Relaxed

Sitting in the sun

on my daughter’s

jade green suede sofa
on a cool day

in the middle of October.

The sun rays beam heat

on my neck like a

gentle, continuous massage

that only stops

when a cloud cover comes

or I choose to get up.

The orange and yellow trees

that surround her house

sway in a gust of wind

and a few acorns pop

on the roof and deck.

Her sweet pooch lies

on the perpendicular,

plaid love seat,

glad to be with me

and out of his box,

but positioned

so he can see out the window

while he intermittently naps

and longs for her return.

The joy of utter solitude

and a personal email box

that can be totally ignored

because I have retired.  

  First Cup of Great Coffee

                  

I had my first great cup of coffee in a fifty’s style diner on a tall bar stool with a round red leather seat in the Breaker’s Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1978 at noon.  I poured in rich, real cream until it was café au lait.  It was the best thing I ever tasted.  I did not need lunch.  I did not need a four o’clock snack.  I barely needed dinner.  I played with my food, pushed it around on the plate taking a couple of bites.  I never felt thinner or more in control. 

I tried it again the next day.  It worked again.  I took a walk on the beach.  My long hair flip flew around in the breeze, and I didn’t mind.   I was at the annual ACPE meeting where I was blown away by presentations made by Roger Schenke, Irv Rubin, and Lee Kaiser.  Their speaking style and content gave me courage for the free feminist moves I had already begun to take.  I saw Bob Jampliss, the current president, with his big smile, rosey complexion, and white hair coming around the corner as I went back in the building.  He greeted me with exuberant recognition.

I continued that caffeine kick at lunch time until it tore up my esophagus about ten years later.  Then I had to give up caffeine, chocolate, and all carbonated drinks to try to put off the two surgeries  that I would eventually have that didn’t quite fix things.  But a cocktail of drugs with the lead ingredient Pepcid made me be able to live and work happily even though I cannot lift more than 15 pounds. 

What former passion have you had to give up to support a better life today?

Don Juan Rose

My Don Juan climbing rose produces dark red buds that open slowly and never completely show their inside yellow stamens. They are not like the legs-spread-wide-apart look of the new Knock-out roses.

I don’t let it climb anywhere it wants to. I cut the branches so they suit me and are artfully arranged on a small fan-shaped trellis I bought years ago. The plant becomes bushy in a way I like—not the tall lanky, leggy look of regular rose bushes.

I love the deep red. Other color roses do not interest me—only deep red.
When we first moved into this house in 1995, I tried eight regular roses in my front border—the only place there was enough sun. The Peace rose and the Lincoln are the only names I remember. They were straggly looking at the bottom and an invitation to Japanese beetles. My husband planted them, but I paid someone to dig them up and throw them away. He took it hard.

The first blooms of the Don Juan cut each spring are gorgeous. The leaves have no black spot. The bugs haven’t gotten organized yet, and the summer heat has not begun to bake them.

I put seven buds in a cheap vase given to me 40 years ago by a relative on my husband’s side. Probably one of his aunts, who was living frugally in old age but who understood roses and all flowers the way a knowledgeable southern woman understood growing things. She probably knew the roses would fit comfortably in the vase without any artificial support and last for days.

I came late to the desire for flower knowledge. I enjoyed watching a plant die when my children were young, saying to it—I do not have to water you. I have to take care of these children and the dog but not you.

My mother knew such things, and I was rebellious about it. She dug in the yard all summer. I remember a time when she came in dripping with sweat and covered in dirt looking happy. I had been inside cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and relining them with fresh shelf paper—not my idea.

The first year my mother lost her memory and could no longer take care of the two geraniums she put on her balcony in her retirement apartment each May, I asked a neighbor to help me learn how to care for geraniums. I began to feed my Don Juan rose. I had planted it years before, and it did pretty well with no attention, but when I poured on MiracleGro Rose Food, it did much better.

Springtime in Charlottesville

On an 80 degree day,
if you had the patience,
you could watch the forsythia
and the Bradford pears
turn from yellow and white
to green by the hour.
On some trees the new leaves
finally push the dead leaves off.
Most let go in the Fall
and wait naked for the new ones
to paint the sky
with their feathery brush strokes.
The cherry blossoms are
round balls of flowers up close,
a solid burst of light pink
against the blue sky
when you drive by them quickly.
Not like the layered lace of the dogwoods
that will come a week or so later
or the lavender lines of the red buds
that came the week before
drawn on the edge of the woods
of the still bare tall trees.
A bank of perfectly spaced,
blue violet periwinkles
alive with the hum of bees.
The earth shows us resurrection
every Spring
to remind us it happened then
and can happen again
in our lives if we let it.

The first time I slept outside

I slept outside in the sixth grade in a Girl Scout pup
tent. They said to dig a trench around the tent. The ground was hard. Mary Frances and I tried digging one. I didn’t know what it was for. It seemed like mean busy work. Ditch digging was a term I used for what you would have to do when you grew up if you didn’t study hard.

In the night I found out what it was for. It poured rain. We were slanted downward on the side of a hill. Water and the loose dirt of our half-inch ditch came rushing in, over, and underneath us.
A frog jumped right beside my head. I jumped out of my sleeping bag fearing more were inside it. If this is what Girls Scouts was all about, I wanted out. Earlier we had cooked hamburgers and potatoes on our homemade tin can grills.They were good, but not like the fabulous s’mores with marshmallows burnt over the open fire. We didn’t get around to breakfast.

I didn’t quilt Girl Scouts immediately. Another trip promised cots, a large tent that could sleep six. I went. I didn’t like being with that many people. The pup tent with just Mary Frances was more comfortable psychologically although then I didn’t know what that meant. I quickly got 11 badges including swimming when I took the test in the muddy waters of Fairview Beach. I had had enough. I never sewed the badges on the band that went over your shoulder and crossed your heart, but I still have it. I haven’t slept outside since. I don’t like the heat, humidity, bugs, frogs or threat of rain.

I have bought a house that has a completely natural back yard with tall trees. I stroll often in it touching the trees, remembering my dog that is buried there, looking at the ground covered with leaves, and letting nature soothe me.