What a weekend. From a beautiful Friday night date with my husband to the parade on Saturday that I watched from the vantage point of my son's front yard, to house-cleaning and party preparation. We had my daughter's bridal shower here yesterday. The weather was perfect and we set up outside so that the wisteria was the centerpiece of the decorations. The mosquitoes politely stayed away and even the dogs behaved themselves.
There were lots of friends, little sandwiches, and presents galore. There was crepe paper and fold-out wedding bells and flowers and a cake.
And there was an epiphany.
I was in my kitchen, cutting up fruit for the fruit salad and I was nervous and a little bit stressed and a tiny bit resentful, too. As I worked, I could hear my daughters giggling outside as they put up the decorations and part of me wanted to scream- "Y'all stop having so much fun! This is serious!" I wasn't having fun. All this work- cleaning and shopping and cooking and planning and here I was, in the kitchen AGAIN, and for what? Why? Why me?
And then it struck me. I was resentful because no one had ever done anything like this for me.
Over the years I've probably thrown hundreds of family parties- the Christmases, the Thanksgivings, the birthdays.
I've often joked that as soon as I was able to throw a turkey in the oven my mother passed the title of "Matriarch" to me and I have taken that title seriously.
But there's always been a little voice inside me saying, "Why doesn't anyone ever throw ME a party?"
I think that little voice belongs to a little girl who lives inside me.
On the outside, I may look like a woman old enough to be a grandmother, but on the inside, I am still a little girl who wants to wear a tiara and have her favorite meal and blow out the candles on the cake her mama made her.
Isn't that odd?
I realized all of this and it made me feel a little sad. But it helped, knowing where these feelings come from.
And I think I'm a little clearer now on why I go to so much trouble despite my bitching and my moaning about all the work I do to make nice times for my kids- it's so that they don't ever wonder why no one did that for them. And that's all part of the decision I made years ago when I realized that buck would stop right here with me when it came to the sort of dysfunctional families that had produced me. Or at least as much as I was humanly able to achieve.
It's March 21st and my daughter is getting married in one week and six days. It's going to be a beautiful wedding and I am so grateful she's found the man who makes her happy and that they're starting their new life together.
The whole thing has been a terrific amount of work but honestly, it's all going to have been so worth it. And this is what families do. They make the birthday cakes, they gather the friends, they put out the tablecloths, they plan and execute the weddings. My other daughters are bridesmaids, my son is officiating at the wedding, my husband is paying for things with as much goodwill as he can muster about it all and he's going to wear a tux and be the handsomest man in the universe. We are all coming together to plan and do this thing because we love our Lily and we want her to have the wedding day she dreams of and deserves.
We are going to celebrate. Together. Joyfully.
It's spring. My daughter is getting married. My life is filled with wisteria and birds and bees and all things bridal.
And that's what life is all about and if there's one thing, one thing in this entire world that I've ever wanted it's been to have a family that is loving and joyful and cares about each other to the bone, to the blood. A family where there are no big, scary, dangerous secrets. To be the mama of the children who giggle and laugh as they string up the banner that proudly proclaims BRIDAL SHOWER. To cut up the fruit, to cut the cake, to have the house where the wisteria grows and the birds nest on the porch.
And I do.
And it's amazing.

And Then There's This

Four hungry maws, open and demanding to be fed. These new children live in a pot on my kitchen porch.
Aren't you glad you're not a wren parent?
I am.

Mystery Solved Right Here In Lloyd

Remember all those bees that went missing this year?
I've found them.
They're all in my yard, getting drunk on wisteria nectar.
And I'm a bit tipsy myself from the perfume of the blossoms, the way they look hanging from the arbor and the oak trees, and the sound the bees make as they buzz and dip and sip and hover, flying from blossom to blossom. They sound like a small and very efficient machine, these bees, and I wish that I, like them, could nestle in the soft purple petals, sipping nectar and coating my body in pollen.
Lucky bees.
I want to eat their honey.

Because

I'm supposed to be doing something like, uh, cleaning, my posts for the next few days are likely to be quite short. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

I'd just like to say that being a housewife would probably be the best gig in the entire world if it were not for the fact that there is actual cleaning involved now and then.

When this actual cleaning is required though, I have developed something which makes it SO much easier. I call it the Housewife's Speedball. It goes like this:

Take one shot of espresso. Drink it black and drink it down.
Take one beer. Open. Drink.

Okay. Since it's only 2:18 in the afternoon, it's way too early for that sort of folderol so I suppose I best get back to it, sans any little mother's helpers unless you count the Amazing Power of Bleach which should never be underestimated. We all know, however, not to mix bleach with ammonia, which is another potent cleaning product. Ever. You will be sorry. After you wake up.

And let me say that it's the most beautiful day here I've quite possibly ever seen in my life and darn it! I wish I had my hands in the dirt.
The kind in the yard and garden, that is. By the time it's reached the surfaces of my house it has lost 100% of its enchantment.

Side note:
After doing a Google-image search for "Housewife", I have to say that there are a lot of housewives out there doing their part to keep the entire world very, very happy.
Whoa. Excuse me while I swoon.

Further Troubling Signs

I've been reading the Dooce again. I'm up to November, 2005. Part of me feels wretchedly ill about this soul-sucking, time wasting activity and part of me is just so happy that she wrote so many blogs.
But this, this is the worst: The picture I posted of my dog a few days ago? I totally confused that dog, who is DOLLY, with my dog ZEKE.
Dolly is a mostly poodle mix. Zeke is a Yorkie. They look just alike, don't they?
Hello? Can you hear my brain? It's sizzling.
Thankfully, I can still find my way to Publix, buy groceries, come home and cook them.
Today.
Tomorrow may be a different story.
Stay tuned.

Am I Insane Yet?

So instead of cleaning the house or making food for this shower on Sunday, I decided that the best use of my time this week would be to strip and refinish a dresser I've been meaning to get around to for about...oh, thirty years or so.
Does this qualify me for meds?
Hey! I've got two more days. Come on. I can do this.
And the dresser's refinished!
Mission accomplished, that's what I say.

What's Important

Most of what I write here is of such little importance in the world that I myself can hardly believe it. And it's not that I'm not aware of what's going on in the world to some degree. I read the newspaper. Sort of. And I listen to NPR all day long, but I think I long ago realized that I am not ever going to be any sort of political beast. There are some issues that I feel I HAVE to take a stand on and they're usually of the sort that involve human-rights and equal rights. But the only time I ever demonstrated was to walk in a huge parade of people down Apalachee Parkway for the ERA and that was in about 1975 and let me just ask you this- has it passed yet?
Nah.
I read things in the paper or hear things on the radio that make me want to scream. It's our right as Americans to take our guns to work? And having them locked in the car is going to make us safer how? They're trying to pass a law to make sure that kids are dressed properly for school? We're making war-talk towards Iran? We can vote on making sure we protect "real" marriage by denying the rights of gay folks to marry?
Oh, come on.
But I never feel like I can do anything about these issues except once in a while peep up and make a little ineffectual speech from this tiny soapbox. I am certainly never going to run for office to try and change anything.
So I live in my little world and I try to do the best I can and I write about shoes and dogs and dogwoods and rain and babies and birth and death and collard greens and our old buddy Jesus- just the stuff I'm thinking about randomly for one reason or another.
But yesterday I got an e-mail from a dear friend whose son has been in Iraq as a Marine for the past six months and it was just the most joyful thing because he's home. He's safe, and as she puts it, with all his fingers and toes, just like when he was born. She sent pictures and I'd love to post one here but haven't asked her permission so I won't but let me just say this- the kid is gorgeous, alive and handsome as a rock star and grinning from ear to ear with his family around him, his gal on his arm. And I am so happy for her that I can't talk about it without crying because for six months this woman, who loves her son as much as any mother on earth has ever loved a son, has had to live with the knowledge that her baby was in jeopardy every minute of every night and day and I'm not sure how you live with that but she did, and she did it with such grace that I am in awe.
Every month on the full moon, she held a gathering for folks who love her and her son and there was always food and something to drink and at one point everyone would gather up under the moon and hold hands and send good thoughts and energy to her boy, all the way across the world. I don't know how I feel about that sort of thing, that sending energy, but I know it felt good to do it and it felt like if nothing else, it was one way to help my friend feel like she was doing everything she could do to protect him.
And she's going to have a rip-roaring party in May for him with all those people who have held him and her in their thoughts for all these months and I plan on being there. It's going to be a big time, a very large time.
I don't support this damn war. I haven't from the very beginning. And of course you always have to follow that up with the statement, "But I support our troops!"
Well, I do. I say let's support them by bringing them home.
Last weekend, one more did come home. He's safe. He's sound. He's enveloped in the love of his family and his friends on a real and physical level. I celebrate that with all my heart and I am joyful.
But even as I write this, there are so many other people, both American and Iraqi, whose lives are in peril because of our presence in a country that was no threat to us and I can't help but think of all the families who are carrying on their lives with a constant, very real sense of fear and apprehension because their sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, are off doing a job that isn't ours to do and because they are in danger doing it. I honor them and the ones who are fighting and I say, BRING THEM HOME.
Bring them all home, dammit.
There's a lot more I could say about this and the idiots who perpetrated the myth of the Iraqi threat but I'm not going to do that now. I'm just going to say that I'm happy as hell that my friend's boy is back. He signed up for the Marines against every wish his mother had, he went to war, he did his job, he's home, and she couldn't be prouder or happier. As are all of us.
And I say Welcome home, Sargent. Welcome HOME.

Yes, He's Cute But He Scratches Incessantly

I am overwhelmed to the point of paralysis today. I can't focus on anything more complex than doing the dishes and even figuring out what to do with the coffee grounds is a bit more troublesome than it should be for me.

I am having a bridal shower here in five days. In this house. This house that is dusty and cluttered, and what is it about having guests that makes the spider webs suddenly begin to glow like phosphorescent Silly String under a black light? I don't notice the webs until...a guest walks into the house at which point I see them, glowing like neon in every nook and cranny and corner of the house and besides that, am I supposed to clean the mold off the walls too?

And the wedding- it's in two weeks and five days. I keep having nightmares about my house not being clean and there not being clean sheets on the beds for all the many people who are no doubt going to be staying here. One night recently I dreamed that I had arms-full of sheets to wash and there was an entire Laundromat at my house but ALL THE MACHINES WERE FILLED WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S LAUNDRY.
In my own house.

Last night I dreamed the the guests included Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Angelina asked me to examine her pregnant belly (which is actually something I know how to do) and I did, but it was terrifically stressful for me to have to tell her that she was not actually pregnant. The poor, self-deluding movie star!

God, she was beautiful.

But really- should I be having dreams like this?

I don't think so.

Meanwhile, my four dogs need flea preventative which costs as much per dog per month as it would to send four hundred children in Somalia a month's worth of high-protein gruel. I don't even like my dogs, which makes me think perhaps I should just kill them and send all that money to Somalia.

But we know that's not going to happen although what probably WILL happen is that during the bridal shower, during the let's-make-the-bride-a-dress-out-of-toilet-paper portion of the proceedings, people will start scratching their ankles because I haven't bought the flea treatment and before long, there will be blood running from my mother's ankles because if she so much as touches her skin firmly, it bleeds and the blood will get all over the toilet-paper-wedding dress and that will be a bad, bad omen and Lily will cry and everyone will leave before we can play pin-the-boutonniere-on-the-big-picture-of-the-groom game and I'll have cleaned the house and made cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches for nothing.

Okay. Now let's talk about shoes. I ordered the most beautiful dress off of E-Bay for me, the Mother of The Bride, and it got here and it's so lovely and it fits, mostly, but the way I've been eating lately it won't come close to fitting in two weeks and five days and then what will I do? And shoes- what sort of shoes does one wear with a peachy-pink gossamer gown that looks as if it might have been made by magical nuns who cast spells on spiders to harvest their silk to make this thing?

Or rayon. Rayon spiders. But still, magic had to have been involved. And nuns- the color is that innocent, that shy, that demure and chaste.

What kind of shoes goes with that?

Frankly, I think that going barefoot would be the answer and I'd promise to paint my toenails but I don't think Lily would buy that and besides, what would the groom's family think?

Okay. I need to take a breath. I need to go for a walk. I need to start dealing with dust and clutter and spider webs and mold and sheets.

I need to go buy flea treatment.

And shoes. And cucumbers and cream cheese.

And vodka. I need to buy vodka.

Can Someone Tell Me

How the wisteria can be this full-bloomed and gloriously purple and yet, the temperature is going to be down in the thirties tonight?

We've been trying to run out of gas for about two weeks now. Seriously. We have some major gas tank and gas line issues going on and so we're going to have to dig the whole mess up and replace it and that requires the tank to be completely empty. We use gas for hot water, cooking, the clothes dryer and...heating.

And I've been paranoid for two weeks that it would run out at any moment and I'd have to go without hot water, the stove, and heat. The clothes dryer I can live without. I have a dandy clothesline that is hidden by the wisteria in that picture.

And really, I haven't been worrying about the heat so much since...it's spring and that means it's...warm and so who cares about heat?

Haha!

Well, at least the man is on his way home so if tragedy does befall us I'll have someone to yell at about it.

Wait! I mean, I'll have someone to snuggle with and keep me warm.

Yeah. That's what I meant.

We laughed so hard we shook the ground.
What a beautiful day.

The Cruelty of Crucifixion, The Cruelty of Myth

I have spent quite a bit time lately wondering why I am so suddenly just fed up with religion. I've never been religious. I don't think I have the gene. I tried at one point in my life because I needed help badly but it just didn't work out for me.
And tomorrow is Easter and I have SO many problems with that one. Why we need to worship at the foot of a cross with a corpse hanging from it is just beyond me when we have the holy sweet sap of life rising all around us.
I know that the message of Easter is not supposed to be about Christ's death, but instead about his resurrection but it's not tiny empty tombs that people wear around their necks or have put up in the front of churches- it's the cross- not the symbol of life at all but the symbol of how hideously man can act towards man.
The cross is such an ugly symbol. If Christ had come to earth during modern times and been tortured and executed as per God's will, I suppose that little girls would wear delicate silver electric chairs around their necks or the Pope would wear a huge golden syringe across his robes as Christ would not have been crucified on a cross but killed in a more civilized manner such as via Old Sparky or lethal injection.
And it's not just that all of that. It's not just the fact that we focus on the death of a man but it's all the so-obvious lies and mythology that people take so seriously.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." or so says the Bible. And I have always wondered why it was that God only had one begotten son when he is GOD and could, theoretically, have had as many begotten sons as there are stars in the sky so why the emphasis on this only part? Is it that difficult a procedure to impregnate a teen-aged virgin? I suppose it must be.
And why would a loving god determine that the best way to bring mankind salvation would be to send this only begotten son to live among people and then to have him tortured and killed? Why did this god make man so obstinate to begin with? Why didn't he just CHANGE everyone? Why, in fact, did God make such a flawed product to begin with? What was he thinking?
But of course the Bible is filled with such mysteries and it all boils down to faith, which is ridiculous to me. I could have faith in any damn thing in the world but it wouldn't make it true. And tomorrow preachers across the world will be telling this old story about Jesus rising from the grave, the stone being rolled away from the tomb and how he lived and then died to save us all from our sins but for the life of me, I can't figure out how that would work.
"NO GREATER LOVE WAS EVER SHOWN" says a flyer that I found on the ground this morning when I walked to the post office. It shows Jesus, his crown of thorns piercing his delicate forehead, blood running from his wound, tears running from his eyes and I think, nah.
People show their love for their children in lots of ways that are greater than sending them to be killed, every day, every second. They sacrifice themselves (and some would say that in sending Jesus to be sacrificed, God WAS sending himself, but I don't buy that) instead of their children.
I think that the absurdity of the resurrection story is beyond my comprehension. I think that perhaps it is comforting to many who fear death because if you believe in Jesus, you believe that truly, there is no death.
But I don't believe that. I believe there most certainly is death and that's as much a part of life as birth and I think that most truly thinking people would agree.
So why do we hold on to this myth? Why do we continue to cherish the idea that Jesus was sacrificed for our sins and that this proves God's love and our eternal life and why does anyone running for office in this country have to at least convince everyone that he or she believes it too in order to get elected?
I don't know. And I don't know why it offends me so much but dammit, it does.
I'm sick of wars being fought over religion and children being told that if they tell a lie it makes Jesus sad and I'm tired of legislation being made based on myths like this and it makes me want to scream when I am told that when a loved one dies he or she is up in heaven and that somehow this makes it all right.
It doesn't make it all right. And it shouldn't.
And it makes no sense that any sort of loving god would try to fix the ills of mankind by letting them kill his own son.
So thank you, no. No crosses for me. No weeping Jesus, no rolling away of the stone.
I'll stick with what I can see to celebrate and there's plenty of that around me and I'll spend my day tomorrow not in church in front of a statue of a corpse but in praise and celebration of what the Pagans celebrated which is the holy egg, the holy blossom, the holy spirit of love that we sometimes know if we are very, very lucky. I will celebrate the birth and the baby, the amazing capacity of the human heart to hold a loved one even after death, the act of love, the act of charity, the act of dance and the fact that the light is longer as the earth turns in its orbit which it will continue to do after I die, after you die, after we all die.
Even if we are never resurrected. Even if we don't believe.

The Friday Round-Up

When Diane Rhem does hers on NPR, she has a panel of experts. I have a panel of me. There may be "language" in this post, so be prepared.

Although I have a neurosis about making phone calls to almost everyone these days (it used to just be "official" calls like making appointments but it has progressed to dreading even calling friends) I had no problem yesterday calling a new local church which has sent out at least a dozen fliers announcing their opening on Sunday for an Easter service. They guarantee child and youth services and "genuine relationships" among other things. After I got the one yesterday with a picture of the white-man hippie Jesus arising from the tomb with wings on the back of his robed body, I called them and got their answering machine. I left a message with my name telling them that if I wanted to go to their service, I probably would have been alerted to the time and date by the first two or three fliers and to stop already. I got a call back from the pastor this morning and he said he'd take my name off the mailing list, which I thanked him for. I wanted to say a lot more, but was in a rush getting my husband out of town and so I didn't and the son-of-a-bitch got me by muttering a hasty "God bless you" before he hung up the phone.
ACK!

I have an entire weekend to myself and am looking forward to it with great glee. It is, without a doubt, the most beautiful time of the year here and I intend to spend most of my daytime time outdoors, weeding. This may not sound like much fun but for me, it hardly gets any better. I put a book on tape into the antique Walkman and wreck my fingernails in the warm dirt. To me, that is heaven and no promise of freaking angels sitting around playing harps or sitting at the right hand of God can compare. God's side must be pretty crowded and I'm going to have my yard all to myself.

My daughter's wedding is in three weeks and WE ARE NOT READY. We went out twice this week to get stuff and I have ordered a dress on E-Bay and dammit, it better fit and it better look great because I am having a terrible time with this shopping thing. When I put on real woman clothes I feel like I'm in drag and I don't want to feel like I'm in drag at my daughter's wedding. She and I have such diverse taste in clothing that if she wasn't born at home and wasn't the spitting image of her father's sisters, I'd think she'd been switched at birth for my real child. But really, we're having a good time although she's getting stressed out as the date approaches. She called me today from work, weeping because more of the groom's family is going to be there than ours and she doesn't know them. My husband asked me what was wrong when I got off the phone with her and I said, "She's a bride. She's supposed to be freaking out and she's doing her motherfucking job."
"Oh," he said.
I do understand her anxiety and I have a bit myself but as I keep assuring her, all will be well, and she will end up married. At least she gets to go on a honeymoon.

I think my kids are going to come out on Sunday to dye Easter eggs. This has nothing to do with the resurrection of our Lord and everything to do with childhood memories and a table full of coffee cups with various shades of dye in them and the joy I take in seeing my kids, adults all, doing a childish thing and having fun doing it. I will make some food and we will eat outside under the blooming Bradford pears and that, my friends, is my idea of a holiday celebration.

I'm sure I'll soon find a few words to say here about Easter and religion and how I have no tolerance for any of it. I am becoming the very worst sort of out-spoken heathen and I feel a need creeping up on me to speak my truth as they say somewhere (where they probably also say things like "thinking outside the box" so you know that's a stupid thing to say) but for right now, I believe I'll just glory in being alive on this, the second day of spring, 2008 and living in a place where it all looks like a picture painted by Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light and I'm not kidding.

Happy Spring.

Oh Dear

Oh Jeez.
I hate chain letters. Always have. I delete them out as quickly as they arrive. So now I've been tagged. What's that?
And I'd ignore it but the tag came from the lovely and talented writer at http://areyoumymothers2.blogspot.com/
and I can't ignore her because she put me in her blog and, oh dear. I'm honored.
Here's what I'm going to do. I'll figure out what my life in six words would be. I'll write them down. But I am not passing it on. I'll just say hey- if you're reading this and you want to sum up your existence in six words, please do. Comment here if you want to tell us about it or link it to your blog. Downtown Guy? Juancho? Human Wrecking Ball? Lois? Iris? Ample? Jon? B. Boy? Texino? Sally? Anyone. Everyone. Six words.

So I guess these are the six I'd choose to describe my life. So far. As of this moment on this beautiful spring morning in North Florida at the age of fifty-three where the wisteria is showing purple, the dogwoods and Bradford pears are shaking out the lace and the birds are all on Ecstasy.

Got born. Gave birth. There's more?

It's The Money, Honey

Part of what I'm going through during this most recent young-elderly crisis I'm having (you can't be middle aged if you're fifty-three and not planning to live until you're one hundred and six) is something I've fought with for many, many years and that is the fact that everything I do is for love. Or, as we say in the real world- for free.
Nothing I do makes money. Nor has it for many, many years.
I, like everyone else in the world, did work as a youngster. I started off filing in a doctor's office at fifteen, worked at McDonald's at seventeen, waitressed, worked as a proof-reader, worked at a birth center, worked for Weight Watchers. Those last two gigs were just one step up from volunteer work in that the pay was not terrific.
But my real work has been the raising of children and the keeping of the hearth. This would make me a housewife, which is something that can be mind-numbingly boring, incredibly rewarding, and hard, hard work. During that time I also spent countless hours volunteering in classrooms of course. And oh yeah, I went to FSU for four years and got a degree in nursing. I helped some friends have babies, I nursed some friends through injuries or illness, I helped midwife a few friends into death. And I did a lot of other stuff either too boring or too personal to go into here. I also kept the yard, gardened, managed to write a novel, wrote gazillions of poems, and sometimes kept a journal. I also kept a husband, which I consider to be an accomplishment.
But none of this earned me a penny. And in our society, the earning of money is- let's face it- the bottom line of your worth here in the planet.
I remember once at party, a woman asked me what it is that I did. I said, "Well, actually, I'm a stay-at-home mom and a housewife," and she literally turned around and went off to talk to someone else.
I'm not kidding you. You usually get the old, "And that's the hardest job in the world!" reply, but this woman wasn't having any of that.
It's hard to keep a sense of self-worth and accomplishment if what you do earns no money. My husband has been incredibly supportive of me staying home with the kids and house through the years and tells me frequently that he couldn't do what he does unless I did what I do, which is kind of him considering that if I hadn't been around, he wouldn't have these children and this particular house and yard to support.
But anyway, not even considering the fact that every family can use some extra income, there's the matter of me constantly feeling that what I do is of no value because there is no paycheck.
And now I'm wondering if I shouldn't have kept my toe in the water when it comes to employment during all these past years.
I would never, ever say that all those years spent washing and changing diapers and helping out in classrooms and shuttling kids to karate, ballet, softball and other activities was wasted time. It definitely was not. But there are no more lessons for me to take kids to. And frankly (and this just goes to show you what a low-down, no-good human being I am), I don't want to do volunteer work anymore. This comes from all the hours of all the unpaid labor I have done and that's just the way it is.
So although I am quite content to be at home and although my kids still need me in many ways and although my I still take a lot of pride in my home and my yard and taking good care of my husband and yes, writing, I still feel that there is something lacking and that something is earning my way in this world.
I look at women who do that and I am in awe of them. I'm not sure, because I've never had to, that I could.
Whereas it seems to me that given the opportunity, almost any woman could do what I've done.
There. I've said it. I feel like a reasonably intelligent chimp mama could have done as good a job as I've done with my kids, or perhaps a better one. My babies are all incredible human beings and I am inordinately proud of them, but I refuse to take credit for who and what they are.
This is because if any of them ever gets arrested for murder or descends into crack-addiction, I will refuse to be blamed for whatever led to this behavior.
Of course, anything a child does is ultimately due to the mother- she gave birth to them and that is that.
I was thinking the other day that it would be awesome if women could still take in laundry for money because I am good at laundry. But of course, that's not really a viable work-plan.
There's still the truck stop. I haven't given up that dream.
Nor the dream of writing a novel that gets published.
But I'm having a harder and harder time visualizing it ever coming true.

Time and Flying

I think what I really loved the most about being on the island was the sense that I didn't have to make any sort of decisions. From small to large, they were pretty much made for me.

Weather nice? Then a walk must be taken.

Weather crappy? Then we must stay indoors.

It's Tuesday? We better eat that grouper we thawed.

I didn't wake up every morning with my old familiar dread, that feeling of I need to do something important for myself, my family, and probably humanity because I'm almost fifty-four years old and I am certainly not going to live forever.

No, on the island I woke up every morning with one thought in mind- drink coffee on the porch, check out the weather, plan accordingly. It seemed quite clear there, sitting by the bay, that my one purpose in life at the moment was to appreciate that beauty and peace that I had been so generously offered. Nothing else needed.

But now I'm home and those feelings of dread are back. Those feelings of needing to get off my ass and out into the world which is the scariest thing I can imagine. I'm so spoiled with my ability to plan my own schedule, take on what I want, avoid what I don't.

But just as I had been given the bay and the water and the sky and my daughter's joyful presence to appreciate, here I know that I have been given this one life with all its responsibilities to attend to, all this potential to fulfill.

Just as it would have been a complete waste of time and a sort of sacrilege on the island to have stayed in bed all day when the sun shone and the bay was calm, it seems a sort of sacrilege to be wasting this life with fear and indecision.

The funny thing is that I keep feeling that if I could somehow make money by writing, my life and potential would be fulfilled. Perhaps it's just an obsession, but writing is what gives my life its shape and form and I can't imagine a life where I'm not constantly weighing words to put down, to give it all meaning, whether here or in whatever other projects I'm working on.
And I can't figure out if that's my truth, my destiny, or just a child's wild dream that it's about time I gave up on and dedicated myself to doing something else.

Although honestly, no matter what I do, whether it's hanging the clothes on the line or putting in the tomatoes or standing in Publix trying to decide between organic carrots and regular, part of my mind is busy with what I'll be writing next. I don't think I could any more give that up than I could give up air or water.

Ah well. Something to think about as I take my walk. It's a beautiful day and I need to get out in it.

Do You Think?

I'm about to go to Publix for the first time in ten days. TEN DAYS!!!!
I'm certain that it will be an event much like the one portrayed above.
Aren't you?

Oh Yeah

We had us some fun, us girls from the hood(ie)

And She Plays Mandolin, Too

Besides taking very nice photos and making her mama laugh a lot.

And The Dolphin Led Us Home

So we're back and I've posted a thousand million words that I wrote on the island but couldn't post from there and I apologize but hell- don't read it. This is my blog and I can put as many words here as I want.
There was sea fog when we came home, thick as wet cement and the husband got us back safely with his navigational skills and the GPS and I was so impressed. My daughter and I were sitting in the front of the boat looking for markers we were supposed to be passing and we kept joking about how great it would be if a dolphin showed up to lead us in.
And then- with a great leaping arc, a dolphin broke the water right in front of the bow where we sat, directly in the very center of our path.
Yeah.
It was that sort of week.
Sigh.

Really? It's Been A Week?

It’s Saturday and we’re packing it up. Got at least five loads of laundry to wash before we leave. Then we’ll remake the beds and fold up the towels and put all the food in the ice chest that we didn’t eat and leave everything tidy and neat for the next person that comes to stay.
We’ll shut the door and lock it and leave the house and the little poltergeist (which has teased me a little, but not much) to itself and also the osprey and the gulls and the heron and the hummingbird and the coons and the armadillos and the beach and the pines and bay, which changes its face every fifteen minutes.
At least.
And we’ll go home.
You know what?
I don’t want to.
I’m thinking I could live here. I could learn to grow tomatoes in the sand and the man could net mullet and we could go into Carabelle every few weeks for flour and sugar and coffee.
At least I have a new fantasy. At least when I get stressed out I can shut my eyes and imagine the bay, changing its face, letting the wind dress it in foamy lace.
And me sitting watching it, giving it an audience which it never asks for, never demands, but tolerates.
I’m already sad, imagining myself imagining.
Those dogwoods better be mighty special. The tung trees better be glorious, because this woman is going to need some seducing to get her back in love with real life.

Saturday, March 15, 2008
Dog Island, FL