All Shook Up

     Have you ever came to the end of a day, week, or month and had to seriously wonder if all of that really just happened?  Every so often, we live surreal things.  We wake up and realize we just lived what we most often only read about in books or the news.  Some people look back and say things like, “It really wasn’t as dramatic as I imagined it would be.”  Let me just say that those people need friends and family like mine.  Drama is in no short supply around this chick.  Let me be clear.  I am not the least bit dramatic…only very descriptive.  (Certain friends would strongly disagree, but that’s okay.  I love them despite their misconceptions.) 

     Most folks who read my little blog live in the area that, like ours, was pelted by the 2012 Super Derecho.  Just for the record, I think “super” shouldn’t have been included in its description.  “Extremely Large Very Inconvenient Scary-as-all-get-out” or ELVIS, for short, seems much more appropriate.  Since I live in my own reality, I’ve decided that henceforth, the storm will be referred to as Elvis.  (Just a little heads-up to help you better understand the rest of the blog.)

     So, here goes.  That morning, my friend, Bek & I set out for a day at Sherwood Lake (really Lake Sherwood, except to the people who grew up there).  Sidebar:  ~Bek is my pal who keeps me grounded, but doesn’t let me dig my heels in too deep.  She seems to know what’s Always on My Mind.  Her It’s Now or Never attitude reminds me to seize the day, to not let Trouble drag you down and keep you there, because, it’s Funny How Time Slips Away.  She helps me Get Back to what makes me happy when my Suspicion runs rampant and my mind convinces me I’m a failure.  She’s my Sweet Brown In the Ghetto.  (Only she will get that last one.)  ~

     So, off we go with our children in tow…wait that reminds me…my toe.  Another sidebar:  ~Before we met to go laking, I had to swing by my other friend’s house so she could check out my toe.  Now, despite the fact that my toes possess a natural beauty that people “can’t help falling in love” with, she only wanted to see it because I had been “cryin’ all the time” with it.  It’s good to explain here that she’s not just my friend, but my doctor as well.  She was pretty sure it was gout and ordered some tests to confirm that.  She was right, by the way.  Of course, I wasn’t about to delay my fun in the sun with my Sweet Brown, so I decided to wait and get the tests done the next day.  She, of course, looked at me like I was crazy to put it off.  She was right, by the way.  (Please don’t tell her I said that twice!)~ 

     So, since Fools Rush In, we trek up to Sherwood, and, despite the quickly worsening toe pain, have a great time, watching our kids swim and picnicking under the shade trees.  We make it back to town and sit down on the porch to enjoy supper at a local pizzeria, when we’re asked to come inside since a storm is coming.  No biggie, right?  Ummm…wrong.  It was, most definitely, a biggie.  Long story short, we spent the next four hours making a normally twenty minute trip.  What we thought was going to be a little Kentucky Rain ended up being the Devil in Disguise, and the song running through my mind was If I Get Home on Christmas Day.  (Okay, not really.  But still.)  Even longer story short, we spent most of the next week together with no power or water, running (me hobbling) back and forth between water holes, trying to cool off or bathe. 

     One Night can change everything, can’t it?  It changed a lot for me.  I kept thinking of a skit Bro. Randall Topping did at church camp one year called “The Big Toe of Sin”.  Now, let me quell Suspicious Minds…I don’t believe I had gout to be punished, but I do believe it may have been a wake-up call, of sorts.  I’ve spent too much time lately at Heartbreak Hotel.  I would be lying to pretend I’m not still struggling, but just like the night Elvis danced through our neck of the woods, I’m Gonna Get Back Home Someway. 

     So, there you go.  Undoubtedly, my cheesiest blog yet.  Don’t Be Cruel.  I don’t get out much.  And, whatever you do…lay off my Blue Suede Shoes.

Take Me Back

     Today, I saw the most lovely picture of dogwood blooms.  Instantly, my heart ached to sit and talk with my beautiful grandparents.  For so many years, the biggest dogwood I’ve seen grew in their front yard.  So many times, I sat in its branches looking over at the nests built in the big birdhouse across the yard.  I can clearly see the big snowball bushes and cement planters around the porch and smell the scent of biscuits, gravy, fried apples, and coffee drifting from the kitchen.  It’s funny how things take you back. 

     I can hardly remember a day growing up without spending some, if not most, of my days with my grandparents.  No doubt, they tired of it.  I literally remember sitting against the wall outside the bathroom while my hard-working grandmother bathed and patiently answered my questions and listened to my stories through the door.  And there were so many walks along the railroad tracks with Papaw, kicking rocks and listening to stories of his childhood. I could never remember a specific one.  They all run together in my mind, all rolled into one big memory, one existence, one life that seems so long ago…but still, so much like yesterday that I can feel the hem of Mamaw’s robe and smell Papaw’s Old Spice aftershave and tobacco.  I would very much like to go back…but only if I could take my husband and girls with me.  Everyone should see and hear memories as sweet as the ones afforded me.  Memories my family before me worked and suffered to hand down, memories that cost so much.

     Now, before you picture two little old people holding hands in rockers, you need to realize my Mamaw also was a drag racer in her younger days (literally) and my Papaw drove a street bike.  Papaw would fight a buzz saw, and I have a sneaking suspicion Mamaw would have had his back.  They were no pansies.  They were daring.  They were hard-working, fight for who you love Americans who endured much pain and heartache all throughout their lives. But what I love most is that they were real, and that I was privileged to know them and be loved by them.        

     There is so much more to tell!  One day, I want to write a book about my heritage.  One day, I want to devote more time to writing.  It may never happen, I know, but something about writing frees me.  So, when given the chance, I’m going to write.  It will doubtless be sporadic and riddled with nonsense and mush.  So be it.  That just makes it that much more real, doesn’t it?  Isn’t life that way?  Up one day, down the next?  I’ve decided to not let the down keep me down, to not let the sadness or disappointments silence me, to be real for everyone to see.  Because, who am I kidding?  Everybody sees it anyway.  Now, they’ll just see it in writing.  And just maybe, someday I’ll have a grandson or granddaughter who reads of precious time spent with a real grandmother.  Or maybe, one day I’ll wake up ready to give in to the cruel parts and people of life again, and realize that life is much more that what I’m thinking.  Maybe seeing it in writing is all that will be able to remind me that my life was real.  Perhaps, when I go through another time of not feeling significant, that maybe I haven’t even been real, a scribbled page will take me back…and remind me that I have lived a daring life.