Brown Paper Bag Day. Some People Call Them Fragments.

Do you dream of your blog? I do. Last night I dreamed I wrote a post and the picture that accompanied it was a picture of Owen in his little seat in one of the seats of the Opera House. That sort of sums it up. And I don't have a picture like that but I do have pictures of Owen (that one was taken yesterday) and I do have pictures of the Opera House but I can't find them and I feel frantic today to get things done so there you go. You get Owen and if that's not enough, sue me and examine your heart.

So this is going to be what I call a brown paper bag day- I give you all a bunch of stuff and I throw it in a paper bag and hand it over. Think of it as the surprise bag you can buy at the Dollar Store marked "Girl" or "Boy" only this one is for everyone who wants it. Of course what it really means is that I am too scattered to sit down and write what I would call an essay and my mind is flittering about like a moth on the light bulb at night and I can feel the presence of a toad, just waiting for that moth to hit the light, sizzle, and fall into his mouth.
Yum. Cooked moth.

So the reason the Opera House is in my mind is that this weekend is the reading thing we're doing with Robert Olen Butler from his book Mr. Spaceman. Tickets are not flying and Jan is a bit panicky. I understand. This was her idea, she arranged it and people are not responding. Well, Jan- let me tell you this- it was and is a GREAT idea and even the author thought so and agreed to participate and it'll be what it'll be and it's going to be fun.
But for any of you living in this area, you might want to consider driving down Highway 90 on Friday or Saturday until you get to Monticello, pull over, park (anywhere) when you get to the Opera House- you will know it- it's right before you get to the County Courthouse on your right- and join us. Dinner? Available. Drinks? Always. Ghosts? Probably. Me? I'll be there.
Wearing make-up AND a bra!
Oh yeah, so will Mr. Butler. Be there, I mean. I don't think he wears a bra although I don't know about the make-up.


Okay. On to chickens. When I went out to the hen house this morning to take Betty outside so that she can spend the day without being pecked by Sam, her former Lover Man Rooster, she jumped right off the roost and ran outside. Bless her tiny chicken heart. It's raining right now so I made her a sort of shelter outside with a roof and some hay so that she'll have a place to get under. Poor baby. She is starting to try to follow me back to the house now. She thinks I'm her flock. Either that, or those grapes I cut up for her daily are making her fall in love with me. Either way, it was nice to see her so cheerfully head outside where she spends her day scratching and dirt-bathing and finding tasty bug and frog morsels.

Bobby Bowden has retired. Who the fuck is Bobby Bowden? Simply the God of Tallahassee, aka the FSU Seminole football coach. Well, he was the God until he started losing regularly whereupon everyone turned on him like mad dogs and let's face it- dude is about a hundred years old. Now I don't give one damn shit about football or Seminoles yet even I have not been able to ignore this situation. And when I got the paper this morning, the entire front page was dedicated to the fact that yes, he has finally decided to go to his palacial home, dandle his grandbabies on his knee and let someone else take over the job of coaching. And it wasn't just the front page. It was like THE ENTIRE PAPER!

Could we move past this?

Also Tiger Woods. Bless HIS heart. What? He's human? No fucking way. Do I need to know the details of that little incident? No. I do not. Could we shut up about it already?
Obviously, no.

I've recently reconnected with an old friend who is a much beloved figure in Tallahassee and actually, all over the world. She's a singer and because she is somewhat of a celebrity, I have always been shy around her. And it always seemed to me that people wanted something from her. Either to play this benefit or that, or to sing on their CD or to hang her name on their project, and me? I didn't want her to think I wanted her for any reason like that and so I sort of let her go. Besides singing she also taught English at the local community college for like fifty years and raised a son on her own and was one of the first black teachers hired at the college and her plate has been FULL. But now she's retired from the college and she's doing what she wants to do and she called me the other day and we talked for about an hour a a half and now she's reading the blog and let me tell you- The Church of the Batshit Crazy has Another Official Vocalist now. Lis, of course, is our first. (Ladies, is this okay with you?) When this woman opens her mouth to sing, the hairs raise up on the back of your head and your heart bursts into flames and the tears run down your face. And you know what? I'm not even going to mention her name because in a way, that would be using her too. So, Sweetie- you know who you are. I'm so glad you're back in my life.

Okay. What else?
Oh yes. In other music news, Lis's CD is almost completely done. I can't wait until I can sell it from here. Lon was in Tallahassee yesterday, mixing it, and he called me on his way home to see if he could stop by for coffee and a hug. I was about to take Owen to his mama so I didn't have the time, but when I talked to him, I told him how incredibly proud I am of him for supporting his wife in this project and for working so hard on it with her. I cried. I always cry when I talk to Lon and usually when I talk to Lis, too. Why is that? Because I love them so much. That's why. Anyway, he said it had been his glory to work on this CD and I said that of course it was, but a lot of men in this world do not support their wives the way he does and he said, "Well, I'm sorry to hear that."
And I cried some more.
God, I love those two people.

And Kathleen- my darling Kathleen! She hit an eight-point buck on her way home in the dark the other night and it tore up her car and hurt her already injured shoulder and no one in this entire world would be more apt to be upset about killing a deer. It's rutting season (What? there's a season? I thought rutting season was 365 days a year. Wait- that's just humans. And bonobos.) and the buck was crossing the road to get to the other side where the beautiful lady deer were bedded down in the field. It all came out okay, although Mr. Moon was not in town to come and take care of things, which had always been her plan if she hit a deer (Kathleen has plans in place for every contingency) so she had to call the sheriff and it was all okay. A man came by who wanted the deer for meat and she gave it to him and the sheriff said he would have taken it but he was on duty and couldn't. We do love our deer meat down here. Except for Kathleen who doesn't eat meat, of course, but she was happy that it would not go to waste. She went to the doctor yesterday and he gave her a fine panoply of muscle relaxers and pain medication (and here again, Kathleen is not a pill taker and really only wanted a prescription to get a massage) but she's taking some time off of work which she needed anyway and is resting. So bless HER heart. Mr. Moon was a little jealous when he heard about the accident. Kathleen's buck was bigger than the one he shot this year. Well, not bigger than the one in Canada, but in Florida. If has shot a buck. I get confused on that.

Speaking of which, I have a deer backstrap thawing that I need to get into the Crock Pot. Owen isn't here today and I miss him but I have a million things to catch up on and this has gone on way too long.

I feel like I should include a recipe here because all of this is so down-home and newsy but I don't have one springing to mind. I will remind you to eat your vegetables and get your fiber, drink your water and move your body.

I will also tell you that my children were and are my greatest teachers and have saved my life and soul and that my grandson is doing the same thing for me. I will say again that the Opera House has also been there and given me something I could not have gotten anywhere else and as nervous as I was to read in front of The Author last night, there is some part of me which has been made strong and confident in that old building by the people who have taken me in there and I am in amazement at every single element of that fact.

I will tell you that it's not how many friends you have, it is the love you have for the friends you have. Fuck Facebook and thousands of "friends." That ain't friendship and we all know it. Well, not for me, anyway.

I will tell you that the older I get, the more I know without any doubt that my marriage to Mr. Moon has been the greatest gift I could ever have received. His love and the love of my children has more than made up for whatever bad has happened in my life.

And I will tell you that this December day where it is not cold but is raining and where the frogs are croaking back in the swamp and the water drips off the tin roof into the azaleas beside the porch is a day I wish I could put in my memory forever. There is nothing at all special about it except for the fact that I am here in it, I am doing what I love which is to write about it all, and right now, a bird is singing his heart out in the wisteria, despite the rain.

So. Brown Paper Bag. Here it is. Take what you need, and you leave the rest.

Amen.

The Way Old People Dance

I woke up this morning so stiff I could barely walk. I remember reading in a book that old people walk that way because...they hurt...and I now know what that means. When we are young, we use our bodies with such abandoned ignorance. We lift things we should not, we dance until dawn, we dig ditches and we carry a baby on each hip. We fall, we get up, we say, "Wow, that's gonna be a big bruise," and twenty years later we don't know why we hurt in that joint.

It's the stuff for jokes, the way old people walk and move and dance and bitterly complain and make that noise when they get out of a chair. But let me tell you something, Darlin's, it's not a joke. The human body does have an expiration date and as the years go on, the product loses its shine, its glide, its nimbleness, I don't care what vitamins you take, what exercise you do, how well you eat, how many carrots you juice and drink.
Okay, I haven't tried that one yet.

I've said many times before that I have looked at the way the skin lay on older people's bones, the way they shuffle across a room, the way they "let themselves go," and I have thought, "Thank God, that will not be me."
And of course, I have learned that short of premature death, that WILL be me.

And in taking care of Owen I realize how many of my aches and nerve problems (real actual nerves, not like you're-getting-on-my-last-nerve) come from holding and carrying and tending babies. Each way I curve my hand around his small butt, each way I cup his head, each way I jut out this hip or that, is part of the map of my very own muscular-skeletal architecture at this point. Now don't get me wrong- I can still do this. I am strong (for a fifty-five year old woman), and I can still hold and cup and support and jut as well as anyone. But I can feel the way these actions, having been done thousands and thousands of times from the age of twelve when my younger brother was born, have had their way with me. I think I have carpal EVERYTHING syndrome.

But it's okay. It is more than okay. They sell Ibuprofen by the gallon, the vat, the bushel. The stiffness loosens up as the day goes on and by the time I am rocking Owen to sleep later today, I won't even be thinking about it. What I will be thinking about is how my heart is as open and clear and actually, far more so! than it ever was. And that as unthinkable as it was to me as a new mother to imagine having a grandchild one day, it is now my reality and thus, my heart is that much bigger, that much more in wonder at this miracle of it all.

And that's what I wanted to say this morning. I don't have a good picture to go with these words. What picture would there be? A swollen knee? A face full of wrinkles? Well, yes, but so what? I'd rather it go without a picture because those of us who ARE this age know what I'm talking about and for those of you who are still young and who can get out of bed in the morning without feeling every movement you made the day before, it is not part of your reality.

But I would just say to remember once in a while not to take that for granted, that ease of movement, the way your body still feels like it could fly sometimes.
And also, not to laugh when you see old people dance. Okay? Could you do that for me?

Owen's here. I'm feeling fine. My heart is huge. It will allow me to dance through this day with him, albeit a bit stiffly, perhaps. I am so grateful for that.

And for Ibuprofen.

Spending The Day In The O-Zone

Terrible picture but let me just say that being a caretaker is a lot busier than being merely a doting grandmother and there just wasn't time to grab a camera today. I'm serious! I held the boy almost all day long because...well, he likes to be held.

We had a bath and he loved that. We walked out to look at the chickens many times. We rocked. We had bottles. We went to Publix and he got to spend an hour with his mama and his daddy. We had more bottles. We changed lots of diapers. We played silly games. We had some grins. We hung out on every porch. We changed more diapers. We cried. We spit up. (You realize I am using the royal "we" here, right?) and we spent at least half an hour swinging in the porch swing on my little side-porch. He really liked that. I set him in my lap so he could look at the trees and we swung and swung. Mr. Moon came in while we were doing that and I said, "Here's what I have learned today. If you are doing something Owen likes, you need to keep doing it."
And that is the truth.

I didn't get the breakfast dishes washed until six o'clock tonight and I wouldn't have gotten ANYTHING done at all if Miss Petit Fleur hadn't come over with Harley and she held him and they sang him the ABC song until he fell asleep. Thanks, sweet neighbors!

But you know, it was wonderful. And he and I are going to learn each other and our ways and get our routine down and things will go easier. I feel so blessed to think that this little boy is going to know his grandmother and grandfather's house so well and will feel so comfortable with us.

So that's it. I'm just reporting in. He's coming back at eight tomorrow morning so I'm going to make a supper and maybe watch a movie and go to bed because I have another date with the boy and chickens to tend and, well, hell, that's about it if you want to get right down to it. I've mopped the kitchen floor tonight and so I feel like the world will be shiny and new tomorrow for our day together.

And I'll try to get a better picture tomorrow.

One more thing- all my chicken's names came back to me. Phew. That was weird.

This Boy Is Going To Be With Me Today

I am so nervous that I can't remember all my chickens' names. Seriously. Like- am I having a stroke?
I don't think so. I think I am merely shifting internally like the ground before a volcano, an earthquake. All my baby-substitutes- my chickens, my dogs, my plants- suddenly seem like vaporous apparitions to me because I am going to be taking care of my grandson today. A real baby. A nine-week old baby. A baby I love who is related to me who will look to me all day long for care and love and food and holding. I am not planning on getting one thing done beside holding him.
And suddenly, I have begun to doubt my abilities. After raising four children and partly raising two brothers, I am not so sure of my ability to keep a baby happy. I don't plan on getting anything at all done today. Not one thing. Because I am going to be holding him all day long.
I'm as nervous as a cat.
I've fed the chickens (what are their names?) and I've talked to my Lizzie on the phone. And I have sheets in the washing machine.
And everything else will have to just go on without me because I am going to be holding my grandson.
Owen. My baby boyfriend. That's what I call him. Because he is my heart's love and I want more than anything in the world to take such good care of him for his mother and his father and mostly, for him.
I'm nervous as a cat. You'd think I'd never done this before.
But I can. I know I can.

He's here.
Wish us luck.

Miracles, Healing, Wholeness and Light

My daughter May who posts over at Roll Up The Rugs is in a recovery program and last night Mr. Moon and I went to the meeting where she was celebrating two years of sobriety.
Now, if you read May's blog you know that she is quite open about this whole sobriety thing. And if you haven't read May's blog, get your ass over there RIGHT THIS SECOND AND DO IT! I am saying to you- DO IT! Her writing kicks my butt and kicks the butt of anyone I know who is writing on this whole damn internet and she's funny and she's honest and she's incredible.

But I digress. Sort of.

When we went to the celebration last year, I was nervous as a cat. What if there were people there I knew? Would May tell really personal stories about the times before she got sober? Would I be recruited in the the cult of sobriety?
Well, the answers were yes, no, and no.

But I learned a lot from that meeting and I wrote about what one man said which was that a feeling is just a feeling and I have remembered that for an entire year.

Last night I was not as nervous. Mr. Moon and I were a bit early so we swung by and picked up coffees for him and me and May and we went to where the meeting was and May came out to find us just as we walked up and led us to our seats in the dark-paneled room with the fluorescent lights and the place was packed. Black folks, white folks, gay folks, straight folks, old folks, young folks, young folks who looked old and old folks who had the merry dancing eyes of children. One woman came in crying, obviously hating "having" to be there and she was greeted and by the end of the meeting she had quit crying and had been hugged and held by another woman, and even if she wasn't happy, I could tell she was a little bit more at peace and I wondered about how all these people had felt, walking into this room the first time. Or another room like it somewhere else.

It was a birthday meeting and there were people celebrating one year of sobriety, two, four, thirteen, twenty-eight, and one, the man who had said the "feeling is just a feeling" thing last year was celebrating thirty years of sobriety. Thirty years! When he got up to speak, I was happy, thinking that I would get to see him again, wondering what he would give me this year to take home. And he talked about how he tries very, very hard to be "in the moment," which is very difficult for him. But then he said that really, you can't write the script, yesterday is done, and a few more things along that order, which are sort of cliches, albeit true. But then he said, "I start to worry and then I think, 'I have a roof over my head. I always have. And it's always been a nice roof. I've never lived in a dump and the only time I don't eat three meals a day is when I don't want to and really, what else is there?''

Well, of course there is more but basically, he's right. And he also said that this moment is perfect. Everyone who was supposed to be there was and I'm sure he was right and I thought about the crying lady. I thought about myself and how I needed to hear these words of serenity.
I was grateful to him for sharing his gratefulness, his experience of living thirty years meaningfully, thoughtfully, soberly, trying to be in the moment.

When May spoke, she was like a shining beacon and when she came back to her seat we held each other and I could not have been more proud of her if she'd hung the moon her very own self or gotten a job as the head of Green Peace or found a cure for cancer. I have watched the way she's changed in the last few years, facing problems head-on and dealing with them quietly and sensibly, not borrowing trouble, not going all drama-queen with them, but figuring things out.

Mr. Moon put his arm around me and her both, and I thought about this, too- how incredibly fortunate I am to have found and married this man who loves my children so much that there is nothing he would not do for them. I had thought perhaps to beg off going to that meeting last night. I had had a horrible day and was so low, so down. But he'd been the one to say, "We're going to support our girl," and he did and he wore a white shirt and jeans and his boots and I wore my silver and we all sat right there together, this girl who didn't become his girl until she was four or five and she calls him Daddy and he calls her our girl.

After the meeting quite a few people came up to tell us how wonderful our daughter is and we agreed. We've always known that. It was heartbreaking when we could see her losing her light, traveling down paths that were so dark they leached that light almost out of her, but never really could because that's how filled with it she is.
And here she is back again, glowing and luminous and she wanted us to be there and thank god (God?) we were.

There is much talk of God in that room where people go to get sober and stay that way and as we all know, I have such a problem with that God concept and in my heart, it is each and every one of those people's own powers, own strengths that they draw upon for what they need but they can call it whatever they want and besides that, they have the group and the powers and strengths and arms and smiles of each and every person there, which is God to me, if anything is.

What May said was that the people in the group had told her from the very beginning that they would love her until she learned to love herself. And that they had.

And I suppose in a perfect world, I, as her mother, could have done that but don't we all doubt the love of those of us who HAVE to love us? Our mothers, our fathers, our siblings, our spouses? I mean we don't doubt that love, exactly, but we think it's just there because of that family bond. And so sometimes we have to find a group of strangers who will love us only and exactly for who we are, as fucked up and imperfect as we may be because we all are. Each and every one of us and that's just the facts.

And I wanted to kiss and hold each one of those people in that room and say a thank-you to everyone of them who has loved May into loving herself. I guess that's what happens at the end when everyone circles up and holds hands. They say the Lord's Prayer but I was saying a different prayer, giving thanks for the people praying.
Giving thanks for them loving my May, which is not a hard job to do at all, believe me.
I wonder if by the time we go back for her fifth, tenth, whatever celebration of her sobriety, she will know how easy it to love her. For each moment in time that she lives, she is worthy of love and that she gives love by her very presence. A light-filled love that she gives to the entire planet as she merely walks from her house to the New Leaf, as she walks across the restaurant where she works to serve a table, where she sits on my porch on her birthday or on any day of her life.

Her one precious wonderful life which she is making full use of, every day.

Each day is a sort of anniversary of our lives. Each moment.

Some moments have so much meaning that they must be recognized and celebrated.
Last night was one of those and it was one of the best celebrations I've ever attended.

Happy Birthday, May. Two years of sober life. What an accomplishment! I am so grateful you are here with us, shining your light on us, that strong, holy light that comes from your eyes, your soul, your heart. That shoots off your fingertips and into our hearts when you hug us.

I love you, baby.
Thank-you for asking us to come celebrate again last night. Thank-you for giving us reason.
Thank-you for teaching me, being a conduit to knowledge.

The guy who introduced May last night to speak said that he first noticed her because she was "a pretty white girl who was friendly and who, when she walked into a room, everyone's eyes went to her."

Yep. He's right. And she's ours to love. And she is learning to love herself. And as all of this happens, she grows more beautiful, more light-filled.

And that was how my day ended yesterday. The one that started out so poorly. And again I understand that a feeling is just a feeling and that really, it is best to live in the moment, to try and accept the light and love that is always present, even when we can't see it, can't feel it.

That's what I went to sleep with last night, knowing that and holding it close to my heart, that man who loves my girl beside me.

And I woke today in light and the doors are open again, my heart is open again.

Thank-you, May. I love you. And I thank and love all those people in that room last night because they are the village that is helping to raise my child, not because they have to, but because they want to.
They have no idea but they are part of my blessings, my many, many blessings on this light-filled day in Lloyd, Florida, November 29th, 2009, which for so many reasons is a day of celebration, not the least of which is that I know it.

We Let Them Be Yard Chickens Today

Dolly is trying to figure this situation out.

Stare-down with Daffodil.



I'm watching my chickens. Favorite pastime. Yes. My life is full and balanced and oh-so-exciting. Why do you ask?


See? Excitement. Sam is heading for Betty and I am leaping to the rescue. Those are my earbuds dangling there, just in case you're wondering. I had been listening to...hold on...bet you can guess!
NPR.
It's Saturday and time for Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Chickens and NPR. Cheaper than therapy. Probably almost as effective. I also went down to the creek and it was beautiful. Dug up a fern and a tiny palmetto to bring home. I suppose that was my Black Friday shopping event.

And the world continues to turn.

Some Days

I made Mr. Moon bring in the giant begonia last night. It was supposed to get down in the low thirties and that is the one plant I could not bear to lose if we got a frost. It's sitting now in the hallway by the front door, it's huge leaves each as big as a child's head and I started it from one leaf not two years ago. It takes so much patience to start things from cuttings, from seeds, from scratch. When you do it, it seems important to protect the result.

I'm low today. I feel dry. I don't think I have words but for some reason I feel I have to send some out anyway. Why is that? What do people come here for? I would like to think they come here for some sort of relief from the world and its problems. Some days. Some days maybe they come here to get their righteous anger up. Some days they come to see pictures of sky and oak trees, to hear stories of a family that loves each other. Maybe just to hear that chickens can lay blue eggs.

Some days they get "I am crazy, I am crazy, I am crazy."

Today is one of those days.

The Church of the Batshit Crazy has its doors closed today, its font of holy water is dried up because the Church of the Batshit Crazy is in my heart.

Lily had to go back to work today. She's been crying for days. And I think I am so sorrowful for her that I can't bear it. I would have lost my mind if I had had to go back to work when one of my babies was only eight weeks old. I made Mr. Moon bring that plant in because I grew it from one leaf and I can't bear to lose it.
Lily can hardly bear to leave Owen in another room and today she had to get in a car and drive to work and leave him with his daddy. I am going to take care of him for a few days next week. And Owen will be fine. It's Lily that I am worried about.

So this is in my heart and other things too and I am either completely empty or else I am too full of the crazy to feel anything else. I don't know. Hard to say. Impossible to tell.

This is one of those days.

I can't tie it together, the begonia and the baby. I can't make it all be all right in the end.

I haven't forgotten my blessings. I am just too full of the crazy to feel I deserve them.

I think I need to walk down to the creek, see if the sweet running water of the holy woods can dilute a little of the crazy. See if I can get a few drops back into the font, cross myself, pray for sustenance, go on.

Home Place

Last night after all the dishes were done and the food put away (and Jessie- I owe you a million dollars- remind me on payday) we sat down and watched a movie she'd brought with her. It was called Away We Go and starred that fatally cute but completely dorked-out John Krasinski and the ethereally beautiful Maya Rudolph.

If you've never seen the movie, it's about a couple who, finding themselves about to have a baby, decide to travel around and figure out where it is they need to live to make their own home with their child. They are not a typical couple. She is of mixed race, calm and deadly humorous, he is, well, as dorky as a man can be and she loves him for that and for his sweet, sweet soul.
And they travel and visit people they know who live in places they think they might like to live from Montreal to Phoenix and they end up in an old house she grew up in on a lake in Central Florida.
It's a delicious movie for people like me who can live without car crashes and unexpected violence and love good dialogue and the way an actor's face can tell a story in one silent second. There are heartbreaking moments and there are hilarious moments and there are moments that are sweet and there are moments that are ridiculous- sort of like life, you know. It's an actor's movie.
A small movie. One that is just big enough to find a nook in the heart.
And like most movies of this sort, it colors the thoughts for awhile. I know this one did mine.

What really ripped it in a good way for me was the house they ended up in. I had been told by my kids that the hallway in that house looked so much like ours that it was bizarre. And they were right.

And here's the funny thing- the house they used for that movie was in Leesburg, Florida which is not so far from where I grew up and when I saw the exteriors for the house, I knew it was an old grove house. And when I was a child and then a teenager, I always had a yearning to live in one of those old grove houses. They were solid built, not fancy, but looked more like something that had grown out of the orange groves and the oaks than had been built there.

But I moved away from that part of Florida and I moved up here to the north part of the state and I've lived in so many houses here I can't begin to count them all up and I feel like every one of those houses was a stepping stone to where I live now and there, in that movie, was my hallway in that grove house in Leesburg, Florida.

I swear to you- I can't come up with any explanation of how my hallway got into that movie, right down to the little spring bolts you have to step on to unlatch at the bottom of the doors, to the windows beside the doors and the shapes of the glass and then yes, the stairway, which is so very like ours.

I don't know. Maybe they were all built like that a hundred and fifty years ago. Maybe the same guy built the two houses.

But it was strange and a little wonderful to see those two darling people in the movie open their front door and come into the hallway that looked just like mine and to realize they were home. They walked to the end of the hallway and went out the matching double doors, the twins (quadruplets?) to mine and out back and sat down and well, okay, they had a lake where I have a chicken coop and a railroad track, but still.



Home. They were home.

And we re home, here. It's such a beautiful house to live in, this home of mine and when I moved here, I knew I was someplace I'd been looking for a long, long time. It's a house that holds more stories than I will ever know and here we are, my family and me, giving it more stories. A wedding, a wake, babies, countless family get-togethers, music, hurricanes, food grown, chickens raised, tears and anxieties and joys. Quiet sittings on the porch and raucous good-times.

This is my home for now and I am eternally grateful for it and when I watched that movie last night, I was happy for the characters that they had found their home, too.

And that's all. I just wanted to write about my house with its wide pine board floors and it's soaring staircase and its front and back doors with the arched glass windows. There's no stained glass, there is no carpet or heavy mahogany furniture, just comfortable stuff and aprons on the wall and food cooking in the kitchen and chickens laying eggs out back. We eat here, we sleep here, we dream here. The kids come here to celebrate and laugh together.

My dream house, my home. I did grow up and find an old grove house to live in. No grove, but the house is the same. My Florida home. I've planted the palm trees out of a yearning for them and the camellias, too. But the oak trees- oh yes, they were here already.

And when that movie crew packed up and went away, I'll bet that a few of the people, the actors and the crew, wished they could stay on to live in Leesburg in that house by the lake but they couldn't. They had to go home to their own houses.

But me? I watched the movie last night and I went to bed in this house and I woke up here too and I've gathered the eggs and fed the chickens and I'm about to feed the husband and we're here in this house, this home.

And it is good.

At Our House

Camellias and friends and babies (would you look at that dimple?) and food and music and coffee and sunshine and deer liver for Pearl and happy chickens and collards out of the garden and kids laughing and Alice's Restaurant and cooking and cooking and cooking and oh, another mess to clean up and here, hug me because I love you, over and over again.

Happy Thanksgiving.

And happy birthday, Anna.