By Noon

I have come to the conclusion that if you are maxed out on antihistamines by noon, it is spring in Georgia.

Yellow pollen, coats my house, explains why my throat is closed. Some would say, close the doors? I would reply " I have been waiting for warm weather and sunshine for MONTHS! Pop another Claritin!"

My eyes look like a worn out road map, and there are Visine stains on my cheeks, I rejoice in this madness!

I do not remember pollen growing up. I knew of no one who took allergy meds. Maybe when you are young, you have no time for the details. I know that spring is shorter in Florida, due to the heat, and maybe the humidity knocks down most of the pollen. Better yet, those brain cells of youth have left the train station, and I just remember what I want to now!!

Learning to live with a few days of yuck, to get gorgeous days, is worth it. Until I try and clean my back porch. I have tried for a couple of weeks, a ledge, a window, wicker furniture, cushions!! even the plants need washing. Today I thought if I just lit some candles, turned on some music, doubled my drugs, this would help me get through it. Wheezing to the beat of music, certainly helps. Not so sure about the candles, I think they added another smell to the mix, a nice one but.....

So I decided while I can still see, I would sit here at the computer, and share my story. The back door to the screened porch is open, I feel safe behind the computer screen! The sun is streaming through my kitchen windows, I just have to suffer, these moments are too precious. The only noise I hear are the birds, who I know are using all this pollen, to cement their nests!! I know they must be building a strip mall in the trees, they are so loud.

Hope you have days like this, to just sneeze and enjoy. Maybe one spring day come visit and sit on my porch with me. I will supply Kleenex, and allergy med of choice.

XOXOXO
BBB

What Happened To A Backpack And A Smile?

  In a couple of weeks, the husband and I, will head for the hills. The hills of France, and a week in Paris.
We entertain the thought of being young and carefree. Hoping on planes, trains and automobiles, with the wind at our backs. Bill crawling through the catacombs, and I looking for....coffee, artists and books. We shall meet in the middle, for churches and gardens, with a wine chaser. Sounds so romantic, until reality bites.

We have ordered support socks, so legs don't swell. All medicines have been purchased, with a month ahead, because you never know?? Are there tsunamis in Paris??? Special wallets and purses will adorn us, to keep the pick pockets at bay. We have listened to three different language tapes( I think they are called cds??) Downloaded two translator apps to help us look and speak like a French person. The apartment is
rented across from the Louvre, and how many steps to walk there have been counted.

I thought this morning, lets just hop on a plane and go.

I remember a time, not so long ago?? maybe a long time ago, when I would jump in the car, headed to a surfing championship near Cape Canaveral. Packing nothing, wearing a bathing suit, maybe having a towel, and cut off shorts, with ten dollars in my pocket. That was a three day weekend, and it was awesome.

Then a few years later, a rock concert at Charlotte Motor Speedway, another LONG weekend, sleeping wherever there was an empty spot. No luggage, no money, and waking up hearing " Tied to a whipping post" grinning ear to ear.

And there were many more, "Lets head to PC beach", out the door we went. Jane said, " Lets go to New York", gone. Studio 54 hear we come, with again very little money, and two changes of undies at best!! It was instant, without a worry, and some may say no common sense either, but I beg to differ. I did use my car payment for the airplane ticket, but I just worked some overtime in the ER to fix that little blip!!

Now I have a piece of luggage the size of my Vega!! I had a nightmare about forgetting my tweezers!!! These are big things. Traveling at sixty, is different. I still have the joy of being somewhere new, I have my partner of thirty something years, to share in my adventures, and pharmaceuticals are still around.

Plus it helps to have pocket change around.

Backpack and a Smile,( I think that's called credit cards now!)

bonjour

Untethered

The pine trees have cast a shadow on my deck, so I have come inside for a minute. The windows are open and birds are in full tweeting mode, its spring in Atlanta. A chill, although faint, still lingers. March has failed to let go completely, the devil that she has been. 

Mother nature at her finest, and I'm ready to start digging.

Plants are moved onto the back porch, having suffered in silence with me, all winter.

I use to be angry with spring because it meant new life, and my child was no longer. Many a day and night I stood in the tall grass, cursing the birds and the moon!! How could plants begin to bloom when I was dead inside. I would lean on the pine trees, knowing they were not to blame, yet peeling their bark irate that they were standing so tall. Spring winds would cry, there was no joy. Tears flooded my yard, where I stood, broken.

Sometime, I began to feel the love of nature surrounding me. The stars would shine and shout, the tall pines whispered my name. The earth turned through each season, and I turned with her.

I would see Wards face in all, flowers, crickets, all living things. His spirit soared, and I felt it.

Many years have passed, and spring has shown her face again. It is truly an artists palette. This week was no exception. Cherry blossom petals covered our path, and became a painting. My child smiles.

Never are we untethered, in any season. Connected in love, all of us..

Now I need to go back, and soak up some of this sunshine, bank it for another day!

Enjoy

March, You Were A Cold One

To keep a blog going, is much like a diary, with the exception there is no key! Anyone can read my thoughts, words and ideas. I just lay it all out for the masses. It brings me great joy to spill my guts, and heals me.
Just like this beautiful spring day, it is glorious!! March has been a beast, and she goes out in glory. The sunshine makes me pick up my pace, and do it with a smile.

So I am  going to steal a few minutes to share a couple of books that I devoured in this month of March.
The Aviator's Wife: A Novel  by Melanie Benjamin and Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala. They were both warm, with the March winds blowing the house down.

I love to read about The Lindbergh family, their complicated life. Heroic and demonic is an absurd combination, yet Charles was both. However this novel, is written with Anne's words. Its historical fiction, and nearly strangled me with grief and love. Why people stayed married in a loveless relationship fascinates me, and how they survive the loss of a child, unfortunately hits close to my heart. Below are some of my highlighted pearls:
    Contemplation, rather than action; seems to be my lot in life, and I was ashamed of it even as I craved it.

    Why couldn't confidence be bottled like perfume?

    Charles eyes were the color of morning ( wow, love that)

    She was as silky as he was rumpled ( divine)

    the duty drilled into me by my parents; dreams may have been paintings on my walls, but doubts and fears were the bars on my windows

   I didn't feel privy to know what was on my mother's heart

   I want to be one of those marvelous old ladies covered in scarves who rock in their chairs with mysterious smiles, remembering their scandalous affairs of their youth.

  walking slowly back to my bed, carrying my hope and terror both, one fragile, the other already so stolidly familiar I couldn't remember life before it, within my heart.

  and I understand that betrayal is more enormous than forgiveness. One more thing that Charles has taught me, in a lifetime of lessons and lectures. ( a lifetime of lessons and lectures, seems so painful)

It is hard for me to stop, this book, The Aviators Wife, it was quiet. Better yet, it made me be still and think.

Now if I have any more room???  Wave read like the tsunami that it was about. This true story of a women that lost her entire family in a wave of the ocean, is often too much to bear. How quick life changes, and how we learn to live among the living, again is a healing book for me.

Here are some of the beautiful language of love;

     In a few hours it will be light. It will be tomorrow. I was terrified of tomorrow the truth would start.

     how do I tame my pain?

    I cannot reconcile it with the impossible horror of how they were severed from me in an instant

    If I allow any of this, I will go mad for wanting them

    Their promise, my children's possibilities, still linger in our home

     By knowing them again, by gathering threads of our life, I am much less fractured. I am also less confused.

    I can only recover if I keep them near ( this was written seven years after her loss)

So powerful, words.
Life, so fragile and strong,
This March day, stunning, reminded me that the tomb is empty.
Happy Easter 2013

   

Are We There Yet?

How many times have I driven this road to home? Too many to count, I recognize the grass growing in strangers yards. I know the smell of the ocean, and the paper mill are near. The back roads to Mom and Dad's are littered with ghost motels, and farmers stands.The moss hanging in the trees, causes me to pause, and wait for the humidity to hit me. Some people count car tags, my family counts road kill. After all we are headed to or from Jacksonville, Florida. The flat roads separate us from south Georgia, buy a hair. Cotton grows on both sides of the road, and many a time, I have pulled over with the kids to pick some. Pecan trees planted neatly in their rows, and someone surely is selling boiled peanuts around the bend. My children repeat my stories, and now drive their Miss Daisey, me, home.

They begin the trip, asking me how many times will we have to stop, to look at something?? No more do they ask, " Are we there yet?" All of them have been trained to look for the signs!!! I have my camera ready, because there will be a sight to see!! There is a screen door, that I always like to see, with a crane on it. I want one, and I need to go ask these people where they purchased it. As of yet, no one has ever let me stop. The concept of talking to strangers has missed my bunch. Often, they tell me, I will talk to anyone, dead or alive. Well....stop the car , so I can talk to this family with the cute door...yes the area is poor and could be flying a Confederate flag....and locked and loaded but.....we can forgive them for lack of evolving, the door!!!!

The empty motels, they know, must house serial killers...but they slow down long enough for a couple of photos. I stop for palmetto bushes, should be on my bumper. I crave the south, my very bones ache for it. Once I have had my fix, I'm ready to head back to Atlanta, my home of twenty years. ( I never long for Pennsylvania??where we spent twelve years, or was it thirty!!)

On our recent return home, Queen Emma was my driver, and I gave her a long heads up, about where to pull over. I had already cased the joint!!! So she did, a classic if I ever saw one. A drive through liquor store, with a church on one side ( Jesus is everywhere ) and crosses on the other side where you have to assume, were drunk drivers coming out of the booze store with a ROAD DRINK!!! You can not make this stuff up, I blame it on the heat!!
I took my pictures, and shook my head, at the irony. Glad it was out of business, and Emma got to see....well she did say, " Are you kidding me!!"

Goodbye North Florida, until next time, you crazy place that I love.

Cousins Galore

 I have to be one of the fortunate few, that have many cousins. In all shapes and sizes, brains and without, near and far, first, second, third down the line, by marriage or blood. My people are precious to me, they have all molded my life, indeed I am lucky.

 This week I was thrilled to visit with two of my best cousins, whom I adore. Not for a great reason, due to surgery, but any reason to get the tongues to wagging is great. Sally from Arkansas, and Jeannine from Georgia.
 My precious Jeannine has been down, due to extensive back surgery. There is light at the end of her tunnel, but she has to look HARD to see it!!! Her burden is huge, as my friend Vicky so often says. She stripped down to let me see her scar, and we hugged and loved each other up!! while nurse Sally was preparing something?? I was pleased to see J in a nice fancy black bra, these things are important to cousins!! and always we remember that modesty is thrown out the window with us, we are wide open, more like sisters. We examined her x-ray and screws that had been removed, and hollered with laughter. Everything is funny, it has to be, because its all toooooo hard without hooting like a baboon!!! The familiar chatter went on for hours, stories from the grave to the present. So easy to slip into these relationship, even though the years can be long between visits.
  In between sips of diet cokes and tab (which I did not know they made anymore) and a few pain pills thrown in, we did talk of serious stuff. Both of these women are my prayer partners, and I think they have a great discipline to GAWD!! I lean towards a Bless everyone, God help us all kind of prayer, so I rely on their personal attention to prayer!! J even writes names down and problems to address. Sally is an awesome prayer person, even when Ward died, she asked the lord for her to bare some of my pain, to give me some relief, these girls are good!!! So I loaded them up with needs. Sally said, " My list is getting hideously long!" and I fell out of the chair. Her long drip of water, southern drawl, it took her a good five minutes to say hideously!!  A pure joy to my ears, and heart.
Jeannine spoke from her recliner, after she was spent with all the talking, with her eyes closed, " Bonnie, you bring joy into the room every time you come over!" (could have been the meds talking!!) (nah)
  I love these women. I love all of my cousins. I am so blessed, somebody must be praying really hard!!
Thank you a billion times for sweet moments like these.