What We Forgot

Before we even got to the beach, but inconveniently after we left home, we realized we'd forgotten to grab a pack of butter from the fridge. 

And that's not all. 
Here's what else we didn't remember this year.

* coffee filters 
* the 35mm camera and zoom lens
* sunscreen lotion for faces
* steamer basket for shrimp
* Apple TV box and remote
* drink coozies
* diet Cokes

Now all in all, I can live without each one of these things. 

And I will live without the camera. The iPhone is good enough. I won't blow any prints into megapixel canvases this year, but as long as I can get a Christmas card out of the week, then we're doing OK. We can live without Apple TV, too. Heck, we have cable here! 

But if I don't have to live without butter and coffee filters and cute coozies for my beer, then I won't. The local grocery has it all. And my new coozie actually has a bottle opener  built into it. :) 

What's one thing we did remember that wasn't even on the list? 

A sweet basil plant. It survived hours in the car and is flourishing on the deck. Tomorrow I'll clip some leaves to eat with a fresh tomato from Sticky Bottom Produce. And as I crack some fresh pepper and sea salt over it, I'm sure I'll remember something else we forgot.  

A Change in Perspective

Today I sat in the back seat for the first time as my son drove us down Hatteras Island's NC12.  
...Across the Bonner bridge.
...Through the village towns.
...Flying 55 mph on the stretches in between.
I gave up my shotgun seat so that Curt could be the guide on the side as our learning-to-drive son experienced the stress (thrill?) of driving.

I'm willing to concede (now) that he did a marvelous job. He kept to the speed limit, didn't mind when hurried drivers passed him on the 2-lane road, and never smashed into a trash bin or pedestrian. He even made a left-hand turn from Harbor House Seafood onto Route 12 to get us to our home for the week. If you know me, you know how I feel about left-hand turns.

There's something about your son driving you to your vacation destination that changes your perspective. For example, here in our beach house, we have cable TV, which means we have HGTV. So even reruns of House Hunters excites us beyond imagination. This blondie hunting for a house with her sensible husband is worried about all the steps separating the levels in the split level they are eyeballing. There are four levels in this house,  maybe a stretch of 6 or 7 steps in between each. And she's worried about her three littles navigating the steps.

Really?! Wait till your son drives you to the beach! What is a tumble down a tiny flight of steps compared to a drive at 55 across a bridge where pelicans regularly dive-bomb your car?

 Clearly, this vacation is all about a change in perspective.

Already, Camden has crossed the threshold from little-boy-who-wants-to-be-big to Teen Boy. He is handsome. He is funny. He is exuberant and confident and trying to find his way across the bridge between Kid World and Adult World.

To accomplish that, he needs me to change my perspective. And that's hard.

I liked it when he was a little tyke in yellow rubber boots who refused to wear shorts and tee shirts in the dead of summer. I was tickled pink watching him position his Star Wars guys in the Dream Barbie house where we vacationed.  I was comfortable exerting my control over his little self. Control. Over. Him.

And now I'm OUTTA CONTROL.

This boy wonder is exerting control and I am helpless to do a thing about it. In fact, I'm called NOT to do a thing about it.

That's part of this change in perspective, I think. I'm not to control him. I'm to control myself. Shudder. I hate that. 

As I grow with the Lord, I learn that life is not all about me. 

And I have a hard time letting go. 











But look at this boy. Look at this child of God.

Does the Lord not have a bigger, better plan for him than I have? Of course He does.

This Boy Wonder, this apprentice, this Padawan is in serious training. He's learning to be a man, a husband, a father. And somewhere along the way, I have to stop being the controlling mother and let him pursue that destiny.

I wanted that for my own husband.

And I want that for my son.

Go, young Padawan. With my love and my blessing.
And with my complete undoing as you learn to be a man of God.

Where I'm From

I am from coal,
from Crest and four-leaf clovers.
I am from blazing coke ovens
that looked like bear caves
stretched across the mountains.
I am from the four-o'clocks,
the arches of France,
a foxhole in the Bulge.
From hollers and crooked roads 
and the Trail of the Lonesome Pine. 





I'm from batons and silver charms
      from Minnie and Pearl
I'm from love letters
      and letter jackets, 
from a car that didn't go backwards.
I'm from Rock of Ages
     and John 3:16,
     choir robes, VBS, and potluck dinners.

I'm from Blackwood and Bonnie Blue,
corn bread and bacon gravy,
green beans and fat back.
From black lung my grandfathers
      inhaled deep inside the mountain,
and embroidered tea towels that say
their, share, spare, heir.

I'm from three hat boxes and a yellowed scrapbook
filled with deckled edge pictures
and brittle newspaper clippings.
Moments frozen in time
before I was formed in the womb
of where I'm from.

        * Inspired by George Ella Lyon's Where I'm From

A Letter to Summer

Dear Summer,

     Although winter is my favorite season, you are my favorite time of the year.

     I love sleeping till 9:00 a.m.
     I love reading the Roanoke Times for an hour over two cups of coffee instead of 20 minutes over a cup of V-8 Fusion.
     I love loafing around in my jammies till noon.
     I love cleaning the toilets or vacuuming the stairs on a weekday because I have the time to spare.
     I love lunch with a friend at a restaurant 
and hours by the pool with the boys 
and late nights catching up on Netflix shows.
     I love coffee in the evening because it doesn't matter if I can't get myself to asleep at 10 p.m. 
     I love longer days and lazy mornings and lots of time to read grown-up books.
     
     I love you, Summer. 

Your friend,
Wendi

PS ~ Don't be jealous when I fall head over heels in love with autumn.
     

The Family Tree

I attended a funeral today for a man I didn't even know.

I left wishing I had.

I'm sure I've met distant cousin CA Flora in recent years. There was a reunion in the Tri Cities a few years back where Curt and I visited briefly, too briefly. And there was Dad's and Mom's funerals. And maybe even my sister's. The years are a blur, the wait by the caskets at Hagy-Fawbush Funeral Home reduced to a hazy series of flashes punctuated by Kleenex and the scent of carnations. But I'm told I met him. 

I just didn't know him.

There's a whole family tree of people I hardly know. 

Aunt Sandy sketched this up for me today before she and Aunt Dianne returned to Richmond. I learned that CA married their first cousin, Gladys Helen. There were 15 first cousins in my dad's family, and from what we can see, there look to be nearly 30 second cousins, including me. With this, I'm finally able to draw some lines in my brain, connect the cousins to the parents and then to me. I have faces to put with Facebook family. 

Which brings me back to CA Flora, whose passing drew 800 visitors to the Antioch Church of the Brethren in Rocky Mount yesterday. Today's service was about remembering a man known for absolute selflessness. (The very thing God's working on in me this season.) A child of God, brother, husband, father, uncle, cousin, friend. A servant to his church. A  Hokie, die-hard local sports fan, farmer, realtor. A man to be celebrated and remembered. A man I wish I'd known.

I'm thankful it's not too late to get to know the rest of the clan. 

420 Poplar Street

"A house that raised a family is so  much more than wood and shingles. It’s home to almost every memory of our younger lives. 
… Yes, technically a house is just a place. But at times like this, it sure feels more like a person." 

~ Steve Hartman, CBS News.

   We trekked home last month to empty the attic of the remnants of life at 420 Poplar Street. 

An assembly line of workers, 
from Curt in the attic 
to Camden on the ladder steps 
to Benjy at the bottom 
to me in the garage, 
well, what used to be a garage before Dad man-caved it, complete with an air conditioner/heater recommended by the foreman of the Holiday Inn job downtown. 

   We had it emptied in no time. The sorting is where things screeched to a near halt. And where things got a little emotional.

   I've known the house would be sold for weeks now. I'd celebrated it. No more paying property taxes on it. No more keeping up the insurance. No more worrying that the City of Norton would slap me with a fine for forgetting I had grass down there to mow. 

Michelle, Candie, and me, late 1970s

   The heart of my memories at 420 Poplar Street is wrapped up in papers imaged with Michelle and Candie and tied up with a bow that's one end Mom and one end Dad. The wrapping came undone in that garage as I freed the snapshots from yellowed tape holding them fast in their dusty frames.  

   The whole flood of memories swirled around me in a fuzzy haze of matte print Kodak 110s, faded 35 mm pix, and the occasional hazy Polaroid. 

   So real were they that I could smell the hot Christmas bulbs burning, the OFF! spray and sunscreen, the pork chop casserole and buttery cornbread. 

   And then I could see. 

   I saw Mom, scrambling eggs and baking buttermilk biscuits for weekend breakfasts, taking me shopping for Aigner sandals at Dave's, sleeping fitfully through a midnight game of tag on the roof, and lugging bags of books home from the Lonesome Pine Regional Library. (She had their phone number memorized so we could renew our books. So many were in our bags that we never finished them on time.)

 

   I saw Dad, sitting in the press box calling the plays for John I. Burton football, tinkering on his old MG in the garage (when it was really a garage), stressing over the town budget every May (and teaching me my first lessons in financial peace), and telling the corniest jokes I've ever heard. What I wouldn't do to hear a corny joke in his Andy Griffith-like voice right now. 

   I saw Michelle, insisting we name our new puppy Suzanne (she lost), playing with her Sunshine Family dolls while we watched Little House on the Prairie, dragging her appendix-less self to the prom mere hours after surgery (and looking like a star), and threatening, "I'm tellin'!" at every perceived injustice. 


   The memories faded as I untaped the last picture and added it to the stack. "I'm hungry," someone said. Yeah, I thought. I am, too. 
   
   So hungry I can smell the cornbread. 

   

Dancing Kings

   The most beautiful wedding on the planet happened today at Douthat State Park.

   And after the nuptials, dancing ensued. 

   Our boys were 

not

       bashful.

   At all.

Cupid Shuffling, never sure which foot to put where. I copied the Kings.

Camden showed off some smooth moves that do not at all reflect his DNA profile.

Do you see the admiration Young Padawan has for Old Palawan?

It was something to behold, that dancing Padawan Duo and the Gang.

It was like an early Mom's Day gift all wrapped up in teal 

and white 

and sweat. 

What a sweet, 

sweet day.