Blackwater Tales

The Longest Month

2012-01-24T15:03:00.000-05:00

today I'd like to share something I wrote for the newsletter where I work, for my column: Through the Window

It’s February, arguably the longest month of the year.

Oh, I know it’s supposed to be the shortest. But has it ever felt like the shortest? With gloomy weather, the middle of tax season, the second month of a new school semester (in most cases), and all the questions a holiday for people in love can raise, I maintain that this is a very long month.

And somehow, tradition has determined that we begin this month with Groundhog’s Day, a day on which it seems the entire country gathers round the burrow hole of this critter awaiting its prognostication about how long it will be before Spring arrives.

The pressure!

What’s a rodent to think? I’m sure he’d rather be sleeping in his snug bed rather than hauling himself out to listen to human’s clamoring for sage advice on whether or not Spring will arrive early or take another 6 weeks. I know I would. And if he is very rotund, which I’m sure he’d like to be after all that eating he did last fall, I imagine — oh I know — it’s not going to be easy to peer around himself and find that shadow.

Another thing. The question seems to be ‘early’ or ‘another 6 weeks’. Well, I grew up in the Northeast. Six weeks from February 2nd is mid-March. That is an early spring!

So, why do we stand around, watching a hole in the ground for a sleepy furry brown critter to waddle out, turn around a few times, and waddle back to bed?

Well, obviously we like tradition, especially quirky little ones like Groundhog’s Day. They’re fun. And, there’s a certain amount of making use of what could be called Nature’s tool for predicting. I think it’s also a desire to know. What is coming? How do we handle it? What’s happening? We want to be prepared, so we look for answers.

Sometimes that means watching to see the reactions of an animal to its habitat and trying to interpret what they mean. Sometimes it means time spent in school, studying the teachings of others. Sometimes it means looking to another source for knowledge, and celebrating with snow angels.

At Year's End

2012-01-10T20:50:00.001-05:00

I've been waiting over a year to write this post.

Elsewhere I have mentioned that as our oldest son completedcollege in 2010, he was caught up in the job market vagaries like many of hisco-graduates. Ultimately he came to stay with us and work on building hisfuture.

During the interval between then and now, he has renewed hisBasic EMT certification, receiving it at the National level, acquired hisIntermediate EMT certification, and is currently working on his Paramedic cert.He has put in many, many, many hours as a volunteer at a local fire station,and this Christmas he was recognized for, among other things, his Fireman I andII certifications.

He also got a job, working for an ambulance service in thenext county. He now divides his time between clinical runs with our countyambulance for his paramedic training, his volunteer firefighting (where heoften acts as an EMT), his classes, and his job with the ambulance service.Occasionally he is home.

His latest event was a training weekend during which he gotto rappel down an 80' tower.

We are immensely proud of him, not only for theseachievements but for what they mean in terms of his hard work and perseverance in the face of personaldifficulty. It is no easy thing to go live with your parents when you believeyou ought to be out on your own conquering the world. However, it was thatrappel down the tower that brought home to me what he's doing.

Like every other firefighter, EMT, police officer, andmilitary service person, he has prepared himself to put everything, even hislife, on the line to provide protection and care for others.

Online news photo from the Fayetteville Observer of our son's crew working an accident. He is wearing his fire helmet, squatting beside the driver's side door (profile).

Facing up to his choice of a profession has not been easyfor me. No parent wants to court the possibility of losing a child, whateverthe age. I could never contemplate such a career for myself. I might die forsomeone, but I wouldn't volunteer for the circumstances that create the risk.He does.

Some people in service never fully realize the risk. Theysuspend their recognition of their own mortality completely. Others acknowledgethe possibility, even the probability, that it could happen. They'll say the oddsare against it actually happening, but they will also look you straight in theeye and tell you the risk is worth it. To them, it is the right, even the only the thingto do.

Watching our son train and hearing his philosophy andfeeling his desire to be part of this extraordinary community of responders didsomething to me. I began to understand as I never could before how families ofthese people do it. There is something tremendously awesome about a responder'sdedication. It creates a hallowed ground you have to respect. I may wish andpray for our son's safety, but it would be disrespectful -- and wrong -- to ask him to takeanother path. We can only be proud of him for this, and humbled by his choice. Way to go, son.

Here I Go Again!

2011-10-18T22:43:00.000-04:00

So, I'm submitting myself and my family to this nonsense yet again. It is almost NaNoWriMo time! That time of year when words become electrons and invade my computer by the thousands -- 50,000 at the least --as I race --along with scads and scads of others (no, I don't know the exact numbers, you'll have to visit NaNoWriMo to find out) to complete a novel, or at least 50,000 words of one. I've had success for 2 years running, so far, and both novels turned out okay. I'm revising both of them with an eye toward publication.

Of course, that means weird(er) hours and more staring at my computer and strange mumblings coming from my mouth as I grouse about the nonexistence of ideas, the cold of the fan, the discomfort of my chair, the cats, the dogs, and the idiot whose idea this was anyway. Yeah, that -- as my long-suffering husband gently reminds me -- would be me.

Me, just another NaNoWriMo participant once again. Let the madness begin!

Findng Me

2011-10-02T21:11:00.000-04:00

Lately it seems I've been delving a lot into the past. In a good way.

I've been getting back in touch with people from various stages of my life. Family, friends from Nashville, childhood friends, online friends, friends of our kids' (that's always fun). Interestingly enough, there seems to be some similarity between what I'm learning from the interaction with my own childhood friends and our kids' friends.

Getting over the move from Nashville and building new lives for ourselves here in Fayetteville has been a difficult process for me. Even though I've lived in 5 states and moved around a lot for 11 years, we lived in Nashville for 24. It was the longest I lived in any one place. 5 of our 6 kids were born there; they all consider themselves Tennesseans. I was involved with their schools; I wrote for a community newspaper as well as freelancing for magazines; I invested a lot of time working with the dance studio we attended; and I was active in the church. I even had a small reputation because of some of my affiliations. Just enough of one to make me feel good. Moving to Fayetteville, frankly, took all that away.

Now, I'm not pitying myself, or even complaining. That's just what happened. And it was up to me to build something for myself here. However, it has been tricky. Kids had to be established first. And then I had to find work, steady, part time work to fit our needs. That meant re-learning how to job hunt, and then learning the new job. Meantime, hubby had to work out a new post for himself, and the kids were moving onward in school to college. Now there is less than a year til our youngest starts heads off, too.

During the four years here I started this blog and numerous other writing projects. And there have been health and family issues to deal with . Obviously I've not been lacking for things to keep busy with. Yet -- and here I have to put in that some things may have been due to unknown health issues affecting me -- I've had trouble lntegrating my new life with my old. And it was bringing me down.

While I am the same person, I'm not living the same life I did for so long. And, honestly, for the most part, I loved my life in Nashville. Not that there weren't problems; there always were. But I knew how to cope with them, and when problems were absent, things were great. Here if Fayetteville, life is just -- different. Let me be clear that the people here are wonderful. My issues do not have to do with them. No, it's more like I'm not completely sure what my life is supposed to be here or how it relates to my lives elsewhere -- in Nashville, in Syracuse, in Vermont or Maryland (including D.C.) or in Castleton.

If there is a thread that runs through the fabric of a person's life from start to finish, tracing their initials and plotting their journey onto the surface for all to see, I had lost that thread. I could not relate how I am now with how or what or who I was before. There seemed to be nothing to tie it all together.

Somehow, recent contact with old classmates, and hearing from friends of our children that we knew in Nashville, as well as talking with my far away relatives, has somehow combined to re-integrate me with myself. I am feeling, and acting, a whole lot more like 'me'.

I don't have all the answers -- kind of hope I never do, because then I will become obnoxious and boring and will stop seeking to conquer new horizons -- but I'm beginning to feel like one person with a continuous story again. Whatever fraying was taking place has been repaired by being reminded of who and where I once was. I can see my journey again, and so I know that there is more road ahead, with scenery, and things to do, and more to write.

If there is a moral to this, I think it is to keep trying to sort things out, stay in touch with your various past lives, and with yourself. Like looking for a single thread in a piece of cloth, if you don't give up, you'll find it.

Some Random Thoughts...

2011-09-20T21:58:00.002-04:00

I've been wandering through the various blogs I follow, and I was intrigued by the variety of writers. Amongst the newest additions to my list is a blog from a schoolmate that I just discovered (see my previous post), the blog of my great-niece semestering in Italy (by the way, there's a lot of broad-spanned generations in my family, my twin girls are about the same age as this great-niece and her twin), the blog of a Southern sushi chef, the blog of writer E.J. Copperman, and a blog on literary agents. These have been added to a developing list of blogs that includes several authors and agents, more cooking blogs, blogs belonging to more relatives (okay, 4 of them are written by 3 of my kids and a niece) and several NPR-related blogs. I'm not trying to impress you, these are really what i follow. There's also a couple on gardening and DIY. Together, these pretty well embody my interests, professional and otherwise.

It's generally accepted as a given that someplace someone on the Internet tracks our purchases and our visits to web sites, and that from this information they build marketing profiles. And if they track my blog-visits, they probably pretty much have me figured out. But.... I love to skew things.

For instance, my browsing on eBay has led me to look at a lot of computer equipment. Have I ever mentioned that we've been into computers since 1985? Or that we have our own home network? And that we all have multiple devices? At one time I was planning on setting up a home computing museum based on our outdated equipment (hey, we started with Commodore 64!) but I've been voted down. So, we've recycled most of our stuff. Except for the units I've strategically hidden in the piles of boxes in the garage....shhh, don't tell.

Other items I've sought out on eBay include lots of the usual: books, records, dvds, plants, spices, and Christmas decorations. The less than usual include mortician's tools, space souvenirs, items to celebrate Day of the Dead, knives, Chein metal toys, and even cars (yep, bought a van on eBay once).

Then there's the subjects I've 'googled': Robin Sage, marijuana, classic boats, poisonous plants, cob buildings, underwater concrete, snakes, paranormal activity, and scads and scads of diseases. Every new one I add, my husband thinks the FBI is going to come knocking. So far we're good.

But I really don't know what those trackers must think of me. Grin.

So, do the blogs you follow represent who you are? If not, who --or what type of blog -- do you think you should add next?

And we begin again

2011-08-31T22:02:00.006-04:00

I looked with shock at my last post, as I realized it was from last spring.

Son noted in said post has just passed thru the living room saying he only reads my blog to see if he's mentioned. Guess what, Mack?

He is now a senior; our last offspring will be graduating this year and heading off to some unknown institution of advanced learning. The final 4 years of 6 kids educated thru college.

You know we just had our 26th first day of school? Scary.
***
I had an intriguing experience last night and this morning. I came across a blog written by a high school classmate of mine . Like most of us, he blogs about things he's interested in. One of them is history, including his personal history and the years spent growing up in our hometown. I scanned his blog, choosing to read a handful of entries he'd written, anything with the old town's name in it. I finally had to write him a note, praising one entry especially, the post he'd written about the sounds of the village. It evoked such a response, bringing me right back to the time we lived there and the people we knew. What got to me the most, and I should have told him, was that he wrote about the very sort of things I think about when I think of that time. From his perspective, of course, but the same people and places and events. Maybe it should be noted that our graduating class had only 86 students, and it was a centralized school district populated by farms and a village with one stoplight and 4 churches. Still, the feeling was a bit uncanny.

He replied to my comment, glad to have heard from me, but saying I was a real writer and he was not. I will tell him that to me a real writer is someone who writes from the heart. Now, a published writer is maybe something else again, but there are published writers I would say are not real writers. He is.

Besides being a humbling compliment, the whole thing has inspired me to return to my blogs. I need to be a real writer on-line again. So I will be back soon, with updates on Blackwater and our family, and life. It's going to be good.

Long time passing

2011-05-24T16:38:00.001-04:00

A long long time. No, not since I wrote. A long time I've been waiting for my son to get back from his trip to the zoo. A high school trip which has run late all day. Sigh.

New Technology

2011-03-28T21:41:00.001-04:00

Is absolutely amazing. Will have to blog more when I am more used to new phone.

A Isn't for Alligator....yet

2010-09-02T20:25:00.009-04:00

So, well, I said I was going to write about the alligator. And I will. Sometime. But right now I have other things to talk about.

Like, Alyeska. Alyeska is a mountain resort in Alaska that was established in the early 1960's in Girdwood, Alaska, about 35 miles southeast of Anchorage. The mountain itself is called Alyeska, which is actually an Aleut word meaning 'mainland', 'great country' or 'great land'. It is also the archaic name for Alaska.

And, it is the name of our new puppy, a 6-week-old blonde husky/shepherd/plus mix.

Isn't she adorable?

She is tiny now, and she will probably only grow to be a medium-sized dog. She is playful but very quiet as puppies go. Kacey discovered the online ad for her. When I called up about her, it turned out she was the last of 7 to go, and she was located in a housing area where the streets we drove on bore familiar names. We turned right on Tennessee, left on Nashville, and found her home at Cookville. Now, I'm always one for choosing animals based on 'signs', and these were very good ones indeed.

She spent the ride from there to the school to pick up Mack burrowing for shade in Michael's arms. She's been very brave about meeting her new alpha/mama, Anneke. And we think the two of them will get along fine. Right now they do pretty well, although Anneke can't follow this little critter closely enough. And, when they are outside, Anneke still has to go first.

Here's Anneke. She's a shepherd/collie/and maybe husky mix. And she 'talks' like a collie.

I was informed that Alyeska is my puppy. My husband told me that he felt a little left out of the whole process, so, even though he thought she was neat and he wasn't disappointed, for now Ally was going to be my dog. Well, that lasted for about a half an hour. He was the one taking her around the backyard and talking to her and rubbing her belly. Right now he's taking pictures for me to upload. (there will be more posted at facebook for anyone who is also my friend there)

Now, Michael is staying with us for a bit while he pulls his life together, earning some money, getting more experience in his chosen fields, buying a car. Oddly enough, while he has no desire to stay in Fayetteville -- it's not his hometown, after all, which is Nashville -- he is at least finding some solutions here. We're all agreed that he is basically sticking around long enough to take the best way out of here, but it is working better than he might have thought.

However, Alex was Michael's dog, and Alex is no longer here. So it's not too surprising that Michael spent a good amount of time today getting Alyeska and Anneke acquainted, and running Alyeska around the yard. Astute readers will notice from the pictures of Alex that Alyeska currently resembles him (as we say) only a lot. That may change as the husky markings come in darker, but for now the resemblance is soothing. And having something to care for and care about is important to Michael.

That's the story of our new family member. We'll update periodically. -- most current update: Alyeska is zonked out on our bedroom floor and Anneke is checking on her. Oh, and the cats don't much care, so long as they're fed.

Tag, You're It!

2010-09-02T19:30:00.003-04:00

Tags.

I was thinking about tags the other day as I was working at home.
Tags are very useful things.

HTML is what is called a ‘markup language’ used to create web pages on the Internet. It uses keywords inside angle brackets to describe web pages. These bracketed words normally come in pairs referred to as tags. The first is called the start or opening tag, and the second is called the end or closing tag. Between them is the code and text used to format the web pageÅfs appearance and content. There are tags to make print bold and tags to make italics. There are tags to place pictures on pages and tags to put in links. Tags are essential to building web pages, and therefore anything you see on the Internet, from profound literature to cluttering trash.

Lobster trap tags are plastic tags used in Maine to identify lobster traps the way hospital bracelets (another type of tag) identify patients. The information on these tags includes the fisherman’s license number and the zone in which the person works. They’re color-coded and marked with the year. Each fisherman pays for his or her tags (20¢ apiece in 2002, the date of the book I was reading), and they are limited in how many they can buy, a way of controlling how many traps they can set legally so that areas are not over-fished (over-lobstered?).

At St. Paul’s-in-the-Pines Episcopal Church, parishioners wear nametags on certain Sundays so that visitors will know who people are. This is, of course, one of the most common uses of tags, to identify something or someone.

Then there are dog tags _ for both humans and dogs. One identifies who and what one is, the other identifies to whom the other belongs. (Some people would claim dog tags for humans also identify to whom the wearer belongs.)

There are auto registration tags to identify registered cars. There are hunting tags, to identify registered hunters. There are tags in advertising, sometimes referred to as taglines, that are meant to help our brain register a product in memory, so that we will buy it when next we shop. “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.”

Price tags are used to show what something is worth – at least in terms of how much a person is expected to pay for it. Sometimes the original price is slashed and a new one written in, indicating the bargain you’re getting. That can be a reflection of an item losing its value, but sometimes it’s merely about what shopping traffic will bear.

Tagged as a verb can mean to be given a name or a nickname, like Shorty or Tank. Being tagged means being chosen for something, whether it is to belong to a group or to fulfill a task. Being tagged can also mean being caught and marked, so that one can be kept track of and studied, or so one can be ‘It’.

So, in life, we are tagged. Tagged with a name, tagged to belong, tagged to participate. These tags change as we journey. We lose some and acquire others as we age and travel and develop. And each tag we acquire has its own purpose.

It’s a good idea to examine a tag when it’s applied to us. What is its purpose? Is it to identify who we are, who we belong to, or what we are worth?

Take a look. What are your tags?

Just a Word...

2010-07-21T07:14:00.005-04:00

Just wanted to let you folks know that my professional web site and new writing blog "A Writer's Work is Never Done" are under RE-Construction. However, some changes to the blog are complete, in case you want to wander over there. I'm posting book reviews. Mostly right now they are older ones, but they still apply to the books in question. I'll be adding new ones, along with a caveat statement about not receiving anything for the review. *sigh* I'm getting very tired of people's suspicious and litigious natures.

It is very hot here at Blackwater. But I'm so excited. We've received the SUBAC cement we need to fix our dam and causeway. Gotta start pluggin' them thar holes, accordin' to the waterworks guy. We've got leaks that make our lagoon nearly empty out when they temporarily close the gates on the dam upstream.

This summer we've discovered we have freesia. It's all over the place, too, it just hasn't bloomed. We had one gorgeous stalk of flaming orange and red. I'll post a picture as soon as I get my hands on it. We have several bunnies, very BRAVE bunnies who like to tease our dog by springing off right in front of her nose.

We've lost Alex (see previous post); now we have also lost one of our kitties, Pearl. She's the second cat this year, too. We've always had animals, and we take the losses pretty hard. However, we had good years with all of them, and they knew they were loved.

It's only the middle of July, but a lot of pre-school year planning is afoot, especially for the college twins. They've been helping us clear things out here at Blackwater, inside and out. Sorting, weeding, re-arranging. I think they're going to miss the big work at the creek, though. It's too hot and too overgrown and too -- well, snakey -- to do the work right now. It will probably be done after they return to school. As for those snakes, sightings have numbered about 9, with one very dramatic one at a picnic in June. A black snake crossed the yard as we watched, disappearing into the terrace garden. We were only a few feet away, and he was stretched out as he crawled. We think he was about five feet long, which seems to be average for snakes around here.

Next time I'll tell you about the alligator.

A is for Alex

2010-06-15T15:05:00.009-04:00

Today’s post is going to be about Alex. I was going to write about the alligator, but that will wait – I’ll get to it,
but Alex takes precedence.

Yesterday, June 14, 2010, Alexander Graham Cookie Dog left us after 12 1/2 years of being our friend, jokester, protector, and sage. Noble was a word coined for him. He was witty and wise and caring. And humorous. It was he who taught US to let him outside by snatching up a shoe or stuffed animal and bringing it to the back door, big grin on his face.

He was patient, discerning what we meant when we said ‘back up’, and carefully, like a well-trained semi driver, extricating himself from close quarters whenever necessary.

He greeted visitors with enthusiasm and authority – sometimes a little more than they were prepared for.

He proved his superiority of speed by racing the cars that passed in front of our house, running parallel behind his fence, reaching the opposite end of our property ahead of the cars 90% of the time. He presented himself at the gate to greet us when he heard our cars drive up – recognizing the motors when we were still a block away.

Although he hated thunder and lightning, he never deserted our sides if we were watching a storm from the doorway. He was always, always near one of us in the house, often no more than a foot away.

At our new house, he taught himself to go down the stairs between the floors. I guess the enclosed stairwell and carpet made it easier, but he conquered the thing all on his own. And oh, he was proud! Equally proud of the last few walks he took around Blackwater. He ambled all around his usual trail, sniffing and eating grass, slurping from the bucket, sniffing the air to try and figure out which way one of the local rabbits had gone. He grinned at us as he climbed the hill and even the stairs. He had to have been in pain, but he was pleased with himself for having done it.

During the week of his final illness, he complained little, content to have us visit him and talk and rub his head, hand-feeding him ice and food. Michael, his boy, is still living away. His instructions were “Do what is best for Alex.” Only by keeping that as our guide did we have the courage to help Alex leave. He was an incredible dog.

I want to try to say something different about the value of animal companions. Not just the things that all animal people know and non-animal people don’t get. I want to help you understand what animal people mean when they say their pets love them and that pets are people too.

Can you grasp what it means to have a being care for you so much that they will not let go? Not just they won’t go into another room to get out of your way. Not just they won’t let you leave the house without plopping down mournfully in front of the door, or wiggling and jumping ecstatically beyond all reason when you return. And not only that they will lie down beside (or on top!) of you when you are sick in bed. No, I mean a being, a dog or a cat or even a parrot, so close to you that they cannot, they refuse to, let go and die.

Alex was the product of a chance encounter between two purebreds. His father was a golden retriever, his mother a white German shepherd. Both breeds known for loyalty, and also, unfortunately, hip dysplasia. The same genetic background that led to the condition that ended his life was also the same background that disposed him to love his family. And he did.

We had it on good authority that if we were not home, he didn’t care about protecting the house. He only protected it when we were in it. He would insinuate himself into the smallest of spaces to lay inches from our feet – resulting in more than a few trip-ups, after which he would gaze at us regretfully with those deep brown eyes. And when Michael left for college, while he never flagged in his love for the rest of us, he was a tad dimmer until Mike came home for break. Only Michael could tell you all the things Alex saw him through, or the confidences he held. I simply know that getting Alex for that 9-year-old son of ours was one of the best parenting decisions we ever made.

Alex loved us so much that in his pain, it was our visits more than the ice or food or care that gave him satisfaction and pleasure. He would turn his head – which was hard for him – just to see where we were. And, he wouldn’t let go. He could not bring himself to leave the family he loved. We had to make him go. It was, as Mike requested, the best thing for him.

Okay, I’ve not said anything animal lovers don’t already know. To those of you who profess not to understand why people want animals around or why we will go to the lengths we will to have them around, consider the depth of love it takes for anyone to accept any circumstance, any pain, any hardship, just to stay with the ones they love. That, my friends, is a love so pure that it is exemplified in only a few other instances in our lives.

We are privileged to have been so loved by Alexander. We are privileged to receive love from other animals we know or have known. These are remarkable creatures, protectors and purveyors of love and companionship, who only seek minimal return for what they give. If only we could tap into the vein of altruism that seems to flow so freely in them. If only all of us would seek, and find, its Source.

===

So, thank you, Alexander Graham Cookie Dog, for the lessons and the love.
RIP Big Dog. There's no one like you.

Proud to Be From Middle Tennessee

2010-05-20T21:11:00.012-04:00

It's a new day here at Blackwater.

Michael has now graduated from the University of Rochester. He had completed his freshman year there before we came to North Carolina. It was not an easy thing for him to spend his first summer home helping us get ready to leave. Nashville will always be the home of his heart, as it will for most of us.

Nashville finds a way to be home for many of the people who leave it. No matter how wonderful the place you go to, no matter how long you live there, a piece of you always belongs to Nashville.

This was made obvious to us as we watched on the first weekend in May as dozens of places we knew and loved were drenched, flooded, even washed away by 13 inches of rain that fell over two days onto a city that is built on rock coated with a couple feet of topsoil. While nowhere near the epic destruction that was Katrina, this flood is nevertheless the most monumental and overwhelming natural disaster that has ever struck Middle Tennessee. The area of damage is the size of the state of New Jersey. About 30 people lost their lives; a modest number compared to disasters like Haiti or Katrina. 30,000 kept their lives but lost much of their belongings, including their homes. Damage, private and municipal and corporate, is estimated at over 2 billion dollars in Nashville alone. Approximately 50 other counties were affected, some to a much greater extent than Nashville.

Our Nashville house was built on a hill, and apparently the new owners bought a generator (which could run the sump pump to keep the basement clear of ground water), as that was the only sound reported in the neighborhood Sunday morning. That section was without power for 14 hours. Some people in the city had none for days. The area just down the street and down the hill from our old house was blocked off due to flooding. The river is only a few blocks away. Luckily the horses were evacuated off the Tennessee Walking Horse farm that borders the neighborhood right next to the river.

Nashville is in a basin bubbled by hills, through which the Cumberland River snakes. The first two days the flooding was due to the continuous rain; the next day it was due to the river and its tributaries trying to carry away the run-off and groundwaters that had swelled their banks. Hills became islands, and the valleys became rivers, lakes, and ponds which you entered at your peril.

Downtown was flooded; Symphony Hall (yes, Music City caters to all kinds of tunes) had 11 feet of water in a 12 foot basement-the Concert Hall was barely spared; Sound Check, a company which stores musical equipment for many of country music's finest, had its storage facility flooded, and several musicians lost their equipment; Opryland Hotel flooded to ten feet, guests were displaced to a local high school and then other hotels. And then there were the neighborhoods, people's homes. Two feet of water, four feet, eight feet, twelve. One house, half submerged, caught fire, and the occupants were rescued by a neighbor on a jet ski.

A neighbor.

In the middle of dazing surrealty, neighbors, ordinary people, were helping neighbors. And friends. And strangers.

Our daughter and son-in-law still live in Nashville. They were fine. But for several hours they didn't hear from his brother. His family was okay, but cut off from everyone by flooded roads. No word from his brother, until much later, when he finally phoned in.

He and his townhouse neighbors had been busy taking down a fence so they could get their cars out to move to safety. In the process, he fried his iPhone. My son-in-law told me he hadn't been worried. His brother was like our Michael, always in the thick of things, helping out. He has returned to helping people, and our daughter and son-in-law have also spent much of their time helping with clean-up and aid.

Since that weekend,, the city has been awash, not with floodwaters, but with people setting things right, getting back to normal, assessing damage and making plans, and making appeals for money, because this task is too monumental for them to handle alone.

They've stepped up, not only to help themselves, but more often to help out someone else. Ordinary people as well as people we might think of as too much above the ordinary to care. The country music and entertainment industry as well as many local and national corporations that either call Nashville home or do business in Nashville have already raised over 3 million dollars to help those who need it. Over $3,000,000 in response to telethons and radiothons worked by people who live there and who care about the rest of the community. From musicians who must rebuild their own homes and studios to the kids who are going to a different school because they've been displaced from their home, everyone is helping everyone.

And that's Nashville. With all its flaws, and there are some big ones, Nashville is a community where people care about each other and do something about it. It is the biggest small town in the nation. When everything is on the line, Nashville does it right.

Two of our kids, including graduate Michael, once had the opportunity to write essays for a book, "Proud to be From Middle Tennessee". I am, we are, he is, and we always will be, proud to be from middle Tennessee.

I would be remiss not to note that nearby Raleigh radio station WQDR, this year's recipient of an ACM award for Best Country Music Station, also stepped up during the first week, not only publicizing what had happened (as so many national outlets neglected to do), but organizing relief efforts. In three days they had 3 semis loaded with goods and $6000 that they personally took to Music City to deliver. Man, when it comes to places to live, can we pick 'em or what?

And one more thing, please, remember to return to Nashville. Like New Orleans, the best thing you can do is remember these cities. Visit them and their people, share their lifestyle, and enjoy yourself. Nashville is still open for business. The CMA Music Festival 2010--what used to be known as Fan Fair--is still on for June. Y'all need to come on by.

Return to Blackwater

2010-04-11T20:17:00.005-04:00

Each year you live in a place, you change your habitat a little. People are like that. Paint a window here; plant a flower there. We’re no different.

If anything, we’re worse.

We can’t seem to leave anything alone, even if it doesn’t need change. Although, to be honest, quite a few things need attention here before we’ll be satisfied.

This year we are finishing making our island back into an island. Aerial photos have shown us that a one time the creek flowed freely around the entire thing. Then, apparently, a tree fell. It was cut into pieces and left in place to rot. Subsequently the area silted up, and it was no longer a true island. Until we started to intervene.

With the catastrophic flood that took out part of our causeway, we moved into action. We started refilling the gap between causeway and land with dirt dug up where the old stream had run. As we came across pieces of the trunk, we stood them on end, creating a sort of palisade on that side of the island, with the trench running alongside. We’ve stopped digging about three feet from breaking through to the water. And that’s how it’s stayed for about a year.

We want to get a bridge from the ‘shore’ to the island up before we break through, and that involves some quik-crete as well as some underwater concrete to finish repairing the dam part of the causeway. Both tasks need to be completed before we break through. However, we think that’s happening this summer.

We have, meanwhile, cleared the mat of vegetation that over-hung the creek and the turtle-log. Now, the turtles love this. The log gets a clear shot of sun most or the day, and we have a daily count of 8-11 turtles, all at once, sunning themselves on that log! I don’t think they’re going to be happy when we take it out, but we have to do something, because it is at water level, and we run the risk of stuff getting caught on it. So, it has to go, at least partly. We’d like to cut it and turn the pieces parallel to the banks, keeping a sun spot for the turtles but clearing the waterflow. Of course, we need a chain saw first. Somehow I can’t seem to convince anyone (myself included) that cutting an 8” log by hand is a good idea!

*update: as of 4/9/10, the decision was made to keep the log as it is. The turtles have won! We’ll just have to clear away debris as the need arises. If the log breaks, we’ll deal with it then. But we still need a chain-saw for clearing other fallen trees around the place.

We’ve seen the heron this spring, heard and seen owls, too. The lizards are venturing out, and as I was transplanting some ornamental grass, a very tiny red snake I accidentally picked up with the shovel decided he was not at all afraid of me and gazed at me with a very perturbed expression. I think it was a red-bellied snake as it was thin and only a foot long and seemed to be making a face at me with its lip, a characteristic of these snakes. There are fish in the creek, and the water is gradually completing its spring self-cleaning.

*update #2: on 4/11/10, Robin saw – and touched – a toad, and Dave saw a Luna moth waiting out the evening on a tree. It was a male who had probably hatched in the mid-day and was setting its wings prior to its first night flight. Apparently they fly after midnight.

We’ve moved most of the plants we want to save out of the garden area, and are setting about digging that up. At the same time we’re (who am I kidding here, this one’s my baby) cleaning the rose terrace of weeds and establishing new plants and setting up an herb rock garden on the sandhill (digging down to and adding loamier soil). Like I said, we can’t seem to leave anything alone, and this is just outside!

Tell us about your plans for modifying your environment—we’d love to hear.

Final update before posting: We went to the Cape Fear Valley Botanical Garden and got all sorts of ideas on things to get to plant. They’re having a plant sale on the 24^th, too. But we jumped the gun and picked up a couple things from Lowe’s after we got back from the Gardens.

The photo below -- taken by Dave -- is of turtles on our turtle log. Currently the record count is 14. And, if you look at the creek water, you'll understand why we call our home Blackwater!

photo by dk minnick

Return of the Queen

2010-03-02T16:46:00.001-05:00

In a brief respite from the Internet world, our heroine has been spending her time involved in such pursuits as humongous writing projects that refused to free her from their clutches, squirreling away a prodigious amount of Christmas decorations, counseling the next generation, arresting and jailing the various forms of forms sneaking about the house determined to snare her in the consequences of an absent-minded mistake, all while working in her mundane jobs (mundane as in non-magical, here) at home and at large.

As she segues into a new segment of the year, she is moving on to the NEXT humongous writing projects that will, we hope, be more merciful, and away from the nefarious deeds and influences of so-called necessary paperwork designed to keep her from her true callings, family and free-form figment-making and pixilated participle production.

Stay tuned as our heroine resolves to live up to these laudatory goals and marches onward into the parallel universe to assail us with the inflexible if dubious challenge, Can you survive until April without buying Easter candy in the drugstore and eating it in secret?

Film at eleven.

Post-NaNo Blog

2009-12-06T20:11:00.001-05:00

It can be said that intense activity is the theft of time, or at least our awareness of its passing. No better proof of this for me than what happened on December 3^rd. I woke up that morning, rubbing my fuzzy head, and thinking (I am not, as Dave Barry would say, making this up) “Wow, November already, where did October go?” only to feel like I’d been hit over the head as I realized that November was also already gone, given over to my baptism into the craziness known as NaNoWriMo.

Now, I worked my part-time job through NaNo. I took my son to school, talked to my other kids by phone, even fed them Thanksgiving Dinner. I spent time with my husband, AND I wrote. I did, by the way, pass the 50,000 word mark but not the 90,000. I let myself off the hook after 50,000, refusing to drive myself totally to distraction. But I made a respectable 63,069, finishing over 2/3s of the book. Once I’ve caught up on other writing projects, I will take up the rough draft again, complete it, and move on to the next phases of revision.

So, enough said about quantity and about losing track of an entire month. What else did I get out of NaNo? Well, I got a renewed sense of my family’s support, especially my husband’s.

See, Dave has long had good cause for a love/hate relationship with my writing. He likes it – he especially enjoys my blogs (thanks, sweetie). But, the man had to put up with my bringing a typewriter along on our honeymoon so I could finish a story for a contest. He is an early riser, mainly due to his work, but that forces him to be an early sleeper as well. I’m a night owl through and through. When it comes to writing, I am clearly still on college time. And being a mom got me used to going several days on a few hours sleep each night before I collapse into catch-up coma. So…. I’m staying up when he would much rather I retire. The man likes me in the same room when he turns out the light.

We have also collaborated on writing projects, and it’s always gone surprisingly well, um, almost always. But again, that means we get to critique each other’s words and that can be ---- well, dicey.

This all goes to say that having him agree to my trying NaNoWriMo and then to go through the entire month without complaining about my writing, nay, the man cheered me on, is major proof of his support. Add to that the encouragement from sons and daughters and all their significant others, and from other friends and colleagues ---well, it makes a grown woman cry.

NaNoWriMo also showed me how quickly I actually can work, and that was a big surprise. I’ve always been a thoughtful writer. Thoughtful in the sense that I had to think a lot about what I was writing. If I wasn’t sure I was in the mood, or if I wasn’t satisfied with the last segment, I often didn’t push myself forward. That word count hanging over your head in NaNo makes you move forward. Sometimes in your push, you don’t notice when your plot takes a swerve or is hi-jacked by one of your characters. Even though I had chosen a theme and style that had a fairly well-laid-out direction, I was still taken by surprise a few times during the writing. I found, however, that so long as I had a direction I was going in, I could write rough draft material at the rate of 1000 words per hour. To me, that is amazing. Realizing that is like conquering driving long distances. When you realize that you can actually cover 500 miles in just a day, suddenly driving across the country isn’t so daunting. Same with writing a book. Assuming you have something you want to say and that writing is your thing, learning you can work at high speed grants you confidence you can tackle large projects.

Then there is the tangible benefit. What I had at the outset was a concept and a bunch of notes. What I have now is most of a rough draft of a perfectly good novel. At least, I hope it’s perfectly good. It will be eventually.

I’m glad I did it. I will do it again. And, I might even try other writing marathons. Especially if I have a project ready to start. It’s a great way to get it going.

Should you do something similar? Set a crazy goal and try to live up to it? Work in overdrive on a major project and see if you can accomplish it in record time and manner? Sure! Go for it! Challenges are good, particularly if they are genuinely productive. This one has been terrific for me, and I’d love to see the same for you.

Meanwhile, enjoy your family and the holiday season. Never know when the urge to drop it all for one of those challenges might strike.

NaNo #5

2009-11-18T23:32:00.002-05:00

I haven’t had time to blog much this month. While my NaNoWriMo count looks fine, I’m not quite on target for what I wanted. On the other hand, if I don’t make 90,000 words, it won’t be that bad. I’ll still have a great start on this book.

It’s curious. It still seems like one long dialogue, or maybe conversation, amongst the main characters. And it keeps stretching. I don’t know if it’s because I write in small doses broken up by leaving my desk for a drink of tea, petting the cat, checking ‘So You Think You Can Dance. stirring the fudge, etc. or if it’s just this story. As I’ve said elsewhere, we’re talking a road trip with five sisters, there’s going to be talk, even mostly talk.

When writing this way, moving ever forward, it’s harder to keep track of where you’ve been and where you are. I don’t mean in an organizational sense. I have notes and lists and all of that. More like real-life time, events keep piling on, and eventually it all becomes one long blurry stream. But, to mix a metaphor or two, the way it’s stretching, I’m going to have to take an ax to it to get a reasonable final draft. Maybe it’s a mini-series.

I’m losing some steam as I get closer to the 50,000 words I’m actually committed to. I think this says something, too. I didn’t completely commit to 90,000. I didn’t want to scare myself, since I wasn’t even sure I’d make the 50,000. So, while my determination to hit the 50k is paying off, my less-than-determination to hit 90k is also showing. There is something to be said for officially committing to a project.

Real life is interfering, too. My job picks up towards the end of the month; Thanksgiving, with its round of transporting the college kids back and forth and its mounds of food, is coming up; and I still have work to do on my other wip. So, if NaNoWriMo begins to take a back seat when I’m at 46,000+ words, I guess it’s okay. So long as I hit that 50k. Let ‘er roll.

NaNo #4

2009-11-08T10:36:00.001-05:00

Aahhh. It is officially Day #7 in NaNoWriMo-land. I haven’t written on Nano yet today, but that time is coming later this afternoon. I did promise to post about it, so that’s what I’m here for.

On most of my blogs, you can find a little blue icon that will show you my updated word count. For those of you who don’t want to search it out, the count stands at 21,345 words. I am officially on-target for my unofficial goal of 90,000, and I’m way ahead of where I need to be to meet the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000. Go, me!

Here’s the thing: I don’t find it that hard to sit down and write this way. Since I work part-time, and since I find it incredibly easy to ignore mundane things like housework (note to old friends: I am getting better at doing my housework as a rule, really!), spending the time is easy.

Even more so since we are all computer friendlies at our house. It’s common for hubby and me to be in our office, back to back, working/playing on our computers. We share interesting information we find, TV stuff (hubby has a TV card), and swap pictures and writings. It’s one of the cool things about our marriage. Teenage son is also on the computer a lot. He’ll wander in and out of the office occasionally, but where many families spend an evening with the TV or games, we spend it with computers (okay, TV, too) and books.

As for the writing itself, I’m making myself only write. I have to plot, yes, but much of the book’s direction is dictated by a map. Literally, since this story is about a road trip. I compiled a lot of material before Nov. 1^st, too, so a lot of general planning was done. I knew the premise for so long that it’s pretty well embedded in me. Subconsciously that seems to be driving things.

I’ve found myself foreshadowing almost without thought. Nuances of character and dialogue have crept in. Conversations between characters have naturally flowed in the direction I needed.

Now, there was a plot turn that took me by surprise, and to be honest, I had to write it twice because there was a fundamental discrepancy that needed correcting or it would just confuse me. But other than things of that sort, I’ve not gone back to change – or even re-read anything. I do have an unresolved POV problem. I keep trying to write in third person, and the book keeps tricking me into writing in first.

Forcing myself to move forward and simply keep going seems to be the key to making NaNoWriMo work. As for finishing the process and turning it into a ‘real’ book, I’m not that daunted by it. I know how easy it is to work with material already written and reshape and revise it.

Okay, maybe easy isn’t the word. But, revising is working with something that already exists. It has become tangible, and it cries out for modification, polish and completion. That is different from the story simmering inside you that can be ignored for a while, or the one partly written down that can be dropped for months because ‘you’re already working on it.’ There is something about getting a complete draft down that compels you to work on it until you have the final version.

That is why NaNoWriMo works, children. It motivates you to do one thing: get words on paper. Those words take on a life that demands attention until it is full-grown. And then, if you’ve done a really good job, you can demand that it go out and earn something.

[*okay, okay, apologies to those out there who think I’ve oversimplified the process. Of course, I did. I want those who are seriously thinking about writing, seriously, mind you, to move past the fear and enter the realm of adventure and possibilities writers inhabit. There is a great deal of work involved in those simple steps I described. However, if you’re serious and willing to put the work in, it is eminently do-able.]

NaNo #3

2009-11-02T22:56:00.000-05:00

I swear, this is true. I’m not just stringing random words together. These actually make a story. And I am at:

10,021 words!!

I can’t believe it either.

Will this pace last? Stay tuned.

Nano #2

2009-11-01T21:10:00.001-05:00

Nov 1 – Well, it’s 9:00 EST, and I’ve made it through the day. Besides taking my son to investigate the Society of Creative Anachronisms, I’ve written 4 chapters for 5562 words. At this rate my book will be even bigger than the 90,000 I anticipate. I know I’m getting plot down, and character, but I’ve a feeling I’ll be doing some backfilling on place and description. We’ll see.

I’m having to use whatever time I get to the fullest, as I don’t know when other things will interfere. But this has been a great start. As to plot twists, it’s a little early yet, but I seem to be moving in a direction of possibilities. Pretty good for right now.

Best of all, this is fun!

NaNo #1

2009-10-31T19:43:00.002-04:00

Hello Facebookers, Twitterers, and Readers of My Blogs:

As noted, you’re all getting the same updates, at least for now. Maybe I’ll rotate them thru the week as I go.

Oct 31 – final countdown. At 12:01 am on Nov 1 (remember, we don’t officially change clocks until 2am) I will begin writing. I plan to go until 2:00 am, just because I can. Then bed and back to writing in the a.m. I’m excited about this… and I’ll let you know how it all goes tomorrow

I've Really Stuck My Neck Out This Time...

2009-10-28T20:28:00.005-04:00

My kids will tell you -- really, just ask -- that I've developed an annoying habit over the years. My husband rather likes it, but the kids don't.

The habit is one of practicality and self-survival: I won't commit to anything unless I am ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN (yes, I'm yelling at top of my lungs) that I can do it. Which means they get a lot of "No." "Maybe..." and the perennial favorite (not!) "We'll see." I've had children threaten to defect and run away screaming over my refusal to commit. Dad thinks I'm merely being prudent and honest.

So, now what have I gone and done?

Uhh -- signed up for NaNoWriMo. Yup. Gonna write me a book in 30 days and -- of course, fifty thousand -- that's FIFTY THOUSAND -- words are not enough. I have to try and write NINETY THOUSAND WORDS in 30 days. Publicly. And I've said I would. And so, at peril of life, limb, job, homelife and possibly children and husband, I have to try,

Why, oh, why am I doing this?

Theoretically it's to jumpstart my new project. It's also to have an excuse to act like a college kid again and not get my husband mad at me. And, it's a challenge, and one I can take on willingly. Lordy knows there's not too many of those around!

Probably I'll annoy people, but luckily everyone in the family writes to some extent, or they're artistic in other ways, so they all understand the passion part of this. They have, however, already expressed annoyance at my announcement that I might not blog or FB or Twitter as much, so I've also had to commit to posting periodic updates. They may be identical on all my blogs and the social networks, but people will just have to check to see.

I will say that prepping for the event has already given me a good start on the material of my novel. And I don't remember when I've felt so enthusiastic over starting something, or over meeting new people (I'll meet with fellow WriMos here in Fayetteville at least once). So clearly, succeed or not, this has already been good for me.

Which brings me to my other point for today. Not everyone writes, poor souls. But everyone does something they love. If you have let your passion languish, even if it's with good reason, this is a great time to pick it up and dust it off and launch it once again. Find that thing that you love to do and throw yourself into it. Maybe in a new way or with a new twist, but let yourself get excited about it. Have fun, create/produce, and feel great!

Aww, shuckee durn....

2009-10-03T21:55:00.013-04:00

There is absolutely no better motivator for blogging than a very thoughtful friend who compliments your writing and bestows the latest blogging award on you. Wonderful Kaye Barley of Meanderings and Muses has passed along to me the "Honest Scrap Award".

It's a lovely award whose purpose is to reward bloggers who write from the heart. Well, gee. I can't think of a nicer thing someone could say about Blackwater Tales. It's what I intended all along. So, thank you, Kaye, for all your support.

Now this award has a couple of requirements. I must pass it along to 7 other worthy blogs, and I must list 10 honest things about myself (actually, awarding 7 others is optional, but I want to).

Beyond Understanding

Little House in the Suburbs

Hey, There's a Dead Guy in the Living Room

L.J. Sellers

Stick to Your Hips and its sister site Living Well... Eating Thin

A Good Blog is Hard to Find

These blogs focus on different things, but each blogger is passionate about what they are saying. I can read them any time and they touch some part of me in a thoughtful or thought-provoking way. Check them out.

As for 10 honest things about myself:

Well. Hmm. How deep do I have to go here, or should I ask, how deep will I get myself in with this?

How about 10 things I maybe should have done but didn't (honestly)?

gotten my Master's degree
written more thank you notes
driven to Eugene (OR) anyway
gone up in the hot air balloon
taken another tap class
re-done the kitchen floor in our last house (sooner)
asked the guy on Student Court for a raincheck on that drink
bought more stock -- ANY stock
gotten a horse
focused harder on my writing sooner

Whew. That last one was hard to write. I don't believe in regrets, you see. However, sometimes I have to admit to mistakes, and I do think there are things I could have done better, the last item on the list possibly being the most important. But, as most people know, life has a way of interfering with your plans. And while we can have it all, we can't usually have it all all at once. So I just have to deal with the fact that I didn't settle down sooner. Perhaps, like a lot of writers, I just wasn't ready to say what I need to say. I'd like to think that, because it's the only consolation I'll get. That and firing myself up and making up for lost time.

So, in keeping with writing from the heart, I urge everyone, follow your passion. follow it as quickly and as fully as you know how. And beyond that, no regrets.

Oh! And if you haven't already, sign up for NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month and write 50,000 words in 30 days!

The Things We 'Love'

2009-09-04T22:35:00.013-04:00

Recently Kaye Barley had a blogpost on Meanderings and Muses about inanimate objects to which we are inordinately attached, things that someone else would either look away from or go “Whaaa?” in complete bewilderment over the attraction. Well, honestly, I think I have plenty of those, but I want to take the discussion a step further.

Into the realm of TV land.

I already know the answer to this, as does the television industry, because a great deal of money has been made for years off re-runs, syndication, and videos. How many of us have just loved a television show, or identified with one, to the extent that its ending was akin to losing a relative? In fact, probably more grievous than losing certain relatives.

We know the kinds of numbers Dallas and M*A*S*H and Seinfeld sent up on their finales. Record numbers of people watching the final hours of these television lives. We had invited these characters into our homes and our lives, and we didn’t want to let them go. We didn’t want their stories to end. (I’m sure I’m not the only one still wondering, where Hawkeye Pierce is today.)

Fan devotion can run deep, a fact some actors appreciate while others shy away from it. But I think, our involvement with television shows is at once different and deeper than mere celebrity adulation or fantasy.

This month, two shows that hold a great deal of meaning for me are ending. Reading Rainbow has completed its 26 year run on PBS. I don’t accept the reasons they’ve given for ending the show. ‘Studies’ notwithstanding, I don’t think it is public television’s job to teach our children to read. You need interaction for that. Some shows do provide reinforcement for what parents and teachers do, but a one-sided non-interactive program won’t cut it. Computer software does it better; live people do it best. However, what Reading Rainbow accomplished was to inspire children to read beyond those years when the ‘how-to’ learning is done. Host LeVar Burton made it cool to like books. He showed where books could take us in entertaining and educational ways. He let kids see that their opinions of books mattered, and challenged them to write their own in Reading Rainbow’s book-writing contest. Should this show have ended? No. It could have evolved, maybe gotten a new host if LeVar was busy. But such a program leaves an enormous hole in PBS’ line-up. My kids (all six of them) and my husband and I shed a tear over the loss of this video ‘friend’ from their childhood. It was a part of their preschool and after-school lives. We still own several of the books covered on the show, and one of my children has an Honorable Mention from the writing contest. And they even remember some of the music from the dance numbers! Reading Rainbow and all it did and could have accomplished are already sorely missed.

The second show that is ending – and I may take a lot of ribbing for this – is The Guiding Light. Starting on radio in 1937 and making various metamorphoses until it became an hourlong TV show, Guiding Light is the oldest soap opera in existence, 72 years old. It will end – forever, they say – on September 18, 2009.

Now, let me say that I am not a woman who spends her whole day watching soaps. And I’ve only been a dedicated fan to a few. But I have either watched or ‘kept track of’ Guiding Light since I was introduced to it in 1983. The storyline at the time involved a character named Annabelle Reardon, who was wonderfully portrayed by Harley Jane Kozak. That plotline, and the writing and the acting drew me into this soap opera like no other. The fact that I shared a maiden name with one of the stars (Kim Zimmer) didn’t hurt, either.

So Guiding Light became my backdrop to raising our six kids. Eventually it became something I shared with them, talking about story lines, quality of acting or writing, or the philanthropic things the members of the cast and crew did. I would even use GL moments as teachable moments; soap operas are nothing if not morality tales.

I appreciated the writing, the soliloquies, the sometimes off-the-wall plotlines, always portrayed with sincere emotion – which was, I think, what sold some of the most over-the-top scenes. I even toyed with the idea of trying to write for GL, but – I have to admit – I chickened out.

I have a Guiding Light bracelet my husband ordered for me. I contributed to one of their on-line projects. And I was even able to break the ‘6 degrees from Kevin Bacon’ via Guiding Light, because a childhood friend had walk-on roles twice, putting me at most 3 degrees from Mr. Bacon.

The only time I ever even considered ‘dumping’ the show from my viewing habits, was when they lost continuity. I’m used to soaps aging their children off-screen and then bringing them back. However, it was both disappointing and aggravating to see GL back up a character. A character who’d left the show for boarding school as a fifteen-year-old came back four real years later as – a fifteen-year-old and proceeded to relive her teenage years with a new troubled teen storyline. I’m afraid I’ve never forgiven the writers or producers for that.

I’m hating the fact that the show is ending. I think it got a raw deal from the producers; I think it could have adapted. I hate seeing anything that has lasted so long be ended. I tend to go for records and longevity.

But, I don’t think I’ve yet gotten down to what is really behind all this. Television shows, regardless of their quality, sort of become the soundtrack of our lives. Sometimes they help us ‘remember when’ as we look back on styles that have changed or events that have been covered in story. Sometimes it’s just an ‘oh yeah, I remember watching that when I was going through my divorce or when the kids had the flu’. Maybe watching Robert Young talk to Bud did provide us a clue as to how Father could know best. But mostly these shows become the familiar photograph of the living room with the net curtains, the chicken always served on Sunday, the gathering around a piano to sing Christmas carols. They are part of what ‘we always did’.

When the writing and acting is good, television shows help us work out things in our own daily lives. Not that they replace interaction with living human beings (or even human beings on the internet!), but if the writers and actors have done their job right, there is a conclusion, a take-away a person can get to mull over and see if it applies to his own life. Sometimes a show just lets us see that our own lives aren’t so bad after all.

I’ve gone a long way to say something that is probably very simple. Humans can attach themselves to anything, I think. Things, places, even television shows, take on a value far beyond the intrinsic as they are woven into the fabric of our lives. We invest emotion in them, because they represent a segment of our lives that is important to us. We use them to hang onto the feelings, the memories, the essence of who we are and who we’ve been. So, I’ll be silly and shed some tears for shows that drop the curtain, books that close the cover, and raggedy old stuffed toys that gaze at me with scuffed up beaded eyes. They’ve been witnesses and sound tracks to the movie of my life, and I’ll hang on to them until I absolutely have to let them go.

"Suitable for Work"

2009-08-21T10:45:00.009-04:00

I haven't tried this before, so I'm hoping it works. If not, the link for the web site is: http://video.telegraph.co.uk/services/player/bcpid1137883380?bctid=17075685001

All I can say is, I thought we were tech-savvy people in an old-fashioned setting! Kudos to the shepherds!

[make sure your sound is on]

Don't you just love it?

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose....or is it?

2009-08-14T07:50:00.009-04:00

It's 7:50 am. I have about a half hour before I leave for work. Dave has left for his. The kids are still sleeping in; not much more of that for this year.

The owls -- or an owl, at least -- have returned. Two long calls this morning when I walked the dog. They seemed to disappear for the heat of the summer; evidenced by the many sightings of both bunnies and snakes this year. It seems the rain has brought them back.

I have a short to-do list of last minute items for the girls. A couple things to buy, a couple to apply for, a couple to sign up for. We're waiting on delivery of some new electronics to go with one of them. All last week at home stuff.

I could get maudlin, but mostly I'm quiet. This is one of those becalmed moments in the midst of a hurricane of change.

I don't know for sure why I've always held that the year started in the fall. There's the obvious school connection. Plus I love fall, with the cool temperatures, the wind, and the leaves. It's always enervating. I don't like heat, and summers are not only hot, they're sluggish. Since I was somewhat isolated in my childhood summertimes, I never liked them much. Plus, fall means harvest.

Harvesting to me was always about finding the hidden treasures amongst the leaves. Ever seek out spiney cucumbers on the vine, or alien beanpods dangling down from their bushy hidey-holes? Red orbs of tomatoes deep within cage enclosures? Zucchini, and yellow squash hiding in the ditch or where the vine overruns the grassy yard? Bejewling eggplant, a treasure, even though it doesn't hide so much. And pumpkins, their orange color calling attention to themselves, but maybe not in time for you to pull them at their peak. I love the beauty you can find among the dying stalks, the produce which was the fruit of each plant's grown season.

I think I also like fall because it marks the beginning of the holiday season. We have several family birthdays beginning in October and running through March in rapid succession. Not to mention Halloween -- spooky decorations, costumes and parties; Thanksgiving -- the time of our 'moveable' feast, when we're never sure who will be home or where we'll be eating; and Christmas, which we do up in royal style with a caroling party, decorations throughout the house (and I do mean throughout!), family getting together, and a few presents. On to New Year's with it's party or parties, and then more birthdays. [as for other holidays, Easter has its own time, Memorial Day and the 4th are special in their own ways, and there's one more birthday in July. After that, well, then it's just hot.

I suppose the fact that October is when I was born -- along with my father, my husband, and one of our sons -- has something to do with it. My personal start in life and its anniversary is in the fall; that's my 'renewal' date.

The thing is, fall is coming and everything is ramping up. The girls start college -- exciting for them and us --, youngest son starts his sophomore year of high school, older son is in his senior year of college, with all the complexities and planning that entails, the two older girls are -- in various ways -- working on planning both this next year and the coming few years of their lives. Dave and I are looking at new prospects in several areas of our own lives. It just looks like things are about to get very, very busy.

I'm curious about how many people are surprised by these times in their lives. In our heads, we all know we have phases to our lives; we all know that we shift gears and switch programs and make changes. How many of us, however, are taken aback when it actually happens? When suddenly we are caught up in something new or different? How many of us feel the earth shake a little when we break a pattern, especially one long in use?

Is it unsettling for you when you leave one club to join another with a different activity? Or does it take something really major, like a job change or a cross-country move or a child's wedding to rock your life?

The Next ###### Star

2009-08-02T16:21:00.011-04:00

I've been watching the 'catch-up' episodes of Next Food Network Star. I don't watch reality TV as a rule. But I have to admit the Food Network and HGTV star searches pull me in. Partly because I like watching to pick up tips -- and to knock the things I know they do wrong.

Each week I marvel at how they stand up there and take the criticism in public. Obviously they are accountable for anything they do -- they have to take ownership of the dish or the design (oh, Lord, I'm starting to sound lke the shows!) -- but still, to stand there beside the fellow contestants, on camera, and hear it spelled out about what was done wrong! Ooh! (shiver)

Now, it's funny. I can take -- no, let me rephrase that, I have taken editorial or professorial critique on my writing. I've changed things, or I've defended my work. But, it isn't the same. Never mind that these critiques represent the thinking of judges who, at that point, hold your next professional life in their hands. Never mind that your mother, your co-workers, your kids and your kids' friends will watch this, ready to turn to you and ask what you were thinking. As much as I love to cook, and as much as I love to create, build, and decorate, I could not take this. Kudos to those who have enough faith to follow their dreams into such a public arena. And kudos to the networks for giving these folks a chance.

Now, what about you? Do you have to take public criticism? Have you developed skin of armor? Do you let yourself look on it as a merely educational experience? Or do you secretly go home and sob into your pillow and hug (or kick) your cat?

Accidentally-Take-Your-Twins-to-Work Day

2009-07-15T19:19:00.007-04:00

Well, when we goof, we goof pretty big.

The girls were going to the library today. spend time reading there while Mom worked. Until we pulled in the parking lot and discovered that the hours had changed and that today, today, mind you, not yesterday or tomorrow, it didn’t open until 11 a.m. Two hours to kill.

So, they came with me to the church where I am Parish Assistant, greeted the rector and proceeded to giggle their way into the Parish Hall.

I promise you, they are 18 and college-bound, but they sounded like 6-year-olds. At least they were sounding like happy 6-year-olds, and I know I will miss those giggly moments. Before they took off for the library at opening time, I asked if they’d guest blog for me, and they graciously accepted.

[Kelsey writes]

The markers are sprawled across the table. Nearby, a notebook sits, just waiting to be colored. And my sister takes advantage of this, idly drawing circles and squares and triangles. Now, contrary to this image, we are adults. But from time to time, my sister and I venture back to explore memories of childhood.

Today, for instance, we were originally going to go to the library. That changed when the hours read 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Disappointed, Kacey and I accompanied Mom to work, where the day became known as “Accidentally-Take-Your-Twins-to-Work Day”.

Nice.

In any case, Kacey and I found ourselves faced with a question: What to do? When I asked this aloud, Kacey immediately pulled out 18 markers from her bag. She, at last, came prepared. I soon joined her in coloring. We made Mom a sign reading “This is a sign from God” to put in her office. We also hovered around Mom in her office, playing with the Post-it™ notes (I tried to put one on her back, but she caught me.)

It’s moments like this that make me miss being a kid.

[Kacey writes]

To add to my sister’s thoughts, I’m gonna miss being a kid with her. We’re going our separate ways for college, she for English and I for psychology. No doubt the two subjects are linked. (both require exhausting term papers), but there is a difference there, enough to make us step back into our similar twindentities.

It’s a bizarre sensation – to have finally grown enough to be independent. As the feeling often goes, little kids want to be big kids, and big kids want to be little kids. That would explain our childish delight in a case of markers, and more excitement in scented markers. At the same time, we relish the opportunities to pull out our inner child; how much longer will it be until we are paying our own bills and raising our own families?

Not long, that’s for sure.

As I have nearly run out of space in my notebook, and as my drawing begs to be colored, I want to thank Mom for allowing us to color in and out of the lines.

[Kelsey adds]

Yes – thanks, Mom! And may you always fill a blank page (never let it defy you!)

We love you.

I love you two, too.

the bathroom light is out ...

2009-07-12T21:48:00.007-04:00

the bathroom light is out...meaning I have to get a new fluorescent tube.

the kitchen faucet is dripping....meaning we either have to get a new set or figure out how to repair a single-lever combination faucet.

dave's car needed new tires and wipers before inspection...meaning, well, we had to get them.

sigh.

as they all say, it's always something. anyone out there have a day when nothing went awry, nothing needed fixing, nothing spilled?

Well, I don't believe you.

Life is a mish-mosh of good, bad, and indifferent, occasionally punctuated by chaotic. Sometimes the bad gets very. very bad, and no one wants to joke about it or even make cheerful injunctions about how it will all be all right.

No, when in the middle of catastrophe, you want to exercise your right to feel miserable. Good for you.

When things are good you want to cheer, and not feel guilty because everyone else isn't in the same party mood you are. Understandable, but please hold the good thought for the guy next to you.

And when life is indifferent, when you're in the bottom-most rut of the same old grind, chances are you're not appreciating how good you've really got it.

Yes, there's always some thing going on, going wrong, going left when you want it to go right. Let's just count our blessings that we're at least going somewhere. That we're alive enough to kick up a fuss that things aren't perfect. That things are going well enough for us to be only annoyed by the stuff that's going wrong, not overwhelmed.

And even if you're feeling overwhelmed right now, breathe. Take heart. There is a tomorrow. Your foot (figurative, at least) will go down in front of the other, and you will move out of your current situation.

After all, not only is something always needing fixing; something's always getting fixed.

Buzy, Buzy, Buzy

2009-07-08T23:13:00.003-04:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay okay. So it’s been a while. Do you have any idea what I’ve had to do lately?

Twins’ graduation. College orientation with a writing retreat (personal) for me. Meeting Kaye Barley – an adventure all unto itself. Only trouble is she is no longer my-friend-Kaye-in-Boone-whom-I’ve-never-met. Graduation party. Fourth of July party. Daughters visiting with SOs in tow. Finishing final revisions on one ms (DONE). Adding another layer into another ms (still working). Cutting lines into concrete slab to make faux flagstone – it looks great, and I don’t care if you do laugh! Moving roses and other assorted flowers and shrubs. Work. Play. Run around. Hop up and down.

Okay, so I really don’t have more to do than some of you (LJ Sellers comes to mind. I don’t know anyone who works as hard as she seems to. Reading her statuses challenges me to do more.) I figured I owed it to all 7 of my readers – 7 is a lucky number, right? – to come back and add to Blackwater. Trouble is, my focus tonight is still diffused. Which, I guess, is better than defused.

I think it comes from living with so many people. I only partly refer to the live people I’m living with.

See, half of our kids are at home, the other three are permanently or almost permanently away. Two more join that status in August. But just because they are absent from the house doesn’t make them absent from your heart, or your brain. Trying to keep my arms wrapped around them long-distance means keeping my brain engaged in the important parts of their lives. I’m pleased to say our kids enjoy talking with us and letting us know what’s happening. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Such involvement, however, becomes entanglement, even with the best of intentions.

Then there are all those imaginary people crowding my brain, too. The lady doctor who returned home with her boats. The man who is dying of cancer but wants to save his town. The eccentric magnate who writes commercial jingles. The sisters in the aftermath of their mother’s funeral. The funeral director. The five sisters taking one last road trip. The writer with Alzheimer’s who is not ready to reveal it.

Not to mention the characters I read or watch on the screen. So many lives, real, unreal. There are times when I’m not sure whose life I’m actually living. Ever get up in the morning depressed because your friend is going through a rough patch, only to realize your ‘friend’ is a character in your own or someone else’s book? It’s disconcerting.

I find myself staring at my image in the mirror carrying on conversations (and I am so witty!) with people whose lives are manipulated by the whims of people no more God-like than I am (just more successful). I am, in fact, losing track of whose lives are real and whose are fiction. Who I know and who I make up. The fact that I know the people I make up more thoroughly than those who are real amplifies the issue.

So please, forgive me when I hide away and don’t post on my blog. I’ll return when I regain my focus. If I’m missing, I’m probably having animated dialogue with someone in the mirror, trying to remember where I know them from.

A Piece of Ceiling from the Sky and other strange words

2009-07-08T23:05:00.003-04:00

This piece also appears in my blog at Sunoasis.

A piece of ceiling from the sky….

I thought it was a nonsensical phrase when it entered my head, but I liked it. I sat here, trying to think of a way to use it. It actually didn’t take long.

Falling sky. Chicken Little. A piece of ceiling from the sky looks like a piece of plaster dropping like a stone kite from above…. what might cause that? A sonic boom.

A sonic boom while I’m standing in the field with my father and sister.

My sister. My sister with whom I argue constantly. You’d think nine empty years between us would prevent that, but no.

An argument with her that ended in my slamming the bathroom door behind me.

Crash!

“Come back in here,’ spoken in a deadly quiet voice. She is so melodramatic.

I peek around the door and follow the point of her finger.

The bathtub is filled with old plaster dropped off the lathe of our farmhouse ceiling. A hole 30 inches across gapes at me from overhead. A piece, all right, many pieces then.

Pieces of ceiling from the sky.

I haven’t thought of that in ages.

"You, too, can sing the Spaghetti Rag!"

2009-06-05T23:49:00.002-04:00

When our kids were younger and we lived in Nashville, they all took dance with Patricia Hill. (Eventually they would take with teachers who had trained with Ms. Hill.) An annual tradition at recital time at TPAC (Tennessee Performing Arts Center) was for all the current capable tappers to do an ensemble number called “Spaghetti Rag”. Dancing with them would be whatever Patricia Hill alumnae could make rehearsals. They’d deck out in pink Patricia Hill Dance Studio sweatshirts and for three minutes the stage would be crowded with up to five lines of tapping, grinning devotees of dance. For some students, dancing “Spaghetti Rag” was bigger than being in the ‘Big Ballet’ at the end of the night.
(There is, in fact, a Facebook group for those who ever danced or aspired to dance the Spaghetti Rag with Pat Hill.)

Things happen, and times change. The twins are graduating this year, and we are no longer at Pat Hill’s in Nashville. However, their Fayetteville high school also has a tradition. Both girls have been in chorus and/or show choir. The South View High School concerts always end with a rendition of “Lord Bless You and Keep You”. And at the Spring concert in particular, chorus alumnae are invited to join in. This time next year, when our young freshmen (sophomores, actually) come home, they will be eligible to go up on stage as alum to begin the tradition of harmonizing with their former choristers.

There is a lingering sweetness about it all for my husband and me. We have watched our children perform in many venues; sometimes we’ve been honored to join them. Now our younger children are on the brink of having a history. The children we set upon their toddling feet those years ago are now setting out into the world itself, for better or for worse, good times and bad. They are crossing into adulthood, and we welcome them as (near) equals.

The years run together over time; toddlers, youngsters, young men and women. Our own family traditions will tie us together and create a thread to tie more generations in. Our children will have their traditions binding them to their pasts. Some of them will be among the dancers who remember the thrill of Spaghetti Rag, some will be vocalists singing sweetly about the Lord being gracious. My husband’s and my connection to it all is a little blurred and run-together, too. As he put it, “You, too, can sing the Spaghetti Rag.” It’s an idea that sets my feet tapping and my heart humming, a very pleasant thought indeed.

Transitions

2009-04-28T21:19:00.002-04:00

At last.

The twins are set for college – at least as much as they can be with finals yet to go. But choices and deposits are made, and they’ve begun filling out housing forms and class registrations online. They’ve picked out roommates – we think, -- and generally are beginning the transitions to college student.

Flora and fauna – which I’ve lauded ad nauseum before, is coming out in abundance. The flowers we’ve moved around and the new ones we’ve transplanted are taking nicely. Currently we have rhododendrons, dogwoods, roses, irises, vinca, amaryllis, and sage in bloom. Not to mention violets, Stars of Bethlehem, and various wild things we don’t know the names of. Turtles from the sizes of quarters to moneybags have been seen – particularly along the fallen trees that bridge the creek.

We have almost converted the island back into an island. Once we construct the bridge, we will break through the final wall and let the water flow. I really can’t wait to get it done. The water lilies are sending up leaves. They’ve actually spread out to two locations now. Fish are poking around the lagoon looking for nesting places. And speaking of nesting places, cardinals have nested and hatched offspring in the camellia (also in bloom) by the front door..

And we are trying to bring the house into shape for things like graduation parties, summer events, and well, just living.

We’ve added to the attic floor, and cleared out some of the many belongings to the attic. Though I still want to replace the attic ductwork. It is old and inefficient and takes up way too much space. However, we have so many plans, its hard to hold back and only undertake what we can afford to do, and what we can finish. I sometimes feel like I have 3 jobs , maybe even 4 although that’s typical for a mom. Working on the inside of the house, working on the grounds, writing, my part-time job as a Parish Assistant, and doing all the regular wife and mom things! Dave too is working at work and taking charge of the grounds as well as assisting me on the house. The kids contribute to all the various chores while trying to maintain good grades – so, we’re all busy.

It’s hard to describe the change in us that has finally transpired. Completing the sale of the Nashville house and working on taking care of long-standing obligations, we feel a little more free, a little more like we’re returning to the way we want to live. At a time when the rest of the world is trying to adjust to dealing with financial woes, we are coming out of our particular tunnel. We want very much to remember the lessons we’ve learned in all this. We want to pay up and pay back to those who have helped us out. We want to plan better for the future.

But, the biggest lesson, we want to live life fully. If we have learned anything in all of this, it is that you have to keep living. You have to get everything you can out of every moment. It might be a moment of peace, where what you get is serenity and reflection. It might be a moment of adventure, doing something you’ve never done before. It might be a moment of companionship where you bond with family and spouse. Even when things are bad and you feel the least like gathering or laughing, that is when it is the most important to do just that.

Trouble will always be with us. In love and laughter we find the curative powers, the magic to give us strength to go on.

When Weird Things Happen

2009-04-19T21:57:00.002-04:00

I have found myself in a curious situation; one of those it-can-only-happen-now type things the Internet has created. I invite you to hop over to my blog at SunOasis.com and check out "When Is a Book Not a Book?" I hope some of you will comment on this quirky situation, and maybe help me in my dilemma.

Making Excuses and Giving Directions

2009-03-29T14:43:00.002-04:00

I'm actually working hard this weekend spitting and polishing, so while I have my next post in mind, I'm saving it for now.

Instead, I'll direct you to Meanderings and Muses where Kaye Barley graciously requested I 'guestblog'. Check out my post there and read some of the other guests' posts as well as those Kaye wrote.

Enjoy yourselves, and I'll have my new post here soon.

Lookee What I Got: Fabulous Blog Award!!!

2009-03-15T16:17:00.011-04:00

Now, you just never know what’s going to happen in cyberspace. Kaye Barley of Meanderings and Muses has just awarded me a Fabulous Blog Award! Considering how much I respect Kaye’s taste and discernment when it comes to good writing, this is indeed an honor.

Kaye is known at Blackwater as “my-friend-Kaye-in-Boone-whom-I-haven’t-met-yet”, a status I hope to change as one of our girls goes to Appalachian State next year. Anyway, Kaye was always a frequent poster on DorothyL (a LISTSERV of mystery lovers – writers and readers alike, named after Dorothy L. Sayers). I loved what she had to say and how she said it. But I never knew where Boone was. Until we moved from Tennessee to North Carolina and I saw road signs for it.

When Kelsey was getting ready to apply to App State, I screwed up my courage (having never done this before) and emailed Kaye to ask her for some information about the college. Her reply was so warm and gracious and welcoming! A friendship was born. When Kaye wrote her first piece about Bouchercon, I was among those who urged her to start her own blog, and the rest is her-story.

There is just something about Kaye that makes her near and dear to your heart, no matter how far apart you are, or if you’ve never even met her. And that quality comes through in her writing. It makes you just want to sit down and listen to her ‘chat’. She reminds me of Fannie Flagg, actually, but maybe a little softer around the literary edges.

Anyway, this all goes to say that I value this honor and I’ll try to pass it on properly. For that is a requirement for accepting this award. And there are a few more. You must pass it on to 5 other Fabulous Bloggers in a post. (You might find their email addresses on their Profile page or, if not available, post as a "Comment" to their latest post.).

You must include the person that gave you the award, and link it back to them. You must list 5 of your Fabulous Addictions in the post. You must copy and paste these rules in the post. Right click the award icon & save to your computer then post with your own awards. This is not only a nice tribute to the blogger, it widens the reading audience.

Well, like many others, I hate limiting this to 5, but you can always check my sidebar for other blogs I enjoy. Here are my picks for the Fabulous Blog Award.

1) BEYOND Understanding

2) BookEnds, LLC – a Literary Agency

3) Editorial Anonymous

4) Cake Wrecks

5) Poe’s Deadly Daughters

5 of my Fabulous Addictions? Family, technology, music, reading, renovating. (Writing and chocolate go without saying, right?)

Kudos to all the Fabulous Bloggers out there!

There's Wildlife Again

2009-03-11T21:48:00.004-04:00

It's spring, and the wildlife is at it again. That is to say, it's resurfacing.

Today, resting on the logs that we are just going to have to move, were not 2 or 3 or 4 but 5 turtles! Three brave souls let me get close before they dropped off into the water. And I was so busy concentrating on not scaring the turtles, and on holding the dogs back so they wouldn't scare them either, that I was totally unaware as we turned toward the lagoon. Up flew the ducks we've been trying to track!

We seem to have a pair (or more) of either green-winged teals or wood ducks that are trying to make up their minds whether or not to set up housekeeping in our back yard. They might, if we don't scare them off. We've seen the wood ducks at least three times. And we've heard what we think are the green-winged teals whistling, especially at night. We're hoping something will decide we're not going to bother them and will take up residence.

Tonight we heard the teals, and also an owl. The bats have also been out, and some little bird keeps rustling through the leaves along the creek. Once the water clears up, I'm sure we'll find the fish are back, too.

This year I hope we will also create a little wild life in the backyard ourselves, as the teens invite their friends over and we invite ours, too. There's been talk of a block party, and maybe this year some family will get to visit. Aah yes. A new spring at Blackwater -- and isn't it great we've got that name to ourselves now!

Comfort Books

2009-02-21T21:17:00.003-05:00

“I’ve taken this out from the library so many times,” my 18-year-old daughter told me, a happy smile lighting her face as she settled in the passenger seat. “I just love this book. It’s my comfort book.”

‘Comfort book’, I thought, like comfort food. Hmm.

… a comfort book is one you return to to re-read, despite a hectic schedule that would seem to prohibit the re-reading of even prescription instructions.

… a comfort book is one with dog-ears, cracked spine, and smudges in the margins from repeated use.

… a comfort book is one you will take to your favorite reading spot and bury yourself in its pages, oblivious to the world – or sit at a lunch table, book propped against the nearest sturdy food container, and hunker down behind it, hiding away in its world to escape from your own.

You get the picture.

I realize that in a world where reading time has been diminished by the electronic media, social networks and lack of interest, there is concern about getting people to read a book at all. People who are reading usually protest they can’t squeeze multiple readings of the same material into their hectic lives.

BUT – we watch our DVDs repeatedly. We have favorites. And who among us can state truthfully that they don’t watch TV reruns? “7th Heaven”? “I Love Lucy”? “M*A*S*H”? It’s about comfort, familiarity, and feeling good.

It’s putting Mozart or the Rolling Stones on the stereo or iPod, sitting back with an apple or some Oreos and milk, and opening up a book to a familiar scene, returning to a place that intrigued us, gave us joy or prodded our intellect in some satisfactory way.

If I can’t get my hands on a new book by a favorite author, I’ll re-read one. DO NOT ASK me how many Agatha Christies I’ve re-read. I started re-reading favorites by her when I was still a teenager. I will re-visit Pern to ride ‘between’ on dragonback, cook with Goldie Schulz, garden with China Bayles, quilt with Bennie Harper Ortiz, and bask under the Tuscan sun with Frances Mayes. I will even build houses in a town of schoolchildren with Tracy Kidder. And – through less often – travel almost anywhere with James Michener and Isaac Asimov.

Of course, the shorter books are easier. They are quicker to read and easier to put down if I remember them well enough. Longer ones take, well, longer. Still, in times of life that are difficult or even just mildly stressful, familiar faces and places that can be delved into at a moment’s bread are truly comforting. I don’t count the time spent in re-reading against my new-book reading time. Instead, I count it as re-grouping time, stress relief, self-indulgence. I don’t go to spas, or get my hair or nails done; I don’t party or even dine out frequently. I don’t go on retreats. But I read and re-read my favorite books, my comfort books. What are yours?

Flowers Currently Blooming at Blackwater

2009-02-18T21:51:00.009-05:00

Pink camelia in the woods across the causeway.

Daffodil closeups.

Daffodils and beginning Stars of Bethlehem by fallen tree across Little Cross Creek.

Coming Home

2009-02-18T21:09:00.003-05:00

I've not posted to this blog in a while. Too many things have been happening, one in particular that I had to think about before I was ready to write.

We sold the house!!!!!

Our Nashville house finally sold, and we closed late in January. We actually finalized the offer on December 31st, answering the prayers of a lot of people that we sell by the end of the year. This was a second piece of good news; I started a new part time job the beginning of January (a job I thoroughly enjoy, by the way). It's only three weeks ago, so there is still dust settling as we complete our first month with only 1 set of mortgage payments.

Wow. Not used to that.

So. The question on everyone's mind is, how do we feel?

That's what I've been pondering, how to describe what we feel.

Relieved, for sure. Our future was looking pretty bleak. And I sure did make a lot of homemade soup these last few months!

Awed, because now we can really think of Blackwater as home, and you know how I've raved about this place. We'd been feeling a little nervous, as if the repercussions of our financial stretch could have resulted in our losing it. After all, the economic climate is making everyone imagine a Foreclosure Bogeyman lurking behind their front doors. Now we're feeling more assured, and we can enjoy the beauty we're blessed with this spring.

We were walking the dogs in back yesterday, and I stood looking up at the pines and around at the magnolia saplings and thorn olive bushes and gardenia bushes, the irises and peonies poking up, the crocuses and daffodils blooming, and I actually felt giddy that we get to own this place. We get to feel excited about it again.

We get to feel .... normal about our lives. We live in one place, instead of having one foot in Nashville and one in Fayetteville. We can commit to the place and the people here. Life is no longer about what has to be done there, or what left undone here. We can actually live and plan for here.

And while this was going on -- this huge hurry-up-and-wait on the house sale, our lives were quietly taking root around us. Now they are sending up tendrils in new and unexpected directions. The girls are making college visits and college plans. My new job has taken me to a section of town where I've discovered the sweetest group of people who have a similar take on the importance of diversity that we have. David is getting involved in planning and working on Blackwater, and photographing everything in site OR sight. (He even actually likes some of his own photos!) We have, thanks to the Internet, reconnected with old friends from Nashville days, as well as adding new friends online. Our universe is expanding.

I pull in our cul-de-sac, swing up in front of the magnolia and redbud that blend at the corner of our property, and switch off the engine. Getting out, I check to see if our woodworking neighbor across the way is home, or if the neighbor next door has his dogs out. I stride up the newly-swept walkway under the saucer magnolia whose buds are turning purple, checking the flag waving from its pole in back. The dogs are at the windowpanes, watching me. A lizard darts across the bricks of the front wall. It's 1:00 pm as I turn the key in the lock.

A few hours from now I'll pick up the kids. We'll come back amid discussions of what went on in school and who has the better music on their iPod or MP3, and we'll circle the cul-de-sac again, checking for Dave's car in front of the garage. We might even arrive at the same time as him; it happens. Then we'll all troop into the house together.

We've come home.

Inauguration Day at Blackwater

2009-01-20T20:38:00.006-05:00

I have to say that I think God was awful nice to give North Carolinians the day off so that we could watch the inauguration. Blackwater was transformed by 4 inches of snow. Some areas got 6 inches, the most snow in 5 years. School was out, my new boss said to stay put (I worked a little at home), and my husband's work was shut down. So we played in the snow and took pictures, then watched the inauguration. Which meant I cried, and we stood for the oaths and the National Anthem, applauded the speeches, loved the music.

I don't think we've played in the snow with the kids for a few years now. It was nice to have a chance to do it again before the girls graduate. And it's really nice to know that North Carolina can have snow, even if it doesn't happen all that often.

Here are a few pictures of Blackwater in the snow on Inauguration Day 2009.

photos courtesy dkminnick

Who Said a Person Has to Downsize?

2009-01-18T12:47:00.004-05:00

It's a dreary day outside. We might even be getting snow later, the first we've seen it since we moved here over a year ago. It won't stick; it's too warm out, even though it feels damp and cold inside.

Football games await. We're all working on computers, stopping periodically to check in with each other, tease a little, give a hug, lend an ear. We all have tomorrow off, which will probably be more of the same. It's the last semester of high school for the twins. Next year they'll be in college. That will make 2 college graduates (1 now married), 1 college senior, 2 college freshmen, and 1 high school sophomore. And only 1 of those will be at home. Hmm.

When we bought Blackwater, we were thrilled to be increasing our living space, both indoor and out. Although it's taken this long to even be close to selling our last home, we still have big plans for this property. But, my husband teases, common wisdom would say it's too big for us.

Well, it's not.

We all know the rule: physical property expands to fill available space. That's already begun.

Plus I share feelings with Dame Agatha Christie: I don't want a small house. They're harder to clean, because you keep bumping into things. I want space.

I want rooms that are just for books -- and for housing guests.

I want a room I can move Christmas decorations into without having to climb attic steps. When the season comes, I'll just slide boxes out.

I want multiple rooms to house kids, relatives, guests, all the people we couldn't have over at the smaller house when the kids were growing up.

I want rooms to put desks in. I love desks. In fact, a neighbor had one out by the side of the road for pick-up, and let me take it when I asked. I refinished it and put it in my son's room (the one at college; he was less than thrilled).

I want rooms to wander in and out of. I want to be able to change my surroundings to suit my task, or to inspire me when I write. My husband already has 3 -- count 'em 3! -- locations for his various computers in the house. I work in the office or the kitchen mainly, but I've also gone downstairs, or our bedroom, or even to that desk in our son's room for a change of atmosphere.

Frankly, I would love even more room -- more acreage, more rooms here in the house. Not so much for luxury -- I doubt we'll ever have the kind of luxury home some people have, but just for the space, the variety, the charm that many rooms allow.

My mother used to tell me about when they bought the 96-acre farm the year before I was born. She told me how she went out to the yard and stood there, just feeling all that space around her, knowing it was theirs. I admit to wanting our own land, our plantation, our Ponderosa, our kingdom. I want that connection. I want those roots. I want to make it mine. (okay, more correctly, ours). It's a desire I don't think will ever go away.

Are we at the beginning of the empty nest? Maybe, but it doesn't mean we'll be finding a smaller nest any time soon. Way too much to do yet.

Screaming Meemies, I mean, Memes

2009-01-11T20:42:00.004-05:00

Okay, so I have NO idea what I'm doing but Kaye Barley (Meanderings and Muses) went and tagged me for a meme which I had to look up the meaning of and which means (from Dictionary.com):

meme

–noun; a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.

[okay, end run-on-sentence here]

This particular meme is the Meme of Tears. It was passed to Kaye by Linda Richards who got it from Sandra Ruttan. Kaye has tagged a number of us with this question, and although she said we don't HAVE to respond, I find it hard not to.

The question passed on to me by Kaye went as follows: "What's hit you on an emotional level and made you cry?"

This is one of those questions that looks so easy. I could answer any number of ways, with responses that would resemble many other peoples'. But I hate being just like everyone else. Don't be insulted; I'm just in love with the concept of being different. It's something I've had to embrace over the years.

Anyway, I decided to try to analyze the things that make me cry. And two major categories emerged.

The first category seems to be Achievement. I cry whenever I see someone achieve. It may be a Special Olympiad charge the finish line -- even on a TV commercial. It may be our daughter's or son's or daughters' graduation. It may be my husband being recognized in his job, or someone winning a contest. There is that innate knowledge that these people worked really hard to reach their goal, and they did it. All their hopes went into the effort, and they made it. The energy, the heart that is being rewarded is worth a few tears from this sympathetic spectator.

The second category seems to be Truth. Truth in the universal sense. When I listen to a speaker, or when I am meditating for myself, or even when seeing a play or program that demonstrates or reveals a concept that I sense is a Truth of the universe, I find myself tearing up. Love comes under this category, and Beauty, and Forgiveness. There are some others in there, too.

It's easy to downplay teary moments. We are easily embarrassed by them, and we usually can't explain them on the spur of the moment. They are intensely personal. So we laugh them off and admit to being 'sappy'. I think we are just covering up for deeper feelings. Our tears mean something. They are our recognition of those moments when human touches human. These teary moments signify a deeper, more raw emotional incidence of connection where we acknowledge what's happening to another of our kind.

So, what makes you cry?

[Kaye, did I do all right?]

A Tale of Christmas

2009-01-03T18:38:00.005-05:00

Christmas Window at Blackwater

photo courtesy dkminnick

Ahh, time to start the New Year at Blackwater.

We have just finished a momentous Christmas. We had our first caroling party at Blackwater. To understand the significance, you have to know that our family caroling parties date back to at least 1992. Their roots go back even farther, as I have caroled in some form or fashion since before 1967. It was sporadic, but each year I would doggedly try to find a way to carol. Sometimes it was with a youth group or organized choir. Sometimes just a couple friends and I. The year I was pregnant with our firstborn, our medical records group caroled through the hospital. For some reason we dressed in costume. I wore a Christmas tree outfit made of felt, and I carried a small tree for my ‘wee unborn one’.

By the time said firstborn was in 6th grade, the family had increased to 5 (ultimately it became 6). She was in a musical group at school, so we invited the whole crowd to come out to our house for goodies and a little caroling through the winding streets of our hillside neighborhood. A tradition was born.

As time went on, we continued to invite friends – everyone is told to invite anyone they wish plus the person’s family – to come out and sing and have goodies and watch movies. There is no time limit on the party, except for whether or not it runs overnight. Our caroling usually goes from 6:00pm to 9:00 pm.

I tend to get in a tizzy when preparing for parties. Cleaning and baking is done at top speed while my mind races to see what I can safely leave undone after all. Some years the decorating was complete, and other years a dark green undecorated tree or incomplete crèche stood watch as revelers filed in and out of the house. For me, probably the most significant memory of these years is the mad rush to finish cleaning the house, and the way the downstairs family room would swallow up teenagers as soon as they arrived.

For as children grew into pre-teens and teens, the parties grew. And grew in importance, too. The year of our last party in Nashville, we sent out written invitations to accompany the directions to our house. In the invitation, we noted that it was our last party, as the next spring we were moving to Fayetteville. The response was overwhelming: we had over 50 people! 50 people from all parts of our lives, accompanying us on our last round of caroling.

We made a point to let the recipients of our carols know it was the last year, too, and with hope we encouraged a few of them to take over the tradition.

Last year was our first Christmas in Blackwater, but we couldn’t get everything together in time for a caroling party. We did hear, however, from various friends, including some high school friends of our now-college students, that our party was sorely missed. In fact, even this year, our two oldest, age 27 and 22, informed us they still had friends who complained of missing our party.

So it was with high hopes that we planned a party for 2008. Again we invited friends, although not nearly as many as previously (it does take time to build a following). We tried to set the party for after the older siblings got in, but this year it wasn’t possible. We also set out flyers letting people know we were singing, and asking that they leave a porch or Christmas light on if they wanted to hear us, and that they feel free to join us on our musical journey if they wished.

Cleaning and cooking went the smoothest it ever has. Well, we’re all older and more organized now. We had a half-dozen guests, but put that with our four (my husband stayed home to send along any stragglers), and we had a nice-sounding group. So nice, in fact, that we surprised ourselves. When asked if we rehearsed, we had to say no, but we were able to perform Carol of the Bells in parts with no problem. The key appears to be that even though we didn’t rehearse in a group, almost all of us had sung with someone else in the group, so we were all attuned anyway. We even picked up a couple neighbors who joined us along the way, and they came back to our house to sing to my husband.

We sat around with goodies and good cheer afterwards, promptly making plans for next year’s party. The interesting thing is, with 2 out of the house, and 3 in college, I’m just not sure when we’re doing it!

This was important for us in so many ways. Caroling is a gift we give to our neighbors, and the party is a gift we give ourselves. We love sharing Christmas. We’d been forced to skip one year. It hadn’t felt right. This was a homecoming for us. We really have made the transition to Fayetteville and to Blackwater. While we may not know what comes next, we have indeed finally made it here.

Keeping Focus

2008-12-02T10:43:00.006-05:00

It's not my habit to cross post, or to post much about writing here at Blackwater Tales, but this has been on my mind. Many of us at Blackwater -- and Blackwater extended -- are creative types who are easily affected by the atmosphere around us. Many of us write. So, I'm posting this here as well as on my blogs that pertain more to writing. I think it's important enough.

Is anyone else having trouble keeping focus right now?

It's not just the holidays. That's a nice distraction; but most of us have learned over the years how to closet ourselves with our muses and keep working.

No, now it's all the other things: the wars and attacks around the world, the economy -- or lack thereof, the overall animosity amongst people -- whether it be religious differences, political losses, or flatout hatespeak bred of fear and suspicion. I'm telling you, the atmosphere is downright oppressive.

Yet, and yet, as writers our first instinct is to put something down on paper (or pixels) about it. We can blog about it (self-reference there), or we can spread our words and our wings wider.

We who write have a gift that is meant to be shared. We who are citizens of the planet have a responsibility to use our gifts to protect and further our planet. We who write and are citizens are generally opinionated and completely capable of fomenting discussion and thought about the problems of the world.

Essentially, the distractions of today are the fodder for our writing, be it blog, article, editorial. or fiction. If we can help to find a solution, we should. And if writing is our talent, then that is what we contribute to the solution.

So, I say, in the words of way too many writers who get a kick out of saying it, Write on! Tidy up those distractions and put them to work for yourself and all the other citizens of the planet. Someday, somebody will get around to thanking you.

Well, I'll do it here. Thank you.

rjm

Turkey Day madness

2008-11-25T19:04:00.003-05:00

Those of you needing basic Turkey Day preparation tips, see my article at notecook.com by clicking on the title to this blog. There may be another article tomorrow for repairing and rescuing food on Thanksgiving.

Have a good holiday!

rjm

The Moveable Feast

2008-11-24T21:01:00.007-05:00

At our house, Thanksgiving has been the moveable feast for many years.

It started even before we were married. His sister was joining us for the holiday, staying with me at my apartment and visiting us both while he was in the Army. I’d gotten as far as baking the apple pie, when I realized I was feeling entirely too sick to prepare a meal, or even eat one. So, Thanksgiving feast was the next day.

Later in our marriage was the year I varnished the dining room table and it didn’t dry in time for us to eat – 3 days later! There was the year we moved, and so we ate at our friends’ house. They chose that year to buy the dinner at the grocery store. When we tried the same thing a few years later, the grocery store didn’t cook the meal. They prepped a few dishes, but I still had to cook! Followed by the year I broke my ankle only two weeks before the holiday. Luckily another set of friends included us in that year.
Then there was the first year our daughter lived in Boston. She went to my sister’s that year, and they had a wonderful time. It was reassuring for us to know she was at least with family. Now that she’s married, she plans on taking most Thanksgivings with her in-laws. That’s fine, because it clears Christmas for us.

Now comes this year.

Two daughters will not be home. And one son. Besides the married daughter, our second is working a job over 15 hours away and can’t get home. Our son is only 12 hours away (only!), but his girlfriend lives across country, so neither of them are going home. Instead they are staying in town; perhaps her parents will fly in for the holiday. So, we’re down 3, and steady at 3 here. It’s okay, because we’re really all looking forward to Christmas when everyone will be able to get in for at least a day.

Yet, it feels so weird.

It’s partly this year. We’re still scrambling. Our lives are busy, and the economy is the pits, and everything is continuing to change. Thanksgiving is usually a time when everything kind of halts, a big breath before Christmas. This year it will be a holiday for catching up, cleaning up, and preparing for the Holiday season when the others will at last be home. It’s enough to make me glad we did make this the moveable feast. We can be comfortable, if a little sad, spending it apart. For at least, wherever we are, we know we are together in our hearts, and we are thankful for the adventures we’re having and the love we share.

We are lucky, in our family. May yours be so also.

Happy Thanksgiving!
2008

rjm

Getting Out My Vote

2008-10-30T21:56:00.008-04:00

(warning: this is lengthy)

I voted today. It took about an hour, which wasn't bad, considering how volatile this year's election is.

I hadn't been going to vote early, but then I realized two things. 1) Somehow it would probably be quicker -- better 1 hour than 4, and 2) if I voted early I could spend Election Day at home with my kids (who actually will probably be busy working on projects for school, but at least I can sleep late).

Overall, it was an interesting introduction to the civic side of life here in Fayetteville, NC.

I drove up to the voting place -- note: I learned today that this Early Voting is being classified as Absentee Voting here, so that, my official told me, they could be counted at the same time as the Absentee Ballots rather than in some other group. Okay. Anyway, I spotted the place easily because there were cars parked all along the roadside, political signs were clustered around the end of the sidewalk, sufficiently far away from the entrance, and there was already a line outside the building. And it had only been open 8 minutes.

I found a parking place in a grove of trees near the back of the property and walked across the playing field to the building, a local recreational center. It was sunny and breezy, thankfully. My spot in line began about 100 feet back, and the line wasn't moving yet. It wasn't encouraging that people were disputing whether or not the line had started to move, and some were talking about having been shut out of another polling place when time ran out. For a while I simply stood in line, then I pulled out a book I'd brought along to read. But athat was camouflage for my eavesdropping.

The couple in front of me, older, white, were quiet. He shifted from foot to foot; she ate an energy bar. Behind me were three or four young black women, and interspersed in the line were soldiers from the nearby bases, many of them in camo and berets. Cell phones rang and people reported on how long they'd been in line and whether or not they could pick up the kids later. I was glad to hear one young woman tell her friend he -- she? -- needed to come out and vote.

Some people behind me talked about what voting was like in other places, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Baltimore. One of the young women said she'd never voted before. She seemed dubious about the process even as she stood there. I never was clear on why she was voting now; she said that she wouldn't be surprised if 'they' said Obama didn't win whether he did or not. If that happened, she said, there'd be riots. Not that she' would, but a lot of people were born that way, she said, 'programmed' to react that way in that sort of situation. Her friend hoped that it wouldn't happen like that. She talked about what happened to Al Gore in Florida. Judging from her words and tone, she still believed in the value of the vote.

Soon a tall man came down the line with a small sheet of paper telling about himself and what he was running for. I didn't think it applied to me -- not my precinct -- but I took his paper anyway, even as I wondered if he was supposed to do that. I'm pretty sure he wasn't; later I saw an official talking to him and he didn't approach the line again. A few minutes later a woman with a petition attached to a clipboard came along. The couple in front of me listened attentively as the woman asked for their signatures on a petition to the Governor to explore creating alternative energy jobs, green jobs in the state. They listened but declined to sign. It sounded like a good idea to me, North Carolina needs jobs, and I've already seen signs of 'caring about the green' in Fayetteville. Besides, exploring a concept can never hurt, so I signed.

Another official worked her way down the line handing out slips of paper reminding us all that the 'Party Line' button didn't include the Presidential candidates. You had to vote for them separately, so be sure to press the ir button!

Once inside the building, the line was steered to the left. We'd been here long enough now that the first voters were coming back out. Some were young, some old, some black, some white, some male, some female. But every one of them looked satisfied. They had done their bit.

I was still alternating between watching what was going on around me and reading, but I started thinking about who we were. Some of these people had young children. Some were young adults, maybe working, maybe in college, several in the armed services. Some were older, maybe retirees, or workers on a late lunch break. No doubt all of us in line had some kind of problem or crisis going on in our lives. Right now that seems inevitable. But we were all here.

We proceeded to the room where the actual voting was. A young soldier was at the table ahead of us, waiting on his voting slip. The woman in the couple ahead of me passed by him to the next worker, glancing around as she did. Her husband waited just in front of me, alternating his attention between his wife and watching when he should move forward. Where were the paper ballots? they wanted to know. Why were the touchscreens in here?

The official explained that touchscreens were used for early voting; if they wanted the paper ballots, they had to go to their designated polling place on Election Day. Thus began a lengthy, not-too-noisy complaint from the couple about how the paper ballots were superior and how improper and inefficient it was that the facts about the use of touchscreens hadn't been publicized in advance. By this time the woman had been joined by her husband. The worker who was waiting on the soldier waved him on and me forward, keeping an eye on this couple at the same time. I also wondered if she'd have to intervene. The couple moved on; I think they chose not to vote today. I received my voting slip -- actually an application for Absentee Voting, so that my early vote would be counted -- and moved on myself. In just a couple minutes a worker was escorting me to and instructing me on the touchscreen.

I actually prefer the touchscreens over the paper ballot. The primary was the first time I'd ever used a paper ballot. In other states where I've voted, they used the old mechanical voting booths with curtains and levers. Tennessee had a variation on them. They had lighted buttons instead of little levers. However, all these other models had privacy curtains, something touchscreens could use.

I voted, trolling through the screens rather than using the 'Party Line' button -- I do prefer to make my own choices. Then I picked up my 'I Voted' sticker, and I left. People outside -- you'd almost think they were hired 'specially for this -- thanked me for voting as I walked around the building to go to my car.

I'd said to my daughter before I left the house that at least going out to vote was something I could do that wasn't going to cost me anything. Well, gas, but we'll discount that. For so many people right now, money is not only tight, it's choking the spirit out of them. Others have lost loved ones overseas, or they're facing separation in the near future because they're going overseas themselves. But here we all were, in line to vote. To do the only thing we could at the moment for ourselves and for our country.

We had various reasons for why we voted the ways we did. Some people weren't voting 'for' a candidate but 'against' another. Some people I'm sure did vote 'Party Line' else why would that be such a big deal on the ballot? I know my mother-in-law tended to vote that way. I'm sure some people voted for a candidate because they were a 'first' or because they were a match gender-wise or racially. Some people studied up on candidates and their positions. Probably all of us either watched the debates or heard the reports on them. And, because I know I did it myself for a few races, some of us voted for names we recognized or whose sound we liked. Ideally everyone should make an intelligent choice, but the fact that so many people are concerned enough to make a choice, and that we can... these are facts that matter.

We're trying to take control of our lives and our country. We are trying to act responsibly as best we know how. The simple act of voting, using our brains and making a choice about how we want to live, costs us nothing, yet it can be one of the most important things we do for ourselves, our community, and our country.

'ta
rjm

On Wisdom

2008-10-20T21:53:00.004-04:00

My husband and I were walking down by the creek when we were summoned by one of our daughters ringing the bell by the back door. This is an iron bell with a clapper that you pull on and bang against the bell to ring it. We purchased it years ago to use for exactly this purpose, but it has taken until Blackwater to make effective use of it.

As we were walking up to the house, I told Dave that I thought it was cool that something we bought so long ago is finally being used the way we intended, ie, the ‘right way’.

“That’s how wisdom’s supposed to work,” he said.

Wow. That about bowled me over.

Yet I started to laugh, because how often is it NOT the way things are? We are supposed to grow wiser with age, and trot that wisdom out and put it to use. But, do we? Or do we continue to muddle through life making up answers as we go along?

I’d love to be thought of as wise, but I don’t feel wise. I feel as naïve as a newborn. Any etiquette more complicated than making sure the other person feels comfortable stumps me. Financial choices frighten me. New concepts, art, movies, music, and styles overwhelm me. Sometimes I think wisdom is a tag put on our thoughts by people younger than us who simply haven’t encountered them before. Someone says wise, and I say, “Who, me?”

I guess I’ll have to go along with it, though. Let them think I ‘m wise if they want. Just so long as I remember not to believe it, too.

'ta
rjm

I'm beginning to understand how the pyramid builders felt....

2008-10-14T16:58:00.004-04:00

If you’ve read any of my Twitter posts lately, you’ve seen reference to the digging we’ve been doing to fill in the mighty crevasse by our causeway. And if you’ve read any of this blog, you’ll know that said crevasse was a product of heavy rains and a swollen stream eroding out the area where creek bank meets concrete causeway.

Well, we’ve been making progress. It was with a great deal of satisfaction that I tamped down soil this morning on what is the first completed section stretching from bank to causeway. It was a significant section, too, because it was the deepest – ranging from top to bottom of the 5-foot structure, and about 3 feet from bank to concrete. Unfortunately, it’s only about 18 inches wide, and the whole thing is more like 10 feet wide. Still, it is definitely progress. At least the rest of it isn’t that deep.

I like working with dirt. Provided it’s loose enough to dig. It’s good exercise, and there’s empowerment in altering your environment that permanently. ‘Course, you may say that anything that can be dug back out by racing waterpower just isn’t that permanent. Sigh.

'ta
rjm

Community

2008-10-10T14:41:00.006-04:00

I've been given pause, this week, to think about 'community'.

There's community service, the community we live in, the school community, the community of believers, the writing community....ad infinitum.

We've had evidence of global and national community in the headlines as the price of a commodity here affects the sale of another there. and the whole economic community shifts about in a writhing mass of interconnectedness.

We've seen national community portrayed as town meeting in Presidential debates, where we try to fathom how one group can do a better job of connecting and protecting us than another. For regardless of the side we take, or who wins, our actions will (please note usage) have an impact upon others.

We live in specific geographic areas, which we help along by serving others who live there: neighbors, people down the street, people nearby. By supporting one another, fewer falter, and the whole is strengthened.

But, what's been my personal community experience this week?

I've had people whose help I've sought assist me, sympathizing, empathizing. Rather than belittle me, they've helped me see where I can help and support them in return.

I've had people reach out to me to help with their cause, thereby making me part of a group, seeking to reach a common goal, and providing companionship in the process.

I've laughed with others who share some of my goals, people who -- knowing the same enemies that I do: boredom and lackluster performance -- shared ways to outwit those enemies. They've shared freely, congenially, and without excessive use of adverbs.

Okay, some of these people have been in the writing community I find online. Others have been people at my children's school, or people in business I've dealt with and hope to befriend.

What it all has meant, tho', is a chance to communicate, to share, to become friends -- and as someone who still feels a bit of a newcomer in a strange place, that is the world to me. It is too easy to fall into a mode of isolation. Such isolation comes first of necessity then remains out of a sort of perverse, proud independence. If left too long, it becomes a cancer of its own, eating away at the social spirit we all have to some degree.

These last couple weeks have brought home to me that my social self needs feeding, and therefore, it is now PARTY TIME!

'ta
rjm

HOPE

2008-10-03T21:54:00.004-04:00

hope is the
Honor of all things good and righteous that come our way regardless of our deservedness.

hope is the
Opportunity to return the good favor to others who cross our path each day.

hope is the
Presence of the Spirit of Goodness about us, planning delights for us and waiting for us to notice.

hope is the
Eternal well-spring, which, despite a dry spell or two, will come back to draw us into, through, and beyond our human existence.

---- rjm
August 2004

Appreciation

2008-09-29T22:02:00.006-04:00

It is amazing how place can affect a person. I’d call our house a ranch, but with a craftsman-like interior. We hope to add to the aptness of that description as time goes on. But, to walk into our home, even though we are what might be called traditional Bohemian in design preference, is to feel the comfort of openness, wood, stone, ceramic.

The house wraps around you. Its layout is at once familiar and unexpected. And with its three open fireplaces, it welcomes visitors and family with open arms.

Okay, I’m getting too poetic here. It’s just that we feel lucky to have found this place. Lucky enough that working on it or with it doesn’t seem like the chore it could.

I remember apartment living, and how I would gaze at houses as we drove by them, windows lit and people moving about behind them. I was so jealous. And when we’d pass someone mowing their lawn on a twilit evening, I’d feel despair that we would ever know what that was like. Perhaps that is a reminder to us all to be patient; eventually things will happen.

By now in my life, I know that to be true. Equally so, I am aware that we never know how much time we have left. So I am still impatient for things to happen, to work out. I still get jealous when I see others already having what I think I want.

Then I stop and wonder how much it will take to make me appreciate what I have.

'ta
rjm

Can Ya' Dig it?

2008-09-21T11:23:00.006-04:00

School year begins anew here at Blackwater.

Katelyn has graduated college and has a new job in St. Louis. We miss her, but she has now begun her great adventure.

Meaghan and Jared are purchasing a new home. Yay for them.

Michael, after a miserable summer caused by no transportation and a host of plans falling through, plus 16 days helping us get our old house ready for sale – which, by the way, IS on the market – is reunited with his beloved school, his beloved jobs and – most importantly – his beloved girl friend.

Kacey and Kelsey are beginning their whirlwind Senior year, including the all-important college applications. Remember, ‘sometimes it’s not about me’? Trying to encourage them to apply to whatever colleges they want to attend regardless of expense because it’s right for them is not easy. We do that because you never know what scholarships might be out there, but it does seem odd to some people that we reach for Neptune when we can’t even budget the moon. But, it’s about them, not me, or us.

Mackenzie has put in a good start for his freshman year, jumping into some activities that he’s really interested in.

Me? I’m glad that for the first time in 17 years I’m driving to just one school twice a day. So I have more time to put in writing, and I may even take on a part time job.

Dave? He’s working hard as always – come on, have you ever known him not to? At least he’s enjoying what he does. And, he’s even enjoying working around here at Blackwater.

Welllll, I might have to qualify that. You see, those storms this summer, including Hurricane Hannah, had what you might want to call an effect on us. Nothing disastrous, for the most part. The land on the other side of the causeway kind of sorta got washed away. Some of it. Okay, a lot of it, just not all of it.

There is a crevasse between the edge of the concrete surface of the causeway and where the land on the other side starts up. It’s about eight inches away from the concrete, and it has dropped a couple feet. This has revealed two things: some breaches in the brick dam holding the water back, about three leaks in all; and the fact that the fill which was on this side wasn’t solid. Too much of it was natural debris that left openings for water to flow through, which, because of the aforementioned leaks, it did. And with the storms, it did it big time. So, having tried a couple methods of plugging the leaks, we are going to have to locate underwater concrete to put in from the upstream side. Meantime we are digging out the hill beyond to put solid dirt into the hole. (it’s our hill!) We are using larger debris, too, but we’re making sure we fill in the gaps. Plus we’ll maintain it better.

Now, a few of you might be asking yourselves, why don’t we get the city to fix it, since this waterway is part of the water that serves the city. After all, we have a utility easement so they can reach the sewer access points there. Turns out that’s ALL they do. We did ask the city about it, and a very nice man came and looked, and they researched it, and then they told us it wasn’t their responsibility. Seems they aren’t the ones who put the dam and causeway in. Back when private residents could do such things, a previous owner did. So, it’s ALL OURS. For good or bad.

Since we think we may have figured out how to handle this problem, it might not be such a bad deal. As long as we don’t try to create another dam, we ought to be able to modify this any way we please, all in the name of maintenance. Ohhhhhh BOY!

And I can hear the kids groaning now.

Let you know more later.

rjm

Kinky Dragonfly Sex

2008-07-21T00:39:00.012-04:00

WHAATT!??

Okay, I know some of my family is saying that, and at least one other person. Made you look, didn't I?

In a land of swift change and intermittent catastrophes, my world with its tilts and wobbles seems to fit right in. We've had Katelyn graduate college -- yay, Katie! and prepare to move into the working world and carry on with the film project she helped with last year. People started summer vacation. And on the very first night of vacation (actually it was graduation night and we were on our way back home after the twins marshalled the event) our van broke down -- big time! -- and is just now repaired. That would be nearly 4 weeks without independent wheels. Which also messed royally with the plans for putting our old house up for sale and letting Michael carry out his summer plans and having the twins work on summer projects. If it couldn't be done here at home, it wasn't going to be done!

Le sigh, le sigh.

Life at the homestead has been bleak.

Of course, we did discover that the fauna here at Blackwater is as entertaining as the kaleidescope of flora that keeps blooming. It seems that we have a very healthy eco-system in the creek and lagoon in our back yard. We've been told this is evident from the number and variety of dragonflies we have zipping about. According to my husband, these beautiful 'bugs' spend only a couple weeks of their lives in the air and on the land. Most of their lifespan is underwater where, as nymphs, their diet includes fish. Pre-justice, I suppose, for the fly version that is later prey to those same fish. Anway, being normal healthy creatures of nature with biological clocks ticking furiously away, dragonflies seem to spend an inordinate amount of time making more dragonflies -- or eggs anyway. Hence the title of today's blog.

We have also found other prolific species doing their best at Blackwater to be, well, prolific. Sunfish, butterflies, bees, turtles, even the lizards. (My husband has a charming array of lizard porn!) We have hummingbirds, previously mentioned owls, and have discovered the presence -- from abandoned skins -- of a rather large dark-colored snake which we are hoping is of the non-venomous variety! We're afraid she's busy guarding eggs under our terrace. And I saw a squirrel making a nest the other day.

We've spent a lot of time with cameras in the back yard, documenting all this. Michael says he can only spend so much time out there, but it was he who went out in the dead of night to photograph the rushing waters. When it rains heavily, our creek rises, even floods. That is normal. However, this was the most dramatic we've seen, and getting a tour of it from our kids at midnight was admittedly awesome.

Some of Mike's photos follow:

At the edge of our Witch's Woods

Here the water is flowing OVER the causeway instead of through it.

That 'island' is a crape myrtle which is actually supposed to be on our shore.

The water is bubbling through a grate that usually lies 3 to 5 above the level of the water where it cascades to the so-called lower level.

Michael's feet underwater in what's supposed to be the backyard.

Honestly? I'm not even sure which part of the yard this is!

That's grass, not seaweed! And I'm not sayin' whose legs are whose!

One last view.

Amazingly, by next day, the water was back within the creekbanks, but there was debris all over. A willow oak on our 'island' that had been growing out over the lagoon finally gave it up and dropped into the water. Mike had to saw it off to pull it out, though. The grate over the causeway was filled up with leaves, pine needles, branches, and guck (that's a scientific word for black gooey stuff you'd really rather not know the name of). We even found a dozen dead fish, mostly sunfish, who'd been washed out of the creek then left high and dry when the waters receded.

The whole thing was fascinating in a scary sort of way. I kept thinking of people who endure real floods, who lose belongings, pictures, pets, loved ones, lives. The power of the water -- even in our microcosm -- was phenomenal. We who think we control events, that we can move mountains, build cranes to hoist buildings skyward, we who think we can do anything -- we are not really in control. We bide by the mercy of Nature, events, tides, and times. We live at the grace of everything that surrounds us. If we are believers, we feel we live by the grace of God.

Not, perhaps, terribly profound, but undeniably stirring.

rjm

dragonfly photo courtesy dk minnick
flood photos courtesy michael minnick

Oh, I just can't help myself...

2008-04-13T16:07:00.021-04:00

Here's more photos and video of Blackwater in the spring.

Here's some close-ups of individual flowers and bushes.

A new sort of 'flower'.

And one more, a close-up of the azaleas.

photos and footage courtesy of dkminnick.

rjm

I know I'm probably going on and on and on...

2008-04-12T22:02:00.015-04:00

but I just can't help it. This place is beautiful!

I wish I could count just the number of different flowers/flowering shrubs we have in bloom right now. If I were to count the actual flowers, it would be in the thousands (( well, ever take a close look at an azalea or rhododendren?) I look out at our backyard, and right now it is a fairyland!

I've always loved flowers -- who doesn't? -- and I always was especially envious of those people lucky enough to have flowering shrubs and trees around their houses. From hanging around the elementary school on Memorial Day waiting for the parade to start to driving through the suburbs around Washington DC on my way to work, the houses with flowers always seemed a little more attractive, a little more special to me than houses where only green grew.

And now we are at Blackwater, with flowers on steroids, totally unplanned, totally by surprise -- honestly, I don't think I'll ever get over it. So, I'll just post a few pictures and try not to bore you with more raves.

and these are only the SMALL azaleas! We have at least 6 colors:
white, pink, raspberry, red, variegated pink, and salmon

across all kinds of flowers out, we have those colors listed above, plus yellow, purple, crimson, and blue. and many of them are very fragrant, too.

pictures courtesy dkminnick

We've met some very nice people here. I hadn't realized how snobbish I'd become about Nashville. The people there are very special, and of course, some of them we've known for years now. But I hadn't meant to reach the point where I couldn't imagine people somewhere else not being AS nice as Nashvillians. Especially when I had my husband and my daughters telling me how nice people were in Boston or Hawaii or Oregon. I think it comes from being afraid of change -- and I'm as afraid of change as the next person. Of course, if it's change I control, well, that's a different story.

As for those nice people -- there's the lady in church who encouraged us to sing along with the choir's Hallelujah chorus, by singing along herself! When I thanked her for it, she said that if you couldn't sing the Hallelujah chorus in church, what could you sing? and then she gave me a big hug.

There's the mom of our daughters' classmate who also stays at home (and also has a large family) while her husband serves overseas. We shared stories of teenagers and projects and new schools in the school parking lot at night.

There's the people in the local Lowe's and WalMart who are getting to know me WAY too well as I pick up stuff to work on our house and yard. They seem to love to help me load my car -- or even my cart (and I really hope it's not because of how old I look). But they are so sweet about it!

And our neighbors who talk to the kids, wave across the way, and even offer to help keep an eye on things when we're not around.

I am tentatively putting down roots. I'm not ready to be like the army families, some of whom have moved about so much they don't feel like they have a home state. I'm trying to get into the frame of mind that I need to BE HERE for as long as we are here, be it short or long. Home is wherever our family is. And just as my heart expanded to include each of our children as they came along, my personal world must expand to encompass all the places our family members live. I have to try to copy my mother who, when talking about how far-flung her own children had become, would smile broadly and say, "Isn't it wonderful!"

rjm

Great Gatsby!

2008-03-13T13:25:00.000-04:00

As a final project to reading the Great Gatsby, Kacey and Kelsey's class held a 1920's Gala or Speakeasy. Dave took pictures for the group. Here's a few.

Youse can come in.

Nobody touch nothin' 'til da cops get here!

Looks like da usual suspects. Maybe we better close dis joint down!

2 molls!
( Say, which is which?)

da dame in black

dese images was all courtesy of dkminnick, a regular joe.

rjm

Spring is Springing, and so are Traps

2008-03-13T13:21:00.000-04:00

IT’S SPRING and the ducks are nesting, the owls are hooting, the frogs are leaping, the lizards are scurrying, the turtles are swimming--- but I haven’t seen the heron lately.

Anyway, spring has come to Blackwater, bringing beauty and trials and tribulations, and it’s really hard to appreciate the first fully when the latter keeps interrupting. On the other hand, it’s hard to find the solutions for the latter when the former keeps distracting. Oh well.

We brought the last truckload from Nashville to Fayetteville last month. Unfortunately, the people who were interested in the house no longer are. Not their fault; their own plans sort of fell through. Anyway, now we must go back not only to clean, but to finish fixing up the house.

We have rather a long list of things to do, but we try to draw comfort from the fact that this means we’ll get more money out of it as well. But, the work is daunting, if only because first we have to get there.

It’s still weird, living with one foot back in Nashville. I had figured that by now we ‘d be settled in and savoring the new experiences and new friends. Instead, we are in a jumble of trying to keep up with all the things going on around us, moving forward yet harkening back to what is still behind. We call old friends; we make trips back. We – or rather the kids – get involved in activities here, inevitably to compare them to old events. Sometimes the comparison is favorable, sometimes not.

Funny how, no matter how many different places you live, you forget that people live a little differently elsewhere. Those differences loom large when you are afraid, afraid the way you are when you are pushed into doing something new. That fear can be a trap that prevents you from growing in your life.

An old maxim urges, “bloom where you are planted”.

Blackwater is so nurturing to the plants and wildlife around here; will it be so for our family too?

rjm

Here and There

2008-02-06T11:45:00.001-05:00

It has been w – a – y too long since I’ve written here. Way too long. We’ve packed up from Christmas, installed new attic stairs, begun putting in an attic floor and a window between the girls’ rooms, and now we find ourselves on the road again.

Okay, that sums it up, bye now.

All right, let me do better.

You may have noticed that I didn't mention our final moving trip. Well, that's because we didn't make the trip due to Mack's getting sick. We have rescheduled everything for February. We should be going over on February 15th. If nothing else happens.

The fact it is, now that we are establishing our new retreat here in the interior of Fayetteville, North Carolina -- our family together, able to enjoy one another’s company, trying new hobbies, getting into new routines, -- now that we are finally back together, the US government is seeing fit to take us apart AGAIN.

Not that we didn’t see it coming. You see, Dave’s assignment is to Fort Bragg only primarily. He is actually considered to be Army-wide. That means world-wide. He can be sent anyplace. Now there’s new software coming out that people will need to be trained on. So, he is getting his training now, and then he will be sent to train others. The only difference from the situation when we were in Nashville is that when he is home he has a job at Bragg to go to, and he probably won’t be gone so much or for so long. Okay, definitely an advantage over being a soldier, so we won’t gripe, too much.

Speaking of soldiers, when they are practicing what used to be called maneuvers (I don’t know what they call them today) we get a lot of mortar-fire around here. Not actually shelling, of course, but we can hear what they’re doing on base. Lots of big booms and an occasional rat-a-tat-tat. Typical for an Army town, I guess.

In Nashville it was honky-tonk music out in front of Legends on Broadway, here it’s boom-booms in our back yard.

Comparisons are funny things.

In Nashville they cut – no, desecrate trees to keep them from hitting power lines. In Fayetteville they vacuum up leaves that you rake to the curb to help keep the city beautiful.

In Nashville you might find traffic re-routed so that NBC’s Today Show can broadcast from Broadway in front of the arena (whatever flavor it’s named after this month). In Fayetteville you might find traffic backed up for an Army convoy.

In Nashville you might find roadblocks set up so they can film a country music video. In Fayetteville you might find streets closed for the Dickens Festival in November, or one of the many other festivals they hold other months.

In Nashville you find people manning the phone banks to raise money for NPT. In Fayetteville you find people quilting all year long to donate lap quilts to veterans who are inpatients in the Veterans Medical Center.

In Nashville you have the Red Cross holding events and taking care of disasters. In Fayetteville you have the Red Cross taking care of disasters and holding events.

Hmm.

rjm

Whew.

2008-01-13T09:59:00.000-05:00

Yes, whew!

that quaking picture of the penguin 'singing' on our balcony just about describes things! -->

Christmas is done; Michael has just been taken to the airport by his dad. Katelyn returned to Webster last week. I finally have to take down our decorations.

And next weekend, next weekend we make what should be the last truck-move from Nashville. We will also meet with a potential buyer for the property. I hope they like it, partly because then it would be sold, but also because it seems like a good 'fit' -- they know our neighbors already.

So, our move is nearly complete, and everyone has -- hopefully -- learned that life did not end after Nashville. We're all making plans, and I think that helps. Mack will go on to high school -- we hope he'll be in the same IB program as the older girls. They will be college hunting. Michael is making big plans for the summer. Katelyn will be graduating college and continuing working on the video from this summer. And Meaghan and Jared will soon be celebrating their first anniversary. And I will be working on Blackwater and on my writing projects.

Returning to my work is exciting. I find one story is playing harder in my mind, asking to be finished. I don't know if I could say the characters are clamoring, but the story itself wants out. I have to plan my time, though. Besides the family needing me, the house will need both routine upkeep and our new building projects. And, we have company coming in the spring.

We actually had extra people here for a whole month. It's been fun, too. Something that hasn't happened in my life since before I was a teenager. It stirs things up, makes things happen.

So we'll get things in order, then comes the final push to .... move on. Next blog... the FINAL push.

rjm

A Little More Info, Please

2007-11-03T23:21:00.000-04:00

It has occurred to me that I need to clear something up. Our choosing the name Blackwater for our home has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the security group, which is also from North Carolina. In fact, if that were relevant, we'd be smarter to call our place something else.

No, David picked out the name because of the color of the water in the creek and lagoon. And, it seemed to fit. We could have called it after the creek itself, which is named Little Cross Creek. That would have been amusing, since I'm a fan of the soap opera Guiding Light, and Cross Creek is (or at least, was) their special place in Oklahoma. But Blackwater seemed more romantic, a little medieval, and just, well, ours.

Plants love it here. The previous owners were devoted gardeners, and we inherited quite a collection of flora with the place. I've never seen gardenia bushes 8 feet around before! And we have magnolia, pine, and holly trees, so I'm set for Christmas. But the houseplants we brought over and placed outside have just eaten this place up! Even with drought, the humidity is so high that they thrive! And our weather is just beginning to cool. It's November 3rd, at 11:30 pm our temperature is 44 degrees F with a humidity of 84%.

Sorry, you'll have to excuse me. Born in New York state and having just spent 24 years in Tennessee, North Carolina is very new to me. I may never get over the weather here.

As well as the different perspective. There's a different emphasis from region to region, depending on geography, economy, philosophy. Here in Fayetteville, with Fort Bragg so close, attitude about the military is vastly different from Nashville, where the emphasis is on music and trying to become a 'great' city. In Nashville, you might ask a 10-year-old if they are going to be a musician, or a pro sports player, or a doctor. In Fayetteville, I overheard someone ask a 10-year-old if she was going to be in the Army when she grew up. And she answered 'Yes.' Matter-of-factly, too. Nashville has a church who always announces when it sends relief to national disaster victims; Fayetteville has set up a support system for military families with deployed members.

We had to fill out special school forms because Dave works on the military base. And when the school medical forms asked where we wanted our students taken in an emergency, the base hospital was the second of two choices.

It's a different perspective, all right.

rjm

Faith in All Things

2007-10-03T21:11:00.000-04:00

Faith in all things?
You may well wonder, what is she talking about?

When we first decided to move to Fayetteville -- a decision made in 5 days around last Thanksgiving -- we did it solely on faith and the evidence that this was the only option God was showing us. In the near-year we've been working on this, we've had plenty of opportunities to wonder about the wisdom of this move.

Each time we came back to the same stubborn answer. God had shown us this path, and ONLY this path. God had promised us that everything would be all right. He would make it so.

Now, I realize that there are those among you who react negatively to such blatant assertions. I am not trying to evangelize. This is just how it happened for us, and you'll have to ride along to see how it all turns out.

Each time we reminded ourselves of His promise and pushed forward in our plans, we made progress. Obstacles allowed themselves to be overcome, things worked out, and we got closer to North Carolina.

Right up to the day we arrived. Nine-plus very long hours driving from Nashville in a 1-truck, 2-car extended caravan. Actually, Dave and Kelsey went first in the truck. Michael drove Katelyn's car with Kacey. Mack and I took the vanful of animals (2 dogs, 7 cats). In a year with record heat and no air conditioning in either of the cars, this was a spectacularly memorable journey. We stopped frequently to hydrate human and critter alike. Mike had never made this trip, and Mack and I needed help with the animals at stops, so we stayed close together. Dave and Kelsey arrived at the house first, Monday evening, August 20th.

Everyone needed to stretch out, and we planned to unload the next day, so naturally everyone went exploring. Kelsey went down by Little Cross Creek, which meanders alongside and then through our heavily wooded yard. At the opposite edge of the property it cascades down a small falls and through our neighbor's yard on its way to meet up with Cross Creek. Dave and I met this neighbor -- named Dana -- one time when we were looking at the house. She and her husband make a very nice couple, with children a little younger than ours. They'd been very welcoming to us and given us some insight into our new home.

As everyone was roaming around that first evening and checking out the features of the new house -- 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3 fireplaces, a 2-car garage -- the likes of which we'd never had before -- dark was descending. A quick head count revealed 1 missing: Kelsey.

Kacey, her twin, was pretty nonchalant about her whereabouts. "Kelsey went down to the creek a while ago," she said.

Now, beyond the creek is a small but full woods that traces the stream from its source at Clark's Pond to where the road crosses over it. We didn't know exactly what lies on the other side of the woods, or what all the neighborhood is like.

"Kelsey?" I called from the back porch. "Kelsey?"

"I'll go get her," Mack volunteered, his own excuse to go down to the water. He jogged toward the causeway where the water drops about four feet before heading through our neighbor's yard. Across the causeway is the woods.

I went down the steps into the yard, calling Kelsey's name occasionally, just in case she'd wandered to the other side of the property.

"Kelsey!" I heard Mackenzie shout. "Kelsey!" There was the sound of someone moving through brush, and then a strangled cry, "Kelsey!"

"Mack? What is it?"

He called his sister's name again as he turned toward me, his face white, his hand holding something in front of his chest.

"Mom! She's not there! She's not there! I found these -- Kelsey!" he cried again .

I trotted towards him. He was holding her sneakers.

"Oh no," I thought. "Not now, not here. We did not come all this way for this!"

I spoke out loud, "Mack, where were those?" He looked so panic-stricken.

"Down there, on the landing." He pointed toward the bottom of the causeway where the water spilled out. Two streams shot out of two pipes and flowed over a stone platform. With the drought, the space between them was dry, and that was where he'd found the shoes.

We continued to shout for her. Around my head went the litany, 'We did not come here for this; God you promised! ' I had to keep coming back to that: He'd promised us this would be all right.

As Mack and I started back for the house, still shouting, one of Dana's children walked up from their yard. She watched us intently, and when she was close enough, she called out, "She's over here!"

Which she was, strolling along the yard with Dana who said she'd 'kidnapped' her and shown her her roses. We walked back towards our yard, Mack and me teasing Kelsey, discussing the new house with Dana, smiling in the dusk at her children. God was keeping His promise.

As we left Dana and her children and walked up toward the house, a cacophony broke loose from behind the Witch's Woods, the 50 or so trees behind the A-frame we dubbed the Witch's House. Something like 4 or 6 owls hooted amongst themselves, probably complaining over the noise we made seeking Kelsey. A dramatic welcome to Fayetteville.

God often asks us to do strange things, things we are not comfortable with or that we don't understand. It's easy to doubt His hand is involved. But, once we have put our lives in His hands, and especially when we have been assured that He will make everything right, we must cling to His promise. If we doubt, we must rebuff that doubt by reminding ourselves of His promise to us. And, for everyday circumstances, for every circumstance, we must remind ourselves of His overall Promise: abundant, eternal life.

God keeps His promises. We must have Faith, in all things.

rjm

100 Trees

2007-09-18T07:03:00.000-04:00

I tried counting our trees the other day. There are 11 in the front yard, about 25 in the back, nearly 50 in the Witch's Forest, and I-have-no-idea-how-many in the forest past the creek. So there are over 100 trees at Blackwater (which consists of only 2 acres).

The Witch's House and Forest are a tale for another time.

But I must express my awe at our trees. Many of them are over 60 feet tall, with some rising to 110 feet. My husband, David, is concerned about what might happen during a hurricane. And, who knows?

I was settling myself in the hammock the other day. We'd been exploring the creek and walking the dogs. Dave and Alex (our bigger dog) and Kacey, one of our twins were stil climbing around. I laid back and wondered all over again at how we came to buy this place. And at the trees. They are so tall!

But, I mused, they've been here long enough to grow that high. They must be pretty strong. A little breeze was blowing through the treetops; I followed its path as it streamed from tree to tree.

There was a snap, and like a giant rustling weed, one of the treetops shook itself, and slowly fell over, crashing through the woods parallel to the creek and landing with its upper branches in the creek itself.

I jumped -- well, struggled -- out of the hammock screaming for David and Kacey, not knowing which direction they'd taken, trusting in the fact that there'd been no screams to prove they were okay.

They were. Nothing was taken out by the tree, except maybe other trees and plants. We examined the tree where it lay. Kacey, concerned that it was blocking the stream on that side of the island, pulled some of the broken branches out to one side. It had apparently snapped off about 2 feet up the trunk and simply toppled. It had looked a little like an ent starting to walk.

While Kacey moved the tree and Dave examined it, I stood watching the tree's 2 'sisters', wondering if -- or when -- they were going to go.

We looked more closely at the woods. Thick as they are, there are several fallen trees among them, most of them propped by their fellows where they were caught as they fell. The creek makes it easy for trees to uproot; hurricanes and storms knock out the taller ones.

I don't think we'll ever know why this particular one fell -- on a cloudless day with only a little breeze dancing through the woods. Maybe as a warning to us that it can happen. Maybe, as a reminder, that anything can happen.

rjm

pictures courtesy Kacey M.

The Beginning of Blackwater

2007-09-16T20:08:00.001-04:00

We moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina about a month ago. A beautiful home has become ours. We have named it 'Blackwater', and these are our - new - stories.

We've spent a month trying to settle in, but with family busy and scattered and everyone trying to do everything, it hasn't completely worked yet. We still have another truckload of stuff to move here, and we have to sell our other house. We all have projects underway, that we are trying to complete amongst snake sightings, lizard watching, and owl searching -- did I mention that Blackwater is comprised of about 2 acres in the city of Fayetteville? Yet we have all this wildlife, including a heron, and well over a hundred trees, and a 'lagoon' where Little Cross Creek traverses our property. Amazing.

As is normal for me, I have to break off this post before I get to the big stories, because I have to go work on a project one of our 6 kids has me assisting with. I will add more soon, and you're invited to see my slightly more professional blog at http://dreamweaver6.rjmdreamweaver.com/leavings.

rjm

Blackwater photo courtesy of Dave Minnick