A stroll down memory lane.

The leaves of memory seemed to make         A mournful rustling in the dark.                     ~ Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

Yesterday afternoon I took a little trip to my old neighborhood.  The one where D and the girls and I lived for a long time.  This was our home when we first got married.  The primary reason for this little excursion was to visit our next-door neighbor and friend A.  I don’t think she would mind my saying that she is now elderly as age goes.   She’s anything but elderly in her mind and in the way she acts and interacts with others.  She looks wonderful physically.  She stands straight and tall and she still moves gracefully.  We were, both of us, so very happy to see one another.  We hugged and hugged and then hugged again.  We talked and laughed and reminisced.  I must have stayed for an hour or more as we caught up with all the neighborhood news and our families.  The fact that we have both lost our husbands put us on common ground.  A’s husband died a while back.  You know about mine already.  Although A is of my mother’s generation, it’s as if she and I are not separated in any way by that now.  We both grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, she in Virginia and I in North Carolina, so we have very similar backgrounds and experiences.  It was a lovely visit and she is a lovely woman.

The rest of my memory stroll was rather dry like the autumn leaves that “make a mournful rustling.”  It didn’t make me sad, just pensive and maybe grateful.  I knocked on the door of our old house and met the young woman who is living there with her dog and her husband/boyfriend.  She was very nice and we had a brief chat after I told her my name.  She’s renting the house from D as he still owns it.  I had not been on the property in years, not since our daughter lived there.  I could not help noticing that the lawn and shrubs were in a bad state.  The brick walk that D laid when we lived there was overgrown with weeds.  The lawn hasn’t been mowed recently and I would guess that it’s been years since anyone has  mulched the beds.  I didn’t go in the back yard but I imagine the brick patio looks like the walkway.  And from A’s house I could see that there was a tree down and apparently it has been for some time.  Sad.

Before I left the neighborhood I drove around the circle and found that the rest of the street looks very much as it did years ago.  The trees and shrubs are taller but the houses are neat and the lawns well-groomed.  A tells me some of the “old” neighbors are still there.  Others have moved on and new (to me) families reside within.  It’s still a respectable area with everyday people and all the houses are different.   No two alike.  No “ticky tacky” on that street.  I’ve always liked that about it.

As I drove away from that little oasis and back into the traffic of the city I gave a little sigh of relief.  And yes, I felt grateful that I no longer live there.  I’m not sure why.  I imagine the state of the property was a factor.  But that’s not quite it.  Maybe it’s because I really have moved on.  I remember wonderful, happy times in that house.  But life has changed and we’re all different and You Can’t Go Home Again as Thomas Wolfe so succinctly put it.

No place like home.

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.                             ~ Maya Angelou

It’s good to be home.  I returned yesterday from a week-long trip to Litchfield Beach, SC.  It’s about a four-hour drive from here.  I went with my dear friend L and her family.  (We call each other BFF.)  It was a family reunion for the family of L’s husband DR.  I love the Maya Angelou quote above because it sums up my relationship with L’s family.  Wherever I find myself, if I’m with them, I feel at home.  I cannot imagine going on a family vacation with a family other than my own, except for this one.  Wherever they are, they make room for me and they love me and take great care to make me welcome.  I have known L for more than 30 years and she has always treated me this way.  Now her whole family does, even her in-laws.  I think they have redoubled their efforts in this regard since I’ve been alone.  I wish there were words to express how much I appreciate them and their concern and caring for me.  I love y’all.  Y’all is southern for you, plural, just in case you don’t know.

The significance of home has changed dramatically for me in my divorced state.  I’ve discovered that if I’m comfortable in my skin, I’m at home.  It has taken a while to feel this way.  I guess I have learned that it’s not about me; yet it is entirely about me.  That sounds contradictory, I’m sure.  I know that when I was younger I thought people were watching me and what I did and what I wore.  I realize now that my ego was getting in the way.  Most people are not doing that at all.  They might be worrying about who’s looking at them.  I don’t know.  But I seriously doubt that they’re paying attention to me.  And that’s what I mean when I say it is entirely about me.  It has everything to do with my attitude and my self-confidence.  I’m trying to be honest and self-effacing here not self-critical.  I have spent too much of my life worrying that I didn’t measure up.  I’m not sure I can explain it even to myself but now that there’s no man in my life I’m much more comfortable with me.  I don’t think I have ever had a significant man in my life who affirmed me and helped me to feel good about myself.  I’m not blaming it on them.  I’m simply saying that I wanted some sort of affirmation from my dad, then my first husband, then D.  They didn’t give me that.  I assume they didn’t have it to give.  I’m okay with it now but I wasn’t back when I lived with them.  I’m wiser now.  I am the one who has to make me feel good about myself.

I wish I could have moved this wisdom from my head to my heart a long time ago but I guess I wasn’t ready for the information.  I’m glad I know it now.  It’s better than never knowing.

I’m happy to be back.  Thank you for reading.

“Under African Skies” ~ Paul Simon

In early memory                                                   Mission music                                                        Was ringing ’round my nursery door.          ~ Paul Simon (From Rhythm of the Saints)

I can’t believe it’s been a week since I wrote.  It’s been a busy time for me.  I had the pleasure of an 18-year-old guest in my home for the past three days.  I loved having her here.  She’s an old friend.  I met J when she was six.  Her family took care of me when D left.  I wrote about her mother S a few posts back.  J told me this weekend that when she and her sisters heard that D had left they wanted to go out and buy things to make me feel better.  And they did.  They brought me chocolates from the fancy chocolate shop downtown.  And lotion and bath oil and candles–comfort stuff.  They made me feel special.  And I desperately needed to feel special and loved.

We worked almost the entire time she was here.  J went to Uganda a while back on a mission trip and while there bought yards and yards of beautiful fabric.  She will go away to college at the end of the summer and she wanted to make a coverlet for her dorm room and a large spread for her bed at home.  And we did it!  The purple one above is for the dorm room.  Purple is appropriate since it is a K State color.  It’s made as a quilt with machine quilting grids.  No time to quilt by hand.  The second one, pictured below, is for her queen-sized bed at home.  It is a tied quilt.  I love the strong colors in both of them.  I’m afraid the photo of the second one doesn’t do it justice.  It is many-colored.  Brilliant, shiny colors.  Lovely.  As you can see, the backing is orange.  I have decided I must go to Africa to buy fabric.

I found it interesting this weekend that J had a lot of questions about D.  Natural curiosity, I think.  She told me how much she and her sisters loved him because he would play with them endlessly.  He would sit patiently and let those three little girls do all manner of silly things to his hair and then they would roll on the floor laughing at how ridiculous he looked.  That’s the old good-natured D we all knew and loved.  Where did he go?

Enough of that.  Here’s to J and her new life in college with new friends, new challenges, new fun.  I will miss you little girlfriend.  And I love you.

Girlfriends, part two.

“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes.” ~ Maya Angelou

I entitled one of my early posts:  “Thank God for Girlfriends.”  I referred to the girlfriends as members of two groups in that post.  Tonight some specific kind acts by some of my girlfriends are on my mind.  I can’t sleep because I was so tuckered out after the grandchildren left this afternoon that I took a three-hour nap.  Never a good idea.  But what a great time we had in the back yard looking for Easter eggs and discovering what treasures were inside them.  But I digress as blogger Helen of margaretandhelen.wordpress.com likes to say.

I was thinking in particular of a dear friend whom I will refer to as J.  Unlike many of my dearest friends, I had not known J very long when the divorce fiasco began.  But she and I had bonded right away.  We had a love of books and reading and we shared books with each other.  Also, we are both very liberal politically.  Two good reasons to become good friends.  I dedicate this paragraph to J because she proved to be one of my greatest supporters and allies in a very dark time for me.  I could call her up at a  moment’s  notice and she would meet me down at the coffee shop for one of our many “chew the bastard out” sessions.  She was more indignant about how my ex was treating me than I was.  So, J, I thank you for your unconditional support and caring and time freely given and your worn out ear.  And for being angry for me when I didn’t have the energy.  You were exactly what I needed.

Several days later…

Another such friend is C except that she is my oldest friend.  Hee, hee.  I love telling her that.  We’ve known each other since we were ten years old.  I’m actually four months older than she is.  What do I say about C?  She was with me for the birth of all three daughters.  She has unconditionally loved and supported me through two divorces.  When we were children we meandered all over our small mountain town.  And when we went home later than we should have, we helped each other figure out what to tell our parents so that our stories were more or less the same.

C just left my house yesterday after a couple of days of talking non stop.  C is one of those rare friends who can walk in the door or pick up the phone and restart the conversation as if there had been no interruption.  And back in the days when we were rearing our children, that could sometimes be a year or two.  But we don’t have to talk.  We are also comfortable with silence while we read or knit or crochet.

There’s much more I could say but I imagine you get the picture.  So…here’s to you C, my pal, my confidante.  Thank you!

They bloom in clusters.

It has briars. It must be a rose.