The Good Story:  2018

DAY 6:

January 6, 2018

Well, maybe a weekly journal is a better idea.  Many good things happened this week!  I was able to spend time with friends – Cathey, Pearline, Christine, Valerie.  I heard from both of my daughters.  I FINALLY got to see Roger and Madden!  We so missed them on Christmas. 

 I realized something about myself today.  I love with food, and I now clearly understand why Nanny wanted me to take something home every single time I visited.  It wasn’t because she thought I was hungry or incapable of cooking for myself (although, I have NEVER learned how to fry okra and sure do miss it).  She loved with food.  I cooked a big meal for Roger – fried pork chops, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans with jowl, molasses candied carrots, and peach pie.  I was certain my boy had not had a good meal in months, but he looked pretty healthy.  I sent some groceries home with him, but he would not take home as much as I wanted him to.  He wanted me to know he is making it fine, and I am happy with that. 

Still, I wish he would take food home.  I remember when the girls used to head straight to the kitchen cabinets and call it grocery shopping.   Those days are gone, too.  My babies are all grown up, and they are doing just fine.  They don’t come home hungry anymore, but I am still going to do my best to love them with food. 

Happy New Year!    

My Mother's Scissors

 

My mother was a very talented lady. I don’t think I understood that when I was a child. She did not work outside the home until after I was grown. Children do not recognize domestic engineering as a job because it is simply the result of love, right? How can expressing love in cleaning, cooking, reading, teaching, sharing, gardening, sewing, and laughing be work? Children just don’t understand. Sometimes adults don’t either.


Mama made a lot of my clothes. She could sew AND knit! I remember a few items more than others. Remember koolocs? I couldn’t wait for Mama to finish an orange pair she made just for her little girl. Oh! I had the most lovely poncho. I loved that poncho as a girl and would love to have one like it now.


In the last few years, I have worked at picking up sewing. WORKED at it! Sewing is not easy! I bet I spend just as many hours ripping out as I do stitching up! Mama made it look so easy. I’ve seen Mama lay out newspaper on the floor and make a pattern. Seriously! I can barely get a printed pattern out of the package without a mishap. Every item I have sewn has little mistakes. I can tuck most of them in and hide them from the world, but some of them show. I guess that is fitting because I do the same with my personal blemishes. My sewing never looks professional like Mama’s did, but I enjoy it just the same. Well . . . . when I am not ripping out, pricking my fingers with a pin or needle, and cursing like a Sailor I enjoy it!

Mother’s Toolbox

 Wooden Spools  

  

Yellow Measuring Tape

 

Silver Scissors  

   

Sewing Box   

Thimble   

Seam Ripper  

   

Unconditional Love    

Last week I had a conversation with a friend about her mother’s scissors. She was purging and found that she just could not bring herself to let go of her mother’s scissors. Even for someone who doesn’t sew, a Mother’s sewing tools are too intimate to part with.

I don’t know what went with my mother’s scissors. I don’t remember seeing them after she moved back to Colorado. I have a lot of Mama’s things, but not her scissors. I guess it is just as well because I also don’t have her talent. I hope one of my children will treasure my own scissors someday as much as I treasure the memory of my mother’s scissors.

Phoenix Rodeo

I had a date with my son last weekend. My “Baby” and I went to Brooks and Dunn’s concert in Little Rock – The Last Rodeo. Brooks and Dunn hit the top of the charts when Roger really was little more than a baby. He was only 5 years old when “Brand New Man” and “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” hit #1. I wanted to go to a Brooks and Dunn concert way back then, but I was busy raising a family. I had two opportunities over the years to see the dynamic duo, but life got in the way. Fast forward to 2010. My “Baby” is 24, and Brooks and Dunn are riding in their last rodeo.

 

Raising children is a bit like a rodeo. You feed them and pet them when they are little. When they become teenagers, they are like broncs and bulls that are constantly bucking against you, if not bucking you completely off, as they struggle to find their own way in the world. Sometimes adolescents see their parents as a rider with spurs who is trying to tame the spirit right out of them. I suppose, in some ways, we are. I never wanted my children to lose their spirit, but I would have tamed them if I could. They grow up and mellow out. When they do, it is time for them to go to pasture and live a rich and full life. One at a time, the children leave the rodeo. The truth is that Roger reached that pasture stage some time ago, but we never have really recognized it.

On the way to the concert, Roger commented, “I can’t believe you are letting me drive your truck!” He made a valid point there. I know he drives big trucks sometimes – in some scary situations that I do not want to know about. I know he has driven in the city. Still, I am not comfortable in an automobile to begin with. If I HAVE to be in one, I prefer to be the driver, and my optimum speed is 45-50 miles per hour.

Roger was driving on the interstate and in some pretty bad traffic when he made that statement. It is really an innocent enough statement, but it is the one that made me realize that my Baby is now a MAN. Of course, he has been for a while now. After all, he is a mighty fine father in his own right. My mind knew he was all grown up, but in my heart, Roger was still a baby. He has seen his last rodeo as a buck and will be at pasture until he gets to ride the ride with his own children.

The Last Rodeo concert was awesome and well worth the 19 year wait. Miranda Lambert opened with an energizing show. Of course, she made me cry when she sang “The House That Built Me.” That song speaks to

 my soul, but that is another blog for another day. Miranda’s music invokes a full range of emotions from sweet to sad and struggle to strong. Isn’t that exactly what Brooks & Dunn’s music represents? She was the perfect opening act.

I expected Brooks and Dunn to begin with their earliest hits and bring us up to the latest. I told Roger that their last song would be one of my favorites, “You’re Gonna Miss Me.”  I was surprised when that was one of the first songs they sang. I revised my prediction to their last song would be “Brand New Man” because it seemed like they were going in reverse. I wasn’t quite right about that one either. That was the first encore. A lot of songs made me laugh, smile, and cry along the way. “Believe” and “Red Dirt Road” remind me of who I am and what is important, and they make me cry. “Play Something Country” makes me want to howl and stomp around. “Husbands and Wives,” “Brand New Man,” and “My Maria” bring back fond memories for a variety of reasons.

Oh yeah, and in addition to the music, Kix Brooks is the hottest thang since melted butter!

The end of the night was bittersweet, as they ended the night with “Boot Scootin Boogie.” Roger did not get it because it is just a song. He was 5 when that song exploded in country music. He did not know that it was more than a song. It was iconic. It became a dance. People sang it all the time. The personal ads in the newspapers was full of folks wanting to learn how to boot scoot and others giving boot scootin lessons. People started buying boots and wearing them to the clubs. For my generation, “Boot Scootin Boogie” was a rodeo in itself, but it had been to pasture for a long time when Roger began to enjoy music. For Roger, it is just a song.

The Last Rodeo ended with a bittersweet note. I did not mind getting bucked this time.  It was a great ride.

And the rodeo is reborn in this little bronco . . .

Waiting to Sprout

When Mama died, someone gave me a poem that I carried with me for a long time. I am ashamed to say that I cannot remember her name. I see her face. But I don’t remember names. She might even be on one of my teams.

I lost that poem a few years ago, and I have searched everywhere for a copy of it. That is difficult because I do not know the name. The basic concept will live with me forever. The poem compares the mother to the redwood tree. The seeds of the daughter trees live in the roots of the mother tree, and the mother must die for the daughters to live. The comparison suggests that we can never become women in our own right until we have lost the women who gave birth to us.


I am still waiting to sprout.

My Sprouts