grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

I am not a fish…

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grace grits and gardening #beach #ocean

I love the water, but I am not a fish.

From high above, I study the water.

And watch the fish.

A spirited surge of spray collapses to foam, covers the shore, returns to sea. Strands of seaweed languish at daybreak.

Just below the clear surface, fish dart and flit and flash silver to the sky.

Breakfast.

I love the water, but I am not a fish.

morgueFile

This was written for The Writers’ Post Blog Hop #88 using the following prompt: I love the water, but I am not a fish. Check out Her Storybook for other posts related to this blog hop.

talya

saturday morning

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Daylight peeps into our windows, moving across the longleaf pine floors just as it has each morning for over a hundred years. Same windows. Same floors. Same walls.
Yet the angle of the sun feels different on Saturday. 
Lucy snoozes in a bright spot near the window keeping one eye on a squirrel already gathering nuts for winter.
John reads the comic section of the newspaper. He is silent except for an occasional chuckle.
I write and enjoy my first cup of coffee, just as I did yesterday and the day before. But coffee tastes different on Saturday.

talya

Musical Pairing:

Saturday Sun, Nick Drake

Things Change: toys to wine

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The entrance looks the same. 

Two-toned bright blue paint covers concrete cinderblocks. I look for Geoffrey the Giraffe, but he no longer greets customers. 

The crowd is older and more subdued. 
Couples walk together searching for just the perfect pinot to go with blackened shrimp. Children no longer pull dazed young mothers through aisles stacked with legos and board games. Instead, bourbon bottles line shelves tagged with recommendations written like book reviews.
decisions, decisions
Cases of wine soar into the rafters where bicycles hung. Along the wall once filled with Mario games, a humidor offers cigars imported from Cuba. Yesterday the back of the store was slathered in Barbie pink. Now a cheese and meat deli provides takeout for busy shoppers. 
Grace Grits and Gardening
Spec’s Texas Superstore
A customer opens the beer case, welcomes the blast of refrigerated air, and lingers over choices. He lingers over the cold air.
The bathroom looks the same. 
I stare at familiar floor tiles, searching for my kids’ footprints hidden and embedded among scuff marks and built-up wax.
Barely-twenty-something girls stand in a row offering samples of merlot and vodka on whiskey barrel tables. Ten years ago, the same girls opened Santa gifts purchased from this very spot.
talya
Yesterday Once More, The Carpenters

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!