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.

rambling on about storms

When you are living through a storm
It's better, or easier, if you focus on others who
have lived through worse.

I used to believe that when you are in a mess, you don't really know it until its over.
And maybe that was true then.
At some point, that changed, and I feel the pain when it happens.

Now, when I see a  storm approaching, I try to build a solid wall, to protect myself,
and those I love, from the crashing consequences.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I had a thought last night,
That maybe the storm crashing, is supposed to happen.
Like the floods, to bring up fertile soil.
Not for me, but for someone else.

We learn how to be strong from exercising our muscles, our faith.
And I'm trying to console myself, to ease my own pain.
Because when I am standing with a warm blanket, ready to wrap it around
a shivering soul,
and the wind blows so hard, the soul ends up in Texas,
and my arms don't reach that far.
I'm left holding the blanket.

And I have to watch the soul tumble and spin and get smaller and smaller
and smaller.

I know the soul will be back someday.
And I will still be holding the blanket.
Because that's what mother's do.

To Tim 2015

July 7, 2015

To Tim

From Kathy

God got me ready for you.

He let me choose a stormy sea.

So I would relax in the calming shelter of your arms.

He let me choose a rough and rugged ground.

So I would prop my blistered soles and tired toes on your knees.

He let me choose a broken shack,

So I would feel secure beneath the roof of your love.

He let me choose a bitter drink

So I would enjoy the sweet nectar of your tree-ripened fruit.

He let me walk through the dense, dark forest

So I would bathe in the radiant light of your smile.

He let me climb mountain after mountain,

So my legs would hold your head in my lap.

He let my fingers scrub never-ending grime from my life

So I could trace the soft, feather hairs of your head and appreciate the softness on my finger-tips.

He let me choose bondage, and bitterness

So I would understand freedom and forgiveness.

Memories with Martha

I drove through the acres of pinetree forests, to the well-manicured blueberry farm.
Martha, my dear aunt, ready with an embrace.
She holds the key to so much of my family history, the door is locked tightly.
But she freely opens it to share.
My great grandfather, genius, but emotionally unstable.
Took apart a car, with his daughter Blanche, they left it on the front porch while he took a trip
to the State hospital for treatment.
Came home and put it back together.
What kind of treatment? Medication? Electric shock therapy?
Was electricity even brought to that area at that time?

Information about my grandfather, one I never knew.
He could be mean. A mean drunk.
And beat his boys.
That didn't surprise me.
But what I did learn was that my grandmother basically died inside, the day he died.
She pretty much ceased to function.
Got addicted to pain killers.
She loved that man, through his alcoholism, his meanness, he was her love.
Funny how people will continue to see what 'was' instead of what 'is'...
and love the memory, as if that will bring the 'was' back to life.

Martha said she learned more family history the day of her husband's funeral than she'd known her whole married life.
Aunt Melba told about how she took a knife from her daddy, he was chasing her mamma with it in his hand.
That's why Aunt Melba married and never looked back.

Aunt Faye. She married a mean one too. Had two boys with him. Then divorced him and moved to California with his sisters. Just piled in a car with two young boys, her ex-husbands sisters, and drove west.
They say the best way to get over a trauma is to leave the site.
She left alright. Miles and miles between her and the mean ex-husband.
Brave woman she was.

Sorting

Dumping the contents
of a large, black, plastic leaf bag
onto the bed.

"This is everyting I have."
Alrighty, so let's make two piles.
Keep and give away.
"No, lets make it Keep and Trash."
Here are your winter things, lets just put those away for the summer.
"Sounds good."
Do you still wear this T-shirt?
"Yea, keep it."
Here are some pants, do they fit?
He holds them up.
"Yea, they do."
Here are your shorts. I can see you've worked in these. So they should remain your work shorts.
Don't work in your new shorts. Keep them separate.
"Okay. I will."
Here's your jacket.
"Now this coat here, it screams one word."
Long pause
" Poor."
Uh huh, I see what you mean.
"Look at it."
I look at it closely. No identifying marks like Nike or Adidas. Some stains on the gray fleece.
Yea, I see what you mean.
"Trash."
Yea, trash.

The new clothes lay in nice neat stacks on the bed.
I look up at my son, now taller than me,
with a deep voice, who shaves, and eats everything I put in front of him,
and says a genuine, "Thanks for cooking" even when its just a piece of toast,
and I want to cry.
Tears of joy, but some grief too.
Where did the little boy with round cheeks go?
His square jaw, set firm, and strong, like I imagined.
But I'm just not ready for this.
Not ready to say good-bye to the little boy

The First Mop

I used to hate to mop.
It seemed such a waste of time.
I wanted to spend my free time either sleeping, or making memories with my children.
'Hey, Let's go to John Tanner tonight. I'll make some sandwiches."
They never argued, "Oh mom,no. Let's stay home and mop instead."

My interior was chaotic, but sitting next to the water calmed my soul.
When we got home, tired, sleepy, relaxed, after dark, you couldn't see the dirty floors.

Today, I picked up a brand new mop. Filled a bucket with warm water and Pine-Sol.
I peacefully pulled the mop across the floor, starting at the edges and wiping away smudges. Both doors open, the wind rushed through to keep me cool. My interior has peace, and the water in the bucket seems to cleanse not only my floor, but washes away the dark parts of my week.

Tanya Tucker and Hank Williams sing to me, from my favorite station, 'Classic Country.' I think of my mother, and her mopping days, and see the circle of life through the cotton mop.