Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

For months now, Dave and I have been mostly working, eating, and sleeping, then working, eating, and sleeping some more. He has been getting orders for furniture, and I’m trying to write my second book in the early morning before I go to work and on the weekends. (Blatant self-promotion: The first book comes out early next year, which I still can’t believe. YAY!)

Yesterday, I took a rare Saturday off, and a friend of ours helped me plant a small garden—just a little color around our deck and patio. Sometimes, you don’t realize how much you’ve missed something until it comes back. Getting rid of all the dead brown leftovers from last year (or was it the year before) and filling those containers with fresh green ferns and color-explosion hibiscus and mandevilla and petunias—it changed everything. Just looking at those beautiful colors can lower my blood pressure. (I couldn't take a picture this morning because it's raining, hallelujah, so I'm sharing a pic from a previous summer's garden.)

I’m often guilty of an all-or-nothing attitude. I can’t go to the gym every day, so there’s no point in going at all. I don’t have time to water all the flowers I usually plant, so I won’t plant anything at all. I don’t have time to play the piano as much as I used to, so I won’t touch those keys.

That’s not a very productive or positive way to think. Just makes me beat myself up all the time for the things I’m not doing instead of being happy about the little things I can do.

Little things. It’s perfectly fine to enjoy them, to be satisfied with them and thankful for them. Amen? Happy Sunday!

Frugal Isn't Everything

I try to be a frugal gardener. I really do. I never buy pricey petunia hanging baskets because I know I can get the same look with a few small plants if I'm willing to wait just a bit. I don't pay $26 for a big mandevilla because I know a small one will grow like kudzu in no time. And so I tried to convince myself that I could be patient with a tiny hibiscus (which you can barely make out in back of this container) until it had time to grow to the desired height. I tried for two weeks. And then I bought this . . .

Sometimes, you've just gotta carpe a little diem.

A Note from Aunt Vivian

This morning, I decided to treat myself to a bouquet and picked these happy yellow flowers from the front yard.The bulbs were originally planted at Grandme's house by Aunt Vivian, with a little help from Uncle Bud I think. Daddy helped me transplant some when I bought my house because I wanted something from home in my garden. They're always the first flowers to bloom for me. And they have a way of popping up right after the coldest days of winter. All they need is a hint of warmth to get going. I think of these buttery blooms as my annual note from Aunt Vivian, who was one of the most hopeful and encouraging people I've ever known. This year, she wrote: "Don't you let a little winter weather get you down—springtime is coming, and there's sunshine ahead!"

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

In just a couple of days, Daddy will offer his annual reminder that Christmas "is not about material gifts"—right after he instructs me to hand him "that really big present" with his name on it:) But our holiday scene, unlike the one in all the Christmas movies, has no snow on the ground, no sleigh bells ringing. Right now, it's thundering and lightening. Within the next day or so, the temperature is supposed to dip into the 20s, but yesterday it climbed into the 70s. A good friend of ours came by with a gift of spring bulbs and convinced me that I needed to set aside the Christmas to-do list for a few hours and do something really important—garden.

Now all the window boxes and containers along our garden wall are filled with promise. Hidden beneath the earthy surface are bulbs and seeds that will take in the winter rains, the chill in the air, and the warmth of the sun and slowly transform into what they're meant to be—daffodils and crocus and hyacinths and wheat grass.

I usually associate renewal with Easter, not Christmas. But our brief Christmas spring reminded me that this season also marks a time of renewal—of renewed hope through the fulfillment of God's promise and the pathway of grace He created. We can fulfill our own promise because God kept His.

This spring, my garden will come to life with flowers planted at Christmastime. Just thinking about that has me humming an old Gaither tune. It's usually sung by children but still holds true for us oldsters:)

I am a promise
I am a possibility
I am a promise
With a capital "P"
I am a great big bundle of potentiality.
And I am learnin' to hear God's voice
And I am tryin' to make the right choice
I am a promise to be anything God wants me to be.

[from "I Am a Promise" by William J. and Gloria Gaither]

Fiesta Terrace Dreamin'

It's cold outside. There. I said it. And I so want it to be warm. I am longing to kick back on our deck, watch the sun go down while the cicadas chirp away in the heat, turn on the festive party lights and the fountain Dave made for me, and listen to Louis Armstrong sing about New Orleans on the poor man's outdoor sound system we rigged up. We have created the backyard deck and patio of our dreams—"our" being the operative word. Our dreams are a little . . . odd. They involve bright yellow walls and lots of iron and palm trees and doors from my grandmother's house and festive string lights that probably don't scream "tasteful elegance."  Some visitors look at our creation and see New Orleans (our intent). Some see Mexico (not our intent, but we're fine with that, too). One of our friends named it the Fiesta Terrace because he says it reminds him of the motor court where the Simpsons vacationed. Doh! And even now, in the cold air, it brings a little color to our world. Here's hoping Marge and the kids arrive soon. Homer? Not so much.

The Tomato King

The tomato at left was grown by me. The tomato at right was grown by our good friend (and Daddy's fishing compadre) Buddy Elliott. I'm thinkin' ole Buddy just might edge me out of that blue ribbon at the fair. Maybe I should fertilize more . . .

Tropical Dreams

I used to wonder where I got my fascination with tropical plants, which my mother never grew. When Daddy showed me this picture of Aunt Mac, his mother's sister, it suddenly all made sense:) I don't remember ever seeing Aunt Mac garden, so I'm not sure if these plants were her handiwork or her mother's. I KNOW they weren't Granny's. Not only did Granny have zero interest in gardening herself, but it made her mad for other people to do it. "The way they sweat in that yard, it oughta look like Bellingrath!" was her usual rant whenever she saw Mama and Daddy planting flowers. Granny's thinking was, why would anybody garden when they could be shopping?  I myself was a late bloomer, horticulturally speaking—no pun intended. I was in my thirties before I developed a yen to dig in the dirt. And now that Dave and I have our backyard "Fiesta Terrace," as a friend of ours calls it, we can't plant enough tropicals. We're already trying to figure out if we can somehow winter our banana plants, which were really small when we bought them but have become borderline ginormous over the summer. I think I love tropicals because they conjure images of exotic locales and sort of whisk you away from the ordinary. (No offense, geraniums, petunias, and impatiens.) When I look at that picture of Aunt Mac, I wonder if she was dreaming of someplace else, someplace where waves lap against the shore and palm trees rustle in the wind. I know I am.

Simple Gifts

This morning, as I made my way through the yard to the Story Shack, I spotted this lone gladiolus. I don't know how it got there, a solitary bulb somehow finding a home in the middle of the mondo grass, but there it was. I've loved these flowers—which we always called glads—since my mother used to grow them in a flower bed by the front porch at Grandme's house. When I told one of my gardening friends I planned to carry them in my bridal bouquet, he said, "Those are FUNERAL flowers!" I assured him that I would not be carrying a spray and that there would be no ribbon with "Gone But Not Forgotten" emblazoned across it. But I did have some glads in my bouquet. I love the colors and the ruffly blooms some of them have—and the way you can put just one in a vase and feel like you've brought your garden inside. When I saw this one, that old Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" popped into my head (which reminds me how long it has been since I've listened to Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring):
 

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.

[lyrics by Elder Joseph Brackett, 1848]

"Mercy Drops 'round Us"

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain, peaceful rain. It means that today, I won't have to water the hibiscus or the rose bushes or my fledgling little Cherokee Purple tomatoes. It means everything in the garden will get a hefty dose of lush. It means I won't mind finally getting to the housecleaning that has been on hold for, well . . . a while. I've been working long hours, so I haven't been Goin' Down to Mama's as much as I'd like or cleaning as much as I need to. Daddy's mother, who hated housework, used to call and tell me, "Honey, the dust is rolling down the hallway like tumbleweed." I'm with you, my Granny. But now the rain is doing a little housecleaning outside . . . so I won't mind staying in and addressing the tumbleweed while those "mercy drops" from that old hymn "Showers of Blessing" are falling.

P.S. When my mother's mother—Grandme—used to get aggravated at us, she'd say, "I'll bet y'all are gonna sing 'Showers of Blessing' at my funeral!" We didn't, of course. But we think about her every time we hear it.
[Image by Chance Agrella at freerangestock.com]

Longing for the Coast

Did you ever get an unexpected flash of memory—a quick, out-of-the-blue recall of a moment you didn't even consider significant at the time? Just the other day, I got this flash of a beach trip Dave and I took—can't remember when since the Gulf Coast is the ONLY place we go, left to our own devices. I had gotten ready for dinner first, and I was waiting for him by the pool at our hotel, which was surrounded by palm trees. It was dark out, and one of those summer coastal storms was trying to blow in. I LOVED the sound of all those palms rustling in the wind. I remember thinking I could happily sit there all night and listen to it. Dave and I both have a "separated at birth" relationship with the Gulf. We just feel like we belong there. Of course, there's the minor matter of the gazillion dollars it would take to live on that beautiful water. And we love our Birmingham neighborhood, too. So we have compromised. We planted bananas and palm trees in our garden this summer. We're also building our version of the French Quarter in our back yard so we can pretend we're just a block or two off Royal. As for Hank the Cat? He's just happy for a new place to nap.