I live in this incredible, wonderful little pool house in my fireman friend’s back yard. It’s not only safely inside his backyard fence... but it sits next to the swimming pool inside yet another, even higher fence... ahhh... security...
Frogs abound in the winter water... jumping up and plopping back down... probably trying to get OUT of the pool... lol... luring the tiger kitty to the pool’s edge... his tail whipping madly back and forth... and I watch him and think.... hmmmm.... is this going to be the time you jump in... and if you do... I don’t know how you think you’re going to get out... because I’m not going in...
I’m actually giving serious consideration to asking some fishermen friends to bring me a couple of live fish back from their next fishing trip... then I could get a good old-fashioned cane pole... sit out on the swing... and go fishing in the cement pond...
Move over, Granny Clampett... you got nothing on me....
And I love being there...
I’ve painted and decorated... and moved treasures I've discovered and collected over the years... in to surround me... so that every time I open my eyes... I'm delighted...
Birdsong and frog quartets and mysterious plopping sounds from the water all sing to me... big, double glass patio doors open onto the pool... there’s a swing big enough to take a nap in... and tables... and chairs... and flowers pushing up from all around the edges of the fence... and all my windchimes tinkling and ringing merrily from the eaves of the house...
And do you know... I have no company... I haven’t invited a single soul to come visit me... altho I have been blessed with more friends than you can shake a stick at...
I visit my friends at their homes.
Or meet them somewhere.
Because...
Here...
Here...
Here... is my hideaway....
And you know... no-one seems to mind... I think most people prefer their own castles anyway...
Well... except one somebody... who is very offended that I’ve not invited him over... who thinks I value my privacy way too much... and who is sure there are tons of mysterious secrets hidden inside my corner of the world...
Not really. No secrets. No great need for privacy. Nothing to hide. No weird or wicked habits. Nothing I could be arrested, committed or beaten for. No secrets I’m trying to keep from the light of day.
I think the thing is...
Quite simply...
Solitude.
I like being by myself.
I like being alone.
I like being there... just me and God... talking... and just...
Being.
Solitude...
It’s how I relax...
How I unwind....
How I get back in touch with myself...
And God....
I like Him...
I like me...
Solitude is nice...
P.S. to my family... dear and beloved... who all live far away... you are welcome and invited for as long and at any time you wish to brave the dangers of the journey here... I love you...
Altho he has his very own bed... and lives like a king... while I spend better than two hours every day in commuter traffic to slave at a job designed to keep him in the style to which he has become accustomed to living...
Altho he has toys... and snacks and treats... and catnip... (drugs are legal for tiger kitties...)... and scratching posts... and even a mechanical mouse that runs around the room bumping into things...
And... might I repeat... his very own bed...
He still wants my bed.
It’s a never-ending battle.
And it’s the one thing I have to fight over... because I just can’t bring myself to sleep beneath a furry blanket... which is what happens once he spends the day wallowing around on my bed.
So... I put my thinking cap on... and about two weeks ago, I bought a clear plastic shower curtain liner... and every morning after I make my bed... I put that liner on top of my bed... and I smile to myself with so much self-satisfaction... and feel so ridiculously happy to keep the tiger kitty off
my bed... and still be able to see my pretty blanket through the liner...
It didn’t last long.
Sigh....
Saturday, as I was going about my chores, I looked around the room... and there he was... Tiger Kitty... sound asleep... in the middle of my bed... UNDER the shower curtain liner...
Sigh...
Outsmarted by a tiger kitty...
I was just a little girl... about 13... it was summertime... and I’d been out playing hard (which is what children did in the days before video and computers)... when I went into the house for a reason I’ve long since forgotten... but what I saw when I came up onto the front porch to peer in the screen door has never been forgotten...
She was standing in the middle of the hardwood floor in our living room, all five foot of her, holding onto a broom, chin resting on the top of it, as she gazed at something on our black-and-white television set. She wore shorts and a checked cotton blouse, ankle socks and oxford shoes. Her only jewelry was the gold wedding band my daddy gave her way before I was born.
And she was beautiful.
I remember very clearly looking at her and thinking to myself that she looked just like the high school girls at my school.
She was thirty years old.
And right then, I knew that I wanted to be thirty.. because then I’d be a woman... and then I’d be beautiful, too.
That moment shaped my perception of age for all my life.
My friends wanted to be 16... or 18... or 21... but for me, those were just regular old birthdays... 30 was the one I looked forward to... 30 was the one I wanted to reach... 30 was the one I was excited about...
And it turned out to be everything I thought it would be... beginning with an absolute and total surprise of a birthday party with all my best friends there... and spreading throughout the decade.
And before it was over... there was another carrot dangled before my eyes... a day I’d gone home to visit my mother... and she came walking through the door in a mini-skirt... and I thought... wow.... my little momma is a FOX... what legs!!! And from that point on, 50 was a goal I eagerly anticipated.
Forty was no more and no less than any other birthday... altho... mind you... I love my birthdays... and start reminding folks about them months ahead of time... still... 50 was my new goal...
And I’m here... and it’s so cool... just think... I’m half a century old... and have another goal already....
Eight-five...
That one I have my sweet little old grandma to thank for... because I recollect sitting on the back porch with her one day when she was 85... talking about how on the inside she was still the same person she’d always been... wiser, perhaps... and perhaps not... more experienced... and yet more innocent... but still the same person... an 18-year-old trapped in an 85-year-old body... and she was so cool... and so there... that 85 became my after-50 goal...
And where will I go after 85? Grandma died last month at the ripe old age of 105... maybe I’ll work for that one... or maybe I’ll just go on home to heaven to see her before then...
Age is awesome...
THEN...
My mother’s daddy died when she was six months and eight days old.
He had pneumonia.
There was no penicillin.
He left behind a young widow with two small children and an infant, and no one to help them.
NOW...
We were driving down a two-lane country road outside Yazoo City, Mississippi, and came upon a bridge in the curve of the road. Just past the curve, a small one-lane road led off into the woods. My mother thought that was the one, and so we turned off into the trees. We drove for much longer than she remembered we should have, and just as she was wondering if her memory had failed, she recognized another little side road, and we knew we were going in the right direction. Just a little ways down that road, we saw the church.
It was a small white country church, with a broad front porch and a high pointed steeple, sitting atop a hill, surrounded by trees covered in Spanish moss. The cemetery was beside and behind the church, hidden in the trees, dotted with daffodils, Spanish moss weeping onto tall tombstones and rusted wrought iron fences. There were old tombstones of all shapes and sizes, many with Bible verses or poetry inscribed beneath the names. Confederate soldiers were buried there.
My sister and I, with our mother between us, began moving through the tombstones, reading of the love and longing of families long gone, and Momma remembered this one... and that one... and recounted memories of her own.. one that especially touched me was of an uncle who treated her to her first
store-bought candy bar when she was about five... and another uncle who chased Santa down and made him come back to bring my momma a baby doll... when he learned that Santa had left nothing on the first go-round. Times were hard, but love was great
Then she saw it. Her daddy’s tombstone.
Travis Edgar Moore.
She held tightly to my sister and me, and she said...
“Hello, Daddy. These are your granddaughters. I brought them to meet you. You’d be so proud of them. I am. I love you, Daddy. I sure did miss you growing up.”
And then she cried.
And so did we.