Little things

Sometimes little things feel big
Like a chair
Ladder back chairs
My mom got a set and you'dve thought she'd won the lottery.
She would walk into her dining room and just stand and admire them.
I didn't understand it.
To me, they seemed old-fashioned, countryish.
And we lived in the city.
But she loved them.
The cherry table and china cabinet were another source of pride for her.
She polished them once a week.
But we never ate on the table without first putting on the pads, and a table cloth.
So we didn't get to see the table when we sat down to eat a meal.
But that was what she wanted.
She made matching cloth napkins and a table-cloth
Along with an apron.
Brown and white checked.
Totally country, yet uptown, because they all matched.
Thanksgiving, or Christmas, we covered her shiny cherry table,
and sat in the uncomfortable ladder back chairs.
And enjoyed tasty food, passed around in serving bowls.
Bowls that she had purchased from mountain folk potters.
Not fancy china.
Just simple earthenware.With earth colored glazes.
She married a city man, with city ways.
And sometime in my early teens, she embraced her country roots
And began putting her touch on her cookware, her dishes, herself.
She used that old iron skillet more and more. She put away the old electric skillet that she'd used for frying chicken, like Betty Crocker told her to do.
And slung the iron skillet on the stove and fried her okra, her squash, and her chicken.
No concern for triglycerides.
"The country folks lived till their nineties, eating fried foods. Fresh, farm raised foods."
She bought organic vegetables and fruits before they were abundant like they are now.
She'd go to the little health food store, Rainbow Grocery, and come home with lovely produce.
And fry it in canola oil. Substituting the lard for canola oil was a move towards the healthy side.
Coming in the door when she was frying okra...oh my goodness.
I'd eat it right off the oil saturated paper towel. One or two at a time. Till it was obvious I'd eaten my share.
She never said, "Wait till dinner." I think it made her happy that I was eating it right as she pulled it out of the pan.
She didn't have the luxury of eating whatever she wanted off the serving plate.
She liked to tell us that she was the youngest, therefore the last in the pecking order of 5 kids. And after her two brothers had served themselves, there wasn't much left.
The joy she must've felt by always having a full fridge and food for her family I don't think I'll ever really appreciate.
Like ladder back chairs.
They can make a grown woman cry,
It's just a chair, or is it?

Frustration

Google seems to con-trol more of me than I am comfortable with.

Tonight I wanted to simply login to my downhomedixy account to write something, anything, just write.....
to touch something bigger than myself.
But a WALL hit my nose, then pressed into me.
I used my fingers to try and separate the bricks, so I could dis-assemble the barrier.
I have DNA under my fingernails.....If you look very closely under the microscope,
the strands spin, multicolored, and carry only a few letters of the alphabet.
ELGOOG...El Goog. El Goop. El Poop. Le Poop.
Plus 13 security codes, First sent to my phone, then the email I'm trying to recover, and then the back-up email. but I don't remember the password to the former email, so I'll have to get another security code sent to my gmail account. And it' just a big google circle.

I didn't give up. 25 minutes later, I arrive.

Yay.

To my space.

Of nothingness.

That I can fill with whatever is on my mind.

And tonight.....I just did.