybe. But of course, he's still long and lean and so what?)
Okay. Good intentions. Hell is paved with them and so is another twenty pounds. Or, larded with them anyway. But I have them. I need to start paying attention and cooking the way I should be cooking and making food choices based on what I need rather than what I may think I want and so forth.
Sometimes I really wish I was one of those people who drank so much soda that all they had to do to lose weight was give that up. But I'm not.
We shall see, won't we? And right now the garden is good inspiration. We had snow peas and squash and green onions roasted in the oven tonight and quinoa and some baked chicken (not too much) with lemon juice and olive oil and fat free feta cheese on it. And other stuff. You know, herbs and spices. Etc. It was delicious. All of it. And a salad with cucumbers and carrots and sesame seeds and a lovely, plain vinaigrette and no bread. None.
We survived. Nicely.
Hardees will not be seeing me again any time soon. AS GOD IS MY WITNESS!
The beast must die, or at least be starved into submission. I am not going to starve, believe me (I am way too old for that sort of nonsense) but the beast must be.
And of course, because I have eaten pretty cleanly for one whole, entire day, I will wake up tomorrow thinking that I should have lost at least five pounds. Overnight.
Amazing how ridiculous we human beings are, isn't it?
All right. Have a good evening. I think I'm going to eat a yogurt before I go to bed. I'm looking forward to that tremendously. It's been a very fine day and I had fun with my boys, and Jessie and Vergil will be here on Thursday. And there's no doubt I will have lost five pounds by then. At least.
Much love...Ms. Moon
My god, it was good.
And I ate some french fries too.
And honey, the madness stops there.
I hope.
Despite the fact that we eat fairly healthy around here and I make my own breads with oats and flax and whole wheat and I bake any desserts we have with fruit in them and we eat plenty of vegetables and fruit, and despite the fact that five pounds of sugar can last me for six months or more and despite the fact that we eat all whole wheat pasta and never eat white rice and despite the fact that I haven't drunk a soda in a dog's age and despite the fact that the stop at a fast food restaurant is an almost-never, ever event, we gotta tighten it up around here.
Sigh.
I've gotten lazy. I've given in to my baser instincts and allowed myself the occasional Cuban sandwich, the now-and-then-plate of barbecue, the extra slice of bread with (homemade!) preserves on it. And my body tends to roundness. It wants to be that shape. And honey, it is certainly getting there. And I don't like it.
So. Back to eating closer to the dirt. Time to quit making bread and serving it every night. Time to remember what real, honest food tastes like. Okay. I haven't forgotten THAT. But it's time to tame the beast within who wants the sweet, the salty, the fat, the easy. You know what? You can starve that beast for years but it never really dies. Never. And you give it a little bit of cheese here, a few M&M's there, maybe a handful of Chex Mix or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and the next damn thing you know, you're sitting in Hardee's eating a hamburger with mayonnaise all over your face and you realize that things are definitely, without a doubt, no shame-in-admitting-it, OUT OF CONTROL and the beast not only lives, it is happy, happy, happy and wants a milkshake too.
(No. I did not get a milkshake but Mr. Moon might have. Strawberry. Maybe. But of course, he's still long and lean and so what?)
Okay. Good intentions. Hell is paved with them and so is another twenty pounds. Or, larded with them anyway. But I have them. I need to start paying attention and cooking the way I should be cooking and making food choices based on what I need rather than what I may think I want and so forth.
Sometimes I really wish I was one of those people who drank so much soda that all they had to do to lose weight was give that up. But I'm not.
We shall see, won't we? And right now the garden is good inspiration. We had snow peas and squash and green onions roasted in the oven tonight and quinoa and some baked chicken (not too much) with lemon juice and olive oil and fat free feta cheese on it. And other stuff. You know, herbs and spices. Etc. It was delicious. All of it. And a salad with cucumbers and carrots and sesame seeds and a lovely, plain vinaigrette and no bread. None.
We survived. Nicely.
Hardees will not be seeing me again any time soon. AS GOD IS MY WITNESS!
The beast must die, or at least be starved into submission. I am not going to starve, believe me (I am way too old for that sort of nonsense) but the beast must be.
And of course, because I have eaten pretty cleanly for one whole, entire day, I will wake up tomorrow thinking that I should have lost at least five pounds. Overnight.
Amazing how ridiculous we human beings are, isn't it?
All right. Have a good evening. I think I'm going to eat a yogurt before I go to bed. I'm looking forward to that tremendously. It's been a very fine day and I had fun with my boys, and Jessie and Vergil will be here on Thursday. And there's no doubt I will have lost five pounds by then. At least.
Much love...Ms. Moon
Home Life
The garden.
The amount of snow peas ready to pick is ridiculous. What in god's name am I going to do with this many snow peas?
The oak leaf hydrangea has begun to bloom, it's paper-thin and delicate blossoms like a Japanese dream on their beefy, leafy stems.
And of course my chickens are happy. I have let them out and they are doing their daily dance. They strut, they scratch, they chitter-bawk around the yard.
Everything just seems shot-full of life and I am here to pay witness with a heart-full of gratefulness.
I'm going to see my boys in a few hours and am more than grateful for that.
Fullness. Fulfilled. On with this day filled with light in North Florida, so strangely cool, so completely where I am so alive.
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