Winter in August

Louisiana is a strange land. All summer long, we've hardly had any rain. But even without the cool of the rain, the heat, with the exception of the last two weeks of July and the first half of August, hasn't been terribly oppressive either. But now the lingering Louisiana rain has set in, five days in a row. No sunshine. I have to keep reminding myself that summer is still here, that any day now, the sun will show his sweet, glowing face and that wem will go swimming again before the end of August. It's gray, it's dreary and it's getting darker earlier because of the cloud cover.

I thought I was ready for a change in the seasons, but as it turns out, not quite. I love the ease of the summer.

Languid. I love that word. Sultry. Another word that I love.

And with the change of the seasons, from summer to fall, from fall to winter, comes my love/hate relationship with the holidays. Love because it's warm, filled with family, food and giving. Hate because it's filled with activity, school projects and endless commitments to have warm time with family, friends, food and giving. Seems I have managed the art of finding fault with things that I love. Can't I ever be content?

Night Thoughts

It's late and I find myself wandering the house alone again.

This has to do with my son and my counselor. I am trying turn over a new leaf. I am trying not to consume most of time with worry over my oldest child. Sometimes late at night though, when he's not yet home, it gets a little difficult.

And I can't help but wonder about something my counselor once said to me. She said that addictive personality's often crave drama. And then she said that I had that personality...addictive. Me. I guffawed at this. Guffawed. And I'm pretty sure that's how you spell it.

The thing about truth is that when you recognize it, it's liberating. So, even though this flys in the face of everything that I'd like to believe about myself, I have to consider that this may be true .

So, what does this say about me? And how can this liberate me from my present cycle of drama revolving around my son?

This blog doesn't wrap itself up with nice, fuzzy answers. I don't have any right now. I'm working on it though.

And that, in itself, is a beginning. An unraveling of truth.

Blessed are the Cheesemakers

I had a wonderful week with my in-laws. It's a unique situation...maybe not so unique, but still very special to me. If you read my blog (TWO...count them...TWO readers) you know that my husband, Brian, passed away when we were very young. That's been 19 years ago exactly tomorrow. Hard to believe that so many years have passed. His family, the Johnsons of the Wildwoods, have never let me forget that I belong to them. Just the other night, over margaritas at Pepito's, my mother-in-law, Carmen said those exact words "You belong to us." She's an amazing woman whom I love and admire greatly. And she loves her some margaritas. Incredibly refined and always in control, one margarita unlocks the door to her "long hair" side. I love that about her. She shines. And funny!...she makes me laugh until my sides hurt. She opens her house to me and I feel like I'm home.

And then there's Ray...my father-in-law. He comes and goes but when he's there, he's there. Warm, big-hearted and full of stories about his military life, his gunshop, and anything else that involves explicit, technical mechanical details or a man named Beaudreaux. The man is always working on things. And he always fixes them. He loves his family and hands out hugs and kisses unlike most men I know.

Kristin, the baby of the family, has grown into a young woman. My first date with Brian was taking Kristin and my little sister, Pam, to see The Fox and the Hound. It was so sweet. She was so tiny and slight. Full of questions. Now she's a beautiful young woman with two girls of her own, Bella and Anna Marie, and well on her way to making a life for herself and her two girls as a single mother. I have no doubt that she can accomplish this.

And then there's Diahn, the middle determined child. We befriended each other in high school and it never ceases to amaze me when she says she thought that I was cool...ME...in high school. And how she loved it that I let her hang around with me and my cool senior friends at lunch. My friends and I were anything but cool.

We were the anti-cool.

The negative of cool.

We were...well, let's face it, we were cool repellent.

But when I'm with her, my sister-in-law, we are anti-cool together. We remember. We laugh. We drink a little and laugh a lot. We sing. We throw out Monty Python one liners like crazy.
And we catch up on every detail imaginable that we've missed. Never miss a beat.

I am different, yet the same when I return to Tuscaloosa, to the Wildwoods. There is a part of me there that is separate from my other life. A part of me that I left there. It's so good to remember that girl...that life. And even better to find her among sweet family, and bring her back to life, back to my family in Louisiana.

She Was Marvelous

My Grandmother, Learon Laverne Cooper, passed away this morning. She was 86 and I will miss her terribly. These are some things that I loved about her.

She always talked about herself in third person.
She made the BEST biscuits in Louisiana, possibly the WORLD.
She loved AquaNet.
She loved DippityDo.
She cooked for an army, which my family definitely is, and loved to see us eat.
She cut a special piece of chicken just for me, from the pulley-bone, and called it a "frog."
She cooked "Grandma peas" just for me (black-eyed peas).
She loved me the best of all the grandchildren.
She gave me a bionic woman action figure for my 11th birthday.
She made me a giant Raggedy-Ann doll for Christmas on my 10th birthday, she made my prom dress and my first wedding dress.
She loved polyester.
She was a strong, independent woman and has been on her own since my Grandpa died at the young age of 43 and has taught me perseverence.
She loved to travel, alone.
She loved, loved, loved her family.
She was a faithful, consistent, calm, strong Chrisitian woman.
She loved chinese food and we went to "Imperial Gardens" together often for lunch.
She was a breast-cancer survivor.
She was a dear friend to me and always listened to me.
She told me her stories and sometimes her secrets (my favorite...her best friend, Mr. Pickett, whom everyone thought she would marry one day, was gay...I knew it!)
She loved coffee with cream.
She was the best seamstress...ever.
She cooked everything southern style...bacon grease, Crisco and butter...lots and lots of butter.
She liked to gossip a little but always finished up her stories with "bless her/his heart"...a southern disclaimer.
She was soft when she needed to be and tough when she needed to be.
She was the most forgiving, non-judgmental person I have ever met.
She was my Grandma and she was marvelous.

I love you, Grandma.

Malarky

That's what the previous post is. M-A-L-A-R-K-Y. Tough love is necessary. Tough love is hard. That's why they call it tough. I get it now.

What If?

This is just a random thought that's been floating around in my head this evening, so I'm setting it free to float around in blogland.

What if tough love is total bullshit? Could it be that it's the easiest thing for us to do in the guise of the hardest thing for us to do? What if the right thing to do is for the stronger to love the weak, those who can't take care of themselves, and help them no matter what? Wouldn't that be the truly hardest thing to do? And if you say that you can love them, you just can't let them pull you into their drama, what does that mean? Isn't love a verb? If you don't put it into action, isn't it just an empty word? Suppose there's been a twist in our culture, a twist that we all buy into because of the Oprahs and Dr. Phils and years of self-analysis, one that's actually backwards, one that says "I" deserve to not be bothered, "I" deserve to be free of other's problems and "I" deserve to be happy at the cost of losing someone else that might be assigned to me? Have we taken this too far? Do we live in a world where it's every man for himself? Isn't putting someone elses needs first the ultimate sacrifice? Would doing that make me a martyr? Or isn't that the definition of a christian?

Just a thought. Sometimes it seems as if my life is filled with such useless routine that I'm truly missing something important.

Something simple.

Stay awhile

I wrote this Thursday night about my Grandmother. She recently broke her hip and is in the hospital. She is 87. I've been sitting with her some, feeding her and holding her hand. She's so frail. She's always been so strong and independent. Her husband, Elsie, died of a massive heart attack when he was 42. She never remarried because she said simply, she never found anyone else who could fill his shoes. She raised six children and endured the heartbreaking loss of her youngest son ten years ago. She's a breast cancer survivor. A heart disease survivor.

Strong willed and oh, so opinionated...sometimes she seems a bit calloused because it's hard to see her soft side buried underneath all her grit and determination. But it's there...I love you, Grandma.

Here's to strong, surviving, independent women.

Matriarch

Beside your sterile bed, I pull up an uncomfortable, green chair.
Not a lush green, not a green that screams of vibrant life and birth,
but a sad excuse for a green.
Tell Crayola that hospital green should be it's official name,
washed out and devoid of it's greeness.
You color is gone, too.
Your hand rests limply in mine,
and how is it that your skin, once as taut as a trampoline,
stretched from spring to spring, has multiplied?
There's too much of it now.
It gathers in folds around your knuckles and on the top
of your hand. A forked royal, purple vein runs
the length of it, from the wrist to somewhere between
your middle and ring finger.
It fades away there.
Your rings are gone from those fingers.
Your silver wedding band and the other one...
the one with six, colorful birthstones all in a row
for each of your children.
I want to find them and put them back where
they belong, dress you up and curl your thinning, hair.
Fill out your cheek bones with the coral you love.
Stay awhile longer, Grandma.
You haven't told me all of your stories and
I haven't made the time to listen to them.
I promise to pay attention and fill in the blanks
with colorful details and vibrant greens.
Stay awhile longer.