Home!!!

Ermahgod, y'all. We.are.home. Do you hear the chorus of angels and bells ringing down over us?

We spent a whirlwind forty hours in Atlanta, celebrating my grandmother's 90th birthday. She didn't know about the party we'd planned or that every single one of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren were heading to Georgia for it. A happy surprise, to say the least. Just look at her- Mimi is 90 years young! And my sister and I always have so much fun.

I've missed being here, in this space, but have stuck to my goal of trying to slow down when I need to or can. 

Oddly square crab cakes with mustard aioli

Tonight I made crab cakes for us, to toast being back and flightless in our near future, and now I'm in bed with a purring Nutmeg. Sleep threatens to come at any moment, but I wanted to share some pictures of all the fun I had during this grand holiday season.

My nephew, Leone, adores Oliver and chased after and climbed all over him at every opportunity. Adorable. Then, there was the spectacularly Louisiana Christmas tree. And, a night out with girlfriends: dinner and Motown the musical.

Heading home

I hope this new year is treating you all well. What are you looking forward to?

A gold-sequined intent

I really cannot believe we're leaving town again tomorrow morning. It's for a good and happy reason, but we are all so tired and sick of suitcases and rather in serious need of some R&R which cannot be got in forty-eight hectic hours at home nor during a celebratory weekend away.

As I look ahead to 2016, as I see the excitement on social media, the resolutions being promised, the balls dropping every hour on the hour, I feel, simply, tired.

Tonight I will don a gold sequin mini skirt and heels and drink champagne and look back. I will feel grateful and shimmery and laugh with friends and peer forward too. I will come home and finish packing and brush my teeth and set an alarm. And I will look ahead to Monday when I hope to slow the train and pull it into the roundhouse.

I will sincerely do and mean all of those things.

The kids will return to school and Tom to work. I'll put the suitcases away and the few remaining Christmas remnants too. I'll write thank you notes and finally deal with the pile of clothes that I never wear but haven't yet parted with responsibly. Maybe it'll finally get cold.

I don't trade in New Year's resolutions, but instead plan to offer an intention, as my dear friend, Lisa, suggested. And that is to recognize and honor that I am not an infinitely charged battery. There is so much I want to do in this life and so many needs to meet. But what is a life lived if it's a fatigued blur?

It literally just occurred to me that I'm getting older. That I'm not immune to aging (fuck!). That in a short few months, I'll be 40. Which I have not one qualm about, but physical maturation doesn't give a fig about qualms.

So my intention is to live purposefully and energetically but less obligatorily. Why shine for others if the light left for me is dim, you know?

Cheers!

*This one goes out to the Trilium Waterholers and the Fabulous Foursome, among others!

A calm spot in the gale

I'm sitting in a heavy, white wooden rocking chair on the deep, blue-ceilinged back porch at my parents' home. A mighty wind has blown unceasingly for the past many hours. Tom finds it ominous. I love it and wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now.

Apparently, there's a tornado watch in effect.

I don't know where the boys or my parents are, the baby or my sister. I can't hear anything over the wind except the chimes, which are working double-time singing their as-yet-unwritten song in real time. The porch fans are off but spinning admirably. 

It's high tide, and the bayou is racing past. Can something race languidly? I never thought so, but the bayou does. A lone egret slinks carefully across the edge of the mudflat on the other shore; slow step, slow step, long pause. He assumes statue pose and stares intently before deciding the fish isn't there or isn't catchable. Then, he moves on. I wish the roseate spoonbill would return. He's such a becoming shade of pink. And that beak! Prehensile serveware.

In the yard, the leaves are running even faster than the water just beyond. On tip toes they skirt across the prickly St. Augustine blades. The grass is greengoldbrown; it looks like it thought about dying for winter but then realized winter wasn't really coming. It's in purgatory. 

The live oaks and pines and cypresses are demonstrating why they rarely topple, even in all the storms and gales they weather down here. Both strong and flexible, they move with the wind as if part of it. Their cones and seeds stay put, holding on to the branches as tightly as the trees' roots do the water-saturated earth below. 

I remain happily tethered to the porch. The swing and other rockers wave and sway, as if inhabited by imaginary friends. Birds tumble throughout the air in controlled fashion, and the clouds move so quickly I am certain I'm watching a time lapse.

The Christmas lights, star-shaped and pale blue, that Mom hung all along the porch railings dance too. They seem somewhat out of place on this warm December day, itself a rather out-of-place thing, really. My bare legs and feet and arms have not a single goose bump. I'm glad I pulled my hair into a ponytail before coming outside. It needs to be lassoed right now.

It's not remotely quiet out here, but to me it feels wholly peaceful, which just goes to show that restorative silence is a relative thing. 

For the first time in easily conjured memory, I think I feel relaxed. I am no longer sure what that means, but this feeling isn't familiar and it is lovely, so surely that mystery counts for something.

I love this place. The magic is undeniable. It's not intense, there are kids and surrogate parents all around, there is ample space and are fewer expectations of cleanliness and decorum. I'm not saying it's optimal but there is something SO freeing and right in all the laissez-faire'ness of here.

Tonight we spent with first and second and third cousins, a steak-and-play dinner unlike most. There was an excess of wine and also dessert. Bedtime rules flew away with the wind. But everyone was happy, and happily worn out. 

And I will miss this place that I still call home.