Daddy’s Girl

My father fathered four females.

I am the eldest.

“My name is Stacye, and I’m a Daddy’s Girl.”

Of course I am. We all are. We have a Daddy…we are girls. And, like all good southern girls, we actually call him “Daddy”.

Addressing him that way comes naturally. Admitting to it conjures images of Orson Welles, syrup dripping from the corners of Joanne Woodward’s unlined mouth, and a discomfort that smells like warm gardenias.

By now, you have an image. My blonde hair is long, as are my legs. My eyes are large, and probably blue. There’s a natural curve to my lips, which are carefully painted pink; never red. And, you would be right.

Except, the image is that of my sister, my baby sister to be exact; the one who still throws her limbs on either side of his recliner as she sprawls across his lap, the one that bakes for him, calls him daily, and houses him when he leaves the crystal sands of his beloved beach for important family events, such as his birthday, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

But I was there in the early days…

On Saturdays, we logged hours in his two-toned El Camino, driving around town doing errands. His “Honey-Do” list became our “Trip for Two” list, as we traversed suburban side-roads between the post office, hardware store, garden nursery, and occasionally, the local mechanic.

Mostly, we talked.

“Never forget who you are!” I especially loved that one. “You’re a Howell!”

He said as though it meant something. He said it as though mere mention of our name was enough to garner the respect of anyone within hearing distance. He said it so often that I believed it.

He told me stories of him and Joe Wiggins. It was always “Joe Wiggins”, never just “Joe”. Perhaps there was another Joe. I don’t know, he never said. But, he never mentioned his childhood friend without inserting his surname.

I remember the sun being particularly bright one Saturday afternoon. We’d probably just dropped my car off…again. The dilapidated shop occupied most of a block-long side road. They specialized in foreign “jobs”, such as Hondas, Toyotas, Datsuns, and Cortinas. They didn’t actually specialize in Cortinas. No one did. Because, no one east of the Atlantic drove one…except me.

“Why don’t you divorce her?’ My right hand swept blonde wisps from my face. The air conditioner in the El Camino had stopped working weeks ago.

“Because Howells don’t divorce.” He said it as though it were true. He said it as though he was raised by two loving parents instead of a crotchety grandmother who insisted he sweep their dirt floor each morning before mounting the newspaper-laden bicycle he later rode to school.

And I believed, because I didn’t know.

He taught me about cars. He didn’t change his own oil. He had “Eddie, The Mechanic” to do that. But, he taught me to change mine.

He lay under the car, while I leaned across the engine. We changed the oil, added water to the battery, and checked all the other fluids. When we were done; large, continent-shaped swatches of my flannel shirt were missing.

“Battery acid.”, he said while ordering me inside to change my shirt with just a look.

But I kept it. I kept the shirt. I even wore it a few times. Now, I’m sure it lies alongside my holey Peter Frampton t-shirt; the one I kept for almost twenty years before deciding that I really never would wear it again.

But I will…

Angels will sing, harps will play, and there I’ll be…Daddy’s Girl…wearing a holey flannel shirt over a faded Peter Frampton t-shirt.

“Do you feel like I do?”

Hair Raising

It’s fitting, I suppose, that I have unruly hair. I’m a pretty unruly woman. But, sometimes, I think it’s my mother’s fault…

Some of my earliest memories are of my hips wedged between my mother’s ample thighs atop our ultra-chic, avocado green, vinyl couch. For reasons known only to her, she insisted on using a comb on my hair. And, not just any comb, but one of those barber’s combs with skinny, pointed teeth that were so close together a dime wouldn’t pass through them. As she raked those teeth across my scalp, I gritted my own and prepared for the blood that was sure to start running into my eyes just any minute. Occasionally, I howled, until I realized that only made her angry, causing her to plow even deeper.

The only respite from the raking came when she found what she referred to as a “knot”. I don’t know how it happened or why. I only know that every single time my mother raised a comb to my head she found the hair at the nape of my neck to be a tangled morass that inspired her to mutter mild epithets between groaning tugs.

There was lots of “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life!”, even though we both knew she’d seen it just last Saturday. And she whined a lot. Occasionally, the comb she extracted contained more than hair. The mass more resembled a bird’s nest than a knot, with wisps of lint and the occasional tiny scrap of paper woven into the mix.

And then there were the permanents…

For years, my mother lined us up on linoleum that was scored to resemble stone, if you were willing to allow that stone could possibly be tinged the same avocado green as the couch. By now, she’d invested in detangler which allowed her comb to slice through our tresses, unfettered. It was pretty smooth sailing, really, until it came time to roll. Because, rolling required wrapping, and wrapping involved small wisps of tissue paper, and, once again, she met her match at my nape.

At this point, she turned us over to my grandmother who owned a beauty shop on the ground floor of what would now be termed an assisted living high-rise. The real money, however, was made styling hair for regular customers who no longer required a return appointment. She spent Saturday mornings at the funeral home. Mother dropped us off after lunch and picked us up several hours later.

“Remember now!”, my grandmother called from the porch where she stood with one waving hand raised. “Don’t wash it for at least two days, so you don’t wash it out!”

I spent the ride home calculating how I could gain entry of the bathroom before my sister.

I drove myself the last time my grandmother curled my hair. By that time, I was compelled by more than style. By that time, the trek across town, and the smelly chemicals, the pulling, the tugging, and hot minutes spent under the hood of a hair dryer were a trade-off. Because, after she curled my hair, we could visit. She took me outside to her sun porch. She showed me her plants, some of which were decades old. She talked to me about them, told me how to grow them, and pulled up tiny samples for me to root when I returned home. It was worth the thirty minutes or so I would spend with my head in the sink later that evening.

The last time my mother tackled my hair involved one of those new-fangled curling irons; the kind encased in plastic bristles, the kind that not only curled your hair but brushed it, too. She was dolling me up for some kind of event. It may have been Easter. Easter was big deal at our house. It was one of two times, each year, that my parents would accompany us to church. We dressed in new dresses and wore pantyhose from freshly cracked eggs.

My mother separated a swath of hair from the crown of my head, twirling it around the plastic-bristled, metal shaft. Steam billowed from the contraption in her hand as she marked time. Time came, and she rolled her hand in an attempt to un-wrap. But, it wouldn’t. The curling iron, with its rows of plastic bristles, had a death-grip on my hair. Steam billowed from the crown of my head as my mother pulled and whined, pulled and whined.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life!”

Whines turned to whimpers as we both imagined what I would look like after she cut the hair at the scalp in order to remove it from the shaft. My mother cursed. My sisters watched in horror. Finally, the hair loosened. I never saw the curling iron again.

Two weeks later, my mother made an appointment for both of us at the hair salon she frequented. Despite odiferous armpits at the end of her pendulous arms, Sandra could feather with the best of them. Kristy McNichol had nothing on me…

I was in the eleventh grade. I don’t know why I remember that, but I do. I drove quite a distance to the salon and was somewhat taken aback by the pumping, bass-driven beat of the music that greeted me as I entered. “Toto? We’re not in Kansas anymore…”

A tall man with sallow skin under his brush cut rushed, as fast as his leather pants allowed, to reach me. I left with what amounted to a crew cut. And, I loved it…but I never did it again.

Since then, I’ve been shorn by a tattooed biker chick, one Valley Girl, a middle-aged woman with an unfortunate spiral perm, and one really nice Vietnamese man. He didn’t try to talk to me. I like that in a stylist.

Several weeks ago, I got the urge. You know the one; that feeling that you have to have your hair styled…NOW! Several weeks ago, the Valley Girl had sent me home looking like something the cat had dragged in, and it wasn’t the first time. As I left work, I made the decision to stop at the first salon I passed.

It took longer than I anticipated. I was almost home. The sign on the marquee read “Famous Hair”. The fact that it occupied a space just two doors down from the market was a huge selling point.

She was introduced as “Nancy”, but I’m willing to bet her green card reads “Tran” or “Nguyen”.

“What you want?”, she asked, whipping a black, nylon robe round my neck, matador-like.

I produced a copy I’d made of a style I’d found on the internet. Nancy laced tiny fingers through my hair as she studied the picture, frowning.

“But it doesn’t matter…”, I laughed. “I gave up a long time ago. My hair does what it wants to do…and I let it.”

Pompless Circumstance

Shane’s long-time baby-sitter, Christin, invited us to her graduation ceremony. The invitation, and the opportunity it presented, seemed timely.

Shane will start eighth grade in the fall or, as he puts it, he’ll be the “Big Dog”. So many facets of Shane’s life serve to accentuate the fact that the upcoming school year will be a period of transition, a stepping stone if you will, from one phase of life into another. As high school graduation should be the pinnacle of this next phase, attending the event seemed an opportunity to plant a seed, to secure a goal, to expose him to all the pomp and circumstance afforded scholastic achievement.

He balked only slightly when I insisted he wear dress shoes and the imagined pain of buttoning his button-down was assuaged by the mirror over my shoulder, as a slight jerk of his head almost produced the coveted swish of Justin Bieber hair.

“Hey, Mom! I look kinda good!” He’s a slightly pudgy thirteen-year-old. “Kinda” IS good.

Christin had called earlier in the day. Her words were punctuated by a distinctive “click” as she released long golden curls from the clutches of a steaming curling iron. Her usually swift cadence was enhanced by excitement as she shared ticket information and encouraged early arrival.

“You’llbesittinginbleachersIt’sgoingtobehotbutthey’resellingChick-fil-asothereisthat.”

We parked at the church next to the high school and walked a down-hill block to the stadium. Shane’s baseball coach met us as we circled the football field.

“Luke’s up there somewhere.”, he shaded his eyes against the burning twilight, searching for his son. “There!”, he pointed.

Shane asked the question with a lift of his eyebrows. I answered with a blink and a nod, and he began a clumsy ascent towards his friend

We were early. There were plenty of seats to choose from. I headed for an empty metal bench in the center, and as I climbed towards my perch, overheard someone make reference to the fifty-yard-line. It felt out of place

Easing onto a very warm aluminum bench, I was disappointed to realize that the stage had been set up facing the opposite side of the field. They were, apparently, playing to the “home” crowd. A handful of people scurried to and fro around the stage as though assigned a very important task, but no one actually seemed to do anything. A golf cart sped past the bleachers several times. The sun had dipped below the treetops, but left her heat behind.

A group of people wearing black caps and gowns approached the stage area. It took me a minute or so to realize that they were teachers and not really old looking students. Mentally, I chastised myself for the mistake. It’s not as though I’d never attended a graduation before. I’d seen those same caps and gowns at my own graduation.

Of course, my graduation took place downtown, in the air-conditioned comfort of the Municipal Auditorium. And the event was actually a culmination of events that had taken place over the preceding two weeks. Parents feted their children with parties that felt a lot like bridal showers feel today. An assortment of gifts flowed in from my parents friends, many of whom I’d never met. Most sent money, but one relative sent a boxed set of Anais-Anais perfume. I was so impressed! It seemed so…continental! I wonder if it’s still available…

Crimson colored caps and gowns were delivered to the school two weeks before graduation and taken to the music room for fittings. We stood in line with our friends, waiting our turn while sharing our enthusiasm and an occasional joke at the expense of students whose heads measured extra-large. Afterwards, a group of us went out to lunch and, later, to the mall. It didn’t matter that we would be wearing calf-length gowns. The occasion called for a new dress. And shoes, of course.

Something about the prospect of walking down an aisle prompts profuse primping. Not until I married would I again spend so much time in front of a mirror. I emerged from the bedroom I shared with my sister to find my family waiting in the den. My father wore a suit and tie, my sisters, their Easter shoes, and my mother, heels under a skirt that probably hadn’t seen the light of day more than once or twice since she’d owned it. We all piled into Mom’s Vista Cruiser station wagon and headed downtown.

The auditorium was dark except for tiny lights imbedded in the aisle seats. My family went inside while I followed a beckoning, black-shrouded teacher whose job it was to herd graduates backstage.

The noise we made as we assembled ourselves upon the risers behind the curtain seemed deafening. I was sure our parents could hear. The relative darkness only served to accentuate the heavy blanket of expectancy that fueled our collective state of giddiness. Several robed teachers stood in front of the risers alternately moving students who had yet to master the alphabet and threatening rowdy boys by addressing them as “Mister”.

And the music began…daaaa, dadada, daaaa-da, daaaa, dadada, daaaaaah. A nervous silence fell over my class. Even the rowdy boys stood a little taller.

“Excuse me…”

I woke from my reverie to the face of a young father wearing cargo shorts with a baby dangling off one arm. He looked pointedly at the bleacher beneath my feet.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” I turned towards the aisle, allowing him passage. A young African-American man climbed the steps towards me. He wore blue jeans under a t-shirt which exposed carefully cultivated biceps. Very large basketball shoes bloomed beneath his pants. Loosened laces allowed for a protruding tongue. The toddler perched in the crook of his right arm made repeated attempts to dislodge his doo rag.

Behind him, a middle-aged woman in tank top and shorts, pushed a mop of unruly blonde curls from her face as she searched for a bench long enough to contain her similarly clad contingent.

I shifted on the bench that was becoming harder and more uncomfortable by the minute to see that two rows of black robes were filing in towards the stage.

The man sitting next to me leaned in, “Why are some of the kids wearing black robes, while the others are wearing white?” I felt so vindicated…

The presence of a tiny sea-foam-suited woman waving her arms, frantically, in front of a small group of students wielding instruments was the only indication that music was playing. The air around me was filled with the cacophony of mixing voices, frequent laughter, and the occasional baby crying. Suddenly the fifty-yard-line comment seemed less inappropriate.

This time I leaned in. “Are these people just going to talk through the entire ceremony? It’s bad enough we can’t see. We aren’t going to be able to hear either?”

My position granted me a line of sight though which I could see Shane. His eyes were focused as he sat immobile save for his thumbs, which danced rapidly over the controls of Luke’s Gameboy.

Four rows down, a slightly overweight, middle-aged man sat in a suit and tie. His hands folded and unfolded a program as he surveyed the crowd.

Frayed Strings

No one loves their children more than I do. My youngest is thirteen now, which only goes to prove that all the minutes I spent wishing he could be my baby forever were for naught. But I knew that…

To my credit, I’ve turned those mournful minutes into reasons to be grateful. When he recounts an exchange with another student in school, I pay attention. The day will come when sharing won’t be so easy. When he calls “Mom”, as I walk past his darkened room, I stop and listen before reminding him, again, to go to sleep. When he allows me to take his hand as we walk, I feel it as I hold it. And, when he wraps his arms around my waist, and rests his head against my chest I thank God for the blessing. Every little boy hug, every little boy kiss, could be the last.

He turned thirteen last week, three days before school let out for summer.

“Do you want a party? You could invite your friends from school, the guys from your baseball team, and some of your football friends. We could go to the park. You guys could play baseball, and we could cook-out.”

Shane sat silent, looking through the window to the backyard. Movement in his eyes told me he was considering the offer. He’d attended several birthday parties this year.

Valerie invited him to his first boy/girl, night-time party. There was dancing, which led to sweating, which provoked Shane to stealthily comb the health and beauty aids aisle during our next visit to the grocery store.

Chelsea’s mother went one better and rented a pool-side clubhouse. As we pulled up, the outer walls of the building seemed to vibrate in time with the disco ball sparkling through an upper-floor window. Expecting hesitation from Shane, I turned in my seat to offer words of encouragement from someone who has personally experienced countless disco balls. The backseat was empty, the car door slammed, and by the time I turned around Shane had mounted the walk towards the door without so much as a wave good-bye.

A pattern began to develop, and I saw my mistake.

“Oh…I just realized all the parties you’ve gone to this year were given by girls. Boys your age don’t have birthday parties, do they?”

Relief colored his face.

“Not really…”, he smiled, lowering his head.

“Ok! So what do you want to do? We could go out to dinner. Your choice! Or we could go to the movies. You could take a friend….You tell me. What do you want to do?”

“I want to spend the weekend with Josh.”

Josh is his oldest brother. He married just before Shane’s birthday. He and his wife live in a rural area seventy-five miles away.

Shane left on Friday.

Friday night I had dinner out, and for the first time in a long time, no one offered me a children’s menu. My companion and I enjoyed uninterrupted adult conversation. And when we left, there were no tell-tale crumbs beneath our table.

Saturday I slept in, and woke to a quiet house. I never realized how much noise is generated by the simple act of breathing until mine was the only breath drawn. I took my coffee to the patio and never felt compelled to grab at the table beside my chair in hopes of steadying it. Birdsong fell on my ears without accompaniment. No one asked me any questions.

I spent the rest of the day doing as I pleased. I shopped without uttering the word “no”. I turned my Ipod up as I gardened, never giving a thought to what might be going on inside the house. I gutted the playroom, and in so doing generated quite a pile for the next charity pick-up. He hasn’t touched those toys in years…

I organized his dresser, and added several threadbare t-shirts to the aforementioned pile. The one with the hole in the collar has bothered me for months.

I baked cookies for the neighbors and no one whined, “You always make the good stuff for other people!” I watched tennis on TV without giving advance warning of an imminent takeover of the den. Music wafted from speakers mounted beneath the eaves as we grilled on the patio and no one asked me sardonically, “Why don’t you like rock music anymore?”

As I turned out the lights above the mantle and closed the sunroom door against the night I thought, “So this is what it will be like when he is gone. I can do this…”

The phone rang and I jumped to answer it.

“Hello?!”, I never gave a thought to sounding casual.

“Hey, Mom.”

Those two words began tales of Clydesdale horses, front flips from diving boards, and a dog Shane loved enough to bring home.

“I’m glad you’re having a good time.”

“Ok, Mom. Gotta go.” Male voices parried in the background. I understood the distraction.

“Ok…” Silence in the line told me he had hung up already.

For the first time in thirteen years Shane hung up without saying “I love you.”

But he does…

Political Shoes

My parents were political people. My mother worshipped the ground Hubert Humphrey walked on, and felt deep affection for the Johnsons, Lyndon and Ladybird. My father held Richard Nixon in high esteem, which I found incredible for many years, until maturity provided me the eyes to see the man behind the mistakes. Even before I was old enough to cast my own, I understood that my parents’ politics effectively left our family without a vote, as the two usually cancelled each other’s out.

There was one exception. The venerable Senator Sam Nunn held sway with both my parents to the extent that, even today, I tend to hold him in high esteem despite knowing little of his career besides his stint as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Everyone in Georgia loves Sam.

I was a senior in high school, surrounded by friends in a noisy lunchroom, when a group of middle-aged men and women dressed in sensible suits invaded our space. One of them tapped the top of a live microphone several times before explaining they had come to register eighteen-year-olds to vote. The room filled with the sound of chair legs scraping against industrial tile, as a line formed in front of two tables usually reserved for cheerleaders hawking spirit ribbons. A smiling polyester-encased woman handed me a cardboard square on which she’d scrawled my precinct number before I signed my name. I felt so…American.

By the time I registered, Jimmy Carter was already president and his legacy already apparent. He didn’t have “the stuff”. He was too nice, too honest, too moral, to effectively lead the free world. I actually felt sorry for him.

1980 presented me with my first opportunity to cast a ballot and make a choice; Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan. And, that really wasn’t a choice at all, was it? Jimmy hadn’t the cojones, and his opponent was little more that a “B” actor with the gift of gab and the physique to fill out a suit. And, hair. No one can say Ronald Reagan didn’t have good hair.

My father oozed Reagan. Not a day passed in which he didn’t sing the praises of “The Gipper”. His orations had the affect of scrunching my mother’s facial features into a mask of complete disgust. She remained loyal to our native son as did I, despite knowing ours was a lost cause. What followed was a number of dispiriting years featuring Reaganomics, walls torn down, and “a thousand points of light”. For me, the high point of this time period was the American invasion of Grenada. There was such power in that. Imagine the audacity of a nation proclaiming “I’m coming for you!”, and enjoying success, despite taking days to actually arrive! That was ballsy! That was American!

Though it took me years to get to this point, I’ll admit now that my passion for Bill Clinton had little to do with politics. He came to Atlanta for a book signing several years ago, and I chose not to attend out of fear of my own inappropriate behavior. Fainting in public is so unattractive. The man was a rock star. I was only too happy to cast a vote for him, and I did so twice, making November 1996 the last time I went to the polls confident in my choice for president.

I won’t belabor the Bush years. Anyone who reads me knows that it was during this time that I effectively closed my eyes and thought of England. My decision to shut down came after hours of arguing with my Republican cohorts, secure in the knowledge that I had just to find the right words, the correct phrasing, the appropriate example, and he or she would see reason. It never happened, and the realization that it never would provided me with as much relief as it did frustration. I stopped participating in political discussions. I resisted the bait, no matter how tempting, when a co-worker threw an inaccurate statistic, or out-of-context quote in my direction. I replaced radio news programs with books-on-tape and newspapers with novels. In the end, I came out relaxed and well-read. How’s that for making lemonade?

Last week I was ambushed. Having hurried through my salad, I headed outside with my book under my arm. I had just twenty pages left to read of “The Help”, and as reticent as I was to let the characters go, I was determined to finish. The sun was warm, and I was sure I could squeeze in a nap. As I approached the door, a coworker held it open for me. I thanked him with a smile and turned towards the lawn.

“Well, I think it’s becoming pretty clear to everyone that Obama isn’t interested in what the people want.”

His opening shot caught me right between the shoulder blades, just as my foot met the grass.

In retrospect, it’s surprising how easily I fell back into old habits. A retort flew from my lips, complete with statistics, as though I’d studied for the debate. I turned to face my aggressor, the book now dangling off of one arm. Mentally, I resigned myself to the fact that I’d probably have to finish it later that night. In an effort to achieve at least one of my goals, I looked to the sky to determine the position of the sun, and adjusted myself in such a way that I might soak up as much vitamin D as possible.

Even as we argued point after point, my inner dialogue continued. Silently, I congratulated myself for the quietly measured tones with which I spoke. I’ve been known to rant. Sometimes, I pace. Once I threw a super-sized iced tea to the floor with such force as to splash a person sitting twenty feet away. Some might say that was my intention…

Forty minutes virtually flew by in a flurry of controlled thrusts and parries with an occasional sardonic laugh thrown in for good measure. The time I was wasting began to weigh on me, and I took a departing step.

“What if…”, my opponent wasn’t done. I turned to allow him to finish.

“What if before a person could register to vote he or she had to…”

“I don’t have a problem with that.”, I answered before he could finish.

“With what?”, his eyes narrowed.

“I don’t have a problem with requiring a year’s service. That’s what you were going to say, right? I don’t have a problem with it. I think everyone should serve in some capacity.”

“Ok, but you’re assuming they would serve in something like the Peace Corps, right? And, that’s all well and good. But, suppose they TOLD you it was the Peace Corps, but it was really something else.”

I couldn’t imagine where he was going.

“You know Hitler did the same thing. He required kids to join a group so they could be indoctrinated as Nazis…”

“Wait a minute!” I stopped him. “Wait a minute! Don’t tell me you believe Obama is planning to force people to join groups in order to make Nazis of them. Tell me you don’t believe that!”

His face reddened slightly as his eyebrows rose with his hands, palm up. I stood in silent regard. It was the Hitler reference that got me.

“You know, I’ve been known to use Hitler myself. I used him several times in reference to our last president, and each time I was shushed as though I’d uttered an epithet. I get it. I think your argument completely irrational, and it saddens me to know that a reasonably intelligent person could believe something so ridiculous. At the same time, I get it. I believed the Bush administration capable of anything and none of it good.”

I turned towards the door.

“In the end, it really all comes down to which shoes you are wearing, doesn’t it?” I turned to see he had pocketed his hands. “It’s really all about the shoes.”

He followed me inside without a word.

We Are Not A-Mused

I’ve literally spent hours trying. How many hours, I don’t want to know.

This morning I’m sure I’ve sat here for an hour and a half, hoping for the inspiration to write. I started a couple of things. I opened something I started several days ago, but found I had nothing to add.

I’m not upset about it, although I do feel a tiny bit of concern that I’m not upset. That counts, right?

It wasn’t so long ago that I thought of writing as an obligation. Not a chore, mind you, but an obligation, almost like homework or piano practice. And, I think that feeling of responsibility led to improvements. I feel I’ve found my voice.

Unfortunately, that voice just doesn’t have a lot to say…

Oh, I could share my joy in chicken farming. My four birds are just spectacular. I’m amazed at how much I enjoy caring for them. Given the length of my attention span, I should have lost interest by now, as the electric keyboard in the top of the playroom closet, and the paints and easels stored in the garage will attest. But I haven’t. I love visiting them, feeding them scraps of tasty left-over morsels, and collecting my bounty. I get eggs everyday. I’ve even started giving them away, which has led me to dream…

Suppose instead of giving them away, I sold the flowers and vegetables from my gardens and the eggs from my hens. The idea was originally Shane’s, upon first hearing of my plan to raise chickens. Excitement spewed from the upper register of his little-boy voice as he talked of “having our own business”.

I can conjure a roadside stand; a wooden one, very rustic, with hand-painted lettering. I’d hang flowers in aluminum buckets on either side. There’d be towers of large, red tomatoes, bowls of beans, handfuls of herbs, and cartons of softly-shaded green, pink, and brown eggs. I don’t know…maybe.

I could share the details of the wedding reception I’m holding for my son. But, let’s face it, unless you’re related to the participants or have mistaken this for one of the hundreds of wedding blogs I’ve skimmed over the last several weeks, you probably wouldn’t be interested.

My grandson came to visit. He stayed a week, and stole my heart all over again. He’s coming back for the reception. I can’t wait. And while that’s nice to know, it’s not particularly interesting.

I know what the problem is. Over the course of the last couple of weeks, it’s become blatantly apparent. I’m afraid I’ve succumbed to the same malady that killed Paula Cole’s singing career. Paula sang at full volume, and I sang along, “Where have all the cowboys gone?…ah woooo”. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Yeah! I remember that song! Whatever happened to that girl?”

I’ll tell you what happened to that girl. That girl got happy. Ok, she also “found” God. But, mostly, she just got happy. Finding God is not such an accomplishment. After all, God’s usually not the one who’s lost. Getting happy, is a whole other thing, especially for women like Paula and me.

Getting happy takes you outside yourself. Getting happy demands participation and encourages activity. Getting happy turns the dimmer switch up a notch or two, brightening even the dark recesses where muses tend to nest.

My desk sits opposite a bank of windows that look out on my front yard. The view is never more beautiful than it is this time of year. The greens are greener. The trees are taller, flowers bloom, bushes burgeon, and wild things scamper from one growing thing to another.

It is through these windows that I sometimes see what’s on my mind. Once, when it snowed, I found a poem. The cherry tree on the corner of my lot sparked a short story. Sometimes I see through the scenery and find feelings.

Lately, as I watch birdhouses for signs of inhabitants, I notice the way sunlight hits the tops of tree leaves, artfully spreading shadow beneath. For now, there is no angst hiding in those shadows. For now, the road in front of my house isn’t a way to get away, but rather the way I came in. And, I’m happy to stay.

It’s good to be home.