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Oh! To have you back for one day…

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(This was written seven years ago. Momma would have turned 95 today. I made her recipe on Sunday to share with friends. You should, too! You will not be disappointed…)

Momma would have been 88 today. Even more, she would have been a young 88. She would have been immersed in us kids and would have jumped at the chance to go shopping with us girls, to spend time with her grandkids and would have still loved being in her kitchen cooking with so much love.

  As she always said, she would have been giving us girls a “run for your money” had she been born during our time.  She was a classic, a true beauty, her own woman and the best Momma anyone could have asked for.  We kids each received a piece of her personality and talents–my sister received her compassion, my brother–her will to always see the better, and myself–her baking expertise and love for the written word. 

So, in honor of “Tukie” being 88 with Jesus and the apostles, here is her infamous Mighty Good Chocolate Cake recipe:

MIGHTY GOOD CHOCOLATE CAKE
1 cup butter 
1/4 cup cocoa
1 cup water
 
2 cups of sugar
2 cups of all purpose flour
 
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs (beaten)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla

Put butter, water, cocoa in pan and cook until boiling. Pour over sugar and flour and mix thoroughly. Add buttermilk, eggs, soda, and vanilla. Mix well. Pour into greased 15 X 10″ pan. Bake at 400* degrees for 20 minutes. (depends on oven)
WHILE CAKE IS BAKING PREPARE FROSTING:
1/2 cup butter or oleo 1/4 cup cocoa 6 tablespoons whole milk 1 lb. box confectioner sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup chopped pecan nuts
Combine butter, cocoa, milk and cook until boiling. Remove from heat; ad  powdered sugar, vanilla and nuts. Mix will. Spread on cake while the cake is still hot.
 
I miss you everyday.  You are alive in my heart as well as in my dreams.  I hope you are dancing with Daddy, laughing with Mackie and tossing a tennis ball with my Hannah.
I love you, Momma….scan0015
 

Regrets and The Chinquapin Patch

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I remember Momma saying how the years would fly by once I hit twenty five. She always demonstrated the passing of the years by blinking both eyes while saying “25…30…35…40…50…”

Like everything else Momma told me as a teenager, it went in one ear and out the other.
She was right.

I blinked and the years have sped right by. It somehow seems so surreal. One day you are dancing at your favorite club on Market Street and the next day you are at your orthopedist asking how the hell you can’t place your arm to touch the center of your back any longer.

Then, I thought about my Momma.

I thought about her mother’s, my grandmother, story about the chinquapin patch:

There was a young girl and she spent her day walking through the chinquapin patch with her Grandmother. Her Grandmother told her to pick the most perfect one as they made their way through the patch. As she walked, she would pick up the spiny nuts and, one by one, she would put them down. One would be too small, another too prickly. One would be cracked, another not shiny enough. She had a hard time not finding one covered in its thorns.
One by one, she picked one up just to find a flaw so she went to the next.
Until she got to the end and she was empty handed.

Momma seemed to tell us this story at least once a year. She reminded us that we were too particular about things: clothes, apartments or houses, boys…The version she told my older sister went like this:

A young boy sat with his Grandmother and asked her how she married his Granddaddy. She said “Let’s go for a walk”. On the walk she said for him to pick put the best stick he could find along the way. Some were short. Some were long. Some were weak. Some were strong, but none were good enough. He would pick one up just to replace it with another. He ended up at the end of the trail with nothing but a twig.
He sat and cried, holding the scrawny twig in his little hand.
His Grandmother simply replied, “And that is how I married your Grandfather…”

Two stories. The same ending, both about not ending up with what you wanted.

Regret…

We walk through life, sometimes running.
When we are younger, we think we are indestructible. Little things don’t seem to worry us because it is about the big picture and how we are going to look, feel and how it affects us. We think we have all of the time in the world.

We look at life shortsightedly.
We never know if we will walk the path and get the prize or will we end up empty handed.

My Mother lived with regret. On her death bed, she spoke about all of the things she wished she had done, the places she longed to visit, the experiences she felt she had missed. It was very sad, really, but it was also a wake up call.

It led my sister to follow her dream of opening her own restaurant.

It has led me to writing again and planning my next steps in food and heart.

We all walk through our own patches in life. Some are moments of blind faith where you jump in with your soul and land on your feet. Some are periods of falling over and over again because you get stuck with a burr in your heart or head.

Those are the tough ones–the ones where you get in your own way.

In life, there are mistakes and there are lessons. The mistakes are the ones we do voer and over again, but they do not have to define us. The lessons teach us to look harder, to search deeper, to love harder.

I guess, you could say, I am still walking through the Chinquapin patch.

Mourning at 30,000 Feet

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I started a hope chest in my mid twenties–trinkets, books, hand blown ornaments and even crib sheets–all Winnie the Pooh for a nursery and a child I would never hold.  I thought I had mourned this years ago.  I thought I had excepted the loss. I thought wrong.

Two years ago, on a flight from New York during a delay, I had ample time to catch a movie.  I chose Goodbye Christopher Robin.  My favorite characters, my happy place turned into my own heart’s reckoning.  I sobbed. I cried off every layer of mascara. And this came in just the first ten minutes…

My mind went to a Waverly fabric trunk I purchased at a downtown Charleston estate sale in 1990. It was so beautifully made.  I decided it would hold many memories and dreams.  The first piece I placed inside was a hand crocheted quilt lovingly made by my Granny Kinne’s hands.  Intricate, but tattered, much like my life at the time.  Then, one by one, I placed each of the Winnie the Pooh treasures I had collected.

Newly married and looking to start a family we landed at the best fertility doctor we could find.  He said we had an antibody between us that did not match.  I have no desire to be graphic here, but, on a slide in the lab, my eggs literally ran, and fast!  Two years of heartbreaking cycle tracking, garage held meetings based on ovulation where you would stop your work day, send a beeper message and leave emotions in the driveway followed by three rounds of IVF.  All failed attempts.  All eroding at the marriage. No one ever prepared me for that.

As a child, you dress your doll babies, place them in the stroller and speak to them about how much they are loved and how their daddy loves them, too. You tell them stories and, in your head, you know you will one day be a wonderful Mommy telling your little girl or boy how they had always been there in your heart and in your head.  My fairy tale did not work out that way.

No baby.

No marriage.

I would have adopted.  He only wanted someone to carry on the family name.

We divorced.

I left with my hope chest.

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard….” A.A.Milne

Life moves forward, if you let it.  I found my own place, continued working in sales with salons and started dating again.  Dates lead to a relationship, the relationship lead to living together, living together lead to a pregnancy.

What???

I remember going back to my infertility doctor because they were a mile away and having an ultrasound and pregnancy test. I remember the shock when Lila told me they felt I was about two months along.

What??  Are you certain??

I just cried.

Looking back, I am not sure if it was because of the joy or because of the loss of my marriage, but I went home and opened the hope chest.  Every little piece still tucked away just waiting to meet this new little baby.  It was January.

We started looking to buy a home and planning for a future.  We visited his family in upstate New York and I remember laughing so hard when he presented me with a ring out of a gumball machine saying “it’s the best of its kind”.  IMG_9395

We were moving forward. Life didn’t let us.

Easter Sunday, two months later– I miscarried, in church.

I really did not know how to deal with the grief.  I threw myself into my work.  I had no real faith circle.  I had no answers. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want much of anything. I pushed the loss away and watched our relationship disintegrate.  I moved the hope chest and my hope into the attic.

I never mourned. I never said goodbye.

How could I?

I never even said hello…

Fast forward to 20 years later, sitting on a Delta flight, watching what I felt would be the a sweet pick-me-up kind of movie to start a long day.  What transpired was a muffled wailing of tears. I scared the man next to me so horribly because I could not catch my breath.  He rang the flight attendant.  I sat in a crumpled mess finally acknowledging the pain, the trunk and how that loss had never gone away.

“You’re braver than you believe and stronger and smarter than you think.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

I sold the trunk some years back and gave away the many pieces with the exception of a choice few.  I did not keep them to remind me of the loss, but to remind me of the love I had for that little person who never got to see my world with her.

I imagine the day when I will see her again and maybe, on that day, I will hear her call me “Momma”.  I was certainly blessed with the four months when I was…

Of Cats and Man…

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I lost my friend today.

Many times I told my husband that the day I lost Gail I knew I would feel broken. It was the understatement of my adult life…

I always joked that when we moved to the mountains my closest girlfriend was over 70.  We chuckled, as did she.  She would have turned 80 next July.  I think, in part, because, despite our age difference of over 24 years we were so much alike. Even more so, I looked to her for spiritual guidance and saw her as the person I would set my personal bar with.  She was gracious, loving, humble, funnier than hell and loved her husband, Jim,  with such an unbounding heart.  And she loved her cats…

Gail and I met through our Catholic parish.  I immediately heard her Cajun roots when she spoke, but, even more so, she was a woman who you could truly watch her heart in action. She would tell me to jump right in even when others told me to sit back and be quiet.  If you know me, you know that made my heart bound for great things!  You knew she loved her husband, because it was written all over the two of them together.  You knew she loved her faith and her duties to the church, because her heart ached when someone did not show for their duties, but a health problem did not allow her to step in.  You knew she loved her kitties!  Oh! We were two peas in a pod!  She would have rescued every little purring soul out there if time and life would have allowed it! She had just opened her heart and home to a foster and her kittens.  Gail and Jim adopted two of them. I knew she was like me, one cat short of an intervention!  And we both loved it!  Most of all,  Gail was a prayer and rosary warrior who always held those who needed it most close to God’s heart.

She had suffered what I guess to be a mild heart attack on Saturday night while we were in Alabama.  We had texted the day before and she wanted to make sure my Jay knew she was praying for his brother.  She was transported to Piedmont Atlanta and had a heart cath.  They said “no stent”. I breathed a sigh of relief and thought “Thank God…”.

I woke up this morning early to make sauce because Gail was coming home from the hospital. It was our intent to make sure they both had a good meal.  Her husband texted me at 9:38 a.m. saying she was waiting on physical therapy and that they expected to send her home.

My phone rang at 3:17 p.m. I expected to hear her husband say they were home…

She had gone home.

God called her to be with him.

Our hearts hurt so badly.  There were so many things we had left to talk about!  I wanted to know so much more about her and how she met Jim.  I wanted to understand more about setting up for Holy Communion because she was so afraid something would go undone because so many people just did not care as much anymore.  I wanted to see the picture of her as a child that she thought we looked alike. We wanted to have them over for braciole. I wanted to know how through everything her faith overruled everything else.  I wanted to spend more time with her because I knew God had placed her in my life.  I knew He wanted a part of Gail to be infused into my heart so I would grow and learn.

He was right.

I lost my friend today.  The Lord gained an angel.

There’s something to be said about my not liking Mother’s Day…

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I hate Mother’s Day.

Okay, that may be a bit harsh.  Hate is a strong word.

I detest Mother’s Day?

Okay, in all truth, Mother’s Day hurts.  It is the one day in my year where I would like to stay away from the outside world, lock myself inside and avoid public contact.  I would like to shield myself from the barrage of “Happy Mother’s Day!”  or “How many children do you have?”.  The worst? “What are your husband and children doing for you this weekend?”  Nothing.

Nothing??  Yes,  because we do not have children.  We were not granted the blessing of children.  It was not our choice and that makes an incredible difference than our not choosing to be parents.  And people will ask and say the dumbest things…

“Were you too career driven to stop and have a child?”

“Did you not consider infertility treatments?”

“Don’t you think it is incredibly selfish to not to have children?”

“Didn’t you want a baby?”

I came from the days where tears would stain the paper I was writing on.  Now, they just make the laptop screen blurry, but they throw my worries onto my keyboard. The questions make me want to scream even more than cry.  Of course, I wanted children!  I wanted to be able to share the things that have been passed down to me to a little person who would look up to me and say “I love you, Momma”.  I wanted to watch my child grow up and I wanted to shield him or her from the evils of this world.  I wanted to see their face on Christmas morning and watch in amazement as the ribbons unfurled and the box tops flung across the room.  I wanted to see them fall in love.  I wanted to know they knew they had every opportunity in the world to be their best at anything.

I wanted so much…

It was not my choice.  And I tried, it simply was not meant to be.

I feel it more now as I get older.  Who will I pass this along to?  You know, the things we store up, the china, my engagement ring?  What happens to all the love I have stored inside of me and my vast knowledge of knowing how to grow and come out better on the other side?  Who, besides my husband, will hold my hand as I age and see my final days?

I have been blessed with a beautiful Goddaughter who I watch grow stronger and smarter each year.  I have two beautiful “nieces” from Alabama who I have been able to bake with and laugh with.  I have an abundance of cats…they love without pretense.  I have a husband who loves me and I have to remember that he, too, has missed so much by our not having children. He knew from the beginning I could not have a child, but he chose me.

Maybe that is what I need to hold close on Mother’s Day–that even though I was not chosen to be a Mother I was chosen to be a wife, a GodMother, a friend who could be a part of my many friend’s children as they have grown.

I need to remember that God chose me for many things I still totally do not understand.

So forgive me if I choose not to participate in today’s festivities.  I will work in my garden and work on my soul…It still wishes, it still prays, it still hurts.  Somewhere in this day I will look up and say “thank you”.  You see, I know blessings come in many forms and the things I feel I have missed have come out of other things.

I just have to remind my heart of that…

Of paws and bobtails…

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Calli and her first born
The happy 5 babies
Sailor and Lil Man
Kelty and Cassisy

There is something to be said about cats and the enduring effect they have on your heart.  It would be impossible to think of my life without having a cat in it.  They have always been there.  From being a small child and dressing them in my baby doll clothes while riding them around in my dolly carriage to the harrowing feeling in my gut when Kelty died in my arms last year, a cat, to me, has always been as present as air.

I came by it organically.  My Momma was affectionately known as the CatLady when I was growing up.  We always had a cat and it seems our house was also a drop off point for the unwanted ones as we always took them in.  We had smart cats–Teedle who could open the door by placing her paws over the knob and moving it, Sunshine & her kitten Sunny who both used the bathroom on the toilet.  We had mischievous cats–Frosty, a stray Maine Coon who liked to “comb” my brother’s curly hair.  We had them all, all breeds, all shapes, all colors, all sizes.  They all enchanted our lives in different ways.  They all found their final resting place in my family’s back yard except for Sunny and we instead buried his collar that the nice man who found him hit on the road had brought us.  We each always mumbled “No more, this is the last”, well, at least until the next one showed up.

As I grew up I remember thinking if I were to die I wanted to come back as one of my Momma’s cats as she took care of them the same way she took care of us–with all of the love and patience in the world.  I also saw the same trait develop with both myself and my sister.  Our animals became family.  We sheltered and made them our own.  We talked to them like they were children and included them in adult conversations. We made sure they were taken care of in the best way possible.

I met my husband in 2002.  He had never been owned by a cat.  I know, I, too, was shocked by this.  We all know there are cat people and there are dog people, but there are just some people who miss so much by not having had the experience so during the halftime of an Alabama football game  in 2003 we went out and adopted Kelty, a long haired tortie from an abandoned litter of nine.  She adapted well and soon my husband was smitten.  She was named after a camping gear brand since she was quite the adventurous one.  She rode in the car on top of his head  resting her paws on the bill of his baseball cap during trips.  She was smart and loving.  She made us a family of three.  We adopted number 2 in 2006.  Cassidy, a beautiful Tabby who attached herself to Jay from day one.  She was very protective of him, perhaps because I was with Momma when she fell ill for three months, but she made sure I knew he was hers.  In 2011 she fell victim to kidney disease and the vet suggested we put her down.  We found another vet. We lived with  daily IV bags and injections, but we had her with us, playful and vibrant for another year.  When she came to the point of failing health we made the decision to have her put to sleep.  We blessed her with holy water and slept on the floor with her throughout the night.  Even Kelty licked her head as to say it would all be okay…Blessedly she passed in her sleep in the night.

Fast forward to 2015 and a move to the mountains with Kelty in tow as an only “child”.  It seems it is easy to become so used to your life as is that when things change rapidly it is sometimes so hard for your heart to catch up. Sailor came to us on July 16 at 4 weeks old, abandoned at my sister’s seafood restaurant in the middle of a storm and found seeking shelter under the Captain statue on the back deck.  She was tiny, fluffy and no short of love.  Kelty found her as an annoying, hissable piece of fur, an intruder in her home.  Toleration came four weeks later, but so did tragedy–we lost Kelty.  I still cannot talk about how she passed, it was unnecessary. Time has taught me it was to open our house and hearts to all we have now.  I think Cassidy needed her more in heaven.

Upon Kelty’s passing I knew we needed to find Sailor “a friend”.  It was off to the local shelter and making the point of saying we weren’t just coming home with a cat.  We needed a connection.  We walked in and out of the cat room to no avail.  We were about to leave when they took us to a room with the quarantined babies, some sick, some needing medication and some needing to be spade/neutered. And there he was–actually reaching out and grabbing my husband by the sleeve–a sleek, strong Mackerel Tabby kitten. The bond between Sailor and Lil’ Man took only  36 hours.  They began to do everything in tandem–eating, playing, sleeping, even sharing the litter box at the same time.  I felt God had placed them into our lives to help us heal.

Come November we had really settled into our home and were getting ready for the holidays.  We all know as soon as you say settled things become unsettled.  I was at the restaurant and watched as a Calico was darting between cars in the parking lot.  You know what happened next–I was up the mountain, new kitty in tow with a mission to find her family.   I posted with the shelters and after we had no response we had a new family member and a vet appointment where we were told she was pregnant!  After passing the gestational period with no babies we figured we were given a wrong diagnosis so the holidays went as planned, glass ornaments remained boxed and we all settled in as what our normal would be.  We had become a family of 5, three with paws, but still our family.

We rang in the new year with our new normal.  Cat toys everywhere, cat paws on the counter (which makes me cringe) and teaching manners along with new tricks.  Sailor became the quiet, docile one with a hidden bad streak.  Lil’ Man learned to sit, fetch and play catch with an outspoken streak of menace.  Calli got out of the house the week before she was scheduled to be spade.  She came home with a smile.

I did the things my Momma did when we had kittens when I was little.  I planted boxes with soft blankets throughout the house in closets. I placed a calendar on the fridge with her potential due dates. I watched her food intake and I could not help but laugh when my husband dubbed her “The Hindenburg”.  When the time came she ignored all of my planning and decided to have her babies in a box a placed next to my desk as I worked on company spreadsheets.  She wouldn’t let me leave her side.  It seemed she was telling me since I had no children of my own (without paws) she wanted me to be able to experience the wonder with her.  Calli delivered her kittens on April 20 during a labor lasting over 4 hours.  The first was a dark orange Tabby, the second a Calico and the third a bobtailed blonde Tabby. Two hours later, another orange Tabby with a bobtail, one hour after that the last one arrived, a blonde Tabby with a stump tail.  Momma and babies all healthy, myself and Jay in awe of the births and proud grandparents.

I can’t imagine a life without the “babies” as we call them and now, the additional 5 real babies downstairs.  They each have brought us laughter and joy just as the ones who were here before them. They teach us that a little claw mark doesn’t ruin your day it just enhances texture. They show us it doesn’t take much space for your heart to be moved in the right direction. They remind us that taking a leap doesn’t always have to involve fear and that in the long run, you don’t have to be a dog or cat person.  You just have to be able to love and make room in your heart.

 

IMG_6153.JPGFootnote:  The children turn one on the 20th of April.  All have wonderful homes!  Two are here with us (1 & 3), the orange bobtail as well as a 2nd kitten our Calli fostered are with my sister, the calico, Tipper, is in Charleston with a dear friend & my insurance agent has the last, the stumped tail named Tupelo. Always room for one more cat!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Updating our faith status

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I would be lying if I told you I looked around at the world we are living in and said I felt good about it. In actuality, I look around and I am disgusted. I am bewildered. I am saddened. We have become a society that is attached to electronics, where a family goes out to dinner and they each maintain their own private conversation with their electronic god. They have no need to look up from what my husband calls the I-coma. They are engrossed. They are tied in. They are lost. Even in mass I see adults and children alike who cannot get through an hour of worship without having to check the status of their electronic pulse. In church? Yes. Sadly it seems society is raising a new generation who does not need God because they can go to Google to find all of their answers. Sad, but worse, true.

Then there is “Big Brother”. Everyone is watching. You cannot go anywhere without being tracked. I remember going to revivals in the Baptist church as a child and listening to Pat Harrington speak about the end of days. We were all going to be attached to a number, was it 666 or is it now your coordinates set by GPS? Is it your IP address? I don’t know, but I do believe God is sad. I feel He looks down and says look at what you have done with what I have given you. You have thrown it all away for things that cannot give you peace, things that are not enriching the lives of others and you have stopped coming to Me for your answers, choosing to search on your own time, on your own keyboard with your own set of rules.

Everything is full throttle. Everything and everyone is accepted. We map our routes, but no one seems concerned about their faith destination. We post to YouTube and record the world, but we aren’t concerned about the younger generations who watch our actions and think it is okay to follow suit by being attached to their devices 24/7. We are raising children who do not know how to communicate, who cannot sign their own name and who abbreviate everything including their own lives.

No matter how you phrase it, no matter how it is worded, we are living in a world of calamity, a world without boundaries and a world without God. Every day I am astounded by what is going on in the news—not just the ISIS threats, the killing of Americans on American soil by deranged gunmen, the stirring up of race wars, but by the lack of soul and kindness we have allowed into our lives through technology. Yes, technology, the new antichrist.

Maybe it is time we update our faith status.

What we are “given” from our parents…

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A week on the Gulf  in 2014 with great friends, followed by four days with my sister and brother-in-law prompted me to think about what our parents pass down to us.

It started as a conversation during our ocean side happy hour ritual at 4 each day from my sister who reminded me, steadfastly, that she has Momma’s legs.  This has been on ongoing battle since I was a child.  I inherited Daddy’s legs, white, chunky and as my husband and brother-in-law said  “that of a linebacker”.  My sister has my Momma’s tanned, sleek legs and olive complexion.  Many battles have been ensued over this throughout the years and more so since they have both passed.   It made me think, even more so, of what we take with us every day that came before us.

For me, I have my Daddy’s love of photography etched into every grain of my soul.  I am never without a camera, wanting so much to document every facet of life and each memory made whenever and wherever this may be.  I have file after file of memories from friends, family, and places.  Each one opens up a plethora of heartfelt souvenirs, some which sooth my soul, some which take me back to places that grind at my heart, others that make me laugh out loud.  There are days when opening a file opens a tundra of stirrings so deep that I am taken back to that moment in a single shot.

I feel blessed by this.

I feel free.

I feel there is so much of life in one single lens opening, that simply through a shuttered moment,  I am there again.

My daddy bought his first camera in Venice, Italy while stationed there with the United States Navy.  He gave that camera to me seven years ago and I cherish the fact he entrusted me with something so valuable.  It may not be something of monetary significance (although it might and I could never part with it), but the start of what had him document our lives from stills to 9mm to VHS to CD over his years.

When Momma passed he gave each of us three kids a 3 volume CD that ranged from 1952 until 2006.  It brings me back to memories of sitting in our family living room and watching our family movies on the wall. (One of two walls without paneling that had seating!)  Nothing is sweeter in my mind and nothing is as priceless as listening to the click, click, click of that movie reel.  It is a childhood memory and sound that warms my being and makes me who am I today….a bit of the past blended into the person I have become.

Sitting at the beach this past week made me realize I am my father’s child, linebacker legs, fair skin and all.  I have my momma’s love for writing and quick wit. Kim has Momma’s coloring, ageless looks and of course, those legs!   We all three kids got Daddy’s “never met a stranger” demeanor.

We are and always will be their children. We are and always will be a reflection of them both…especially through the lens of my camera as I watched the rays shoot from the clouds and were reminded they are still with us.

What a blessing!

When the concrete changes your view…

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SAM_2976SAM_2987

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It seems to get harder and harder to come back from the mountains. There, I exhale. I breathe. I meditate in God’s wonders. I take in nature and I see the world through a different lens. Simply, I live.
Riding on the mule at sunset I drove through the canopy of towering trees as fireflies glistened all around me. In some ways it all seemed very surreal, like I had been tossed in a tunnel of thousands of cascading lights. I rode in awe of the forest around me. There are days when I feel I have been enveloped by nature and I behave like a child seeing things for the very first time. I am giddy over the wild turkeys, the little bunny rabbits and the deer who stood and held our glaze.
Maybe that is it–seeing through new eyes, like a child. I have no expectations of what the mountains will bring and I hold an amazing respect for all they hold. It is the simple things–the rain approaching through the trees that begins with a murmur and lands with a strong burst. It is the way it can be pouring, but the trees provide an umbrella of refuge. It is watching a storm brew in the distance from the ridge as the clouds form what looks like the ocean. It is the feeling that the real world is so far away and life, like my little mountain town, is simple.
I like it that way.
I never realized just how easy it can be to take life at a slower pace, to breathe in the wonder of the mountain’s beauty and how a ponytail and no makeup beats a flat iron and heels any day. It is the view from a pair of “tenny shoes”, covered in mud and the smell of Off. It is ending the day with a ride through the woods with family, laughing at the day and looking forward to tomorrow. It is simple. It is peaceful. It is a part of me now.
I like that.

On beginnings and endings, gliders and porch rockers

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My Granny Baylor had a great house where my Momma and her four sisters grew up. It was the house where I spent the first two years of my own life, rocking in her Naugahyde green rocker watching the Edge of Night, her ‘stories’ as she called them. I remember the floor furnace which my own siblings and cousins had convinced me was the gateway to hell. I never walked across it out of pure childhood fear and also was fast to pee in her bathroom since my sister made it known that rats would come through the sewer and bite you on the ass. I loved the L-shaped screened porch with the wooden rockers and the glider where we all spent time on as children. I loved her house, not just for all of its comforts and memories, but for what it represented…a wonderful togetherness of family.
Years after Granny passed I remember Momma and my Aunt saying how wonderful it would be if we moved the house to the beach. Ah! What a grand idea! A wonderful home, wonderful memories and the beach!!! Can’t you just imagine sitting out on Sullivan’s Island with a cocktail In your hand gliding or rocking and listening to the ocean waves? Watching the sea oats sway as you came back for your nightly sunset walk??? Oh! I could too!!! Problem is, it never happened. It never happened.
As we grow older we all remember the talks of our friends and relatives about where they wanted to go, what they wanted to do, how their lives were going to be ‘different’ in some way from how they grew up. It always has saddened me to listen to loved ones on their death beds speaking of all of the things they wished they had done. All of their dreams never realized. Time had simply, ran out.
Why is it we let time determine our course? Is it out of fear? Is it thinking we will actually get to it, eventually?? Is it that we really want more, but we let life get In the way?
After Daddy passed away in December of last year it brought back so many memories of the things my parents never did. They wanted to head back and see my Aunt in Oklahoma. They wanted to spend more time with us kids. They wanted to travel. They wanted, but they never did.
Three months later my husband and I sent a letter to the man who owned the 9 acres ten acres away from my sister. Nine days later, he called.
That night I had a wonderful dream about Momma and Daddy. It was a wonderful dream in a couple of ways. It was the first time I ever dreamt about the two of them together since they both had passed and The Lord always gives me the answers I need in my dreams. Always.
In my dream I am with my “work wife” traveling and laid over in Atlanta. She suggests we road trip. When we arrive in the mountains, my (deceased) parents are sitting in Daddy’s mule and Daddy says “Hey! Willy! Let’s go see your new land!” I knew when I woke up my husband and I had made the right decision–live your life for today and buy that land.
Live your dreams. Buy that piece of property that makes your soul strong! Go see your old friends! Travel to somewhere, even if is only a town away. Move that family house and make it your beach house. Quit wishing and just make it a reality.
We did.