memories - grace grits and gardening

Glimpses of Us

January 30, 2017 By Talya Tate Boerner

You know what’s cool? Having an adult son who is more than willing to hang out with his Momma and show her all around his city.

You know what’s strange? Walking through the Denver airport when I first arrived and being flooded with a memory I hadn’t thought about in years. A memory of being delayed at the Denver airport for ten hours with two small children. My children, of course, and while I did my best to entertain them, I was tired and they were energetic with sticky hands and busy minds. In that moment, life felt exhausting. Everything felt exhausting. A quiet, empty area in the corner of a terminal became our refuge, the comfy chairs arranged around a small table, not typical waiting-to-board chairs, thankfully, and we camped out there with our gear and kid backpacks and no telling what all.

At some point, an elderly couple joined us, and we adopted each other because they too were stuck at the airport trying to get to Dallas. At some point, Kelsey and Tate taught the elderly couple to play a certain card game, the name of the game I don’t remember, and for hours we played game after game, chatting and laughing, and the time passed as quickly as possible.

Friday, as I walked through the same airport in Denver, I found myself thinking about that couple. And I found myself looking for that quiet corner with the comfy chairs. Looking for glimpses of us back then, sitting together, me no doubt harried, the kids no doubt bouncing off the walls, and the elderly couple helping me by just being there.Continue Reading

Nineteen Seventy Something

April 18, 2016 By Talya Tate Boerner

I grew up in Nineteen Seventy Something. I know I sound extra old when I reminisce about my good old days, but hey, I’ve been somewhat immersed in that time period. Writing a book will do that. The Delta is an interesting place for me. It’s the place I feel comfortable and at home, the place that fits me and knows me best. For so long it was my entire world—our house on Highway 140, that yard my sister and I mowed every single week, those fields that represented our livelihood, our clouds floating above it all.

Change in technology and social culture sort of sneak up on us. I notice the difference most vividly when I’m home in the Delta because that’s where life was so simple and basic in the beginning.

I remember working on my cartwheels in the front yard while waiting and waiting and waiting for WHBQ to play my favorite song on the radio. And I knew the moment I turned off my radio, my song would play next! That’s exactly how things worked back then.

I had this radio…

photo from morgueFile

Somehow I think we’ve lost something now that we can Shazam a song and download it in an instant. Of course I love Shazaming a song and downloading it in an instant (and I don’t miss that radio in the least), but still…there was a certain spirit involved in spending weeks and weeks trying to understand a certain song lyric and not being able to play it on repeat.

Am I the only person who thought the lyrics to Blinded By the Light included “wrapped up like a douche”? (I had no idea what douche meant, but I thought it had to do with s-e-x and wouldn’t sing that word very loud.)Continue Reading