647: Marriage of Berries

We woke early, and my husband asked if I wanted breakfast, and if so, what I might like: eggs, bacon, grits? This is his gift to me, the preparing of the food, and I understand that. I do not want food, because he will prepare it, we will sit and consume it, and he will rise from the table, content in his gift, and leave the room with its littered table, soiled counters and sink filled with the dirty dishes for me to attend to. The food sours in my stomach as I clean the dishes, the counters and the table.

After the kitchen is clean again, so it will not attract nasty bugs in the heat and humidity that is Georgia, I gather my baskets and leave my house in the township. I drive several miles to the dirt road where my family, and the family of my family that was before my own family, used to live. This is the place I identify as the place where I grew up (even though I didn’t), and I know that this place is where the wild blueberries and the succulent blackberries grow thickly on the raised shoulders alongside the deeply carved and smoothed red dirt road.  Every summer when school was freshly let out for the heat and humidity, my family would come from the place where were living this time, and join with the family that always lived here on the red dirt road. I would take a pail or a pan and I would leave the house and trek to the dusty shoulders of the dirt road to harvest the bounty that only the birds appreciated when I was not there to claim my share.

Today, in my sixtieth decade, I harvest my share of the bird’s bounty while the day is yet cool, filling my baskets before the sun can sink its claws into the back of my neck. I am careful where I put my feet, my dad’s called warning from fifty years ago ringing in my ears, “Watch out for snakes.” The snakes come to these berry bushes, seeking their own bounty from the birds that also feast there. I must also watch for the ruffled, raised heaps of sand that signal the nest of the imported fire ants, aliens long established here, and also familiar from my youth.

I carefully pick only the ripest berries for my baskets, indiscriminately co-mingling the firm shiny round blue-black orbs of the blueberries, and the misshapen black purple softness of the blackberries, staining my fingers with their red-purple juice. When the baskets are nearly full and the sun has bitten my neck, I return to my home and show my offering to my husband, asking if I should freeze them for later or make a cobbler now. He chooses now.

I empty the berries into a large basin and run the cold water over them, watching the bits of chaff rise with the water. I fetch the large baking dish and use my fingers to oil the bottom and sides with Moroccan olive oil, and then I dust it with sugar, so the berries don’t stick. In handfuls, I sieve the succulent berries from their rinse and fill the dish with gleaming purple richness. I have more berries than the dish will hold. I select a plastic, zip-lock bag for the berries I will save for later. And then I sigh with annoyance, put the bag away, and pull out two shallow bowls to use all of the berries today, as instructed.

I arrange pats of soft butter atop the gleaming berries, add brown sugar, dustings of ginger and cinnamon. In a bowl I whip with a wire whisk the thin sweet batter than will sink down between the berries and rise up between them with the heat of baking, binding them together, even though they are of two different breeds, two different kinds. A marriage of berries, bound together.

When the cobblers are done, I take them from the hot oven to cool, and the cooling batter pulls away from the marriage of berries, leaving visible cracks between them. These are spaces for the freezing cold ice cream to fill, a coldness that will be served with the still-warm cobbler, a temporary patch in the marriage that will keep them together a little longer, until they are completely consumed, leaving nothing but the dirty bowls for me to wash and put into the dish drainer to dry, and then to put away.

I say I will go again tomorrow to pick more berries for later, but we both know that I won’t.

605: No, thank YOU

I am so dreadfully sorry that I was in conversation with my husband, and neglected to notice that you held the door for us to enter the establishment. I am sure my error was compounded in triplicate because you are black and I am white. I can assure you it wasn’t intentional, nor do I expect such service from strangers, or black people in particular. Neither my husband or I am visibly handicapped, so you offered (of your own volition) to hold the door which you could clearly see we were capable of opening ourselves. That was both courteous, and kind of you.

What wasn’t, was your announcement in overly loud voice of that sarcastic “You’re WELCOME” when we neglected to immediately and profusely thank you ourselves for your kind (and unnecessary) gesture. Believe me, your deliberate rudeness put our unintentional forgetfulness squarely even and then some.

Why bother to offer a kindness (necessary or not) if all you are after is the public notice of your nobleness? And your conduct when you didn’t get your thanks (for whatever reason) certainly left us both with a clear impression of your “nobleness,” didn’t it?

Yes, it is our usual habit to acknowledge such a gesture with spoken thanks. Yes, we were engaged in our conversation, and we forgot to thank you. I don’t believe I have lowered myself to that level when my polite gestures have gone unrewarded and unnoticed, and if I ever have, I am thoroughly and utterly ashamed of myself.

576: Penthouse Episode

If you are in a committed relationship, your man thinks he has finally given up his last chance at ever having a Penthouse Episode. You know the ones….they used to appear in the pages of that magazine,  and factual or not, they were a glimpse into the fantasies of the average man. To have a woman so crazy for him that she would pretty much just attack and overwhelm him with her physical desire and her deep, inescapable need of his amazing, devastating masculinity.

Ladies – if you are in a committed relationship, give this gift to your man. Choose your time and place, since nobody wants to be arrested by the law (major passion killer, that), but pick a time and place and let him know in no uncertain terms how much you want and need him in that basic, elemental female-to-male way. He will be amazed, surprised, incredulous – and grateful, proud, and manly. Show that man you love above all others that you want and desire HIM – above all others.

Trust me, even if you are bashful when you do it, he will be thrilled. Every man wants to be loved and adored – show him that you are the woman who does love and adore him.

Give him his very own, personal and private Penthouse Episode. Doesn’t he deserve it?

560: Heebie-Jeebies

I have garnered the lead female role in a play, the Thirty Nine Steps. Actually, I play three different females in this play, all of whom interact with the male romantic lead. Who just happens to be my husband in real life. I get to kiss him onstage. More than once. In public. With an audience. Woo-hoo.

There are a lot of lines to learn. In a fairly short period of time. This is exciting, and scary, all at the same time. I am having performance anxiety issues, here, and I haven’t even performed yet. Worrying about things that may never happen. I’m pretty good at that, actually…..darn it.

I will choose to re-direct that snotty little voice in my head, and tell it that I will be wonderful, rave reviews, fantastically good time had by all (including me). I will not listen to internal negative thoughts of forgetting lines, or tripping onstage, or having wardrobe issues – I will have a great time in three accents: German, Scottish and plummy British. And I will kiss my husband, leading man, with gusto and fervor. Woo-hoo!

 

551: Sanctuary

A husband who is my sanctuary and rest, my delight and my release. Thank you, God, for this man.

My prayer is that I am that wife to him.

Life is good.

545: Too busy to write is too freaking busy

I process my life by writing. When things happen, I process my thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions through the reflective and revealing lens of the written word. This is the method that works well for me. Except lately.

Lately, having moved country (Atyrau, Kazakhstan to Fitzgerald, Georgia, USA), started a new job in a sort-of new school (I taught there before I decided to leave the USA), moving into a new place, BUYING a new residence, becoming a new grandmother and obtaining a delightful new husband……I do not have time lately to scratch my watch or wind my butt.

This is a serious problem. I get the sneaking suspicion that without the catharsis of processing everything via my usual written lens that I am missing the deeper significance of things – leaving important details out, losing the flavor, the spice, the nuance – the meaning of life, love and the pursuit of happiness.

I just don’t have the time to fret about it before some new demand raises its head, insisting on being dealt with RIGHT NOW.

The urgent is overwhelming the important, ding dong dag nab it.

*sigh*

462: Slap in the Face

Wow. Sometimes it takes the astute observation of another person to make you realize you have not been honest with yourself. I like to think that I am honest with myself (who doesn’t?), that I am fairly logical and think things through. Well. NOT. Looks like I have some work to do.

I am divorced.

Nobody likes admitting and looking at failure, particularly when it is their own failure. I skirted around this issue, being divorced, because it’s just easier, and there is less to deal with socially, if I just don’t mention it. That is a form of lying to myself, and to others as well. My marriage ended, formally on paper at least, about a year ago.

The problem with loyalty as a character trait is that sometimes it gets in the way of taking action that you know that you need to take. Especially when it involves people you care about. The person you cared enough about to marry is a prime example. When a divorce is amicable, with the good of both partners considered, no fireworks or screaming, it can be another problem all in itself. Screaming and anger makes it much easier to walk away – run away, probably. We did not do that, even though I did move, on my own, to another country.

So, for a time after the paperwork was finalized, we communicated, and continue to do so. I don’t hate the man. I just could not continue to live with him. Being friendly, even on a long-distance basis (we were in different countries, for Pete’s sake) led to the idea that possibly, somewhere down the road, the relationship we had (mostly a good one) might be resurrected. I toyed with it, I considered it. I know better. I always knew better. I just wasn’t facing it.

As time moved on with no change in his circumstances, and as part of my own process of moving on, I took a new job in a new country. And, I joined an online dating site – determined to do something concrete to begin the search, once again, for a life partner (by long-distance, written communication first, where there was no physical attraction to gum up the works). I hoped that getting to know someone intellectually first, discovering common ground in interests, values and goals in advance of a face-to-face meeting, might make for a more secure foundation for a long-term relationship that what I had done in the past. So far, so good. Nice theory, and I hope it works.

It took an astute comment from someone I met online (who is thoughtful and wiser that I), however, for me to finally come face-to-face with my own intellectual dishonesty – to myself and to others. I was still referring to my ex-husband as my husband, and I have been doing that for some time. Even when I met with him one last time to discuss the future and how I did not want it to include us as a couple, I continued to refer to him as my husband….not my ex-husband.

Damn. I am not liking what I see in the mirror today. It stinks being ashamed of yourself, especially when it was something you did to yourself. and you have absolutely no one else to blame but your own stupid self.

385: Raising Livestock

At my home here in Panama, I raise livestock. I have chickens for eggs and meat, rabbits for meat and sheep for meat and cash. Livestock, while still lovable and entertaining, are not pets. I name the breeders: the moms and dad who are the foundation. Their offspring I do not name, because they are for the table. That moms, plural, is not a typo. There is a single dad. There are multiple moms. I am running an Islamic animal society: multiple wives. Lots of women is desirable, but you only need one man. The rest of the men you EAT. For DINNER. With sauce, spices, and HERBS.

If you are an animal man, life is either short and sweet, or long and satisfying (but only if you are a very lucky and EXCEPTIONALLY handsome man who is gentle with your wives). Most animal men end up with a life that is  short and sweet, since one male is sufficient for the needs of the livestock owner´s multiple females.  Since one male is enough and feed costs are an issue, most males are extra, and end up as dinner after a short time.  You do need to change him out (trade him to another farmer) every other year or so, so he does not breed his own daughters (yuck).

 

The ladies, however, live long and productive lives. The only ones of THEM you eat are the ones who don´t make good mommies. If you are a girl, your chances of a long life are pretty good. You don´t, however, usually get to choose your spouse. It does not appear to bother them a whole lot. They don´t seem to mind.  It is pretty much the same situation in the wild, except there, it is the bully who gets to be the husband to all the available ladies. At least I choose a husband who is gentle.

April 30,  Linda gave birth to twin lambs. The herd is growing! The chickens are getting their own outdoor pen soon, and the rabbits need another lady bunny to be a wife to the second male breeder bunny.

So far, the livestock has pretty much been all cost and no benefit, but that is normal whenever you start raising animals. The youngsters have to grow up and mature enough to reproduce before you begin to see returns on your investment. Since I have been in Panama only a few months, I am not there yet.  SOON!!

383: Coming to Conclusions

Through circumstances not of my making, I have been husband-less for nearly a year. I left to start my new job in June of 2013. Except for a visit from him of about one month, I have been living alone in a four-bedroom house since then. It is now May of 2014.

What I have learned is that being by myself (four kitties notwithstanding) is that I do not in the least mind being by myself. I have not BEEN by myself before for any length of time. First I was a child with my family, then with roommates and housemates in college, then married, with children, then widowed with children, then re-married with children, married with children in college. Never alone. Until now.

I think I like it.

I don’t think that was the conclusion my husband hoped I’d reach.

I’ve reached it.

382: Let It Be Resolved

I have shared my life with cats for as long as I can remember.

Except for the years I was married. I gave away my cats because he did not like them. I should have known from that alone. Worst trade of my life (and that is saying something).

The last few years we were married, before he died, I got a cat anyway, because by then I just did not care anymore what he thought. And I have had them ever since.

My children do  not have the same memories of their dad that I have, because they were children and I was wife. They don’t remember being cat-less. By the time they were old enough to remember, I did not care anymore, so I was no longer cat-less.

But I remember.

NEVER AGAIN – for ANYbody.