Life - grace grits and gardening

To all the mothers who make the world go ’round…

May 12, 2017 By Talya Tate Boerner

Dear all you mothers who make the world go ’round,

Yesterday as I cut roses from my garden, I was reminded of Mother’s Days past. How we, my little sister and I, wore a tiny red or pink rosebud to church that day. Momma wore red too, but because she was an adult in charge of things like money, she bought hers at the flower shop in town. Her corsage, a full grown rose, came in a clear plastic box with a long straight pin attached to the back for fastening to her dress. Nana wore a corsage of white gardenia, her favorite, each petal as soft as velvet, its perfume so strong and sweet that forty-five(!) years later, yesterday, when I walked past a gardenia bush at Westwood Gardens, the aroma pulled me over and vaulted me back to Brinkley Chapel. Just like that.

Nana wore a white flower because her Momma, my great-grandmother, died years before I was born. And even though I never met her, I’ve known her my whole life.Continue Reading

Savoring March

April 2, 2017 By Talya Tate Boerner

Where’d you go March? In like a lion and out lickety split. One of the benefits of keeping a journal is being able to go back and revisit how my days were siphoned off into yesterdays. But seriously, 1Q2017 is over. Did you savor the month as best you could?

I tried even though I was on the go for much of the month. Savoring while “going” takes extra effort and mindfulness, especially for a homebody like me. It’s easy to get frazzled.

Here’s a quick recap of my March 2017.

Savoring FLAVOR…

What can I say? In March, I enjoyed the heck out of my Girl Scout cookies. Thank you Bramell, Party of 5! I ordered quite a few boxes, gave away several, and inhaled a bunch.

When I go back through my food pictures, I realize I cooked lots of egg dishes in March. To balance the Samoas, of course.Continue Reading

I don’t want to be timely.

March 13, 2017 By Talya Tate Boerner

I don’t want to be timely. I want to be timeless instead.

Timeless, writing stories relatable today, tomorrow, yesterday, fifty years from now. A few lines of prose that grips your gut, makes you weep or howl with laughter. Words that spring from the page in bight blue ink, as blue as peacock feathers.

Timeless. Enduring. Like a number two pencil. A number two pencil purchased for a nickel at the bookstore at school, the bookstore just outside the principal’s office, up the stairs, behind the glass counter, the pencils arranged in a row, ROYGBIV, the colors of the rainbow. For a few pennies, add an extra fat eraser squeezed on top like a snug hat.

I want to sit and write and rewrite and never use up the extra eraser, with no regard for time, lost in the moment, lost on the page, lost between the lines in the story.

I don’t want to be timely.
I want to be timeless. Like the lyrics to a song. Always true.

Always.

Alive in a place alive with imagination and exuberance and endless notions. Made up words. Down the rabbit hole, in and out of weeks, and almost over a year.

To where the dandelions grow. Same as it ever was.

No clocks. No alarms. No reminders to go and do and think certain thoughts. A soft meadow to sink into, float above. A sky with no ceiling. Only blue.

Endless.

Timeless.
Same as it ever was.

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]I don’t want to be timely with my #writing. #amwriting[/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:
Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime