Springtime

When Spring comes, I always say that it's my favorite season. But, when other seasons make their way across the calendar, I've been known to say the same thing.

I love the weather in Springtime. I don't even mind the rain. The dampness softens the thirsty earth and washes everything that it touches. Everything smells so fresh. When I discover a new green shoot poking through the ground, I find a renewed spirit. There's just something about watching Nature in the warming weather that refreshes me. Seeing the budding trees and the blossoming plants is like watching the world around me awakening for a long, winter's nap.

When I was a teenager, I was living in a small town where nothing really happened until the summer visitors arrived in June. Springtime always signaled the feeling that boredom would soon end. I remember feeling a wanderlust in Spring when I was a bit older. I believe it was just because I was being energized, and didn't know how to channel that into something productive at that time.

Now, in these years of late middle age, when the weather, rather than the calendar, indicates that it's truly Spring, I want to get the shovels, the rakes, the wheelbarrows and get to work in the yard. I don't call it "yardwork." If I did, I'd slack off. I call it 'gardening'. Somehow that term is much more attractive. I like to plant, to 'decorate' the yard with color and shapes and different sizes of plant material. I am a rather haphazard gardener, however. I just plunk things in holes and hope for the best. My garden has been called a 'country' garden by my friend because of the lack of organization in it. I tend to use plants that I like and pray that they will be happy and thrive where I put them. Most of the time it worked in the garden I had in NY. Here in SC, though, I'm having to learn new plants and their habits. The sun is very hot in summer, and we have very little shade. Plants that like full sun are not always lovers of high heat. I'm learning to be more selective when buying plants, choosing hardy varieties and doing my best to see what their best habitat is.

Spring is here now and I'm raring to go. However, my mind is faster than my body is, and it is capable of doing far more than my body can endure in a day. Yesterday's lifting and raking and moving and pre-planting clean-up proved that. My muscles are sore, so today's endeavors will be lighter. That last sentence translates to 'today I'm going to sit on the front porch with my library of gardening magazines and investigate the possibilities'.

Amazing Women

There are women in this world who have done such extraordinary things that they deserve to be recognized. Mother Theresa comes to mind immediately, but there are many, many others who have changed the world in some remarkable way.

But what about the women we come into contact with every day? They may not have turned the world upside down, but chances are good that they've done something worthy of mention, and have never been recognized for it. Think about your own mother. It's no easy task to raise one child, let alone a family of them, and to have those children become decent citizens. When I was growing up, most mothers were stay at home moms, with their husbands as the bread winners and support in child rearing. These days, most mothers are working Moms...and a good many of them are caring for their children with no husband present. That is no small feat.

Mothering, in general, is worth notation. Even with the healthiest of children, how often has a mother given up her night of sleep to tend to a fretful child or one who catches the latest round of virus? Amazingly she rises to the task, as well as rising to the next morning to meet head-on the things her day will bring. What about the mothers who have a child with special needs or lingering illness? Super strength fortifies her, without her giving it a second thought. She's THERE, and will be, 'til the end.

Some of us are single women, some of us are wives, housewives, mothers. Some of us are doctors, nurses, politicians, scientists, ministers or missionaries. Some of us are retired, some of us are students. Some are 'just friends' to others. Whatever we are, whatever we do, there are always places in our lives where we have exhibited a super-woman attitude. We are an amazing species, and we all need to recognize that in each other and ourselves.

Thoughts of "Home"

"Home is where love lives" is what the sign read. If that's so, than I am truly at home, in this house, in this new area of the world, with these new friends and neighbors. I really do feel that way...at home. I'm content and I'm 'comfortable in my own skin.'

Growing up on eastern Long Island in what was then a small town atmosphere, I knew that everyone knew who I was, who I belonged to. There wasn't the option of doing anything 'against the rules' because you knew the word would make it to your house before you did. The stores were owned and operated by local people, most of whom went to school with Mom and Dad. The prices were within reason, and you knew that if you needed a new shirt, you could go to the LouAnn shop or to Brill's and you'd find just what you wanted.

There was the sound of cows lowing in the pasture at Gould's dairy farm near my grandmother's house where we lived. There was the dust of potato fields being plowed on our window sills, and the sight of black-skinned strangers dressed in shabby clothes who were covered with the same dust. The worst of all traffic problems was getting behind a slow-moving farm tractor on his way to the next field. Today both the migrant workers and the cows are gone. The pasture is full with a condominium complex. The train station, which was once manned by a man behind a caged ticket booth, now has a machine to which you pay your fare. The roses that once lined the split rail fence there on the station grounds have been removed, as has the fence. Even the passenger train, with it's mournful whistle, has been exchanged for a fast-moving, double-decker with a horn, and the freight trains are no longer in evidence.

I am grateful that the people who govern the Village of East Hampton have worked hard to retain the beauty of the place. The architecture is, with a few exceptions, fitting for the Main Street of a historic town. The beaches are clean and neat, but for the myriad of signs that tell a soul what he cannot do while on the sandy shore. Common sense should tell you those things, without the aid of posted reminders, but I guess some common sense was not shown somewhere along the line, and thus the many signs.

Regulations are abundant in my old stomping grounds. Zoning boards meet almost around the clock, it seems, to grant or deny permits, or to come up with some new idea for regulating something. Personally, I am one who believes there are far too many rules and regulations now, but I also believe there are far too many people present in that beautiful town.

Sometimes I get homesick...but it isn't for the East Hampton I left. It is for the East Hampton I was born into, the one I grew up in. The one I left was so changed, that I no longer knew it as "Home." I didn't know the faces on the street any longer. There were no friendly smiles, no cheery 'good mornings' . Once I felt that I was stepping in the very footprints of my ancestors on those streets. But I grew to feel as if I was walking the streets of a strange sea-side town geared for tourists, almost as if I was a tourist there myself. I grew tired of hearing rude comments from non-natives about locals shopping in Waldbaums at other times of the day, so that the visitors might have the place to themselves. It became increasingly stressful to me to attempt to find a place to park in order to run the slightest of errands. It became unbearable to sit on the deck behind our house and try to have a conversation at a normal decibal level. It became time to leave.

Now we are somewhat established in our new place. We live in a quiet neighborhood in the country, but within 12 miles of the county seat. The city is about the size of Riverhead and offers everything one could possibly need. We have fit in nicely, I think, with the people here. They seem not to have any animosity toward these northerners who have transplanted themselves. You see, when we came here, we vowed we would not try to change anything about anything here, the way things were done back home. We would not get on school boards or town boards or write letters to suggest things were not being done right. We are the strangers here, but we are respectful of what has always been done here and did not come to change things.

We are still learning about our new area, there's so much to learn! But we're finding caring and helpful people who aid us in any way they can. Old East Hampton will always be my hometown, but these days, SC is my home. I guess it's true. Home IS where the love lives.

A Hero Comes Home

He's home from Iraq. He arrived at the local airport today, with family, friends, neighbors and strangers he'd never met awaiting his arrival. Each of them had come to show their support and their appreciation to this soldier for his duty served in the on-going war.

He joined the US Army because he had the same patriotism shared by his brother, his grandfather and his great-grandfather. He wanted to protect and preserve our country's rights and freedoms. His mother is proud of her sons' decisions.

This scene might have been different. The soldier might have marched proudly off the plane wearing his decorated uniform. He might have held his chin high as he stood at attention or smiled and waved at the crowd. He might have run across the airfield to lift his little son high in the air and hug his mother. But, he was carried off the plane and escorted by an honor guard. He was lying prone, his bed a casket, his blanket the flag of the United States. Not only is he a patriotic military man, he is now a statistic, another casualty of war.

My heart goes out to a woman who lives in the same little town I do. We've never met. That may change, for I feel a connection with her. I have a son in the military too. I know the worries she must have felt when her son was in a danger zone. I ache for her, knowing the agony I have felt when I've dared let myself think that my son might sometime be in a combat area. So far, that has not been our case, but when your son is a member of the US military, you know it's always a possibility.

A soldier has come back to his own homeland. This young man will be honored with special services and laid to rest on Saturday. His mother will know no rest for many days and nights in the future. She will remember her son's days at home with her as a little boy. She will think of the good times they shared while he was growing up, and she will teach her little grandson about

the father he is too young to remember. She will wonder what might have been. She will not forget for a single moment that her son is one of the many soldiers lost, but a very special one. She will be proud of her boy, but she will wish things could have been different. She will pray, with all of her heart, that God will spare her other son from such a fate. I will pray with her, for her, and for all the other mothers of sons who might find themselves in fear of such a heartbreaking return.

Handwriting

Although I don't consider my handwriting anything special, other people apparently do. I'm often complimented on my neat and 'fancy' script. Recently one counter clerk who took my check stood there looking at it and tell me she just liked 'looking at it'.

It all started back in grade school, I guess, when I learned to form the cursive letters. Miss Bird, I remember, told me that I had good formation, but she said I could improve my handwriting if I slanted all the letters in the same direction. She told me to practice, practice and practice and she thought I'd have lovely handwriting. I took her advice. I guess it paid off, as in high school I was invited to hand write the menus for an upscale restaurant (The Hedges Inn) and was paid for doing so.

After my children were born, I had to sit quietly while breast-feeding one or another of them. I used that time to practice calligraphy or write letters to friends. The more practice you have, the better you get, and that works for anything you sent your mind to, I imagine.

I've been known to let things get sloppy when I'm in a hurry, but I don't like to do that. I enjoy knowing that my script looks nothing like a doctor's perscription. People have remarked that their own handwriting is terrible, and that they can't do anything to change it. I don't believe that is true. Today, a clerk who took my check, told me that she hardly writes with a pen anymore...she texts.

It seems to me that we've gotten lazy in the age of computers. We don't write letters by hand any more, we email. I hadn't thought about the texting idea in regard to handwriting until the clerk mentioned it. Isn't it sad? I think so...and yet, it's not surprising. We are all so busy, so anxious to have everything done immediately, it makes perfect sense.

The future tumbles toward us furiously. We no longer do figures in our heads, or with scribbled numbers on paper or count on our fingers. Adding machines do it for us. I can only hope that someone will remember how to write with their hand, as we 'progress' with all these machines.

Before long, I fear that Robots will be doing our thinking for us. What will be left for us other than to turn into huge vegetables which will be able to speak words to a machine, and have it written? I don't want to see that.

I think I'll go write a letter....with a pen.

Another Day....

Another day lies before me. I rose this morning, hours before the sun did. I spent my quiet time in thought, and ended up wondering what the day will bring? Will it be an eventful day or just an ordinary one?

I can't say that I live an 'exciting' life. Well, not one that most would describe using that word. But, I am content, and find exciting things in most every day. so I might beg to differ with someone who thinks my life is boring. Alright, so I'm not constantly on the go, or joining some earth-saving cause, or adding my two cents worth of art or literature to the immense world around me. What I am doing is living and enjoying my life, moment by moment. I love discovering the little things that prove to me that no day is really 'ordinary'.

It thrills me to meet new people and learn about them by listening to their stories. Old people like to talk with people and talk about their experiences or their younger days. Sometimes they just want to have someone listen. I met such a woman who owns a little antique shop nearby. She'll soon be 85 years old, and she's got a joy for living. She's a definite 'people person' and enjoys talking with the few customers who frequent her business these days. I believe she keeps it open only for the fact that someone might come in with whom to talk! She's sweet and warm, friendly and interesting. Meeting her that first time worked into a two hour visit! She so impressed me with her story of eating yogurt in a crystal bowl with a silver spoon, that I cannot eat yogurt from a container with a plastic spoon without feeling somewhat guilty!

Life is always bringing little surprises. The other day, in the midst of a strong rainfall, I stood on my front porch and surveyed the soggy yard. As I glanced toward my neighbor's house, something caught my eye...a small bit of red was poking out of the green leaves on the Camelia bush. I couldn't believe it! I'd given up hope of ever seeing it bloom, since it's been planted for two years without a hint of a bloom. My eye followed the line of new plantings to the back where another Camelia has been located for nearly three years, again without a sign of a blossom. There, too, were bits of red peeking through. I could almost hear the words, "oh ye, of little faith" being spoken from the Heavens. I am over-joyed to know that patience does pay off!

There are little lessons along life's way that we will miss, if we aren't careful. Blessings sometimes wait to be found, they don't always hit you right between the eyes. If we're keeping an open eye, and open heart and an open mind, they are more likely to find us.

So, I begin another day...it won't be an ordinary day, for none of them ever are.

I Wonder....

I wonder. Is there anyone out there who is reading this blog? Please let me know if you are...it's encouraging to know there's someone reading, and gives the incentive to keep writing.

I wonder how true the weather report will be today. After 5 days of rain, and a chill wind blowing fiercely yesterday, I look forward to a nice, sunny, somewhat warmer day today.

I wonder how the Farmer's Almanac can get the weather prediction so close to correct a year or so beforehand, when the Weather Channel can't predict correctly a week ahead.

I wonder what colors to paint the rooms in the house. I haven't yet decided, and therefore, they remain 'builder's white'. Though it's light and clean, white is also a bit 'stark' and cold. I like warm and inviting rooms, so while I continue to wonder what exactly to do with them, I fudge the decorating by throwing color in with quilts, pillows, artwork, throw rugs. It works for the moment, but I think it's time to make some choices.

I wonder why it takes me so long to decide on anything. I think I know. If it's a permanent thing, or semi-permanent, it means I'll have to live with it, even when I've grown tired of it. I do like variety and flexibility, so it's hard to make decisions that will last. If it's something like what to eat, I don't usually care what the meal is, as long as it's tasty and fills the vacant spot in my stomach.

I wonder how people are managing to survive this tough economy. My heart goes out to them all, especially those who've lost their jobs and are in danger of losing their homes. Money, or the lack thereof, is hard on a marriage. These days are hard on everyone....and I wonder how the President's plan will work to repair years of stupid decisions by others, and how long it will take for people to get back on track after all this. I wonder what devastation will be left behind for them?

I wonder why I have so many wonders....