11JUN2010, Memories...

I lay myself down and try to sleep, but sleep will not come. Instead, the memories surface like long dead bodies on the bottom of a deep lake. One by one, the weights break away and the memory rushes to the surface with a quick splash as it breaks through the water.
Most of them are pleasant, carrying me back to places, times and people from long ago. But a few are hard to look at and some even contain a stench of rich regret, tainted more so by shame and an inner humiliation that only I can remember and understand. Yet the good outweigh the bad and seem to set all things right within my soul.

Listening to Pappaw and his brothers play bluegrass on a Saturday night as us kids sit on the floor playing and not fully appreciating the beauty of such simple, family harmony.
Sitting on that same hardwood floor and crowded around the television watching Hee Haw.
Playing Bingo in Nanny & Pappaw's livingroom as Brenda lay on the hospital table, body cast up to her arms and remembering how glad I was she didn't die when she fell out of Aunt Peggy's car.
Walking under Old Powder and swinging from his tail as he chomped grass.
Being scared to death of Uncle Buddy's Red Brahma bull!
Sitting at Nanny & Pappaw's table on Sunday with the family gathered around and seeing the coons looking at us from the round hole in the ceiling. Pappaw became angry and later shot and killed every one. I was so damned sad.
Playing with old dishes Nanny gave me, looking up at the blue sky and seeing one single glorious white cottony cloud. I smiled. It was beautiful. And then suddenly, I was down, thrashing in a bed of hot coals...and the next thing I clearly remember was screaming and being placed in a wash tub of ice. I had blisterd from my chin down to the soles of my feet for days after...and by the Grace of God, I did not scar!
Watching the "wetbacks" plow the rice fields in those huge tractors and flirting just a wee bit now and then! Loving the smell of that fresh turned soil mixed with diesel exhaust...And at harvest time, watching those combines harvest rice all day and thru the night as the steady rumble of their engines lulled me into a deep, peaceful sleep.
Geese flying into the resting rice fields at the first cold front, their honking a blessed sound to my ears.
Frank Duke, Sr. giving me a horse, Star, and Mexican saddle for Christmas, 1974.
Riding Star down cow trails and trying to make her into a barrel racer, knowing full well she was very far past her prime.
My first real kiss; Joe Strong, outside Mr. Smith's art class, 8th grade. Hardin Jr. High.
Jerry and his motorcycle...taking me all across Texas, living in a 2-person pup tent in the summer of 1981. How free we were!!! And, OH! The unwritable memories that one gave me!!!
Those memories just continue surfacing...late at night when I should be getting sleep...

I am so thankful, so grateful and so blessed to have them...the great, the good, the okay...and even the bad.

Goofy little poem to Logan

Logan is a stinker;
Happy, joyful boy-
He loves to play all day,
Even if he has no toy!

Love him?
Yes I do...
More than little words can say.
I'm so blessed to have him in my life...
Happy as a pig in mud on a hot day!!!

I wrote this a couple evenings ago as Logan was doing his homework...Just goofing around, playing with words and jotted it down. I left it lying on the coffee table and didn't think anything about it. This morning he brings it to me and he had the biggest smile on his face. He asked me to read it to him and I asked if he knew what it was. He said that he did because he had just read it, but he wanted me to read it out loud to him...So I did, and was rewarded with a big, sweet hug!

If a child has the right attitude, when they grow old it will be the simple, silly, goofy, happy things us parents and grandparents do that will be remembered best...and those memories of us being silly will still contain the magic that will make those adult kids smile again, all those years later...even after our bodies are gone from this earth:)

Jessie's Story, Part 1

Jessie was a mixed up girl in a mixed up world...Free and wild, marching to the beat of her own drum...She met a man, fell in love. Things went wrong and now both her baby and her first true love reside in Heaven...She met another man, felt herself falling...but alas, he belonged to another and she walked away from that situation. Married a stable, hardworking man because that is what she was told she must do...Wasn't in her heart to do, but out of a necessity, she made the leap.
The romance was never there. The kissing stopped within months...and then it was just the sex...and his drinking.
Jessie, without realizing it, simply stopped caring. She couldn't escape...too many lives would be affected. She let her looks, her body and her health go because she couldn't pull a trigger.
Now she's torn...hating her body, her health and her looks, but knowing if they improve, then the frequency of sex will return...and sex in a marriage without romance and kissing is akin to prostitution...and Jessie is just too damned old and tired for that.
Somedays she doesn't think about it...and sometimes she's lucky when those days turn into months...But ever so often, she'll wake up with an intense clarity within her mind and the burdens weigh on her like a ton of bricks...And she wonders, will she ever be kissed again???

I am Blessed! February 16th, 2010

Been a while since I was here...
Kind of busy getting situated in my new home, new town and new school for Logan. I love the area, not so sure about the people. They are a peculiar bunch...a poorer type people than I've ever lived around, and very suspicious, as well. Not sure if I'll ever warm to them, or them me, but I really don't care one way or the other. I'm here because I want to be, and unlike most people here, I do own my home, free and clear. SO, regardless if I'm welcomed or not, this IS my home now.

Uncle RZ died last week, February 8th, and was buried February 12th.
Aunt Honey had a heart attack yesterday, February 15th, and is on a heart pump tonight as I write. Her situation is dire.
Daddy is declining, rapidly.
My baby son is in Iraq.
My eldest son has "divorced" me.
My daughter is shacked up with a loser.
My step-daughter is struggling to make her and her son a good life.
My husband is working out of town, 7 hours away.
...And yet, I am so incredibly thankful for all that God has so generously blessed me with! For the first time in my life, I am HAPPY and I feel FREE! I am finally where I belong..."among the wildflowers..." as Tom Petty sings...

Life is finally VERY good:)