Monthly Archives: June 2013

Filed away with some kind of memory

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I have spent the weekend purging our house, compiling piles of household goods for charity, looking over old photos and finally addressing the size two and four formal dresses in my spare closet. I had to be flat out honest with myself that this ass was not going to see two again unless it’s from too much wine. I looked through old cards Jay and I had given one another and laughed a lot. It is a good feeling to look through the what was when you are looking to the what will be.

But the purple file, yes, that one got to me. Writings from years ago spoke of teenage heartbreak and a girl who to the outside world was crazy and confident, but inside held a fire of hurt and disappointment. It was like reading a book and trying to connect to the main character, but knowing the ending at the beginning and wondering how she did the things she did, how she felt the way she did and how did she grow into a truly confident, spirited woman when she held such angst in her heart.

Mangione on a Sunday

I think of yesterday and I remember
Mangione, Riunite and a love I never knew.
I looked into the wine and I remember
A cool wind that swept the hurt from my mind.

You, like the wind, took away my hurt and
left a new impression of love.
Like Mangione on a Sunday and Riunite on the beach
You eased my mind.

Yesterdays slip away and
Though I can only hold onto the thoughts
I still recall that new impression…
It may be today or a far away tomorrow
But I will always remember Mangione on a Sunday.

Sometimes I sit and open up the memories
Like your love it was my security
But once you let go
I was lost.
In a new world I looked for others,
But not for love.
The tune had faded and I had lost.

So, I sat back and read this and realized I did not remember.The ironic thing is this was written sometime back in 1982 and I have no idea who this was about and why it was Riunite. Thank goodness my wine tastes have changed! Even more, thankful for today and that I have come back to writing again. For years I put my thoughts to paper and then one day I just walked away. I was challenging my own heart by stopping. I found the last poem I wrote, no date, just a scrawling series of words that said:

I sit, I cry.
I’ve turned away from the person I dreamed I would be,
From all of my dreams–
From my heart.
I sit. I laugh.
I’ve turned away for the truth,
The truth of what I believed, the fact
You weren’t meant for always.
And I laugh at my heart.
I walk. I think.
I think I have lost all feeling.
Love can’t be found.
It’s only a menagerie in my mind,
Just as you are
In my heart.
I write. I hurt.
I call. You’ve gone away.
And I’ve turned away with no one
To turn to.

Living like life is a cake walk…

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IMG_1689Momma always got so frustrated by my Daddy. He knew the ESPN scheduling whether it was football, baseball or Japanese Pygmy wrestling. He did not know his way around a kitchen while she was alive except for a distinctive trail to the Ritz crackers and peanut butter or to the ice cream in the freezer. He loved to break out into a gracious tune of ‘I married the tattooed lady’ which kept us all in stitches. She wasn’t amused. Maybe it was somewhere between the fact that she said only sailors and hookers got tattoos or that she was generally annoyed by his live life for today attitude. I saw it the most when he would be preparing for a surgery. Instead of being wound tight, instead of worrying, he smiled and would be wheeled off with laughter in his voice and heart. I never will forget her looking at him saying, “You act like you are going to a cake walk, Don!”
I woke up this morning at my sister’s house and walked out on her porch upon waking and all that my heart and head could recall was my last time with Daddy before he died. He was standing there with my brother singing The Lord’s Prayer as my sister, my husband and I scattered my Hannah’s ashes in the front yard of her mountain home. It was the place my Hannah spent her last year and also my Daddy. Perhaps that is why my heart yearns to be in the mountains so much. There is so much of my love there and the people I love and loved the most. Simply, my Daddy stood and sang to The Lord and us all in honor of a dog who loved and journeyed with us all.
Daddy was like that. He woke every morning and faithfully read his daily readings and scriptures. He sang in the choir until his hearing no longer supported his voice. He was quick to share the sports trivia for the day including his disdain for Alabama football. He took pleasure in meeting people and displeasure from any guidance or words his wife or daughters felt they needed to share. He felt we worried too much about tomorrow when today was what we should be living.
Daddy has been here with us today through his presence on the front porch to my brother in law breaking the shaft on the riding lawn mower–I think Daddy smiled at that one knowing Jim always thought it would be Daddy the reason for repair.
I can’t help to laugh and cry in the same breath as it is so hard to not have him here, but so precious to know that in some ways he hasn’t left at all. I guess that is what happens when you focus on the cake walk today instead of what is in the oven for later.
We have ended our day, riding on Daddy’s UTV, Tukie (which was Momma’s nickname and certainly something that would have been uncouth in her eyes, why in the hell would he have named it after her she would have said…), watching the fireflies dance just as I am sure Momma, Daddy, Aunt Mackie and Uncle Chic are doing in Heaven.
Amen.

I’d rather see the government change laws than see another pink ribbon…

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Now, before you read the title and think I am starting a fury about the pink ribbon campaign, please read on as I am mad. I am so tired of opening my Facebook page and seeing yet another friend, another friend of a friend or even a complete stranger being diagnosed with breast cancer. It breaks my heart to see young children being left behind as their mother loses her battle. I am sad when I see another woman say it was detected at her first mammogram when she was forty. We need to push the laws to change.
Young girls are reaching puberty at a much younger age. They are developing at a faster rate and are hit with all within our foods and environment that are likely toxins. Simply sit back and remember your Granny frying up chicken if you are over 45. It was a delicious dish where you may have grabbed seconds or even thirds. Why? They were not produced chemically. They were not doused with antibiotics that made them four times their normal size. It was likely it came from the backyard, not some cramped chicken farm. It was simply chicken…
No one can convince me that even the free range chicken are actually pure. They started somewhere. You cannot tell me that somewhere in their line their great grand daddy chicken was not induced with some growth hormone somewhere down the road. So, here we are today with young women dying from breast cancer in their 30s and 40s at alarming rates. Pink ribbons are everywhere. They have become big business on their own, but where is the fight to change the laws to have women beginning to get mammograms at 30?
Think about it, if young girls are developing breasts at an earlier age would it not make more sense to bring the age down from the age of 40? Would it not seem to be the right thing to do in order to start saving more women rather than waiting until they are fighting a stage 3 or stage 4 battle, fighting for their lives?
I long to see the day when I see less pink ribbons, less blue ribbons and yes, less yellow ribbons. They are all signs of battles. Battles that could be prevented. Emory Austin once said “Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.” I don’t want to sing. I want to yell. I want to scream. I want to take the pain away from friends, families, a complete strangers just by one ounce of prevention by allowing mammograms at an earlier age. Won’t you yell with me??

No one knows me like you do…

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My 50th birthday was a beautiful day. Okay, not beautiful in the weather sense, but a wonderful night planned by my husband. Now, many women would have loved flowers, a reservation at a wonderful restaurant or a surprise trip away. Not me and my husband knew this.
When you work 24/7 and you live in Hilton and airports more than your own home the last thing you want is to be trudging off on yet another plane, eating at another restaurant or being on someone else’s schedule. You want to be home. You want to cook, relax and laugh in your own environment. My husband had plans of whisking me away to the Redwoods, to a Fleetwood Mac concert or even off to Maine for the weekend. But, he knows me best. I wanted to ring in 50 with him and our cat. Some may think “how boring, how nondescript”. It was the best birthday ever!
He had Cousin’s Maine lobsters flown in, cooked me a wonderful meal as our favorite country hits played in the background. ( And yes, Kelty enjoyed the lobster, too!) Instead of turning on the tv we enjoyed some great wine and played our favorite card game. We laughed, we ate a phenomenal meal and had an electronic free evening.
God blessed me in 2002 through a freak meeting with a stingray which led me to a truly wonderful man. He has the best soul, a caring heart, and sees & knows me for who I am–the good, the bad and loves me above all else. My big birthday present has actually been by my side for the past 11 years. I just need to remember to open that gift daily as there is not one material thing or one destination that can take the place of being married to someone you love, but even more, the person who is truly a best friend on all levels. For that, I am truly blessed…

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The irony of Krispy Kreme and 50

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I find it ironic that today is national doughnut day, the day I turn fifty. I was hoping to wake up to national free day at T.J. Maxx, not some reminder of the extra dough I seem to be carrying with me. Believe me when I say it is not residing in my pocketbook, but more around my middle and thighs. I was certain God was hearing my prayer about these extra fifteen pounds. I was certain He was going to take them away for my milestone birthday. I was certain I was going to fit back into those size six jeans in my closet today. Instead the only six I will see is the six my husband has in the refrigerator (actually 11, but it is never good to have a man run out of beer).
I need to get off my butt this summer as The Lord only helps those who help themselves. Those size six jeans are not going to magically fit this size ten butt. I would love to participate in National Doughnut Day and indulge in a dozen dripping hot glazed doughnuts, but instead I will refrain so by summer’s end I can be like the sign at Krispy Kreme when they are ready–hot and now…

Bruises, biopsies and Bordeaux

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Yes, bruises.  Bruises everywhere.  Now, I am a Southern lady, not some back woods, tooth missing redneck who indulges in hair pulling, fist throwing or cat fighting.  I just seem to run into things more often and never see them until they just appear.  (Besides, the tooth missing thing would really bother me as I have no idea what I would floss!)  But, needless to say, I fell backwards off of a chair at a trade show, bruised my butt and bruised my ego.

I have to admit there is a part of every refined Southern woman who would like to beat the crap out of some idiot to the point of destruction at some point in our lives.  Instead, we smile.  We mutter a discreet obscenity under our breath and view it in our head in our technicolor.  The thought is delightful, but we never pull our dreams into fruition (nor do we tell our real dreams from the night before we eat breakfast as Momma always said that was bad luck…)

So, I made it through the show with 6 new bruises from who knows where except the imprint of the chair wheel on my behind, but I added four new biopsies the following day from the dermatologist.  This skin cancer thing is truly nothing to mess with and it is difficult walking in public watching small children point at you with four beautiful band aids placed strategically on your face.  The next time I am requesting Hello Kitty ones.  I think those will be much more appealing and more en vogue.

And the Bordeaux?  It is one day before 50, do I even have to explain?

The last days of 40….

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50? Really? Just trying to enjoy the last two days of my 40s. What exactly would that mean? Hell, I really don’t know. I have spent the last twenty five years recouping the memories of everything Momma ever taught me. I smile when I have to say anything “ugly” to anyone, I laugh when I start to cry and I still don’t know what the answers are because I really don’t have the time to distinguish the questions from the b.s. of all this world has become.
Simply, I am 49 and 363 days old. I am happily married. I have no children. I work too much. I travel too much. I look for the best in the world and try to find where we, as a society, have gotten lost. I cook for enjoyment and solace. I write to dig into all the thoughts that have molded me into the person I am today even when the day may show more than my past ever held.
I started this blog to show the Southern side of 50…a bit of my (un)cultured Charleston upbringing, a bit of 11 years living in Alabama and a bit of my future mountain side of Jasper, Georgia. It is my chance to share my Momma’s wit and wisdom & my Daddy’s live for today attitude. I survive in a corporate world through mouth watering recipes, great quotes for living, and a love for the wonderful people who have shaped my world and also those who have strengthened my backbone. (I may not have liked the experience, but there is truly a difference in a mistake and a lesson in life. The mistakes you make over and over, the lessons you learn and move on to living, truly living.) Everything is not pretty, nor should it be, but I have learned there is nothing in this life that cannot be helped through faith, love and truly living.
I hope I can inspire you on some days. I hope I make you think. I hope you roll across a recipe and it makes you and others very happy and content. I hope there are things that make your eyes well up and your soul reaches for an answer. I hope you laugh, a real laugh, the reach down in your gut ’til you want to pee laugh…for that Momma would say I was being uncouth.
So, for that, I say “enjoy!” as I will these last 48 hours of my 40s…bruises, biopsies and Bordeaux are only the beginning…