Annie Oakley in the Spring

We have two gorgeous trees in our front yard, sentinels standing guard over the old, crusty wrought iron fence. They throw buckets of leaves over the lawn all fall, but still hang on to a lot of them, all curled and brown, until the new leaves push them off in March. I always anticipate seeing the fresh green fronds unfurling, the morning dew making them look like mint candies at a baby shower. No matter where life takes us, our front porch is always a place that brings me a feeling of hope. Out there, you can't keep your face in your phone. Out there, you can breathe and stop the world for a minute. I think about how many souls must have relaxed and taken a siesta over the last 117 years on this very spot. 

Once again, the earth has turned and spring is here. We've got less than a month until Easter and the trees are cranking out the pollen. Seems like I just hauled all my porch cushions to the laundromat out in Temple and now it's time to do it again. They have gargantuan machines that will hold even my sofa-sized cushions. It's way off the beaten path, with no other businesses in sight and nobody manning the place. Last time I went, a sketchy, burly man was the only person present. He told me that I needed to be careful because he had gotten robbed there before. I didn't know him and hoped he wasn't warning me with a Freudian slip. I slyly slithered into the bathroom and strapped on my Smith and Wesson. Sometimes I keep it in my purse and sometimes I keep it in my bra. That's more information than you need, but my Daddy didn't raise no fool. In real estate, I go into way too many vacant homes and meet up with way too many strangers to get caught being naive while I hang out my laundry.

There are too many projects to work on. The pond pump acted up again, so we need to clear all the leaves off and do some investigating. I've got a couple of goldfish that mercifully keep living through seasonal disasters. I'd like to give them a nicer place to swim. The frogs are back, croaking and splashing every time we walk by. Sometime I want to sandblast that wrought iron and give it a fresh coat of paint. I forgot to prune the fig tree this year, so now it's going to be as big as the house. Ken's building a path from the driveway to the front door. It's time for ferns and annuals. I guess I'll wait until the pollen slows down to get those cushions washed again and squirt off the porch furniture. I'll think about it tomorrow. And maybe I'll go do some target practice. 

It's the Simple Things

I'm thinking about cornbread right now. In fact, I'm kind of obsessing about it. The best kind is moist in the middle and crunchy on the outside. Where you get the oven super hot, pour in the oil and then almost fry that stuff. My Mama made it really thick and Yankee-like, but it was still pretty good and she didn't put sugar in it like some Yankees do. I always put a lot of bean juice on hers, to soften it up. I remember the first time I ate collards. I didn't want to. Those things stank up the kitchen something terrible. Daddy told me "Take a bite of collards, then a bite of that buttered cornbread. Let it marinate together in your mouth." Earthy, warm, rich, the salty butter mixed with the bread and greens. There is nothing quite like it. I still do not understand when I go to a restaurant and they give you this little tiny bowl of collards. They are the cheapest thing you can make, but they parcel those out like an old stingy miser. I was raised eating half a plate full, then a couple chunks of cornbread and some black-eyed peas to go with it. It's the thriftiest way to eat and also the best. (And after you're done with supper, crumble up another piece into a bowl, throw some salt and hot milk or buttermilk on it and try not to explode into next week).

Back when I was painting murals for rich folks, I did a number of jobs for a dear lady in Buckhead. She and her husband were loaded, but had the most fun, hospitable home. Every time I worked there, which was many times, she insisted that I eat with them. There was no caviar, no filet mignon. It was pure country cooking, with beans and greens. And the best cornbread I ever put in my mouth. She'd pull out this fancy grain mill that sounded like an airplane taking off. Then she'd haul out a sack of corn, apparently straight from the feed store. After whirling it through that contraption and heating up her oven way high, she liberally poured oil in her cast iron skillet and stuck it back in there to heat up. After mixing up her special ingredients, the concoction was carefully poured into the skillet, rather thinly. You could hear it frying across the room. In short order, she'd pull it out of the oven and call us to come eat. They were lean, healthy people, but they slathered real butter all over their food. I learned that she always made the cornbread, no matter what else she made. Her husband told me he couldn't wait to get home every night, just so he could get another helping of that delicious stuff. I think he still had a crush on her, after all those years. How could he not?

One day, a couple of years ago, I had had a grueling day trying to get a house to closing. I met up with the husband at Uncorked in Villa Rica. We decided we were just going to have appetizers and something to drink, rather than a full meal. Someone mentioned the cornbread, so we ordered it. My expectations were low. I was hungry but didn't want to commit to four courses. It took awhile, but it finally arrived, steaming and looking well-done. I was worried it might be dry, like my Mama's. But when I bit into it, it was another one of those culinary wishes come true. Crunchy on the outside, moist on the inside. There were bits of bacon baked into it. They recommended butter and some fancy jelly on it. I thought that was strange, until I tasted it. No wonder I'm fat.

I'm on a strange diet now. They say it's supposed to fix my gut biome, whatever that is. I'm drinking bone broth, taking supplements and making fresh juice every day. I couldn't bear one more bowl of broth tonight, so I just drank green stuff and started dreaming of cornbread, collards and beans (don't forget the butter). Maybe if I'd have just stuck with that all these years, I'd still be lean and my guts wouldn't be giving me fits. Country roads, take me home...

But Santa, I Want It...

There's a stack of furniture piled up in the Grandchildren's nursery area of our house. In a past life, I was a decorative painter and somehow people are still finding me. I managed to recently paint, distress and send a big table and a truckload of chairs back to their home, allowing us to move through the room a little better. But there's the next project staring me in the face every time I'm coming or going. It's a crazily-painted set of bedroom furniture, all wacky with red checkerboard print and faux-marbled tops. I didn't sign up for this. Now I've got to sand all that mess off there and then restore it to calm with hand-mixed chalk paint and polyurethane. A wise soul told me I needed to get stuff in writing from people,  to outline what it is I'm "signing up" for. You'd think I would have learned that, since I've been doing these kinds of enterprises since, well, forever. Alas, as my husband likes to quote, "It is what it is." I hate it when he says that.

Just once, I'd like to get all the layers off for a minute or two. Layers of promised jobs, projects, paint requests, postponed contacts, and appointments that never got a firm commitment date. All these hang around like ethereal weights with no real deadline, slowing pressing down on me during my dreams until I can't breathe. But I do it to myself, I know. I say "yes" or "yes, later" when I should just say no. Just an example -- tonight, as I was breezing through Facebook Marketplace (don't do it, it's addictive), hating on some of the overpriced, used, yard sale items, but then finding stuff that I must have...I stumbled upon a friend's post about a gorgeous, 9-foot high fake Ficus tree that needs to be in my living room yesterday. I mean, really, how many trees would work in this house, with my 12-foot ceilings and massive windows? And there's a corner that is just begging for it. I used to have real Ficus trees that were also amazing but shed leaves everywhere. This one looks real and won't slough all over my floor. As I began to manipulate my tomorrow around in my mind, so that I could drive an hour to go look at this thing, I also remembered that it might not fit into my SUV. And even though my one "appointment" got cancelled for tomorrow, I have a huge list of things to do. Still trying to justify my taking up most of Monday to go buy something (when I just promised myself I'd stop buying things), I remembered the furniture piled up in my house. Tomorrow's the only day there's no rain forecast this week, and sanding that blasted stuff has to be done outside. Round and round we go. Where it stops, nobody knows.

So the buck stops here. Literally. The bucks are not going out the door. I'm going to do my list tomorrow so that I can make some bucks. I'm messaging her now, since she's probably asleep and can't answer back. Everybody (except her) is a winner and my conscience can rest easy. So if I get the furniture done and get paid, and nobody else buys it, can I still get the Ficus? Jesus take the wheel...

Dr Denmark Said It!

I was scared out of my wits. I had just delivered a ten and a half pound man-child who seemed to never stop screaming. Even though I loved children, I felt completely unprepared for the massive responsibility that was my own baby. I so wanted to be a good mother, to do it perfectly. I loved him instantly, the depths were astonishing to me upon arrival. I had a dream the first night that somebody mixed him up with another child in the nursery...but in my dream I recognized him already, as well as his lusty rebel yell. To this day, I've never heard a child that could holler like that boy did. Earth-shattering, piercing, loud as a siren. 

The first day home, my Mama volunteered to stay with us. We thought we could handle it, so we turned her down. The next day, Papa Bear discreetly called and asked her to come on over. There isn't a whole lot that a Grandma can do for a nursing baby except change and rock him a little, but she sure can do a lot for her daughter. We cried together when he just couldn't be soothed. When the sun came up, we headed out for his first doctor visit. That was the day that I finally met The Legend.

She was tiny, with wispy white hair pinned up in a bun. Her wizened face and stooped shoulders belied all the knowledge and wisdom residing in that one miniature body. She was the third woman to graduate with a medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia. She was candid, but kind. Intimidating but quiet. A force of nature. When she spoke, we  listened. She had almost a cult following of young mothers, women who wanted answers to their persistent questions about how to care for and raise their children. Her name was Dr. Leila Denmark. She practiced until she was 103 years old, and died at the remarkable age of 114 (and 60 days). 

The day I met her, she handed me a little slip of paper with instructions on it for a newborn. She looked him over and told me he was going to be six-foot-six (he is). Her old-fashioned methods might have seemed quaint and outdated to some, but I followed her directions as closely as I could. Our four children grew strong, healthy and smart under her wise advice. Hers was not just a rote path, but an inspired philosophy that viewed children as a gift from God and motherhood the highest calling in the world. She often used that old quote: "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world." I always went away from her office feeling emboldened about the importance of my job, and secure in the methods that she gave me to help make our home more ordered in the midst of the chaos. She was a tough cookie, but she made me feel like a million bucks when she bragged on our bouncing, healthy babies. Her book, Every Child Should Have A Chance, is almost impossible to obtain. It has a few antiquated ways of saying things, but the inspiration and intelligence in that book is worth more than gold. 

We went to Dr. Denmark for years until she moved further out, to Alpharetta. I went to another pediatrician but would see her when I needed a second opinion. She was always uncannily correct in her advice. She was so old, so wise, so smart -- she had seen everything at that point. It was very dumb to ignore what she had to say. Once, I neglected her advice about a procedure for our daughter, and it could have cost her her life. I was never cavalier again about the things that she told me. There's a book out now that is written by another mother who went to Dr. D for many years (and many children)...named Dr Denmark Said It. And that's how it was. If Dr. Denmark said it, you had better do it. She hated pacifiers, not for the reasons you might think. She said that we shouldn't pacify our babies but should nurture them carefully into facing the world. One time she said (to a mother who didn't get the paci-memo), "Now you need to take that pacifier out of that baby's mouth. If you keep pacifying her, when she's 16 and her boyfriend breaks up with her, she's going to jump off the Candler building." We still howl at that. Besides the "controversial" philosophy of the pacifier, it was humorous that the highest building in Dr. D's mind was the relatively short, 17-floor Candler building. But she was around when it was built, so there. 

All these years later (34 to be exact), I think that the things she taught me and us were priceless. She preached nutrition, exercise, fresh air, healthy living and showed me exactly how to administer that to my children. But the most important thing I learned was that I had been given a sacred trust with them. She highly valued God and human life. One day she said to me, "Even if I had to live in a gutter, what a glorious thing it would be to open my eyes and see that beautiful sky. There's so much to be thankful for." She helped thousands of babies and families over all those years, saving many lives with her care. I'm eternally grateful that I got to sit at her feet for a spell.