November Writing Challenge, Day 8
Dot, dot, dot…
I have approximately 779 stories bouncing around in my head right now to elaborate upon. I know that it’s not necessary for me to only tell one, but I don’t want to wear out my welcome. Not everybody has hours upon hours to loiter online reading ramblings of the resident redneck. So let’s get down to it.
First of all, I have several prayer requests on my mind. And I know y’all count on me not to get all religious but one of my very-good-oldest-friends in the world lost her dog today. Well, technically it was her husband’s dog first, but she knew Buster from his earliest days. Emme and Buster were buddies when M&M’s relationship was blossoming. (This is also poignant-Emme had a last visit today with her old friend. And this is getting complicated, but the reason she doesn’t live with them is because she was a little short on patience when the girl children came along, so Emme relocated the grandparents farm). Anyway, the children are understandably upset-it’s their first close death experience, I’m sure MBM is distraught, he’s had Buster for like, fifteen years, and M is quite miserable with her own grief plus dealing with the girls’ trauma. So there’s that. Next is a lady I’m close with who lost her mother a week and some days ago. She is definitely having a hard time coming to terms with it, as you can imagine. Please lift her up. And lastly, Joe Woods. He’s broke his hip twice (I’m unsure if it was the same one both times or different) but really, I think he’s doing okay…I want you to pray for his caregivers as I’m sure he’s not the sunniest patient they’ve ever encountered.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled blog.
At first I pictured easing y’all into some different scenarios and leaving you hanging. Like, putting you on a rooftop balcony in the French Quarter in a robe, sipping a café au lait and watching the city come to life before you while the fog rolls in off the Mississippi, wondering what the day would bring in your new position as a Jazz performer at Preservation Pub…
Or what would it be like to wake up looking at the road every day. Climb out of your cab behind the wheel and take to the interstate for another ten hours, just rolling across America’s deserts and plains…
Or to wake up looking at the ocean, waves gently lapping in, bringing with it storms and treasures…
But I finally settled on this. I’m changing the lead character’s name to something I know it’s not even though I don’t really remember his real one.
It was a typical day at 911 dispatch. We were sitting around one Saturday eating Cheetos and Pop Tarts. The phone rang. A phone ringing in the dispatch center is unlike what you’re accustomed to, obviously. It’s a wailing, screeching, piercing, set-your-tongue-against-your-teeth alarm. Amazingly enough, you get used to it pretty fast.
“Sevier County 911, where is your emergency?” Possum answered. (We called her Possum because if she got mad at us, she’d sull up for awhile).
“This is Lonsdale Adams, 924-86-0000, and they’re tryin’ to arrest me!!!”
“Sir, where are you?” WpH2 (back in the day GPS) was placing him on a residential street in Gatlinburg.
“This is Lonsdale Adams, 924-86-0000!!!” Came his belligerent voice again. We’re all looking at each other incredulously. There were four of us in there that day, and the three of us that were muted were quickly conferring in a whispered tone what the hell the guy was talking about.
“It’s gotta be his social,” one of us said.
“I’m a ref-u-GEE up here from Katrina and they’re trying to take me to jail!!!!”
“Sir, where are you?” the dispatcher kept repeating. That is absolutely the first thing you have to establish with any call before the location is lost, because you can always send the cavalry to an unknown problem, but if you don’t know where to send anybody, there ain’t much you can do.
Thus begun the cussin’, the likes of which will not be repeated here. We gathered he was on an (adjective, adjective) trolley, minding his very own (adjective) business, trying to get home. It became clear around this point that he was quite inebriated. Code for that is ETOH on board. We could hear scuffling in the background and directly a stern, agitated sounding gentleman informed us that he was in custody of the Gatlinburg Police Department and thankyouverymuch. We disconnected with an audible sound of relief. What the heck?! People are crazy. We talked about him for the rest of the shift, speculating on what may have happened. We even listed to GPD’s radio traffic for awhile trying to glean more details. He continued to give his social in the background to anybody new. We decided he must have been in the military or something since he recited it so readily.
Weeks went by, and although we talked about Mr. Adams from time to time, he was eventually forgotten, lost in the shuffle of all the other crazy drunken phone calls we received on a daily basis. Evidently it’s not just exes you drunk dial, it’s 911, too.
It’s the height of summer and everything is booming in our tourist town.
“Sevier County 911, where is your emergency?” Again, same dispatcher.
“Hey, I’m up here in front of Puckers, and this guy fell in the middle of the road and he won’t let anybody help him…he’s pretty mad.”
“Is he hurt?”
“No, but I think he’s drunk.”
We can hear a man caterwauling in the background.
“Sir, without endangering yourself, could you check and ask if he needs an ambulance?”
“Uhhh…I think he’s alright. He’s just mad.”
You can tell there are a crapton of people witnessing this spectacle. And our caller kept saying, “I’ve got 911 on the line!” This was before YouTube was a sensation, or I’m sure I could provide you a link.
“Can you ask him his name?” Our dispatcher requested.
“Uhhhh…..sure….Sir, what’s your name?”
“Lonsdale Adams 924-86-0000!!!” he thundered clearly in the background. “I’m a REFUGEE from Louisiana!!!”
“Didja get that?” our good Samaritan asked as we all broke up laughing in dispatch.
“Yes sir.”
We sent the call on over to the police department and of course eavesdropped shamelessly on the rest of the call till they got there. It was highly entertaining. He really could cuss like nobody’s business.
So he goes to jail. Again.
A few nights later, I’m working and we get a request for a patient transport from the Gatlinburg jail to the hospital. Patient is complaining of chest pain. Sometimes they did this just to get a field trip, and really, I didn’t blame them. Imagine our surprise when gathering information for our card it was our good buddy Lonsdale Adams! Not to forget the 924-86-0000 part. If memory serves, he got halfway to the hospital and told them never mind, turn around, he didn’t think he was dying after all.
All is quiet on the Lonsdale Adams front for a good six months. Then one day…
“Sevier County 911, where is your emergency?” Possum again, of course. Because that’s how coincidence works.
“My wife’s not breathing!!!!”
“Sir, where are you?”
“This is Lonsdale Adams, 924-86-0000, in Gatlinburg!!! Send someone!!! Hurry!!!”
Everybody’s jaws dropped as our eyes bugged.
“Sir, what is your address?”
“We’re refugees from Louisiana!! Send an ambulance right now! She’s not breathing, she’s just sitting in her chair.”
Long story short, we finally extract the address, send help, and in the meantime we’re trying to get him to do CPR. Seems like he told that she had choked on her false teeth. I’m not trying to be funny, it really seems like that’s what he said. Anyway, the ambulance gets there along with the police, she is in cardiac arrest, and probably had already died but I reckon paramedics are obligated to perform CPR until a doctor is present to declare one dead. I’m not really sure. Maybe they don’t want the responsibility. Can’t say as I blame them. Or maybe they’re hoping to save one more.
Either way, they couldn’t save poor Mrs. Lonsdale Adams that day.
There was something fishy about the call and I remember we all were playing Angela Lansbury for quite some time afterwards. Her death appeared in the paper as “under investigation” and that an autopsy would be performed, but evidently that’s commonplace when someone dies of unnatural causes, or if they hadn’t been sick, at any rate.
I never did hear the verdict. And I think I recall seeing his obituary in the paper a few years ago.
People always ask me what my craziest call was. This one definitely takes the cake. It was the series of calls that made it so incredible; like a soap opera for 911. We would get “frequent fliers” aka drug seekers, but he was absolutely the most astonishing. I still wonder if he killed her…
November Writing Challenge, Day 7
Sculpted.
Meet Oliver.
Oliver hails from Newport Bay, Oregon. He was bought on a windy, rainy June day in an art gallery housed in a hundred year old building. I loved him at first sight. (As opposed to Johnny’s reaction when I trotted him out for their meeting: “Cool. Where’s the pot go?”) Oliver was promptly named after the acquisition and I was terrified his tentacles would break off if I left him packed up and stored in my checked baggage, so he endured a cross country flight nestled in my lap. He was sculpted by Michael Hopko in 2005. He has several brothers and sisters I would desperately like to acquire so I could have a whole octopus family here in Appalachia, but alas, I can’t hardly justify that kind of expenditure. Oliver is one of the coolest and most beautiful things I own. I wouldn’t say I’m into art, but I do love gorgeous pieces as much as the next hillbilly. Sometimes you need something perfectly weird to offset the mundane.
November Writing Challenge, Day 6
The carpet.
The carpet was ugly, and it would have to go. The sooner the better. The living room carpet had long since been torn up and thrown out, exposing golden Clear Grade oak hardwood flooring. It wasn’t beautiful and perfect anymore, though. After almost 40 years of being suffocated by a truly hideous parade of carpeting ranging from a puke green to what was once a burnt orange shag, the hardwood was marred by spots where the rubber backing had stuck and countless staple holes. But it cleaned up okay, and until I could afford to have it refinished, it would have to stay. Strategically placed rugs were lain. The first rug was almost as bad as the carpet-a blood red rose design knockoff Oriental that what it lacked in beauty made up for in size. But it would have to do.
I had been promised that the hardwood floors ran the length of the house, except in the kitchen and bathrooms. I was fixing to find out. Next was the bedroom I was taking over, due to it having an en-suite bathroom. I had stayed in the master bedroom for years, but there was no discernable difference in size. The closet was the main attraction in there. I enlisted some help and it didn’t take long to rip the decades old carpet out. We got the hallway while we were at it. Indeed, the same hardwood greeted me under layers of grime. The bedroom didn’t take a lot of scrubbing to get the bits up, but I remember there was one staple that nearly broke me. I was ready to chew it out of the floor by the time it was done. The hallway was worse, as it had seen more traffic over the years. But it wasn’t too bad.
I was working on a deadline; I had furniture to be delivered the next week and I wanted to have everything clean as possible and the walls painted so I wouldn’t be having to navigate around a bunch of obstacles. I got done (nothing like the last minute to banish my procrastinator tendencies), but when I would lay down at night, my arms would burn and quiver and I would have to eat an Ibuprofen to soothe the ache. It was the first true manual labor I ever performed. And when I finished the library floors, it was the last. I don’t know why the library was the hardest, but I was again working on a time constraint and I remember sitting in here scraping black gunk and pulling staples out with needle nose pliers and crying. I would snot into the bleach solution I went over the floor with twice before the pine sol and then wax and just keep going ’cause there wasn’t anybody coming to help me. I had to do it. And it was just work. At least it kept me occupied. It kept my mind off my Grandmother being gone forever, and Johnny being gone for what I thought was the rest of time. Maybe I was mourning for them, maybe I was crying because my arms hurt, or maybe I was crying because the elastic in my pantyhose was shot {Steel Magnolias plug}. The paint on the walls was still wet when the furniture was delivered, and I didn’t get the bookshelves moved over for a week. It was probably a month before I got all my books situated into some semblance of organization. Hardwood is hard work. Or it was one time, anyway. Thank God for Shug!
My Grandmother built this eight room, two story house as a newlywed, and somehow managed to pay it off in the midst of raising two heathen young’uns and working second shift in a factory. She divorced her husband before it was commonplace, and shot the dirt from under his feet when he called her bluff that the .38 wasn’t loaded.
And y’all think I’m crazy.
Our tastes aren’t similar, although that may have more to do with it being 1962 when she built this place, but I think both of us made it a home. She just didn’t like the work she thought you had to put in to maintain the gleaming floors (she had a buffer, for Pete’s sake), so she covered them up. I just let them peek out and don’t worry about the spots and stains. They’re still beautiful to me.
November Writing Challenge, Day 5
Holy.
How fitting that it’s Sunday. But then, not everybody worships on Sunday. Not everyone worships at all.
I’ve fallen out of church, myself, I’m sorry to say. The reason isn’t because I’ve had second thoughts on religion. No, nothing like that. More like laziness. And I guess the best way for me to keep today holy is to stay away from other people. Because, face it, people annoy me.
So anyway. I’ve known holy rollers and I’ve known spiritual people who have more compassion in them than people who are self proclaimed born again Christians who go to church every time the doors are open. Of course, we all know sitting in church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
Of course I should be witnessing to readers instead of bashing people who are probably doing more than me to get right. So. I’ll tell you about the time I was baptised in the Spirit. Never heard of it? Neither had I. (Mark 1:8 touches on it, along with a few other passages). We were attending this little church in South Knoxville-in Vestal-to beat all…Shug likes the tiny churches. And I will admit to feeling more in touch with the Lord in them little places where your voice is clearly heard when you sing and they wait on you to find your place in your Bible before beginning reading the scripture. This place wasn’t as big as a gas station, set right against the road on a gravel lot and a rusty chain link fence barely kept the blackberry bushes at bay out back. Nothing matched on the inside and lots of Sundays we drew almost as many homeless as we did home dwellers. It was an eye opening experience for me, but I constantly reminded myself that I was offended by people who volunteered and sent money to third world countries instead of helping at home. There is need in Knoxville, y’all. There is need in Sevierville, there’s need everywhere you look. You don’t have to get on an airplane to find it. This church helped locally. And I would hazard to say most of its members didn’t have charity to give. Anyway. It was a stirring Sunday and some crazy stuff was happening, a lady walking around blessing the pews and curtains and some guy blowing into an oxen horn, I don’t know what all. I was mesmerized and just a little terrified. You know me, always scared somebody’s gonna break out the snakes. It IS East Tennessee, after all. We’re not as removed as people would lead you to believe.
Pastor John is getting people to the altar left and right and everybody is just captivated and swept away on this spiritual torrent. I’d never seen anything like it. They were shouting and praising God and Kim was annointing members and I was just struck at how beautiful and moving it all was. Next thing I know, this woman that got annointed was being lowered to the floor and she was smiling serenely. Thankfully she wasn’t thrashing around or I would have been beating the door down. That stuff makes me nervous. I had enough seizure phone calls to do me while I was dispatching. John was explaining to the congregation that she had been baptised In the Spirit and went on to describe what that entailed, exactly. I was intrigued. I wanted it. But I was wearing a skirt.
Pastor John must have seen the want in my eyes and offered. I used my skirt as an excuse. No problem, he said, we could wait till most everybody cleared out and they had a blanket to cover me with. And they did. And I was so warm and when John smacked me on the head and my knees went weak and it wasn’t stupid and I wasn’t acting and I fell into Johnny’s arms and that was that.
Holy cow.
Holy moley.
After my many years in and out of various churches (my great grandmother was a Jehovah’s Witness and that will leave a bad taste in a kid’s mouth because they are incredibly forceful at that tender age), I hadn’t really let myself go. I took a smirking approach to so many others’ beliefs and gritted my teeth on many an occasion. The big church I steadfastly attended for several years, even participating as an Angel in Heaven for their Judgement House, had never stirred me like this. Everything-the singing, the worship, the prayers, always felt so rehearsed, so fake in that sanctuary. I’m sure plenty of people like it and feel touched or they wouldn’t have such a prosperous congregation.
I don’t know what’s become of Pastor John and Kim, I hope he’s still preaching the truth somewhere and she’s still singing “He Knows My Name”, because they had the gift of reaching many and truly making a difference because of what they’d come from- what they’d overcome. They could relate to people that probably wouldn’t be comfortable approaching some more refined houses of worship. They made you feel welcome, whether you were fresh from the bar the night before, determined that was the last time, or dressed in your best. He encouraged us all to keep a dust-free Bible.
And that’s my definition of holy.
How many times can one have a mishap in the kitchen in two weeks’ time, I ask you? Well, I’m gonna tell you about three…that happened to this girl I know. You might say a friend of a friend. A perfect stranger, really.
Scenario One: You sit at work daydreaming all day about what you’re going to have for supper. You have the menu all planned out and you’ve starved yourself nearly to death by 3:00. You come home and begin making the supper you’ve carefully thought out, in this case broccoli and cheese soup and Red Lobster cheddar biscuits (buy yours HERE, they’re fabulous). You’re reading the back of the box to make sure you’ve got your butter/ cheese ratio correct and see a plug for their new Parmesan-Rosemary blend biscuits. While they sound appetizing, it’s not something you would pick up. Or maybe, but not in the bulk box the first time. They’d probably be tasty with pork chops, or herbed chicken.
You begin to mix the water and dough mix. Something doesn’t smell right. It doesn’t smell bad, it just doesn’t smell like it normally does. You turn the box around slowly. Sure enough, you have accidently bought the parmesan type. Crap on a cracker. You’re not having chicken, you’re having cheddar soup to be paired perfectly with cheddar bay biscuits.
Sigh.
Looks like now you’ll be having non-perfectly paired food.
Scenario Two: You have had beans simmering away in the crockpot all day. You have planned the rest of the meal accordingly: kraut and weenies (even though there’s ham in the beans, you still need meat), fried potatoes, and of course, cornbread. You get home from work and are ambling around, doing lots of nothing, when your aunt next door texts you with an egg emergency. She’s one short. No problem. You have a fresh carton of 18, plus a lonely four. You zip on a jacket and head across the yard with the four. Turns out she’s preparing the same meal that you are, except her potatoes are of the mashed variety, being that they’ve already had fried this week. You stay awhile, just lingering and catching up on books, family, whatever. You get home and start fixing your own supper. It’s after you have the kielbasa sliced and in the pan you realize you haven’t come across any kraut in your cabinet in quite some time. A slightly panicked search ensues. You frantically pull numerous cans of beans out to search more thoroughly. You make a trip to the stockpiled goods in the basement. No dice. And no kraut, either. These sorts of things don’t happen often, but when they do, it’s a catastrophe. A few weeks ago, it was gravy on the stove with no milk. And today, no kraut for the weenies. Instead of dashing out to the grocery store, I just made the call to next door.
Lo and behold, salvation was found in the cabinet. Once again, you zip your jacket and retrace your route.
Geminis. Saving the day for each other. It’s a wonder we hadn’t made plans to go out and just forgot.
Scenario Three: you get in your head you’d dearly love to have some cupcakes. As this happens with some regularity, you just happen to have the ingredients on hand. You’ve got everything going and pull the lid off the frosting to give it a stir. Of course then you have to lick the remnants off the lid…because the uncooked cupcake batter you already consumed off the beater deserves it.
It doesn’t taste like it normally does. It doesn’t taste bad, it just doesn’t taste like what you remember. Like when you order Sprite and they serve you 7-up instead. Like you won’t notice. I don’t mind 7-up, but I like a little warning (now replacing Coke with Pepsi, they’d fightin’ words). You look at the container. Pillsbury brand. That must be the problem. Seems like you prefer Duncan Hines. But wait. Vanilla marshmallow??? Ewwww. So, once again, you peer into the cabinet and BEHOLD!! There is another can of white!
You peel the lid off and stir. It doesn’t look as white and fluffy as usual. Here we go again, you think, and take a tentative lick off the spoon. It doesn’t taste exactly right. And why do the cans looks so different if they’re the same brand? Unless…..
Sure enough, the white is older. Much older. Expired three years ago older.
When you’re a Gemini, you have a backup plan for your backup plan. Being that there was ZERO possibility of going to the store and 100% certainty cupcakes were going to be eaten, one must turn to Pinterest for a lifesaving frosting recipe.
And….eh. I probably should have just gone to the store. I mean, she. Not me.
I‘m a hopeless optimist. Ask anyone who knows me well. I stay to the bitter end, hoping against hope things will get better: my jobs, relationships, food. You name it.
Don’t fault me for wearing orange. I have no more say in the matter than I do over my skin or eye color. It’s game day Saturday? Bet your best watch Amy’s wearing orange. It’s almost indeliberate and automatic. If we’re not in attendance, we’re watching from wherever we are (including the Walking Horse Celebration and a bar in Florida) and looking for the checkerboard with every play.
Sure, I’ve lost hope several times this season. It’s depressing. I’ve said for a long time-it’s hard work to be a true fan. Anybody can root for a winning team. But to support a program when they’re down and out takes a special kind of loyalty. Some may call it stupidity. But Rocky Top does something to me. And orange is never wrong. Additionally, you can always cheer on whoever is playing Alabama or Florida. Lots of ways to keep occupied as a Vol fan.
If nothing else, I can be proud of our band. Pride of the Southland never makes a false step. They’re the majority of the pageantry: the Power T that the team runs through, the people that keep the crowd alive, the ones who lead the chants.
I sing the National Anthem with my hand over my heart till the last two lines when I’m crying too hard to sing another word. I’ve always been this way. It just stirs something in me. Roothog or die.
When you enter our stadium, there are lots of officials welcoming you to Rocky Top. My stomach still churns from the excitement and I’m swept along, up the concrete ramps, surrounded by similar orange-donned spectators smelling of Jack Daniels and barbeque. (I’ll never understand how people can drink all day then go sit in the sun with 100,000 other sardine packed fans). You’ll feel the thunder. Expectations are high, the energy is palpable. All the seats at Neyland are good. If you’re long legged you may be a bit uncomfortable, but you’re liable to forget about it once all the action gets underway. Your hind end won’t get numb because you’ll constantly be on your feet screaming for one reason or another. Usually the drunks are under control due to all the ushers mingling. And the language is toned down. I hear way worse in my living room.
…out of my own mouth.
We don’t call them the Heart Attack Kids for nothin’.
I did drive out of the road a couple of years ago when I was listening to the radio: “7 to zero, Tennessee, & the Vols are driving.” I get goosebumps. When it’s followed by, “They’re playing fast, already lined up. Dobbs fires, ball is caught at the ten, turns, at the five. Checkerboard.” Those are some of my favorite words. I screech and take momentary leave of my senses.
My family is weird, no doubt about it. We are also die hard Tennessee Volunteer fans. Quite literally, as demonstrated here.
My grandmother, gone nine years, was ready for the age old rivalry with Alabama, thanks to my momma. Who also ain’t right. She has done this every year for quite some time. Even Grandmother’s tombstone boasts a football with “Go Vols!” etched on it. She’s eternally resting about nine miles as a crow flies from the stadium.
So there are my feelings about the Vols in a nutshell. I’ll always root for them, I don’t have a choice. You live here, you cheer for Tennessee no matter how bad they get. It’s in your blood. You can say they suck when they do, but you still care, you still hope, and you still put on your orange and holler your guts out.
November Writing Challenge, Day 4
Tweeting
I have never tweeted in my life, save for singing that old tune “all the little birdies on Jay Bird Street, love to hear the robin goin’ tweet-tweet-tweet”. I once Facebooked that I was too long winded to tweet, which was ironic, since that was one of the few posts that could have been tweeted.
I think our President has no business tweeting, but maybe that’s over since the disgruntled employee evidently deactivated his account. A wise move for all, I say.
My cousin collects Tweety Birds.
I can’t whistle. Maybe there’s a parallelism there.
Didn’t they call Conway Twitty Tweety? I don’t know. I was young. I don’t know a thing about Tweeting.
I’m really out on this subject, if you couldn’t tell. I kinda dread sharing it, but I’m committed now. And it will keep me accountable to improve. (See? I almost wrote “do better”) Sorry to disappoint you with this one. Not much to draw on.
November Writing Challenge, Day 3.
Clarity.
I gained the clarity of sight in fifth grade. I didn’t realize I was squinting, but one of my teachers did. Nobody in my family had connected my debilitating headaches to poor vision. But what a relief it was to be able to read road signs easily and distinguish cows from…well, blobs. The migranes disappeared, never to be repeated in my lifetime thus far. And believe it or not, I prefer myself with glasses even though so many people feel the need to tell me I’m so much prettier without them. These are the same people who like it when I have straightened hair. #sonotworthit
Shopping for glasses every year is both a blessing and a curse, as so much of my life is. It’s a blessing to be able to afford high quality lenses and the ability to have them so quickly and *almost* effortlessly, compared to many countries that have no availability to them at all. And the selection! It takes me forever to narrow it down to just a few pairs. I always make the saleslady pick, as I am a hopeless Gemini. But contacts are out of the question. I nearly have to be hog tied to get eye drops in (I’ve found rolling them off the side of my nose is almost endurable) and I can barely get an eyelash out without crying or melting down from an anxiety attack. It’s ridiculous! I’m not normal. I can’t bear to tell you about the “little puffs of air” glaucoma test. That is my own personal hell. Give me a pelvic exam any day over that torture. Beyond dealing with near constant specks and smudges, the only other bad thing about poor eyesight is keeping up with glasses. I’ve put them in the same place for forever before I go to sleep, but it’s more to do with jumping in bodies of water forgetting that you have on your viewing apparatus. Fortunately, I’ve never lost a pair. At $500 bucks a pop, I can’t afford to. Although, many years ago, I was late to work one morning hunting them. I had evidently driven home in my sunglasses and my regular glasses were discovered the next day in the floorboard of Patsy. Never did figure that one out.
I remember when math clicked, and telling time, and when I learn someone’s profession and it’s like, “Oh! That explains so much!” Or those life hacks links. Those are the very definition of clarity.
I gained clarity again as an adult, when I realized a college education will get you so far, but what is really valuable are the connections you make and the memories never to be repeated. I’ve gained clarity over and over again as I’ve stepped away from poisonous relationships, toxic friendships, and dead end jobs. Sometimes it takes stepping back to realize things aren’t going to get any better.
Right now it’s pretty clear that I’m not going to get much housework done today, but plenty of reading. The day is not clear, there’s fog drifting from last night’s rain and it has me in its melancholy grip. Nope, won’t be much accomplished today in this house.
November Writing Challenge Day 2
Wind.
Once upon a time, in a land full of dirt roads and gently rolling hills, there was a cabbage plant. And under its largest leaf quivered a small winged grasshopper. The grasshopper wasn’t sure what had happened for him to be separated from his 392 siblings, but here he was. He was scared, but he wasn’t cold. He was lost, but he wasn’t blissful. He was green, but he wasn’t jealous. His yellow eyes darted anxiously as he chewed his bottom lip. He flicked an antenna and waited.
Pretty soon he heard the chirrups of friends and neighbors 40,000 strong and he ventured out from under the cabbage leaf. He stretched out a leg and eyed the sky for swooping sparrows. The golden wheat rustled and he warily watched the high grass for other uncertainties. He climbed a stalk and munched thoughtfully on a tender sprout he’d found on the way up. It was green like him. The stalk shifted slightly. He gently swayed in the wind. He spread his wings to shake the dust out.
And he remembered being lifted, the sensation of being weightless, and this was it, it was wind. It was wind beneath his wings. And he was flying away, to the next cabbage patch, on the next wind.
I never gave much thought to wind until I went out west. It’s not like we get hurricane gale force winds here in East Tennessee. But in Oooooo-klahoma (where the wind comes sweeping down the plains) it’s a whole different scenario. It took me till the Painted Desert to learn my lesson about only opening one vehicle door at a time. That’s right, you have to coordinate with other passengers who’s going first, second, and so on so that you don’t create a swirling vortex in the middle of your car. And so that you can get the doors slammed back shut without them being ripped away. It’s crazy! But the flags always look nice. It’s so constant and powerful they’ve harnessed it like we harness water out here and have these crazy huge clusters of windmills providing energy to homesteads.
But here the wind is more of a gentle breeze to be appreciated from a porch swing or the shade of the old maple while catching a break from the garden. The tinkling of the windchimes lures you to relaxation with the sweet notes that ring out. In the rare event the wind gets too severe, it’ll break the middle of the Bradford Pears out (blasted trees!!!) or take out some old rotted limbs. Thankfully that doesn’t happen very often.
In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines…and we shiver when the cold wind blows…Bill Monroe certainly accurately captures the image of the wind in the Appalachias. Curl up in front of the fire with a mug of hot chocolate and a tattered copy of Gone with the Wind and read while the snow falls and piles in drifts.
Of course, here at the Johnson Plantation, the most common wind is of the broken variety. No little grasshoppers here. Just barking spiders.
Instead of doing 30 days of Thankfulness I’m switching it up this year.
I think it will be good for me. All twelve months are listed on Pinterest. I need to get back in the habit of writing. Time is so hard to come by, though, between working, keeping house, cooking dinner, my own maintenance (which seems to grow by the day), reading my self imposed goal of sixty books this year, and catching up on social media. But anyway.
So. Day One. Heartbeat.
Well. The obvious is when your heart starts beating, you’re here, and when it stops, you’re not.
But I’m not normal and the first thing that comes to mind is Brian talking about wood fences that don’t lay with the land and have “heartbeats” (bumps).
But for the sake of a good story, we’ll track back to the customary usage.
I see more hearts stopping than I do starting.
My heart stopped the first time I laid eyes on Johnny. I know it did.
I’ve seen heart stoppingly gorgeous creatures; horses at play in fields and working cattle, their muscles rippling and manes flying away from their necks as they turn on a dime (my heart has stopped when I became separated from said equine in a grand fall). I’ve witnessed panthers pacing and stalking prey, their gorgeous shining coats showing just a shimmer of dapples. I’ve watched fish glide and birds soar and swoop and wondered at the ease of which they go and how could my eyes possibly take in all the details? I’ve stumbled upon deer frolicking and turkeys strutting and scared up a hoot owl in pursuit of a small groundhog and it was all heart-stopping-fantastic. Even bats and cicadas are beautiful as the sun goes down in a sherbet sky. Pause and watch sometime. Your heart may give pause.
I’ve read poetry of such magnificence my heart stopped and watched breathtakingly beautiful mountain scenes pass outside my window and stared perplexed at fog and waterfalls and impossibly clear days.
I’ve ridden heart stopping roller coasters, where you pull 3G’s upside down with your head eighteen inches from the ground and you just know this is IT.
I’ve been at weddings where the beautiful bride just cries into her perfect flowers and wonders at the perfection of the day and how could her heart possibly hold another ounce of love? So it stops on her day and everything is a snapshot for that one moment.
My heart has stopped in haunted houses. I hate that crap where they sneak up after you when you think you’re on to the next attraction.
I’ve witnessed hearts stopping in hospital waiting rooms when they get the news they’ve been praying about.
There’s much debate over abortions, and when an embryo crosses the line from being cells to being a human. The argument is frequently made that the fetus gains a heartbeat at around three weeks old, and so that’s the defining line. You pray for heartbeats. You pray for your own if you’re sick, and you pray for more for those you love, and you pray for it to be strong if you’re carrying.
The heart of rock and roll is still beating, according to Huey Lewis. The Heartbeat of America is today’s Chevrolet. And I’d eat a dozen cupcakes in a heartbeat if I wouldn’t gain 10 pounds.
Heartbeats. Takes all kinds.
