Oh My Lord

Home, home, Mr. Moon is home and Owen was here and then his mama came for supper and Zeke is back for a few days and oh. my. lord.

My sweet lord.

After complete quiet and no-one-but-me, here we are again.

Cooking, cleaning, tending. Laundry. After I take it out and hose it off to get the topsoil off.

Mer! Are you?

Right here, baby. Right here.

Mer is right here.

One more. One more kiss. Love you. Bye-bye. See you soon.

Come on, Bop. Time for bed.

Time for bed. Mer is tired. So are you.

One more. Time for bed. One more.

Some Thoughts On Emptying Nests

Soft air this morning. The rain broke that heaviness, left everything a little more bearable. Getting a little cooler too.

I don't really have much on my mind today. Things I should do before Owen gets here. Make up a casserole for supper because he'll be here until eight tonight and how in hell I used to manage cooking with babies and kids to tend at the same time escapes me now.
How did I do it?
HOW did I do it?
I don't know but I did. Got some sort of supper together every night with every age child around me.

Jessie called me on her way home from a long night's shift. It had been her first night being independent- not being mentored. She is learning so much. I am so amazed to see that child all grown up, helping women with their babies now. Some of the things she is learning are so sad- that not all babies make it. That not all women are going to be great mothers. That not all babies get here being wanted. But she sees the other side too- happy, loving families welcoming fine, healthy babies.
She is living her life, as are all my children and I am still part of those lives, but not nearly on the same level that I was, of course, when they were young. When they were constantly underfoot, taking all of the pots out of the cabinets when I was in the kitchen, cooking. When they needed diaper changes and nursing and then ballet lessons and karate lessons and, and, and...

If I had one thing to say to any of you who have a nest which is becoming emptier all of the time it is this- you will not die when they all leave. You will not die and you will be okay and so will the children. You will both be living your lives. And they will still need you and you will be there, even if it's just on the phone, to say, "I am so proud of you."

It's not going to be easy. That space where there was so much energy and color and whirling light will seem so empty for awhile. Yes. It will. You may even go a little bit crazy.
But you'll survive. You'll figure it out, how to fill (or maybe not!) that space. You may find that your life in and of itself swells to fill the space. You may just be getting used to that gift (yes, it is a gift) of having your own space and time when grandchildren start arriving and then everything will shift again.

That is how it has been for me.

Your babies grow up but they never will not need you. Not in the same way- no- and that is good. Would you, as the mother of a toddler, wish to keep them in diapers forever? It is the same when they are trembling on the verge of adulthood. It will be time to let them go and you will do it.

We never quit learning and growing and changing. Never. One stage of our lives bleeds into the next and we must, perforce, adapt. We can fight it, we can grieve in advance, we can even tentatively look forward to it but we will never be quite ready and that's okay.
We shall learn by doing. Just as Jessie is right now. The hard parts, the good and amazing and miraculous parts.

And we shall look back and say, "How did I DO that?" and we can look forward knowing that we can do this next part too.

That's where my mind is leading me this morning as I sit here on my porch in Lloyd as the sun comes out, as the air is soft, as the boy is coming, as the man is on his way home, as the chickens scratch in the yard, as the dogs nap in the sun, as the yellowing leaves flutter and rustle in the breeze.

If you have raised them right (and I feel certain you did), they will always want to come home and lift the lids of the pots on Mama's stove because no matter what- Mama's cooking is always the best.

Happy Week Before Thanksgiving, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Raining

For this moment.

Amen.

From The Hen House To Chichen Itza. Don't Ask Me How This Happens

Owen just left. It was a fairly short visit and we took a nap in the middle of it so it was even shorter. We had a great time. He found an egg stash I hadn't checked in awhile and there were three beautiful blue eggs in it.
Smart boy!
I think he's been watching that Diego show. As far as I can tell, Diego hangs out with an armadillo who resembles a pill bug and he saves animals from trouble. Diego, not the armadillo, although the armadillo helps in these rescue activities instead of digging holes a cow could break a leg in the way armadillos do in real life and specifically in my yard these days.
Anyway, Owen will stand stock still, put his hand up to his ear and say, "Listen! Animal! Trouble!" Cracks me the hell up.
"Uh-oh! Trouble!"

We didn't save any animals today but we had a good time. He's still completely in love with that horse of his. He likes me to put the horse out on the porch and so of course I do and he rides and rides. "Bumpy!" he announced today after a long trot.

So Mr. Moon called me today and sounded very happy. He shot his Tennessee buck and they had dressed it and he is coming home tomorrow. "Dressing" a deer does not mean that you put cute little clothes on it. It means you skin it and gut it and put it on ice. There may be more involved than this but I am not sure. This is the way of it, oh my sisters and brothers. Then you bring it home and you and your son-in-law cut up the meat portions into meal-sized meat portions and you wrap it all in butcher paper and label it and put it in the freezer for your wife to cook.
Which she mostly happily does.
It sure will be so nice to have him back although it has been nice to have this time alone, as well. I washed the sheets today and I know he'll be glad to be back in his own bed. He didn't even pack his pillows which for me would have meant total disaster and possibly a turning-back, even if I had remembered when I was in Alabama, but Mr. Moon is a MAN! y'all, and can deal with strange pillows.
He will be glad to sleep on his own pillows though. I know he will.
I bet he'll be glad to see his wife, too. I just have a feeling.
It's funny but every time I see Mr. Moon after a time apart, I am amazed all over again at how tall he is. He really, truly is taller than a normal human being. In a world of oak trees, he is a redwood.
Okay. I think I may be straying into territory best kept private.
Maybe.
You know what I mean.

So. Last night on my own. I believe I'll be wild!!!! and eat an Amy's frozen vegan pizza. I'll cook some peppers and mushrooms and onions to put on it. I'll slice tomatoes and put those on there too. Hell, I could just go INSANE and put some pineapple on it!
Be still my heart.
And maybe I'll watch some TV show with preternaturally thin and blond women in it, sitting around and weeping and bitching and wearing more jewelry at one time than I own and drinking cocktails which themselves look like glowing jewels in glasses of amusing shapes. If one of those is on. The odds are good.
Damn good.

Seriously, it's been a good week. I started out feeling wavery and unsure I was even okay to stay by myself but I've done just fine. I haven't done anything exactly productive but I've figured out a Big Question out and I've taken many walks and I've eaten well and I've kept the animals alive. I've been out in public and even at night. I have read a lot.
I have taken care of myself.

And tomorrow Owen will be back for a long day and I'll take care of him and then Mr. Moon will be home and I will take care of him.

And he will take care of me.

Thanksgiving will be here and then before I know it, we will be packing up for Mexico.
Mexico.

All right. I am feeling all gooey inside and here is a beautiful song written by James Taylor but my favorite version of it is done by Jimmy Buffett on his album, Barometer Soup.



Sun so hot I forgot to go home.

Been there. Done that.
Used to have the t-shirt.
I found it on the back of a bathroom door at La Pepita when we checked in.

Oh shit. Where am I?
Oh yeah. Lloyd, Florida where the wind is kicking up and we might actually get some rain. Where my grandson will be coming back tomorrow, where my man will be too.

And soon we shall be going to Mexico.
I know you don't watch embedded videos but here's a version of James himself with pictures of not only Frida, but of an armadillo. I feel it is my duty to present this one too.



It all comes 'round, doesn't it?

Night, y'all.

Let us dream of the Maya. Let us have visions of Frida. Let us offer our hearts to Chac Mool if that is what we want to do.

I do. Well, to tell you the truth, his bowl already holds my heart.


But this panther?

He can bite my ass.

Oh wait. He already did. Long story.

More tomorrow.

Buenos noches...Maria Luna

I Make Mistakes So You Don't Have To

My blogger writing form is a different color. This scares me in that The Tearful Dishwasher just lost his entire blog. What if it happened to me?
Oh. Who knows? The world would probably go on just fine.

All right. Advice for the day:
Do not eat a ton of sauerkraut at supper. You will find yourself drinking half a quart of juice and then half a gallon of water.

More advice:
If you eat a ton of sauerkraut and a bunch of broccoli, it is advisable to be alone in the ensuing hours after partaking of such gaseous foods.
I was. Thank god.

Even more advice:
If you do crunches, do them right. Otherwise you may hurt your upper back. Or perhaps it wasn't the crunches. Perhaps it was the weights. Anyway, let me now give you wisdom:
Between thirst, gaseosity and upper back pain, sleep can be interrupted frequently.

I feel like a whiny, colicky baby. I am wearing a most-likely dead old round short man's Levi's. The color makes me happy. There is no spandex in these jeans, thus they feel like a garment and not a girdle. They come up to what would be my waist if I had a waist and I am so short-waisted that this is approximately two and a half inches below where my bra would end if I was wearing a bra.
I have finally achieved complete and utter fashion FAILURE! As if the overalls hadn't been bad enough!

So what! No one is here to see me.

No. I do not know when Mr. Moon is coming home. He made my oyster stew in Tennessee. The one I told him I liked. With onions and celery and nutmeg in it. It was a huge success.
I wrote him and said, "Now that you know about nutmeg, please don't leave me."
He wrote back and said, "If I leave, I will give you thirty minutes to pack and come with me."

This is an old joke of ours. But it's a good one. He hasn't shot a buck yet. But I have a feeling he'll be home pretty soon. Whatever that means.

Owen is coming this afternoon. When I saw him yesterday we went out for lunch and then to a fabric store. He was a bit cranky.


He kept saying, "NO WAY!" I hope he is not saying that today. It makes him sound like a bratty teenager. I keep expecting Whatever to come out of his mouth. When that happens I have a plan- I will no longer change his diaper.
You're old enough to say whatever, you are old enough to use the potty, Mister Big Shot!
And then I'm going to teach him how to make me a martini.

Well, I guess I have dispensed enough wisdom and advice for one morning. I have plenty more, believe me, but we'll save it for another time. I need to go throw the rest of that sauerkraut to the chickens. I filled up their water thing last night so they should be okay. I don't even think chickens fart so there's that.
If they do, Lloyd might explode today.
That would be sad. And right after they built that new fence, too.

Yours truly...Ms. Moon

Where I Live

Oh, I am so lazy! That bottle of polish and the rag on the piano, waiting to be used?
Still gathering dust.
I look into the library and slink away, back down the hallway. The kitchen floor is dusty, everything is dusty. The dry, black dirt of Lloyd is attaching itself to everything and I merely sigh and let it.

It has been the grayest day. Like being entombed in a world of stone. And yet, it is so warm. The walls of my house where the night's chill remains are sweating. A smoke-alarm in my bedroom was beeping with it's change-my-battery shrill announcement and when I got on a chair to reach up to get it, my hands found slick wetness.
Condensation- a cloud in my own house.

Dry, dry. So very dry and yet- those wet walls. There is a little place on my walk which has always, since I've been here, held water. And now it hasn't a drop in it. The bottom is a leaf-covered bowl with the dead limbs which have fallen in it over the years lying across it like a Japanese arrangement of wood and twigs. Beautiful in its own way, but sad, too. I remember once when we had a tropical storm which brought a huge amount of rain to us that Mr. Moon and I walked out in it when the rain slacked and the water was rushing into that pond, sheeting the pathway I walk every day in a sort of river and it was suddenly clear to me how people can drown in seemingly insignificant amounts of water.

And now- dry. Completely dry. The squirrels can scamper across where there were fish.

I have not seen deer on my walk in a long time. It is almost but not quite rutting season. Now isn't that a term? "Rutting season."
Sounds like a good name for a single's bar if you ask me. Get right to the point of it.
I have seen a few sharp-pointed hoof prints in the soft sand of the path but not as many as I will be seeing soon.

Someone has taken to dumping their fucking trash on the path where I walk in the woods. The pile is growing every day. I just have to wonder why- the trash depot is less than a mile from that spot. Yard trash, tires. Sickening. Humans. God. We can be the most disgusting creatures. There is another pile a few hundred feet from that one with high heels and sofa cushions and children's toys in it. It feels like a crime scene. For all I know, it is.

When I walked past the trash depot today, speaking of that highly-used spot in our community, I saw that they are putting up a huge board fence around it. There were three workers. They were cutting the boards on the back of a truck which smelled wonderful- fresh pine- and the fence was rising nicely.
"Nice fence!" I said, as I walked by. And it was. Inside of it shall still be the garbage and recycle containers, the smell will be the same or even worse. But on the outside- oh, it shall look so much better. Not that it will matter much to me. Lloyd is Lloyd. I love it here, despite the trash in the woods, despite the trash place in the center of the community. But it will give us something to talk about here- Have you seen the new fence?

The other day when I was at the end of my walk and going into the post office which is in a very old former train depot, there were people using the old outside brick walls as a photo backdrop. I went in and gathered my mail and thought about how picturesque this old place is. How people slow down and gawk at our beautiful old houses. How they wonder what the lives of the people are like who live in them. One of the men from the group went into the post office too and he came out, not with mail like me, but with the words, "Man! You should see it in there! Old fashioned boxes where people get their mail!"

I laughed to myself. Yes. Here we are. People who get their mail in old-fashioned mail boxes with those tiny dial-combinations which open up to reveal what we have gotten. We get our mail in an old train depot, we live beneath some of the largest moss-draped live oaks I've ever seen in houses that stood when the Civil War was fought. We have refrigerators and high-speed internet and running water. Some of us have gardens and some of us have goats and mules and some of us have chickens and some of us have pampered dogs and we all have cars and we all have secrets and we all have joys and we all have sorrows.

We gather at tables and eat meals. We lay down in the darkness and sleep. It is pretty quiet except when the train goes by and its thunder-chugging is so familiar to us that we do not even wake up when it passes, even though the very glass in the windows right above our beds shakes.

The train kicks up the dust. The black dry dust which drifts into my house. Which I am ignoring.

I just went outside to shut up my chickens for the night to that they will be safe in their blind sleep on their roosts. It is so dark outside. I came back in and got the camera and went back outside and took that picture.

I am a woman, a wife, a mother, a grandmother. I am so very grateful that I live in a place which is as real as real can be. I think I would die if I lived in a cement-block apartment or a gated community where everyone lives in contrasting/matching McMansions. I am so grateful that my husband could see us living here and made that happen.
I need dirt. Even when that dirt sifts in through the screens and layers everything in my house.
I need wood floors and walls with the skeletons of wood in them.
I need trees right outside my windows.
I need porches where lizards wait for insect-prey on screens. Where giant spiders spin webs of incredible strength and beauty.
I need sky and birds that fly into it.

I have what I need.

How did that happen?

I have no idea.

But as the evening falls, even in this dark-dusty place where people dump their trash in the woods, I am grateful.

And we shall discuss the new fence when we meet at the post office tomorrow. And tonight I shall sleep in the darkness.

Soft Gray

One of the treasures I found yesterday at the Goodwill was a pair of cotton pants so soft that when my fingers found them they would not let them go. They are lined and dove gray and the brand is one I had never heard of.

Nitya.

I looked it up on the internet and if that's not the prettiest, dreamiest web site I ever saw, I don't know what is.
Hell. These pants probably cost, originally, more than that fur jacket.
And I wore them to feed the chickens.
I feel like I had clouds on my legs.
I love the Goodwill. Levi's and Nitya. They have ALL the brands.

My smoothie has pineapple in it.
That's about as exciting as I plan to get today.

I feel guilty giving you nothing more than this.

Oh well.

There is fog drawing in. I wonder if these soft gray cloud pants drew it to me. The fog.

I don't know. But I am going to go walk in it. The fog, that is.

Fog is a funny word. Add an "r" and you have frog.

One is gray, one is green.

But you knew that.

Good morning.
Love...Ms. Moon

Monday Evening

Ah-lah.
Someone else had realized the value of that coat and had gotten in and bought it before I did. I searched the store high and low, and it was not there.
I sigh, thinking of that softness, thinking of how a mere sigh would ruffle that fur like a wind through a forest.
It's okay.
I tell you this- the Goodwill is PACKED on half-off day. People were standing in line bitching about the fact that there were only two cash registers. When I went to check out I let the man behind me in line go before me. He only had two things. I had a bunch o' booty. He thanked me approximately three times. I didn't mind. Really. I did not.

Lily wanted me to look for some long-sleeved things for her. I got her some shirts and I hope they make her happy, keep her warm. She is going through the head-ache phase of her pregnancy. I always did that too, around the five-to-six months part. The blood volume is doubling then and the head suffers. She went to work anyway and when I stopped in to do a little grocery shopping and give her her clothes, she looked so miserable.
"You need to go home," I told her, as if she could just tell the manager that her mother told her she needed to go home and so it would be fine. If I could have given her a note, I would have.

Dear Store Manager, My daughter Lily has a terrible headache and is pregnant and will not be able to finish her shift today. Thank-you. Ms. Moon, Mother and RN, BSN

"I know," she said. "I just want to sleep."
All she can take for pain is Tylenol which I call the Placebo Drug. As far as I can tell, it's as worthless as swallowing a button when it comes to pain.
It will pass. And yes, she checked her blood pressure. It is fine.

I bought some things at the Goodwill for myself. Soft things. No cashmere. I swear to you- there wasn't one damn garment made of cashmere in that entire store.
Harumph!

Everything I bought is all in the washing machine right now, spinning out.
I found some men's Levi's. Some old, round short man had obviously died and his relatives had donated his jeans. My children will laugh at me if they see me wearing them. So what? I love to make my children laugh. Making them laugh is my life goal. These pants will help me a great deal in fulfilling it.
I bought some soft linen shirts and some soft linens pants. I bought a plum-colored T-shirt that I may only ever wear under overalls. Who cares? It's a lovely color. It was half-price.

I didn't buy anything but clothes. No plates, no cups, no pictures, no end tables, no TV's or coffee makers or lamps or napkins or table cloths.
I need none of that.

A man was in there who announced loudly TWO TIMES within my hearing that they had no size THIRTEEN SHOES. I think he was quite proud of the fact that he wore size thirteen shoes. I did not tell him that my husband wears size SIXTEEN SHOES. I did not want to hurt his feelings.
I pretended not to hear and went on going through the sweaters in my vain search for cashmere.

I got to see Owen. He opened the door for me and led me inside. I said, "Look! Look what I brought you!" I opened the carton of eggs I had with me and he said, "Dank you!" and he reached out his hands and took the carton tenderly to his chest and carried them to his daddy who put them in the refrigerator. He has a runny nose. He drew pictures of Bop and Mer and Mama and Daddy and Mr. Peep. We played "games" on his bed which involves a puzzle book he loves. He is completely into classifying animals as to whether they live on the farm or in the jungle. He knows, too.
Every time I see him he knows more. He was watching Diego and when there was a bad situation happening, he looked at me and said, "Trouble!"
Oh god. He is so beautiful. When I get him alone I tell him that. "Owen. You are so beautiful. I love you so much."
He just looks at me as if, I know, and then we go on to the next thing.
I swear though. I could swallow him whole.
I could invent an entire religion out of his toes and fingers. I could create a complete philosophy of life based on his cheeks. I could die happy knowing how well my genes have joined others to make that perfect, sturdy body.

Yea, lord. I have done my job.

Mr. Size Sixteen Shoes just called to get instructions on how to make oyster stew.
"Do you want the kind I like or that your mother made?"
Oooh. There is no way to win answering that question.
I gave him both options.
And whichever version he chooses will be just fine with me.

I miss that man but as I told him, this time alone has been very good for me. He understands.
And in a little over a month, we will be in Cozumel together for ten days, stuck together like velcro and it will be wonderful. It always is.

It's all about balance, I guess.

Sometimes one needs to be a jungle animal, sometimes one needs to be a farm animal.

Right now I am completely content being a farm animal.

And hell, it's like seventy degrees and so who needs the softest lamb's wool fur in the world?

Sigh.

Choke.

Not me.

Appetite

This is how I make a smoothie:

In blender put some fat-free plain Greek yogurt. Add a few prunes, a few dried cherries. These make it sweet. Plus- fiber! Throw in frozen berries of your choice. Straw, blue, black. Whatever. Add a banana. Palm-full of almonds. Juice of an orange. Water enough to make it blendy.
Blend it.
Frozen banana if your berries are fresh. Pineapple added is the best.
Apples will work too. So will pears. Peaches and nectarines are beyond swell. Here's something I just realized: All fruits go together in a tasteful fashion.
Drink it up. There. You've had enough fruit and some other good stuff to last you the day if you don't get hungry.
Of course we get hungry.

Last night I made Madame Radish King's recipe for baked butternut squash with apples. It was awesome and I especially loved the part where I massaged the olive oil and salt and pepper into the squash halves.
I also made a salad from the garden with all sorts of beautiful tiny leaves and one grated carrot. I tried to make Denise's salad dressing but I can never do it right. Never.
Here's what's in it. You can try.

Olive oil
Cider vinegar
Garlic
Salt and pepper
Dried mustard

Best salad dressing in the world. Simple.
Still. I can't make it like Denise does.

I like simple things. To eat. To deal with. To think about.
Simple is good but it's not always easy.

Good morning. It is very bright and shiny here today. My smoothie tastes delicious. I still have a half of a baked butternut squash in the refrigerator. I have a garden-full of tiny lettuces. I have a handful of potatoes that I dug up after the freeze.
I have strong legs. I have gorgeous chickens and many eggs. I have a car I am going to drive to town today to see if that soft, soft jacket is still at the Goodwill. I have a grandson I am going to stop by and see.

Quite simply, I am as lucky as lucky can be.

Quite simply.

Y'all Don't Have To Read This. It's Mostly For Me.

I just took a good long walk in this beautiful day and even though I was listening to a book on CD while I walked, my mind was racing. I realized I felt stronger than I've felt in a long time and I know that every time I allow myself to talk about sexual abuse OUT LOUD, I feel lighter, better. I no longer feel that I must remain silent, of course, but there are cultural mores about such talk. There is even the threat of sounding self-indulgent, self-pitying.
Self, self, selfish.

The book I'm listening to was in itself a catalyst to my thoughts. It's not Great Literature and I've almost abandoned it several times but the narrator is good and there's just enough to keep me going. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt is the title and it's about a little girl who ends up being her crazy mama's caretaker until the mother dies and then she goes to live with a great-aunt in Savannah and it's got every goddam southern stereotype in it and every cliche, but honeychile- you know a lot of those things are based in reality.
And there is some wisdom in it, even if it is delivered too sweetly and too neatly and too lovingly to resemble real life as I know it.

But as I was listening, there came a part in the book where CeeCee is able to remember some very good moments with her mother before her mental illness took her over and that made me wonder why I have no good, magical mother-daughter moments in my memory bank. I swear, I do not. I know there must be some. There must! My mother loved me. I know she did. But every memory I have is tinged with fear and sadness. And I know that a lot of that fear and sadness came from her and her life which was filled with both of those things. And yes, she suffered depression deeply and although she did not do things like CeeCee's mother did to publicly shame me, she did things that I could not fathom. She said things that scared the living shit out of me.
I do not think she could help it. I swear. I don't.
But it happened. That's life.
But I wish I had one memory, just ONE of pure joy in my mother's love. I yearn for that with all of my heart.

And I was thinking about that and then I was thinking about my damn need to suffer. My inability to accept the joy and light my life is quite frankly filled with now. I have always pondered this question. Why do I feel the need to suffer?

And I think I answered it in this morning's earlier post. And filled in the outlines on my walk.

First, there was the example of my mother who so obviously suffered. She lived with a dangerous alcoholic. She suffered poverty with him and probably abuse and she suffered shame, too. The shame of having a husband who was a bad, bad drunk. The neighbors knew. I know they did. I remember at least one time being sent with my little brother to a neighbor's house when my daddy was on a tear and had been screaming at her.

And then when she left him, finally, she suffered from the depression and surely grief at the loss of a marriage, even such a bad one. She suffered from the shame which was then put on women who were divorced. She suffered from having to go back to her father's house and protection. She suffered from being miserable in her vocation. She suffered loneliness.
She suffered.

Suffering was obviously what women did. That's what I learned.

And then when she married my stepfather and the abuse began, I, who had been her caretaker (and there is no other way to put that- I had been her confidante and caretaker from the age of six) found myself in the unthinkable position of protecting her from knowing what her husband was doing.
I honestly believed she would kill herself if she knew.
She'd threatened suicide on many occasions so I had reason to believe that. I was nine years old- what did I know? And so my pain and my fear and my confusion became my way to keep my mother happy. Or, at least alive. Add that to the fact that I was so filled with shame from the abuse that there was no way to speak out anyway. I didn't have the words. Quite literally. The only other example I knew of a father doing such things to his daughter came from the Bible when Lot "laid" with his daughters after they got him drunk in order to be impregnated by him.
Whoa.

But. Back to the point. My suffering kept the family together in my nine-year old brain. And in my ten and eleven-year old brain. In my twelve-year old brain.
If I told, the shame would be too much for anyone to bear- I had to keep it all INSIDE OF ME. And, Mother might well just fulfill her suicide promise if I allowed it to leak out.

And so, in some sense, I became a true martyr. I suffered for a cause. Happiness was not an option. Freedom from fear was not an option. Relief was not an option. One moment of inattention was not an option. One night of peaceful sleep was not an option.

Not moving away when I was eighteen was not an option.
I had to do it.
I finally had to save my own life and don't you know I felt so much guilt? Not at abandoning my mother, but for abandoning my baby brothers because by that time, they and their lives felt like my responsibility too.

But you don't just walk out a door and move across a country and take a deep breath and become a happy person after a lifetime of that sort of suffering and pain and martyrdom. Oh hell no. You may have slipped the traces of the home but you carry the messages and the beliefs with you.
You do not quit believing that your own suffering is personally and universally protecting the world. It makes no sense, but there it is.
And, AND, you have no sense that you deserve anything BUT suffering. It is not, at this point, just your job in life to suffer, it is your heritage, your training, your very sense and essence of self.

Okay. This is what happens when I have time to think about things for more than twenty minutes at a time. Occasionally, I have, if not an epiphany, at least a small break-through. And, if you are like me, you might have to write this shit down and put it out there because that's what you do. You send it out to the world and you hope that maybe one other person who can't drop the pain and suffering and doesn't know why might be able to crack a little light onto their situation. Because if there is one thing I learned all those years in a sexual abuse survivor group it is this- no matter what happened, we all came through the abuse with certain things that were the same.
Shame, guilt, fear, depression, a proclivity towards substance abuse, sexual problems, relationship problems...the litany is long but we all shared it.

And I know that just because I now have a better answer as to why I need to suffer, that need will not disappear. But. Perhaps with the knowledge of where it came from, it might lose its almost totemic role in my life. Perhaps, when I feel it most strongly, I can examine it from a different angle now. Perhaps, over time, it will fade.

As Owen says, "Maybe!"

At the very least I feel lighter right now than I have in ages. Lighter and better. As I said in the very beginning of this post. The feeling may not last too long, but I'll take it for this moment. Oh hell, YES, I will take it. On this beautiful Sunday afternoon where it is so quiet in my beautiful house and my beautiful yard and in my beautiful life.

I can accept the light and the deep satisfaction of my life within it. For this moment.
I still have a lot to think about, a lot to process. But it's a start.

Wow. Maybe I don't have to suffer.
Does this mean I could maybe be...happier?

Lord. I'm not even going to go there. Baby steps.

Now. Off to the garden. Out to the yard. With lighter steps.

Amen.

Don't Even Talk To Me About Sacrificial Lambs

I have been thinking a lot about this Joe Paterno thing. One would think that I don't really have a dog in this fight. Football? Whatever. I am genetically incapable of even listening to a football game.

But. I was sexually abused as a child. Not by a coach or a priest or a teacher or a stranger but by my stepfather.
And the damage that did to me has never, ever left me and never will despite years of therapy and all sorts of help and a damn good adult life.
There is no way to escape sexual abuse unscathed. Those who may say they have are, in my opinion, simply in deep denial which is going to cause problems along the way of its own.

I was thinking about this last night. About how there is almost always a cover-up if a perpetrator is discovered whether in a vast religion, a huge university football program or a home. How the victims of sexual abuse are as plainly the sacrificial lambs as one can imagine. They and their pain are sacrificed to the altar of the illusion of goodness (and sometimes godliness) of the institution. To my way of thinking, it is not Joe Paterno who is the sacrificial lamb in this latest situation, it is the victims of the man who RAPED THEM.

A blogger whom I respect a lot wrote what I think was the most powerful piece on this whole thing I've read. Suburban Lesbian Housewife said, "I see something like that? I'm getting a baseball bat or the heaviest object near me and I'm stopping it. Then, I'm going to the police. But I do not wait and go to my boss."
Click on the quote to go read her entire post.
Please.
She writes through the lens of being the mother of sons and a football lover. And I admire her for her fierce cutting-right-to-the-quick of the situation.

But I keep coming back to the view I have of the situation which is to wonder why there is always this damn silence about people (usually men, not always) who sexually abuse children.

When Freud first started out, he realized that almost all of his "hysterical" women had been sexually abused by their darling papas. He wrote a paper about it and presented it at a prestigious gathering. He was met with great resistance to the point where he retracted what he had said.
Had those venerable men who attacked Freud for his theory molested their own daughters?
One has to wonder and the great cover-up was begun. Well, not begun. It had obviously been going on since the beginning of human-time but it was given gravitas.

And so it has gone that people who have witnessed the molestation of children have turned their backs. Perhaps not even witnessed but surely knew in their bones that something, something evil was going on behind the closed door in the next room whether that room was the bedroom of a child or the cloak room behind an altar or the shower room of a college university program.

There are as many excuses and rationalizations for silence as their are victims. Fear of loss of income in a family, fear of the shame, fear of authority figures. Fear. Always fear.
And with the cover-up, with the silence, the crime becomes even more heinous because NO ONE PROTECTED THE CHILD and the child knows it. And feels the overwhelming burden of the knowledge that his or her silence is the price of a world not tipping over.

Where are the voices of the victims of this crime? We hear the voices of those protesting that Paterno shouldn't have been fired. We hear those loud and strong. And we're going to hear discussions on the legalities of reporting and we're going to hear all sorts of crap but the fact is, the man who sodomized those boys, Jerry Sandusky may have left THAT job but he remained in a position where his "charity" work gave him access to plenty more boys. For years.
And don't tell me that fact didn't register with Joe Paterno among what had to be many others.

Look- I don't give a shit how much good a person does in this world if he or she allows the crime of sexual abuse of children to continue when they could have stopped it. There is no balancing act here. Silence equals so much pain that death is often the result. I am speaking from the heart and the gut here.
I am speaking from a place where yes, give me a fucking baseball bat and a cell phone to call the cops.

Okay. I guess that's what I think. I guess that I disagree with those who say there is no black or white in this situation, only shades of gray.
I guess I think that because I have spent my entire life knowing exactly how gray life can be if one was sexually abused as a child. How even on the most beautiful day imaginable when the sun is so bright that it lights up the wings of the butterflies flitting from one flower to another not fifteen feet away, there can be such grayness that it is nearly impossible to accept that light as ones own precious, simple gift for simply being alive. How fear, once instilled in growing bones, can never be completely shaken off.

Because that's what happens to children when they are made the sacrificial lambs. They grow up to be adults who learned that lesson too fucking well to ever throw that burden off completely.
If they manage to grow up at all. That fighting to reclaim the belief that life is not meant to be suffered through can take more energy than seems worthwhile at times. Which affects everyone in that person's life for forever and ever and thus, the burden is made heavier and people who had nothing to do with the original situation must carry it too.

So yeah. The sins of the father. Etc.

And no matter what Joe Paterno did to make the football program at Penn State such a fine one, if he could have saved ONE child from being abused, he truly would have been a hero.

That's my opinion.

That's my dog in this fight. And believe me- I wish to every power that might be that I didn't have one. But I do. And I am not going to remain silent about it.

We Be Kin

I did it! I did it! I spilled something!
No, that's not all I did but yes, when bussing the tables after the patrons had gone upstairs, I did drop a cup of milky coffee.
Ah-lah.
At least it landed on no one but me.

And after the tables were all cleared, I went upstairs to the theater and watched the show from the back row and it was good. The Opera House has such incredible acoustics. Every word was clear as a bell. It was a silly, ridiculous play and a lot of fun and I could see the results of all the very hard work which has obviously been put into it and it came off beautifully. Kathleen played Ranger Don and was absolutely wonderful. When she ripped off her beard and rain coat to reveal a form-fitting skirt and blouse she was gorgeous. A man named Tim Nettles, the husband of the director, Barbie Nettles, was wonderful in his role. I got to work with him a tiny bit in the film Faceless for Freddy. If you've watched that, he was the guy who got fired by the Faceless Dude. He was amazing onstage, bouncing from here to there, taking pratfalls and then stealing our hearts by kissing the innocent girl so sweetly.
It really was a fine performance by everyone and the audience seemed to love it.

I did notice that one couple left after the simulated fellatio scene. Whoops! Buh-bye!

It was a very different evening as to the attendees. Last night was a drinkin' crowd. They lined up at the bar and lined the coffers of the Opera House with their drink purchases. Tonight seemed to be Older Ladies Night Out and there wasn't nearly as much drinking but everyone seemed to enjoy their dinners. I did the potatoes again and the tomatoes too. I actually tasted the potatoes tonight. They were as good as they looked and if I hadn't been the self-disciplined person I am I would have grabbed the casserole dish and the serving spoon, backed into a corner and yelled, "Get back. Keep your hands off my potato casserole and NO ONE WILL BE INJURED!"
I showed restraint.
I did.

And now I'm home and it's not nearly as cold tonight. I petted my chickens again and shut their doors. Mr. Moon and I have been playing phone tag since he left. I haven't actually spoken with him since he got there but we've left each other sweet messages. I think he is having a good time. I surely hope so. That man deserves it.

It's been a very good day. It was all a bit iffy this morning when I woke up and saw those freeze-burned banana plants but it's all been okay. Not as much damage as I feared, a lot of trimming done that needed done, rest and a sort of detoxification of the soul. Then tonight, working with those fine ladies. It's funny how deeply I fall in love with women. I think that some women whose mothers were not, oh, as outwardly, um, well, affectionate? as they could have been go on to lead lives where they eschew women and focus all of their attention on men, whereas others seek out women who represent motherliness and sweetness and sass and all of the things they might have wished for in a mother.
I am of the latter sort. And in that kitchen in the Opera House, I find those women. Completely different from me, completely different from each other but still, there is something there. We fall into a rhythm, there is an understanding. We laugh. We make fun. We recognize each other as sisters-sort-of. When I spoke of my raw skin last night, I was thinking of them, those women, and how I want to grab them up and hug them to me and tell them how much I respect and care for them and how inappropriate I know that would be but tonight, when I told them good-bye, Georgia hugged ME and said, "I love you," and damn, that meant the world to me.
She's a pastor, y'all. Or something like that. But she sure will take a mis-poured glass of wine and enjoy it.

So. That's me tonight. And I just have to say that just as I feel so very, very blessed to have spent the evening with women I love, I am that grateful to be able to send these words out to everyone who comes here to read.
I still can't believe that people do but they do and I feel almost as if I know so many of you because you leave me such words of understanding, of acceptance, and on your blogs you share your hearts as I share mine.

Not JUST women, but a few fellas too. Thank-you. All of you. I would hug you inappropriately if I could. You know I would. Hell, I'd even share my potato casserole with you.

I feel as if I have turned a corner. Now. We shall see how Dreaded Sunday treats me.

I'm going to go rest up for it.

Bless our hearts, y'all. Bless our imperfect loving hearts.

I swear to god I love you.

Ms. Moon

Gentle Tonics

I cut and trimmed and pulled and hauled. I took the bananas down, cutting their great stalks with a kitchen knife and as it sliced through the pulpy stems, water poured forth.
I do not think I have lost so much in the way of my potted plants. Even my giant begonias still have a good leaf or two. I would be so heartbroken to have lost those, started with such patience from one leaf so long ago.
My precious mango is fine.

I simmered what was left of a small chicken with five cloves of garlic and salt and when the meat fell of the bones, I added soy sauce and the leftover Pho which Jessie and I brought home last week from the place where the lady calls everyone honey and sweetheart.
You like my Pho, she says. It very good.
It's not on the menu. You have to ask.
I just ate a huge bowl of the resulting soup and it may have been the best thing I ever ate. The cilantro and bean sprouts still a bit crisp and the cloves of garlic soft and mellow in my mouth and the tiny bits of jalapeno I had torn with my fingers when we were in the restaurant were hot and good and I tipped the bowl to drink the broth.

That.

More than plenty.

Perfection.

Yes.

A Killing Frost

I really screwed the fucking pooch last night.
It froze. The ground is carpeted in pecan leaves. They must have all dropped off at once in the night. I am almost surprised the sound didn't wake me up. The banana leaves are that dark-green color of dying chlorophyll lying limp against the stalks.

I didn't wrap or move one damn plant.

I hardly have the heart to go around and look and see what I've lost.

I guess that later I'll take my cart and my clippers and cut everything back and hope that the plants themselves are not truly dead.

Oh well. I wasn't paying attention. And truthfully- some of the plants are in pots so big that it takes me AND Mr. Moon to bring them in. But I could have tried- I could have brought some in, covered the rest up.

And now I have a project. I have cart and clippers, I will wear overalls and gloves. I will spend time outside in the sunshine. It's already warmer out there than it is in here. And by next week, it's supposed to be in the eighties again.

It is good for me to have a project, albeit such a depressing one. I am struggling with this stuff going on in my head. I read an article the other day about how depression may actually be connected to physical inflammation. I believe that. When I am feeling like this, my eyes feel strange, heavy somehow. They do not hurt or ache, they just feel heavy. Different.
And of course there is the need to sleep. There is a lack of appetite. But I just ate an egg with a yolk as golden as the sun from any planet and a piece of toast and I have talked to three people on the phone and every one of them told me they love me and I told every one of them that I loved them and I have thrown some things away and tidied some areas of the kitchen and so I am okay.

I am going to move about the yard in the sunshine, I am going to cut away that which is dead and hope that the roots are good. I am going to be as gentle with myself as possible, physically and spiritually and emotionally. I am going to remember that there is a strong tie between all three of those and that no matter which part becomes ill first, healing can occur from all directions. To treat one aspect is to treat all three.

Yes. That sounds right. And tonight I will put on my serving clothes again and perhaps I will stay for the show but whatever it is that I need to do, I will do because I have been given this gift right now of time to do whatever that is and the quiet to listen to myself to know what that may be.

Does this make any sense?

I hope so.

Love From Florida Where It Surely Froze Last Night...Ms. Moon

Hush

I got dressed in black pants and a white shirt. I put on some make-up. I got my white apron and drove to Monticello and went into the Opera House and back to the kitchen. I was glad to be there with the ladies I have come to know and love. And Tom. Can't forget Tom. He's the husband of Denise who co-runs the catering company. He's not a lady but he is a gentle-man.
I felt honored because Denise asked me to help plate. There weren't many reservations tonight so it was all easy-peasy and I served up the potato casserole that looked so good that I could hardly stand it. I kept saying, "Denise, this just doesn't have enough butter in it," being completely sarcastic because the potatoes were swimming in it. With cheese.
I didn't even taste it. It was just too alarmingly beautifully rich.
I went around with water, I bussed tables. I saw people I knew. It was fine and yet...I am just not myself. I am usually a font of humor when I am working in the kitchen. I make people laugh. That's what I love to do.
But tonight, I just felt quiet. The way I've been feeling.
And I missed Colin.
Dammit, every time I set foot in the Opera House these days I miss him. I still expect him to come bursting in looking as trim and dapper as ever, shooting off sparks and saying, "Hello, luv!" with that accent of his he never lost even after almost a lifetime of living in America. He was a Brit no matter what his passport said.
Hello, luv!
It was intense tonight, that missing-him, that huge hole where there was no hello, luv, no Colin-sparks, no long arms reaching for trays.

I had thought to stay and watch the show. Kathleen's in it and so is Marcy and I just couldn't. I sat and chatted with Jan and Denise for awhile and then I said, "I just want to go home and shut up my chickens and maybe clean my kitchen."
Jan said, "Go. It's okay."
It was like the world cracking open to even imagine not staying. Like- oh. It's possible. I can go home.
I felt like I'd spent every tiny coin of sociability I had in me, just being around people for a few hours, asking folks, "Are you finished with that?" and pointing to their empty plates, and saying, "I'm so glad," when they told me how much they'd enjoyed dinner.
Just being in the kitchen and shooting the shit with people I love being around. People that lead with their hearts. Not even fake people. Real people. People who know me and accept me as I am and allow me the responsibility of serving the potato casserole and putting the tomatoes on the salad.

And I am NOT being sarcastic here. I am being as serious as I know how to be.

I feel terrible because I left but this is where I need to be. I shut my chickens up after I stroked their soft feathers. I can tell Dolly in the dark because she is the softest hen of all. My fingers in her feathers feel like my fingers in soft air or whipped cream. And here I am, home and wearing my Goodwill cashmere and on the way home I came to within five feet of hitting some huge animal. I guess it had to be a deer but I swear, it looked like a bear-sized dog and it was light-colored. I almost turned around and drove back to see, but I kept on going.
I kept on going until I got home.
The heat is on. It's in the low forties already. It's cozy inside and I have a candle burning that's supposed to smell like pine and I guess it does. Or The Forest. Something woodsy and pleasant. It's quiet and it's safe here. The dogs are with me. The chickens are shut up cozy on their roosts in the hen house I cleaned today.

To everything there is a season, one of the best books of the Bible says, and that is about as true and evident as anything I've ever read or heard and as beautiful.
I am having a season of quiet. Not of the heart or soul, but of the mouth.
I feel skinless, like Birdie said today in her post. Raw and open to everything. I look at the face of someone I love and I just want to weep. Everything is too much. I can't fake anything. I can't put on my social face. It is the season for me to withdraw. Perhaps I am growing new skin. I don't know. Or shedding old skin. That's a vulnerable time for reptiles, you know, when they are shedding and we still have all those reptile brain parts of us whether we know it or not. I see how my hens and my rooster are not themselves when they moult. Same-same.

Maybe for us too.
Same-same.

All I know is that I feel too much. I am like one of those children with autism (and maybe I am one of them, all grown-up) who can only take SO MUCH stimulation and so I come home and light that candle and put on old cashmere and let myself miss the ones I miss.

I didn't tell this part- I walked out of the kitchen tonight to see my friend Lynn's mother and brother. Lynn is my friend who died three years ago. One of my oldest, dearest friends. As joyful as Colin, she was. My dancing sister. Her mother is a friend of my mother's and she is old, but still getting around and she and her son were just in Monticello to visit another old friend of Lynn's and had popped into the Opera House to see it and there they were. I have known these people for thirty-six years. I took Lynn's mother into my arms and she was fragile like a tiny bird and yet strong, too, even now.

There. That was my last coin.

I am home. I served potato casserole wearing black pants and a white shirt. I was polite and didn't spill anything.

I did the best I could do.

I am home where my raw soul can be quiet and I can wear old soft clothes and where I will soon slip into the black velvet darkness of sleep and for awhile, I can shut it all off and slip into a softness as real and dense as Dolly's feathers. Where everything is rounded off by time and there are no sharp edges on which to bruise this shedding/moulting body.

To everything there is a season. I know that. And it's okay.

Sweetness And Agitation

Despite the fact that there is nothing I have to do and nowhere I need to go, I feel agitated. As if there SHOULD be. As if I don't even know what to do with time of my own any more. I felt this as a young mother all the time- if given a few hours to myself, what would I do? And what can one really do with a few hours anyway?
And here I am now, with at least most of a weekend of free time before me and I am wallowing in indecision, not doing anything.
I could go buy material and start making quilts for Owen and for his coming-up-sibling. I could clean the house. I could weed the garden. I could clean out the hen house. I could simply sit in the sun and read a book if I so desired.
The house definitely needs cleaning. The quilts need to be made. The garden needs weeding. The hen house is filled with poop.
Read a book in the sun? Are you kidding me?
I must take a walk.
I can walk and read at the same time, the reading, of course, done with my ears.
That I shall do. And the hen house. That I must do.
The rest?
I don't know. I sort of want to walk around with a giant garbage bag and just dump stuff in it. Bits and pieces of life that do nothing but clutter my house, my soul. That would be a start.

Where does this agitation come from? What propels it? Everything I think of to do just seems so overwhelming. Too big for me. I can't chop things up into small manageable pieces anymore. If I started cleaning one baseboard, I would be weeping and on my knees until midnight. If I sat down to write a few pages of a book, I would be despairing at the loss of a dream until I died.

Well. That's not what I wanted to write today.
No. And I promise I have not been being coy about this good news. It was just not really mine to broadcast until I asked permission and let me say that I am VERY good about asking permission to write about things in other people's lives because I do respect privacy very much and that's just the damn truth.

But here you go:

Last week, before she came to visit, Jessie called us to tell us something. It was a good thing. A very, very good thing.
She had asked Vergil to marry her.
He had said yes.
Now- this is what those two decided a long time ago- that they would BOTH propose. That it was silly and sexist to expect the man to ask the woman without the woman asking the man.
Jessie and Vergil have been talking about such subjects for quite some time now. Honestly, I think that the second they truly looked into each other's eyes for the first time, they saw the faces of the babies they would have together.
You know what I'm saying?
You do, most likely.

So. Jessie asked Vergil. Vergil said yes. Vergil will propose at a time and place of his choosing. Jessie told Vergil that he has to ask her daddy for permission before he proposes to her which of course, is sexist and silly but it's sort of a joke and sort of serious, too. But Vergil will do whatever he wants because he is that sort of man.
He is, in fact, the sort of man you would want your daughter to marry.
That good.
That fine.
That able to love and be loved.

I am so glad that he's engaged to my daughter. I can't wait for her to be engaged to him too.

So here's a story I didn't ask permission to tell but I'm going to tell it anyway:

When Jessie and I went to see my mother while she was here, Jessie told her granny about asking Vergil to marry her. Mother was happy about that. She likes Vergil a great deal. And she loves Jessie so much and wants her to be happy. She told Jessie that if Vergil doesn't ask her to marry him, she should deny him sex until she does.
My mother is eighty-four, y'all.
But Jessie just laughed and said, "That would be punishment for ME."

Heh-heh. Times have changed. Thankfully.

And that's my story. More will be revealed as time passes.

Mr. Moon called me last night. He made it to Tennessee safely. It didn't freeze last night. The chickens are running around in the yard, the day is passing. I have done nothing. Vergil is engaged to Jessie.

There. Life.

Friday.

Settling In Alone

Does every picture speak a thousand words?
Hell no.
But that one above says a bit about me:

1. I am a grandmother which is why I have a small plastic giraffe in my laundry room. Owen likes to tuck it in with the old towels and rags I have stored in an old laundry hamper so it can "nap." It amuses me, that giraffe, so I take it out and put it up on the window sill.

2. I like to root plants.

3. I have a mother in an assisted living facility and on her floor there is a lovely porch with a verdant garden of potted ferns and geraniums and all sorts of beautiful green things growing. It is tended by Miss Mabel who is 102 years old and who can barely see and since she's moved to the facility, my mother has become Miss Mabel's assistant in plant-tending. Miss Mabel tells mother what to do and Mother does it. When Jessie and I went to see Mother the other day we went down to see the garden and in the trash was a large piece of scented geranium which Miss Mable had trimmed and discarded. I brought it home and have it in water to root. I thought it looked lovely with the giraffe next to it, looking as if it were grazing on the trees in the Serengeti or wherever it is that giraffes live.

Which leads us to

4. Whimsy is a friend of mine.

and

5. I am tacky as hell.

So. Mr. Moon is gone. For a week. Or so. Whatever. And it is getting cold.

Two days at the Goodwill I saw what I thought was a fake-fur jacket. I went over and touched it. If that was fake fur, it was the best fake fur I had ever felt in my life.
I checked the inside of the coat to find that it was actually a very nice coat with a beautiful lining and it was some sort of lambskin fur.
Oh shut-up, you anti-fur people! Unless you don't eat meat or wear leather in which case you can tell me where to go. You have the moral authority to tell me whatever you want to tell me but I will tell you this- that jacket was the softest thing I ever felt in my life and I wanted it. It cost $149. At the Goodwill.
Jesus, folks!

I wish I'd bought it. I might go back and see if it's still there. I could wait until Monday when clothes are half off but it might be gone by then.
We shall see.
I don't handle cold well and if I had that jacket made of the pelt of lambs (I don't even EAT lamb!) which, may I point out? have been dead for a very long time, I would be warm and it would give me something to enjoy about winter.

How's that for rationalization?

I got my teeth cleaned. They are in "good shape." I wish the rest of me was.

I went and stayed with Owen for a few hours. He was half asleep when I got there so I laid down with him for a nap. Listen- I should do a recording of me telling the Mr. Peep nap story because I could make millions putting people to sleep with it. It's a gift, people! Owen ASKS me to tell him the Mr. Peep nap story when he wants to go to sleep.
Then of course, I fell asleep too. Me and Owen and Zeke on Lily and Jason's bed. It was so cozy.

When his mama got home, I got up and went to the store and bought salmon which I am going to go cook right now.

And then I am going to tuck myself into bed and read for as long as I want and the full moon will rise above these clouds which have made me feel gray all day but I will know it's there- that moon.
Just as I will know that although my husband is not here with me, he is loving me as I am loving him. That although Jessie is not here, she is fine and happy and good. And oh yes- the news I had but didn't feel able to share? I will tell about tomorrow.
(Was that a hint or what?)
Just as I will know that deep inside of me, no matter what, I am okay.

I hope you are too as this same moon shines on you.

Stay warm. Be well.

Love...Ms. Moon

What The HECK?!

It was the perfect night for the fair in that it wasn't cold but it wasn't hot and the sunset was beautiful as were coming in and then that full moon rose up over the midway.


Jessie had left earlier and I couldn't really seem to shake my sadness at seeing her go but what can you do? There's that boy and he needs a hip, a hand, and there are my beautiful daughter and her sweet husband and that man.

I took Magnum's advice and found the corn dogs with the buttermilk batter and shared it and a lemonade with Mr. Moon. Finest corn dog I ever ate.

We got right to the animals and Owen finally got on the pig's back (it's not real! we keep reassuring him) for a photo op.

He wasn't so sure.
He wasn't so sure about feeding the animals either but we all helped him.

I just wasn't that impressed with the chickens this year. Oh, sure, there were some fine ones but none more fine than mine. There was one called "naked neck" and whoever set out to breed that poor creature should be shot. I was as embarrassed for the chicken as the chicken was embarrassed to be alive and I did not take his picture.
I was, however, delighted to take pictures of all of the sideshow art. I love that shit. No, we didn't visit any of the sideshows. I'd rather just take the artwork's word for it and imagine it in my mind.
Less of a disappointment and not nearly as sad.

We all rode the Ferris Wheel. It was a beautiful thing.


As Owen said, "It went into the sky."

After the Ferris Wheel, Owen wanted to win a fish. Last year they won two and one of those fish is still alive in a tank in Owen's room and he's huge. HUGE!
This year no fish were won but there was a good time to be had, just trying.

Then we went back to the Merry-Go-Round. It was a newish one, but a pretty one and Owen loved that. His daddy stood by his side and I rode next to him.

Towboy Owen. Yeah. He wore that hat almost all night.



Except when his Bop was wearing it.

A good look for both.

And then we found the kid rides. Quite frankly, I thought the dinosaurs went too fast for Owen. And were too bumpy. That he would be scared. The video I put up last night proved THAT to be wrong. After that, he had to ride the stage-coach. Then the dragon roller coaster. All by himself. And he loved them all.

It was time to go. We had enough tickets for one more ride. He wanted to go back to the horses. And so, we did.

This time with Bop and Mama.
He wanted the same horse. He got it.

He fell into an eye-opened coma as soon as he hit the car seat. I tried to keep him awake by asking him questions about the fair and he would answer me but it was like talking to someone in a hypnotic trance. I hope he slept very well last night. I hope his mama did too. She'd gotten up at four-thirty in the morning to go to work.
I don't know how she does it.

So it was a good night at the North Florida Fair and today I have a dentist appointment at ten and Mr. Moon is leaving to go to Tennessee for a week to hunt and I am not sure how I'll make it here without him, despite vast experience that I have before. Of course it's supposed to get down to 34 degrees here tonight and I have done nothing in the way of protecting plants. I suppose it shall be up to the gods.

As will my fate. I am usually fine with the idea of him leaving. Less laundry, less cooking, less everything.
Including kisses and his arms around me. The peace of having him in bed next to me. The knowledge that he will be coming home as the light goes out of the sky every evening.

Well. I've promised to go wait tables at the Opera House on Friday and Saturday night. That'll get me out of the house. And I'll have Owen some and I'll...oh hell. I don't know. Eat salmon.

Be lonely. Drink gin and tease my hair and wear a white slip and sit on my front porch and scream at the children passing by.

Probably not that last part.

Maybe I'll clean house and plant pansies. Maybe I'll weed in the garden.
I'll probably stay up reading too late every night.

Whatever I do, I'll be here when he gets back. Life is so strange. One minute it's bursting at the seams and I can't keep up with it all and the next minute it's quiet and the old floors of this house seem to lead on forever in their emptiness and that's okay too.

My chickens want out. I need to eat something. This is the way of it. I cannot become un-anchored and fly off the planet, no matter how much it feels that way sometimes. I am not the Teeny-Tiny Woman and my hands are far bigger than two inches across and my feet are a size eight and they keep me pretty grounded, here on this ground.

As Owen is wont to say these days when he is amazed: WHAT?! WHAT?! and even twice now that I've heard him, "What the heck?"

I am constantly amazed at how it all works and spins and flies and settles and gets cold and warms up and that there are eggs of blue and brown in my hen house, warm and ready to tuck into my pocket to bring inside and place in a white bowl on my kitchen counter.

The fair will move on, but here we are. Over and over again.

Cowboy Owen Rides A Dinosaur At The Fair

Well, as you can see, we did go to the fair.

And it was fun and not very wild and here's a very short video of a two-year-old boy riding his first ride all by himself and having the very, very best time doing it.

We Eat Oatmeal On A Sunny Porch