grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

playing cards

By

Holding
an invisible
deck of cards,
he shuffles and deals
to no one. To someone?
To someone only he can see?
He rambles incoherently then laughs,
nearly shouts, while regurgitating war stories
still vivid in his confused mind. A broken record—
these life stories. He reaches to grab
a card, then yells, “We need beer!”
Tugging on his oxygen mask,
he fights the tangle of tubes
that hum and buzz
and keep him
in the game.

talya

Musical Pairing:

Jamey Johnson – In Color

Life Interrupted

By

Today I expected to wake in San Diego. I planned to hike Torrey Pines National Park with the Pacific Ocean to my west and the rest of life to my east. 
Instead, life interrupted. 

Instead I woke in our Fayetteville cottage to the chorus of birds chirping and chattering. I can’t imagine San Diego birds have anything on  Fayetteville birds.
So there is no view of the ocean, but Mt. Sequoyah towers in the distance, the sun filters through the  bare trees rising over the mountaintop cross. 
Instead of lunch yesterday at a secluded oceanside romantic La Jolla cafe, we dined in Eufaula, Oklahoma.
At I Smell Bacon. 
Next door to I Smell Gas.
Lake Eufaula was concealed just to the west over the treetops, a bit murky this time of year, the winter water churning and turning, preparing for spring, preparing new life.
I had a Chef Salad with turkey, cheddar, iceberg lettuce, one boiled egg and French dressing shot straight from a red ketchup bottle. Bland and boring, I could barely taste it. Somehow it filled a hollow space inside me.
John had bacon.
My father-in-law has pneumonia. He was agitated and disoriented and struggled late into the night trying to get out of bed, trying to pull various tubes from his body, trying to get something to eat. He would have loved I Smell Bacon.
Life interrupted.
talya
Musical Pairing:

Same kind of different

By


I recently attended the Fort Worth Rodeo with neighbors Harold and Gale Green, along with their extended family. The excursion was fun-filled with great Mexican food, lively conversation, unlimited beer and wine, historic sight-seeing, and bull riding that kept us on the edge of our seats.
What struck me most about the weekend was I could have easily been with my own crazy family. Not that the Greens are crazy…
The entire weekend was similar to one of our family trips to the horse races in Hot Springs or a summer lake vacation—identical debates, laughter and joking and ribbing one another, same food, same music. Different people.
Families are so much alike.
People are alike.
We all look different with varying backgrounds and upbringings and beliefs, yet within the walls of our homes, we have indistinguishable conversations and concerns. We worry about our children and our jobs. We fret over the economy and whether or not the government will steal our freedoms. We worry about the weather and aging parents and cousins in jail. We worry about being too fat or breaking our New Year’s resolutions by February 1. We worry about getting old and dying.

We are the sum of our feelings, our surroundings, the sum of our parts.

Why with all these similarities, do we so often call attention to our differences?
We say we want to be equal and treated the same, yet we form groups and promote anything we find dissimilar.
Boy scouts don’t allow gays. And now boy scouts may consider allowing gays. Why is this even a topic for discussion? Why can’t Boy Scouts be for boys? 
February is Black History Month. Isn’t Black history fundamental to American history? Why should Black history be reserved for only one month? Why can’t we get past our skin color and celebrate American history month? 
It makes sense that people hang out and gravitate to sameness. Sameness is comfortable. Must we label our sameness and use it as a basis for exclusion? 
When we stand on the basis of race or sex or whatever, aren’t we simply perpetuating the problem? Shouldn’t we just stop talking about it? 

We may be different on the outside but deep down inside where we live, we are so much alike. Yes, even all those people at the rodeo…
talya
Musical Pairing:

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!