On Slowing Down

It’s 11:00 on a Thursday.  The kids are still in pj’s.  It’s a bummy movie day.  Here’s how we got here:

• Last Friday, Isabelle started breaking out in poison ivy.  It’s finally getting better but still bumpy and gets itchy when she gets hot playing.  I spent two nights in her bed to keep on top of Benadryl and topical creams so she would not scratch to bleeding in her sleep.  This means I slept not so well, got kicked, snuggled a sweaty little sleeper, and got a crick in my neck.  Her mattress is not the finest.  We intentionally got an inexpensive one so if it got ruined with bodily fluids, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.  This decision was made naively without considering that WE would end up sleeping on it some, too. 

• The last two nights she has spent in our bed with me.  Better, but still sleeping contorted to avoid her thrashing upside-down sleeping self.  Waking up to toes in my face while the incision spot on my forehead is still sore is not thrilling.  This morning, I got up at 5:30 to treat itching boo-boos, got back in the bed to snuggle for a while, and eventually made motions to get up around 6:15.  My neck sent me a big “F you!” as I stretched—that crick in my neck?  Well, in that general area, I had a muscle spasm so strong that I froze, facedown mid-stretch.  It’s been since before Isabelle was born that I had one like that!  It was so bad at first that I couldn’t move my head or left arm at all.  A heating pad alternated with a huge cold pack, an 800mg Motrin, a smear of muscle ache cream, a long soak in the tub with jets pointed right at tender spots, some gentle head-turning to stretch, and another turn on the cold pack, and it’s feeling manageable.  

• So back to this morning…Frank, wonderful man that he is, fixed Isabelle breakfast, made up the bed, and got Will up and pottied.  I would have been hurting really, really badly if I’d had to do that first off!   Will eventually wanted breakfast, and wandered into the kitchen…where he proceeded to get that funny look and throw up a little bit in his hand.  About this same time, Isabelle announces that she has to poop and scurries off to the potty.  This is 3 days of daily going, which is not her usual.  Either gluten-free really suits her, or Houston we have a problem.  What the hell is going on in my house?  All I want to do is clean a little so that we can have friends over tomorrow to play.  I have no idea what the throw up was all about, but he happily (and slowly) at a banana and some plain cheerios at the table with a big bowl for throwing up at hand.  I made them both a double probiotic, double elderberry syrup in apple juice (organic!) topped off with water to stave off any potential bugs and am set to watch and wait today.  Luckily, nothing further has developed on this upset stomach front.

Taking a step back, I’m thinking all of this is a big kick in the pants to force me to slow down and look at priorities.  At first, I was all frustrated this morning that my week of being active (walking/strolling and yoga) and productive (keeping house neat/clean, cooking healthy stuff) was shot.  There are things I HAVE to do today to meet my own expectation.  Wait a minute.  The world is going to continue going ‘round if I don’t vacuum or cook dinner.  So, I start thinking about the Deepak Chopra Soul of Healing Affirmations album I downloaded on Sunday.  Sure it seems cheesy, but it works.  It’s making me think at least.  I’ve only listened to a hand full of the tracks and will not add more until I remember these few and am incorporating them into my daily life.

“…Our body is…the battleground for the wars we wage within our minds.  By changing the conversation that is happening in our minds, we influence the body so the body will become the playground instead of the battleground for the wars you wage in your mind.  Your body will become the playground for all the love that you want to create in your life.”

~Deepak Chopra

Do any of the things I am dead set on doing improve my own or my family's happiness or health?  Nope. Does worrying about getting it all tended to increase my stress, make my fuse shorter, and take my focus down a negative path.  Yes indeedee.   My kids would rather run around in pjs (even in the back yard today), watch movies, eat a pizza from the freezer, and get out every toy we own than be put together, eat a perfectly balanced meal, and pick up as we go about the day. 

Here is a list of things I will *not* be accomplishing today, things that can get kicked down the list of priorities until I can at least turn my head again:

Vacuuming, mopping, bathroom cleaning, dusting, fixed hair, putting on a bra, shaving my legs, ironing, baking, cooking dinner,  exercising, obsessive toy picking up 3x a day, full laundry basket, and chickens who’d like to peck around the back yard.

I’m sure there are more things that will be left undone without ruining my life, my week, or my day.  I'm making an effort to slow down, play more, and praise my kids more.  Those things can be hard to do when I'm so caught up in all of the "have-to's" I pressure myself to complete.  Nobody else in the house shares my sometimes extreme expectations.  

What in your daily life can you let go of or reprioritize to increase your wellbeing and decrease anxiety?

Girlie Day

Today has been a day full of errands.  Odd runs here and there disjointed like the movements of a piano concerto.  Somehow the closing of the piece ties together all of the loose ends.  It all fits and makes sense.  There is no more dissonance, only resolution.

The random running began with a well-earned trip to the Disney store with Isabelle.  She'd never been before.  It was awesome.  She was more than a little awestruck.  Not wild (honestly, apeshit) as I anticipated, but cool and a little blissed out.  We counted out the saved Christmas money, and she picked out just what she wanted.  The first favorite was a purse filled with pink jewel dress-up accessories, "Because I don't have things to go with my PINK dress, Mama."  At our house, one must match in costume.  No wild, disorganized get-ups.  Outfits per the princess's orders.  She is never Cinderella when in a blue Cinderella dress.  "It's just Isabelle IN a Cinderella costume," she is quick to say.  Funny kid and neat to see the complexities of preference and personality are very present even at four.  In close second was a zipper pouch filled with colored pencils, markers, a ruler--school stuff.  My mother described it perfectly when she said, "Oh for making trash.  Yeah, she does that at my house, too."  Sorry, dear daughter, fine arts abilities don't run on my side.  I'm thrilled for her to play in it and enjoy it all, but I won't be saving any of it for an exhibit at the Met in decades to come.

Quick ride on Pumba

So, home again, home again, jiggety jig after stopping to have froyo for lunch.  Mama was SO much cooler than usual today.  As soon as Will went down for a nap, I ran to a local junktique store looking for a birth stool rumored to be in some store past Walmart.  Score!  It was there.  I didn't get it.  What on earth will I do with that?  It won't be seeing any action in the near future if ever at my house.  Maybe for an office later, but our house is bursting at the seams already.

The birthing chair

On to the health foods store--how I love Five Seasons in downtown Ocean Springs.  Jan and Paul are incredubly knowledgeable and helpful.  I'm hunting for a home remedy for my sweet kitty who has feline herpes virus.  No laughing, it's very common in feral cat colonies or unhygienic places where cats are overcrowded.  Both of those describe her humble beginnings from what I can gather.  It's pitiful.  She pukes all the time, has rotten teeth, and has upper respiratory symptoms periodically with outbreaks.  We are currently having an outbreak.  So far, probiotics, grain-free crunchies, grain-free canned food just for her, plus olive leaf extract (gag, it's vile) are really helping.  She is still snot rocket sneezing, albeit less often, so I picked up some colloidal silver to treat the infection.  The outbreaks always come with a wicked upper respiratory infection.  I'm trying to avoid the vet, because the only way of treating there is with anitbiotics which kill ALL of her gut flora.  With an autoimmune issue at the root, I hate to level her defenses and kill all the beneficial cooties.

From the heath food store to the grocery store for a beer run, quite a bit in fact.  The weather is pretty.  We love sitting outside.  Beer is practically required to rock on the back porch on nice, warm evenings.  By this time, I've decided that the birthing stool is the perfect early Mother's Day gift for myself.  I mean, really, if this simple, hand hewn piece of history was picked up by someone not in the know because it was a cute little chair for wherever, what a loss!  I have imagined it's tragic end by this point--getting broken and tossed out with the trash.  Think of all the stories lost if it sits unappreciated in some corner.  That seems worse than being broken and discarded. 

The lady at the store grins when I come in the store again.  She knew I'd be back.  The first time, she told me about all three of her births.  Her kids are grown, my age-ish.  This stuff sticks, folks.  Anecdotal experiences like this morning, the random stories of ladies I've met, the research I love--it's sure nice when science backs up what I've suspected as elderly ladies tell me what they remember vividly of their experiences.

I now own a birthing chair, or birthing stool.  I'm glad I bought it.  It may be a silly way to spend money, but both of my grandfathers were born at home in rural areas of Mississippi within a couple of hours of here.   Maybe there were seats like this where they were born.  Maybe not.  I think both were caught by their grandmothers.  I can personally attest to the importance of something sturdy to hang on to when giving birth--squatting bar with Isabelle and the handles of the birth tub with  Will.

My dad's father was born in his grandparent's home in Wayne county Mississippi almost a year after his mother's first baby was stillborn.  He and his sisters settled on calling her a "community nurse" when they were telling me about her and how they were all born at her house.  Apparently, she served the area in many capacities, assisting the local doctor on house calls and catching babies when needed.

My mom's father was the youngest of five boys born at home in Covington county Mississippi.  I think he came too quickly for the doctor to make it to the house in time.  His grandmother stepped in to catch there, too, I believe.  Just last summer at the family reunion, one of his cousins got up to talk about Granny.  Feisty, tiny, red-headed lady who was hailed a healer and had well-remembered medicinal and flower gardens.  She had the ability to walk in to the sickroom, take a whiff, and discern the fever or illness from the smell.  She taught her daughters how to do this as well and what plants to use.  One of those girls lived well into her hundreds, and I knew her.

If any of that is incorrect, dear family, please correct me.  It's oral history.  Nobody has written this stuff down that I know of, and I'm a couple of generations late for getting the details spot-on.

I love knowing this kind of family history and now owning a piece of local history that is tied to what I do.  It's fascinating and sad all at once that they knew so many things that I am just beginning to re-learn.  We know a lot more now in ways, but we have also lost a lot of knowledge.  Sure, I'm not opposed to medicine and appreciate having access to medical care when we need it, but I can handle a lot at home.  That said, I'm going to watch my squirrely girl wallow in her new stuff, drink a beer, sit outside at the picnic table and bench my crafty husband just threw together, contemplate repurposing a dog house into a chicken coop, and figure out in which pots to attempt rooting the elderberry that is growing wild in the lot next to our house to wrap up my day of randomness.

Shedding Skins

Would it be rude to sit with pen and paper and write during church?  Yes, probably so, especially elbow-to-elbow with a stranger on Easter.  I’ll just have to attempt and recreate that thought that has been floating for months and gained form this morning.  It’s late afternoon.  I’ve exchanged contacts for glasses, stylish sandals for busted Birkenstocks, and my new skirt is partly unzipped to accommodate the generous, mimosa complimented meal earlier.

This morning the preacher mentioned the Easter tradition of new clothes or just wearing your very best, since with shedding of Christ’s blood we are all made new and clean.  Finery on Easter Sunday is symbolic of the old, dirty self passing away to be replaced by raiments of God’s grace and glory. 

The sin skin shed.  

Over the last few years of life, I feel like I’ve constantly been shedding skins.  At the moment of the shed, the old me is emptied, and the new emerges a bit fragile and dazed, leaving the brittle remnants of former self.  It can be like a damp new insect emerging from a chrysalis at just the right moment as one phase of life makes room for the next.  It can be sudden and violent like the phoenix bursting into flames, leaving the old as a pile of ashes and beginning again from square one.  It can be snake-like and practically unnoticeable until I come across the transparent form that was previously.  

Gentle and expected or violent and shocking, change is hard for me.  I feel empty at standing in the change.  Whether it’s the change of family dynamic as we add a new member, an uprooting move, or a simple change of plans, I struggle to adjust internally though the waters may seem calm outwardly.  At times I feel like Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”  Though my tone is far more optimistic and I don’t drink that much coffee anymore, my days are meted out in 2-3 hour segments with two small children in the house.  

Down the rabbit hole and away from the spiritual meaning, but it was the springboard that prompted this slowly-congealing realization.  The years of change have been the most challenging and stressful, but I’ve been picking up pieces of the old me along the way—writing for fun, remembering that I’m married to my best friend and the most wonderful man ever, going out with friends, being more fun and relaxed, cooking and entertaining a bit, enjoying clothes again after 4 years of gaining and losing and two generous visits from the boob fairy.  

A year ago, I’d probably tell you that I was miserable and sleep deprived with an 18 month old and a 3 year old, but it is sitting better now.  We’ve all grown, but I’ve mostly picked out my drummers beat amongst the chaotic harmony of the house.  The past lows made me more, they added.  In the moment, I felt like they were draining me of me, of individual identity.  They weren’t.  Even the times that I felt empty, I was just the opposite--new space had been made without stripping me at all.  I’ve backtracked and picked up the best and most longed for parts of me from those sheddings. 

Like an Impressionist painter’s images of reapers in the golden light of late day swinging scythes to harvest the dry yet fruitful stalks of grain, I’m looking back and idealizing the process—it was exhausting, dirty, underpaid labor, yet the perspective makes all the difference.  Instead of resisting change so, maybe I should try letting go of the conventions of polite society a bit more, let my gaze become less direct and judgmental, and notice how the shapes and forms are first made of light and colors.  In that light, the many mes I struggled to hang on to or reclaim are transparent shadows compared to the present.  I am far from perfect but now more open to the opportunity that change can create.  In that light, I too am formed of colors richly reflected and always changing, gloriously new and old as the mythologies of dying and rising deities all at once.

Last Call 2012

Trite though it seems, I spent yesterday reflecting on the year soon drawing to a close.  What have I done well or not?  How can I improve myself and thereby the daily lives of my family members?  Here's what I narrowed it down to:

• Personal: Self Control and Discipline


• Nutrition--More plant-based whole foods.  Less meat, and the meat we eat will be local, fresh, and/or organic when at all possible.  Less sugar.  Less processed foods.  No GMOs--if I am what I eat eats, then I'm still eating rather a lot of GMO corn.  Read labels for hidden MSG.  We won't waste what's in the pantry (see budget bullet below), but I will change some shopping habits.  Take advantage of the two farmer's markets nearby.  Replant our own herbs.  Take note of what I'm missing.  This past year, it was too much caffeine, not enough iron and B vitamins (big no meat kick), and not enough vitamin D after the summer.
• Activity--move moving, walking, running, yoga, hiking.  More being outside.  Less TV and computer (after I finish this post).  How I live will influence my kids for life.  Get brave enough to let Isabelle ride her bike around the block with us walking.
• Routine--make one and stick to it.  Have a loose plan for the day, don't laze around in PJs then scramble to meet the household needs.  Pick outfits for the week for me and the kids on Saturday or Sunday.
• Interactions with Frank, Isabelle, and Will--be nice, be calm, be patient.  Listen more.  Talk less.  No more yelling in frustration, aggravation, or just across the house being lazy.  Give what I want to get.
• Finishing--this is a biggie for me.  I'm a professional procrastinator, an 85 percenter.  Almost finished is not the same as finished, as evidenced by the 2 recovered kitchen chairs that sat outshining their 4 shabby comrades.  Finished the other 4 yesterday. 
• Add a doula and/or basic lactation certification to my existing LCCE to reach more women around me.

• Family: Budget and Plan

• Cash budget--the only way I can stay honest on a budget.  It's going to be hard to reel in after this last quarter of 2012.  It's probably going to limit our intake of adult beverages, as hinted at with the title.  It's easy to feel like too much is never enough and forget that the pride of saving and smart planning is far more satisfying than consuming in excess.
• Meal plan--see the above.  It's amazing how much less I spend and how much more healthfully we eat when meal planning happens.  My goal is to have a written plan for two weeks at a time.  Shop for no more than 3 meals at a time since all these fresh fruits and veggies spoil faster.  Buy organic and see what I mean--scary to think what's in and on the other stuff to make it last.  It's not cheap to eat clean and healthy, but junk isn't cheap either.  Everything is pricey at the moment.
• Set savings goals--the first goal is to pay off the credit card and actually START saving again.  Make the habit even if the amount set aside is negligible in the long run.

We've had a lovely first day of 2013 despite too much Mexican food topped by too much champagne last night.  At bedtime, I deleted Facebook from my phone and have not missed it at all.  I'm detoxing myself from the smartphone.  It is still just a phone after all.  Real life going on around me is exponentially more interesting and more worthy of my attention.

Spending the morning in the woods on a hiking trail with the kids was so nice.  It's been so long since I was outside like that.  I'd almost forgotten the quiet reverence of the woods.  We covered backyard pinecones with peanut butter and seeds for the birds (and squirrels).  Now it's time for naps all around.  Happy New Year, indeed!

Morning Glory Muffins--Preserved for Posterity

Blogging between batches with a Lazy Magnolia in hand.  Lovely Sunday afternoon--pumpkins on the porch, the sounds of football and a whirring washing machine in the background.  This is a favorite recipe of mine, well for the whole house and many friends actually.  Supposedly it's from Broadstreet Bakery in Jackson, MS.  It may have come from a Mississippi Magazine years ago.  Maybe.  Regardless, they are delicious. 

My dad's mother, my Grandmother Jo, had her substitutes.  You must reread that with your most Southern, Lowah Alabamah accent in mind: "Suuubh-sti-tuhoooo-ts."  Really.  She was such a dear, dear lady, and I promise she spoke that way.  My grandfather "got" diabetes.  Rather, the decades of overindulging in salty, fried, bacon grease seasoned, and sweet foods caught up with him.  Rather than changing their usual diet, my grandmother sucked all of the fat and sugar out of her same old recipes.  This is where the, "Suuubh-sti-tuhooo-ts," come into play.

Today, I decided in a Grandmother Jo moment to healthify this one.  There are not many changes to the original recipe, but every little bit counts!

If I wash my hands and touch it again or drip on it, it could be bye bye muffins.

Morning Glory Muffins

1 1/4 c sugar

2 1/4 c flour--1 1/4 c wheat, 1 c all purpose

1 heaping Tbs cinnamon

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt--sea salt

1/2 c coconut flakes

1/2 c golden raisins

1 large Red Delicious apple, shredded (leave the skin on and shred on a cheese grater)

2 c carrots, grated (this is usually about 2-3 large carrots)

8 oz. can crushed pineapple, drained

1/2 c pecans (I always leave the nuts out if they will be shared)

3 eggs (room temperature--you MUST do this!)

1 c applesauce (you could use pumpkin puree or the puree of your choice, really)

2 Tbsp coconut oil, liquified

1-2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Sift together sugar, flours, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt into a large mixing bowl.  Add the next 6 ingredients and  stir well to combine.

In another bowl, whisk eggs, oil, and vanilla.  Pour into dry ingredients and mix well.  Spoon batter into greased or papered muffin tins.  Fill to slightly above the rim or to the edge of your paper.  Bake for 28 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  The original says 35 minutes, and I find that using oil instead of the applesauce/coconut oil combo does necessitate longer cooking time.  Just watch them.  They are supposed to be a soft, very moist muffin. 

Let cool for at least 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Yields 18-22 muffins.

What We're Eating

I had visions of this lovely month listing of all of our delicious meals.  Reality set in--for almost a whole week we either ate out, ate leftovers, or the kids ate nuggets or hot dogs for dinner.  You know how it goes.  Oops!  It certainly wasn't a blog post worthy of my original idea.

In my former life before kiddos, I claimed to be a foodie.  It's sometimes hard for me to get excited about or even think of something for dinner that will be well-balanced, quick to make, and happily eaten by the whole family.  I love cooking, I love my children, and I love food that tastes good--really good.  

Being stuck in a food rut is no fun, so please share your favorites with me.  Here is a random assortment of recipes we've tried over the summer and loved.  We aren't as super healthy as this looks.  These are interspersed with many pizzas and some shameless snacking not listed below--that would be too embarrassing.  Enjoy!

Green Salad with Roasted Pears and Blue Cheese

Garlic Spaghetti

Sauteed Cannellini Beans

Warm Butter Lettuce Salad with Hazelnuts

Spiced Kettle Corn

Rolled Turkey and Apple Quesadilla

Carrot and Zucchini Mini Muffins

Grilled Asparagus and Melon Salad

Round and Round Pasta

Berry Lemonade

Basil Turkey Sliders

Pork al Pastor Tacos

Thai Peanut Chicken

Mix and Match Quiche ~ Asparagus, grape tomatoes, and bacon

Ginger Soy Shrimp and Snap Peas ~  Thank you, fellow blogger, for doing such a lovely job posting this recipe.  It was on the package of my grill basket, nowhere online through Williams-Sonoma, and too yummy not to share.

Pumpkin Pie Pancakes

Canadian Bacon and Potato Quiche

Banana Quinoa "Rice" Pudding

Paleo Herb Buns

Corn with Lime-Sage Butter

Eggplant Ricotta Bites

Beginning the Blog

1 January 2012

Ah, the blank page.  Fresh, open, mine.  Tonight, the quiet clicking of keys is peaceful and familiar.  It's been years since I sat down to write.  As 2012 begins, the days lengthen and I resolve to do a few things for myself, including finally putting my English degree to good use.  Bear with me as I tentatively touch my toe to the blogging pool.  Here's hoping it's warm and that sometimes my words stir a ripple.

My children are asleep; my husband sips scotch at the other end of the couch.  He laughs, shaking his head as he says that he's been trying to get me to write as long as we've been married.

Today is a day for keeping resolutions.  My goals are simple this year: be positive, satisfied, peaceful.  Then there are the everyday things...

Make time to "date" my husband again and get back the pre-parenthood romance.  
Be a more calm, patient mama.
Sit and watch my children play in the mud without worrying about how to get them into the tub and how much more laundry they are making.
Miss the friends I've moved away from without feeling resentful that we moved because my husband has a steady, secure job.
Sew more for my own babies.
Obsess less over mopping the floors and keeping the house spotless.
Get back to yoga--I need the workout, serenity, and time to myself.
Do more in my community as a childbirth educator and doula and advocate for better maternity care and breastfeeding in Mississippi.
Read a few "smart" books, not just mysteries, vampire chick lit, and birth/breastfeeding books.


With three cats, a dog, a busy three year old girl, and a one year old boy, our house will never be perfect, nor will I.  While writing tonight, the image of  Mu Qi's Six Persimmons kept coming to mind--the little (I'm assuming) Buddhist monk working his brush as an act of meditation.  In keeping with that sort of Zen philosophy, I hope to remember that enlightenment ultimately comes with an emptying of self, letting go of expectations and just Being--being Present and Open to the richness of life without passing judgment.  The more I let go, the more I will be able to give.  May my words be spontaneous, expressive, and clear like those carefully placed persimmons.

Reunion Raw

Driving north from the coast to the piney woods of Mississippi to a family reunion, my eyes tear.  I blink it away, thinking that going here is a homecoming of sorts.  Bittersweet.  I’m crying now as I write—part for the empty spot my grandfather, my Slick, should fill in this gathering, part for the idyllic childhood that’s downright enviable.  

He died two years ago this May—the most loving, annoying, persistent, present man I knew.  Self-destructive, loving, dedicated.  Such a big personality and part of my life that it still doesn’t feel quite real that he’s gone.  I still walk in to their house and have to stop myself from looking for him down the hall.  Will is his namesake.  He had to be special to pass along a name like Denson.  In the ICU, I whispered to him not to die, because then if the baby was a boy, we’d have to pass a name.  I also whispered to him that we were having a homebirth, because the eternally mischevious little brother part of Slick love being the bearer of a big secret.  A nurse tiptoed up behind me, put her hand on my elbow as I cried into my clasped hands, and asked me if I felt faint.  Please.  Nobody from this tough old guy’s line is that weak.  He is so tall he hardly fits on the hospital bed.  He shouldn’t be alive right now.  He looks almost like a pharaoh only his head is crowned with bandages.

Crossing the Bouie River, that cold spring fed river whose water is cold and sweet like sap that runs through cracks in the earth, all I can think about is riding 4-wheelers though cow pastures to the little ravine.  On foot, walking across another little creek to the river.  Sand.  The water is cold, clear.  There is a wall of root-cracked earth rising on the opposite bank.  I always wonder what’s up there.  For years, in yoga meditations, this is my “place.”  The bank is part sand, part gravel.  Shooting a snake coiled on the branch.  Part of why he’d take me to the country was to shoot pistols.  The bigger, the better.  He always laughed and said it was scary what a good shot I was, especially for a little city girl.  I haven’t been there in well over ten years.

My children squabble in the back seat, restless and ready to be out of the car.  Once we’re there and meet my parents, we sit.  Looking around, I see a few familiar faces.  It isn’t the same.  Growing up, we were always at my great grandmother’s house sweating under the massive oak in the front yard, rocking in the porch swing, occasionally lolling in the relief of the two window units inside.  It was always the kids and the old people vying for the ac.  The bathroom smelled like Dial soap and had a hook and eye door latch.

Saw horse and plywood tables line one side of the horseshoe shaped drive, filled with food.  Uncle Ermon’s farm truck is at one end filled with coolers and repurposed milk jugs filled with tea.  The pack of kids, me included, got in trouble for things like jumping on hay bales, scaring the cows, and driving 4-wheelers through the rye grass, not to mention spraying cow patties on the kid naïve enough to ride on the back.   

I remember Slick saying when his oldest brother died, “This is the beginning of the end of my generation.”  I had no idea.  Today, Joe is the last of the 5.  He stands at the podium and calls the names of those who’ve died this year, faltering a bit at Herschel, his cousin, and his last living brother, Ermon.  I’m crying.  Thank God the blessing is next.  I blot my eyes and try not to snort, feeling ridiculous and maybe hormonal.  Nobody else even notices.  

That’s not it, though.  This place is nice, but it’s not the place.  I feel so deeply rooted to the place of my childhood memories, and this is not it.  My children run and explore the little creek and bridges outside, flushed and sweaty in the June heat.  It’s cute, even pretty, but not the same.  That place was so plain, so every day.  Nothing fancy or out of the ordinary.  Where will my kids be able to go like that?  Able to go back in the woods and just be?  Get covered in mud and wash it off in the creek?  Nobody worried about us being gone.

I don’t think the place would feel right without the people, though.  Maybe it would change if the reunion had stayed there, grown into something new.  None of my cousins I grew up with are there.  I know we’re all busy and not all close enough.  Most of them came when Slick died, though.

On the way home, I realize that what I’ve been feeling is raw.  Raw is better that surprised.  Raw is open, not judgmental—remembering what it was and seeing what it is.  It surprises me.  This gathering was always fun, exhausting, over-filling as a child.  The rawness is equal parts loss, acceptance, and moving forward.