Northeast Arkansas - grace grits and gardening

Hemingway’s Barn

December 26, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

Stories that waited for paper now wait for me.

With so much to say, I search for a worthy beginning. Thoughts that swirled and drifted through dreams, now hide just out of reach.

Inside this barn, I am filled with something greater. I am filled with possible.

Through the windowpane, I gaze into a towering matt of dark green leaves. Trees inspire and shade and watch over me, the same trees that watched him too.

My thoughts are safe inside this space. I am free to explore, free to wonder and wander. The air is full of potential.

A ray of sunshine splits the canopy and brightens my writing table.

Dust motes dance.

In the distance, a train rumbles, then and now.

He said there is nothing to writing. Just sit down at the typewriter and bleed.

And so I bleed.

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Hemingway’s Barn won 2nd place in the 2013 White County Creative Writer’s competition for the category “Favorite Writing Place”.

For information on Hemingway’s Barn and the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center, click HERE.

Those Barbie Dream House Years

December 19, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

Vintage Barbie Dream House - Christmas Memories

Those Barbie Dream House years were melt-in-your-mouth easy. Santa didn’t have to spend one moment pondering what to get my sister and me for Christmas. As long as he dropped Barbie and a few of her latest accouterments down our chimney—a shimmery ball gown, a groovy convertible or a hip Malibu Ken to ride along on her adventures—we were set for the year, and Santa was free to fly to someone else’s rooftop.

A few days after Christmas when Momma began to count the seconds until school started back, we loaded up our new Barbie things and headed over to Little River to visit our cousin Lesa and her new Christmas Barbies.

Yes, our Barbies were cousins too…

For hours we played in the living room around Lesa’s Christmas tree while Momma and Aunt Lavern camped out in the kitchen guzzling Folgers and inhaling banana pudding or whatever pie still sat on the countertop after all the Johnsons had feasted. (Aunt Lavern made the BEST banana pudding, the best everything for that matter…)Do you girls want some pie? Aunt Lavern called out.

No, we’re too busy, Barbie’s getting married!

December was always the month for Barbie weddings (mainly because Lesa hadn’t yet chopped off all her new Barbie’s hair…)

As Barbie walked down the aisle with a Ken she barely knew, Momma and Aunt Lavern lamented the details of their next diet which would start January 2, right after black-eyed pea and cornbread day.January was always the month for dieting.

6 more sleeps…

talya

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

Musical Pairing:

Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, Fred Astaire

a Christmas memory: buying the tree…

December 12, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

Keiser Supply Company, our small town hardware store, received its shipment of Christmas trees in early December. We weren’t allowed to buy one until Momma could borrow Daddy’s truck to bring it home. And since Daddy worked AllTheTime, it was almost Christmas before we finally drove into town for our tree.

Way in the back warehouse where it was chilly, fresh Scotch pines propped against the wall. Momma held tree after tree upright so we could see from every angle.

Momma said until the tree “fell” it was impossible to really know what it would look like.

I didn’t know what she meant.

I thought they were all beautiful.

My sister and I circled through the Christmas forest inhaling fresh, fragrant evergreen until we became so cold, we agreed on a tree.

Mr. Cunningham tied our perfect specimen to the truck bed so it wouldn’t flip out into a field on the way home.

“Momma, should I ride back there with it?” I stared at the tree, worried it would get smashed by Daddy’s tools.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll freeze to death.”

She wouldn’t let me.