Party in the Garden

I can't help but romanticize my childhood. Back then, when school was out for ages and ages. Memorial Day was the first hoopla then after Labor Day we were gettin' back to it. The goody in between was lazy like syrup. Fireflies, dusky evenings, Sunday night church. Hand-cranked peach ice cream, Mama putting up dill pickles and tomatoes from the garden. Daddy sweating up a storm with us alternately playing and helping him in the yard. 

July in the South is when the Devil comes down to Georgia. We have air conditioning in the house, the car, the store, heck even Six Flags has it outside while you're waiting in line for the roller coasters. But if you wait until the sun is tipping back over the trees, there comes a sweetness in the balmy breeze. Makes me remember what it was like to do cartwheels. 

We're going to have a shindig here in Villa Rica, come July 20th from 6:00 to 8:00 (in the evening, don't be waking me up). Rain date is July 27. It's being called the "Art in the Garden" Tour. You can find the link on Facebook under the Villa Rica Arts Coalition page. The tour begins at 7i1 Magnolia Street. Tickets before July 4 are only $5. After July 4, they are only $10! They can be purchased online or at the beginning of the tour (at 711 Magnolia Street, got it!) It includes the gardens of four homes and a complete tour of one of the houses, as well as a live studio tour. This is a walking tour, but all four gardens are in very close proximity to one another. There will be artists painting at each home, musicians playing, and plenty of beverages to keep you hydrated along the way. Some of the art will be available for purchase, so bring your gift list and your wallet. This will be a very special night. Bring your beau, your Mama, your sisters and even your brothers. There's plenty of good food in downtown Villa Rica, so make a night of it. Parking is being graciously provided by Happy Valley Church.

I'm ready to string up some party lights and bring out my guitar. Ya'll come on out, ya hear?!

Campfires of the Soul

Why is it that sometimes a place, a time, an event, will hang out in your mind? It might have even been just a small thing, but you'd like to go back there, to make it stand still for just a little while. Such was my daughter's 28th birthday, just a few weeks ago. My friend Stacie helped it happen. 

Stacie and I have an old history. We met long ago, at church. She and her husband were beautiful people with four adorable children (at the time). They were stunning, but they fortunately were also real, old souls. Sometimes beauty brings snobbery with it. I can put up with crusty, grumpy, ugly, but I can't abide somebody putting on airs. We became fast friends-- Jon with his funny stories, Stacie with her wild child heart. Our daughter, Elizabeth, found instant friends with their two girls who were smart and hilarious.  Our boys helped Jon over a summer or two with a huge addition to their old farmhouse. They added a couple more babies to their lives and one of our sons took up with one of their girls. We thought they'd get married, but God and time proved that they weren't made for each other. The awkwardness of the breakup took years to adjust to. Maybe you never really get over those things, but the love of Christ runs deeper than you know. The fabric of our lives is knitted deep and can't be broken.

We girls (friends and family) were going to go to downtown Atlanta and hang out, but Stacie had another of her great ideas. Instead, I rented a campsite at Lake Allatoona, a great big one right on the water. The girls met us there and we strung up lights and covertly changed into our bathing suits in our cars. I gingerly picked through the boulders to slip into the deliciously cool water. As gravity shed off of me and the clean lake enveloped any embarrassing flesh, I breathed deeply for the first time in weeks. There we were, our old friends who had been through much together, a virtual flotilla of estrogen and complicated womanhood. We laughed and talked until our fingers got pruney and the sun started down, chilling the water. We made a fire, cooked hotdogs and made s'mores, then sat around and roasted Liz. She made it through, peppered with questions and made to tell us of her dreams and aspirations. When the fire got low, we cleaned up and went home, satisfied and thankful. It wasn't even my birthday, but I feel renewed for another year. 

Hug Your Daddy

I wasn't prepared for Father's Day this year. The week before, my brain flickered for just a moment: "What am I getting the Dads this year for Father's Day?" Then came the floodgates of emotion, waves of the reality that there's a hole in the universe where he left us. We will see him again, but in the meantime it's hard to believe he's gone. 

I have the best men in my life, men who are hard-working, self-sacrificing, masculine and kind at the same time. I've also known some creeps, but thankfully didn't have to abide them. Almost married one, until I woke up from my college sleep-deprived stupor. I thank God for my husband. He's a bear and a sweetheart at the same time. Sometimes I want to kill him but then he's perfect. I can't explain it. We birthed and raised three man-children and a daughter. The boys have become wonderful fathers and the daughter won't marry until she's sure a dude will pass the same muster. It's apparently a problem.

I was touched Sunday at church as I looked around, weepy. There's nothing like tragedy to open your eyes to the others around you. You see, for the first time, hearts that bear scars similar to yours. How did I not see this before? There is an empathy that crosses the room to those that also know that pain. We cry together. We remember together. It is a comfort, just knowing that you're not alone. We laugh, when we remember silliness. We muse at forever, wondering if our Dads know each other now. I think about Moses, Jesus, Zaccheus, Uncle Buddy and Daddy all there together. We really have no idea what it's actually like. God doesn't do anything the way we think He's supposed to do it. He defies imagination and our boxes. I really love Him for that.

Before Daddy departed, I was afraid of a lot of things. Death. Pain. The uncertainty of the future. It's changed me, his going. I care a whole lot less about peoples' opinions of me. I laugh more at minutiae, at things that don't matter. I'm less intimidated by silly, self-important people (bless their hearts). When it's time to rest, I find it easier to shelf my work. I look deeper into my grandbabies' eyes. Life is short. Eat it up.

Steam and Sweet Sassafras

I don't know where along the way I thought that a good marriage meant that you never fight, but I sure enough started out that way. Ken and I had been great friends when the sparks ignited and we might as well have eloped, our engagement was so short. But I wanted a pretty church wedding and all that. We took to married life with great gusto, young and full of promise. Our little rented house in Mableton was like a dollhouse, filled with the sweet things our loved ones had given us to get started. It was a whirlwind of fun and work. We were kind of stupid in our assumptions, idealistic and naive. We jumped headlong into the pool of life and it was truly our dream come true. 

Somehow we went for about two years without having any significant conflicts. Maybe it's because we never really dated before we got hitched -- we were good friends first and just didn't go through that phase. But Ken was a perfectionist and I was an artiste. Eventually something had to blow. After many years of marriage I figured out this fact: whatever your Mama did, that's what you thought you were supposed to do. My Mama kept a spotless house, but Ken's Mama was the best cook in three counties. I didn't know how to boil water, but I could scrub a bathtub into submission. Fun fact: Ken didn't care about the tub, but he sure missed his Mama's biscuits. None of this mattered at first. We were both learning how to be adults. I was slaving at that stove every night after work and Ken was trimming the yard to perfection. He was bossy and I was smiley. Until....

The Day It All Went South.
We decided to play tennis one morning. It was bright and sunny, cool and perfect. We donned our togs and headed to the park. The tennis balls pinged back and forth. We were both athletes. I had played tennis in college (I was not college material, but it was a very small school) and he had picked it up along the way. I was no expert, but neither was he. That day, he decided that I needed coaching. Before long, I began to chafe from all the "instruction" and began to send up warning signals to Ken that I was not keen on being handled by him. These signals went unheeded. As the game wore on, so did my patience. The tension built like so much steam in a kettle, until I exploded right there in front of God and all the other folks playing at the adjoining courts. Ken had never encountered this side of me, so he was incredulous at my audacity. Suffice it to say, the argument culminated in my nice racket sailing across the net in his general direction. He has insane reflexes, so hitting him with it was never a concern of mine. But as it sailed by his head, I thought he might catch a few flies. His mouth was flapped open like a bass jumping out of the water. 

Since that time, we've had our share of heated arguments, ridiculous door slamming, stupid snippets of meanness and yes, one time I put my fist through a wall (I'm really sweet, it's just that 51% thing....don't push it). But I did repair it right away and we've never hit each other (well, except for the time he goosed me and I punched him in the shoulder and almost broke my hand, that). It's a grace thing. The making up has always been the best part. Thank God we had parents who modeled to us what it means to admit when we are wrong, to ask forgiveness, and how to give it. I don't think we would have made it otherwise. Ken thought he married a honey chile, when what he got was sassafras with a little sugar on top. I didn't mean to mislead him. He just didn't double-check. 

Now that we're in those middlin' years, the hardest thing is to not do ourselves in with desserts and fried chicken. We're creaking and whining about this and that ailment already. We still fuss too much and have to make up again. This week I've been confessing to the Lord and to Ken that I take him for granted way too often. I got a good one, one of the few. I know that, because he loves me anyway. 

Aunt Bling Bling

I'm staring at my twinkly, gorgeous bracelets here tonight. I shamelessly bought them a few years ago, overpriced, when my daughter-in-love flashed a picture of them to me. She knew I couldn't resist.

 I have a problem. I love jewelry. I justify this obsession with the fact that nothing I own is actually valuable, except my wedding ring. It started long ago, when I realized that less is definitely not more and that wearing only small pieces of jewelry was a perfect waste of a life. So I had a second perforation punched up past my regular hole and moved my little earrings up that away. That's nothing these days, with people putting orifices all up in their ears, noses, belly buttons and who knows where. But my sister thought I'd gone wild. She actually said that. I told her it was a good thing I was saved because who knows what else I'd do, given such crazy inclinations. I had entirely too many earrings to only wear one pair at a time.

My compulsion started with a small jewelry box, then spread to a drawer. Then four drawers. I finally caved and started hanging necklaces on a large shoe rack on my door. So I not only have a chest dedicated to this, I have a closet. Anyone who loves me knows what I really want. And you better go big or go home. Any trip that I take with my husband requires at least one shopping jaunt. If the jewelry selection is sub-par, you can forget a return trip. St. Simons Island is the bomb. They have silver by the bucketload there.

My maternal grandmother had this disease too. She used to let me sift through her costume jewelry and try everything on. She had a huge double chest of drawers solely dedicated to it. Then a walk-in closet for her shoes and another for her formals. That was just the guest room. We were not allowed into the inner sanctum of the master bedroom. There's no telling what magic was in there. I can still smell her Tigress perfume and see her green cat eyes with the brown specks in them. She loved Hawaii. One time, I asked her, "Hasn't Hawaii become really commercialized now, though?" She said, "Yes! That's why I love it!" She'd go, and come back toting another trunkload of jewelry. She was otherworldly to me and I miss her a sight.

Now I have four granddaughters of my own. Sometimes they ask to put on a necklace or put my silly eyeglasses on. My 28-year-old daughter and I share different pieces. When my sister has a special event, I drag her to the mall and we pick out a dress and matching jewelry. I actually avoid Merle Norman because there's a siren named Brighton in there that hypnotizes and robs me blind every time. All the accouterments are superfluous -- the makeup, jewelry, hair, pretty clothes -- they are decorations that are not even skin deep. What's inside and in the heart are what really matter. But like Dolly Parton says, "Any old barn can use a new coat of paint." And girl, it's just plain fun to be a woman.