Life – Page 7 – Angel Wheeler

My Tree Harbor

There is a mimosa tree and an evergreen tree growing in the yard at our new place. They are both young sprouts right now, but I hope they grow big and strong and formidable. I love the mimosa tree, never tried the drink, but I adore the fuzzy, pink flowers that bloom and the rattle of the seeds in their pods that fall from the tree. I love the way they close their leaves at a touch. A mimosa tree makes one of the best climbing trees. Of course this is just my opinion, but I am as close to an expert on climbing trees as you’re likely to find. The limbs of a mimosa branch off the trunk low and you can practically step up into it.

My grandmother had a mimosa tree on a perfect square patch of green lawn in her front yard. I spent much of my childhood in that tree. Each branch was, in my mind, a pretend room in an imaginary house. I flitted around from branch to branch passing the hours.

There was another climbing tree at the back of my grannie’s house. A tall evergreen. Probably 30 feet. This tree was by far the absolute best climbing tree around and also my dear friend. Sap on my hands and bare feet were as common as dirt under a little boy’s fingernails. The branches of this evergreen hung nearly to the ground. It was necessary to duck underneath the heavy green limbs, but once underneath it was like a secret place. A shady, quiet, dark circle of dirt. The limbs of the tree grew straight off the trunk nearly parallel to one another practically forming a ladder. A tree climber’s dream! Once up in the arms of the tree—off to the right about 20 feet up, one branch curved and crossed over another branch forming a little settee, a cradle if you will. The perfect size for a little girl’s body to recline in. It was possible to squeeze another person up there too, out towards the edges, and I shared this branch, my branch as I like to think of it, occasionally with my sister, cousin, or friend. Here nestled up in the branches of the tree I could spy on things down below, but I much preferred to gaze upward. I would recline back and peer upward through a little window of branches imagining the angels sitting on their fluffy white clouds, watch the birds flit in the sky, and dream my dreams

This tree was my oasis from divorcing parents, my retreat from a big sister, my reprieve from boredom.

The mimosa died, and someone cut it down. Then one day I came to visit my grannie to find my beloved evergreen hacked. She had hired someone to trim the trees and they had sawed off my trees ladder-like branches at least 10 feet up. Tears poured down my cheeks as I gazed up and realized I couldn’t reach my sanctuary. I wrapped my arms around the tree hugging it, pressed my cheek against the trunk, and using the sawed off nubs as foot and hand-holds, I shimmied up, much like a bear would. But the bark scratched my skin and hung on my clothes. It was so much effort and getting down was no longer as simple as climbing down a ladder.

I don’t remember ever having an ill-thought towards my grandmother before that day. But at that time I was furious because she had hurt me. Not intentionally of course. She apologized when she realized how much it meant to me. She said she didn’t know they were going to cut it like they did. To her it was a tree, to me it was my harbor, my haven, my hide-away. I told my secrets to those branches, swayed in the breeze in its limbs, imagined I was an angel floating on my own fluffy cloud right up to Jesus. I eventually accepted that I had no more trees to climb.

My mother now lives in my grannie’s house and the tree is still standing. The other day I grabbed my niece Ashlynn and said, “Help me climb this tree.” I discovered I’m too heavy to hoist myself up, and she is too little to boost me. It was so effortless 25 years ago. But I was winded in 2 minutes and never made it off the ground. She decided to shimmy up and perched on the lowest branch, but I looked up at her, paranoid she was going to fall and break her neck and demanded she get down.

It’s probably for the best that I couldn’t climb it. I’d probably be disappointed once I got to my sitting spot. Adult experiences are always so vastly different from our childhood memories.

But writing this makes me want to get a ladder and get up there anyway.

Find my sitting spot and recline

And put the fire department on speed dial just in case I need them to help me down.

Four Things

I have few things I want to share with you today.

First Thing:

We’re studying the water cycle in science up at the elementary school. You remember your second grade science class don’t you? Or has it been many moons? For a quick review, here’s a song about the water cycle sung to the tune of If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands.

Ready?

A one, a two, A one, two, three, four…..

Water travels in a circle, yes it does (clap, clap)

It goes up as evaporation, forms a cloud as condensation, fall to the ground as precipitation, yes it does! (clap, clap)

I was reading the Bible this morning, I am still in the book of Job. At this point a young man named Elihu is ripping into Job, tearing him a new one, putting him into his place. He’s telling him about how awesome God is, and then he says these words:

Take a long, hard look. See how great he is—-inifinite, greater than anything you could ever imagine or figure out! He pulls water up out of the sea, distills it, and fills up his rain-cloud cisterns. Then the skies open up and pour out soaking showers on everyone. Does anyone have the slightest idea how this happens?

I read that and was bamboozled. It’s the water cycle, right there…..evaporation, condensation, precipitation. I don’t know why I was so surprised to find this in the Bible. I mean, God is the creator of everything after all. What took scientists until the 16th century to learn and label with big, scientific sounding words, Elihu knew 2000-1800 years B.C. Awesome, isn’t it?

Second Thing:

I’ve never been a magazine subscriber until recently. I spent a good $50 on magazine subscriptions when we bought our Little Trailer House on the Prairie.

These magazines will teach you how to garden, can food, cook chickens, milk cows, build solar panels, bake bread, make hammocks, and asundry other very informational things. Someday I fear us younger generations are going to wish we knew how not to depend on commercialism.

Some great magazines to read if you’re wanting to learn how to live off the land and become more self-sufficient are the following:

GRIT

Mother Earth News

Hobby Farms

Mary Jane’s Farm

Today I received this new GRIT magazine in the mail from my grandmother-in-law.

We call her M.O. It’s all about turkeys.

She also sent this book home with Jason recently.

It teaches how to make home-made beer. Among other important things.

But the item that I received in the mail yesterday that made my heart go pitter-pat, was new sticky return address labels.

With my name and address of course.

But these aren’t just any old kind of return address labels.

They have pictures on them.

And not of flags either.

But farm animals.

A chicken, a cow, and a rooster.

And look at this. Doesn’t she make you want to just snuggle up with her?

I’ve never wanted a pig. Never ever.

Until now.

I can’t resist him any longer.

Help me, help me, help me.

Third Thing:

I’ve been unsubscribing to a lot of my emails lately. I click unsubscribe and a box pops up that says something like, “Thank you. You won’t be receiving any more emails from us” But then suddenly, an alert of a new email message pops up from the exact same company who just lied to me telling me I won’t be receiving any more emails from them that says, “We’re sad to see you go, would you please fill out a short survey letting us know what’s wrong.” Or “Oops, did you mean to unsubscibe from us? If it’s a mistake, please click here.” That’s a little bit annoying to me. Just needed to vent.

Fourth Thing:

I read a little snippet today that the earth’s rotation is moving in such a way that our zodiacal (if that’s even a word) signs are changing. So guess what? You may no longer be a Leo or a Sagittarius. I was a Pisces, but now I’m an Aquarius.

Don’t let it shatter your world. I think it was just a bunch of drunk on home-made beer farmers that decided it.

The Stranger

A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.

As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mum taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger… he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies.

If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn’t seem to mind.

Sometimes, Mum would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet.

(I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)

Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honour them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home – not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our long time visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad didn’t permit the liberal use of alcohol but the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing..

I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked… And NEVER asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents’ den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.

His name?….

We just call him ‘TV.’

This was an email I received recently.

It really made me think.

My momma says it is all Rhett Butler’s fault, for when he said, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a d*&n”, that was the beginning of cussing on the TV, and the world’s gone to pot ever since.

My challenge is still out there for you to turn off the TV for one day, not a day when you’re gone from home shopping or at a ball game, but a weeknight or even a Saturday at home, when it’s a real sacrifice.

“We didn’t have electricity and that meant we didn’t have T.V. We had darn poor radio too. So that meant we did the strangest things at night … we talked to each other!” WADDIE MITCHELL, Cowboy Poet

Just Me and the Man in my head

“My momma always had a way of explaining things so I could understand. ”

Those are Forrest Gump’s words, but that’s what I can say about my momma too. I remember being sick and laying in her king size bed with the crushed red velvet headboard. She would stroke my forehead and explain to me how there was a war in my body. There were soldiers dressed in red and soldiers dressed in white. They were fighting each other. Whether she had her facts straight, or whether I’ve forgotten I’m not sure. She would tell me that the white soldiers were my white blood cells, they were the good guys. The red soldiers were the sickness and they were the bad guys. She would tell me to picture the white soldiers winning the war. And I would. In my mind it was hand to hand combat, no cannon balls or airplane bombs. I would close my eyes and I would watch the white soldiers thrust their swords in the red soldiers hearts, watch them collapse to the snow-covered ground, draw the swords out, and move on to kill another one. She would gently croon that the white soldiers are out numbering the red ones. They white soldiers are winning. And I would watch it all happen in my mind.

Now when I’m sick, I still see that battle scene.

A different time during my childhood she explained to me that my brain is like a computer and that it is recording every event in my life, every word ever spoken, everything I’ve ever seen, everything I’ve ever done, and then filing it all away in my memory. It’s all in there, my whole life, but there’s just so much that I can’t remember it all. It’s stored away.

Of course, like most children, I too was a literal child. So when I heard this, I imagined a little man. I can still see him today. He lives in my brain. It’s dark in there and he works by a dim light. He sits at a little wooden desk with a feather pen and paper and he furiously writes and scribbles down every word, every event, every experience in my existence. Behind him are filing cabinets. They line the walls and the dark corners of my brain. Some cabinet drawers have absent mindedly been left open, with pages protruding out of their files. He’s so busy scribbling away on his little stool, however, that he is behind on his filing. On each side of him stand towers and mountains of papers that need to be filed. He really needs an assistant. He’s overworked. Especially the way my mind jumps from one thing to another. Talk about job-related stress, he’s got it for sure.

Sometimes when I try to recall a memory, I shut my eyes and see him working away. I feel sorry for him. He’s so busy. He’ll walk to the file cabinet and open a drawer. Sometimes he can’t find the word or event I’m searching for in the dark corners. Might I add that this has been happening with much more frequency lately. His piece of scribbled paper has been filed in the wrong place or maybe it’s buried in the stacks of papers on his desk. Then I get mad at him for not helping me remember. But it doesn’t do any good. He’s working as fast as he can.

Our minds are such powerful things. I heard once that the brain is so complex that it cannot figure itself out.

Think on that one awhile.

What happens to us in our adulthood that makes us stop using our imaginations? When does life become so real?

Sometimes I long to revisit the imagination of my childhood.

When was the last time you visited yours?

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!
Author: Dr. Seuss

Were it not for imagination, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
Author: Samuel Johnson

A Post of Questions

I have a special friend who comments on my blog almost daily. Her name is Lara and the other day I thanked her for commenting. She mentioned if she had a blog she would want comments. And I want comments too!!

I love, love, love, love, love it when you respond to my jibberish. If you’re still reading my daily nonsense, I’d want to hear from you and get to know you a little better. So today, I’ve thrown out some questions for you. You can choose to answer one or all of them in the comment section, respond to someone else’s comments NICELY, or just say hi! Let’s make it fun.

Ready?

************

We live in a household without TV. Granted we still have a TV and a satellite dish, but we have turned it off. I had a serious addiction to reality TV that you can read about here, and had to say enough is enough. Enough! And then my husband said it too.

What’s your favorite TV show? Would you accept my challenge to go one day with no TV in your home? Do you think it would work. Report back to me!

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Today at school we observed a National Moment of Silence at 10:00 for those involved in the Arizona shooting. Of course the majority of my second graders didn’t understand what we were doing. I got several “what in the world is going on” looks and a couple of blurted out What Happened’s?

Is it awful of me to say that I don’t even know really? I knew there was a shooting only because I read a headline about a congresswoman who had been shot on Yahoo while checking my mail. But I didn’t stop to read it. One of my co-workers referred to the shooting as a terrorist attack by an American on other Americans.

I just don’t understand our hate sometimes. What are your thoughts?

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Because I can’t keep quiet about my chickens and must, I mean MUST, tell everyone I encounter, I have discovered that all people over the age of 55 have a chicken story, and they love to tell them. As soon as they hear that I’m getting chickens, they immediately go to their “C” file cabinet in their mind and pull out their chicken stories. This weekend I’ve heard stories of going to the depot to pick up chicks by mail order. I’ve heard tales of boys lighting firecrackers, letting the chickens pluck them in their beaks and then blowing their beaks off. I’ve heard of a woman who was afraid of chickens and called her husband at work to tell him with alarm that the rooster was in the henhouse and she didn’t know what to do. She was on a party line. I’m too young to know what that is, but evidently more than two people could talk on a phone line at a time. A man (not her husband) on the party line piped into her conversation with this advice, “Leave him alone, stupid.” And I’ve heard all sorts of pecking stories.

Do you have a chicken story?

***************

Today I was a bit insulted when someone informed me that I am a “city girl” playing “country girl.” HMPH!!!

At least they had the gall to say it to my face.

What makes a “country girl” a “country girl”? Should I have been insulted by this comment? How would you have responded?

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My definition of defeating the purpose: Exercising for 20 minutes and then eating two packages of rolos. My husband bought me a case of rolos for Christmas. I’m proud to say there are still some left. Maybe one.

What’s your favorite candy?

*****************

Hey Grandpa, What’s for supper? Do you remember that on Hee Haw?

Nothing here. You know why? Because I don’t remember to lay out any meat to thaw. Never. I live in the moment. It is so hard for me to think about inconsequential things like supper at 7:30 in the morning. And I don’t like thawing meat in a microwave, it gets all dark brown around the edges. It’s unappealing.

How do you plan your suppers?

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Okay, it’s your turn now.

Signed Curious in Cow Country

The Seinfeld Post—a post about nothing

I’ve accepted a challenge by WordPress, the site where I blog. They are challenging bloggers to either post once a week or once a day in the year 2011.

I am going for the once a day posting challenge. It’s a biggie. Especially considering how long it takes me to write one of these boogers.

I missed the very first day of the year. Which technically means I failed before I even started, but I am going to perservere anyway. I may be a failure but I ain’t no quitter.

Now its January 5th, Day #5, and guess what? I’m out of ideas. I got nothing. I have nothing to write and a sneaking suspicion this might be a long year. Yesterday evening, after I pushed publish on my last blog, I closed my laptop feeling very insecure about my post, and thought It’s a good thing noone is ever coming back to read anything I’ve ever written, because I have nothing more to say.

Nevertheless I’ve accepted this challenge, I want to do it, and I need to post something daily. Something with a little substance.

All day I’ve been thinking about a topic.

WordPress is putting out ideas over at dailypress.wordpress.com, so I hopped over there for some inspiration. Today’s topic is “Are you stressed out right now? If so , why or why not” Uh, yeah, I kinda, sorta don’t have an idea for a blog the 5th day into a challenge.

Next I thought I might do a Wordless Wednesday post like other bloggers do, where they just post a picture and no words at all. But I can’t, I tried that before. And I just can’t say nothing.

But if I was going to do a Wordless Wednesday post, which I’m obviously not, here is the picture I would use.

But I can’t post a picture like this and not explain it. It’s just not right.

This was taken on Thanksgiving Day. My mom was cooking and we all gathered up at her house. It was a pretty large crowd and one must admit, it is hard to cook for a large crowd especially when the cook is out of practice, has adult ADHD, and is displaying the early stages of Alzheimers. I LOVE YOU MOM!!

Authors Note: Okay so right now I must pause in writing and tell you, if my mom ever reads this, which she probably won’t because she’s forgotten I even have a blog, but if she does, I will need protection from her immediately. I will pack my bags, move to a remote location and not leave a forwarding address. If I make it out alive. I’m scared.

Back to the story. My mom was a bit frazzled, all with the turkey being undercooked, forgetting the ham, not having enough chairs for everyone, the broken plate and the spilled tea. So when I saw a cigarette on the rolls, and my mom being the only smoker in the house, I thought Holy Cow, she’s gone over the edge now. There’s no turning back. Call in the white coats. Haul her to the loony bin.

But she denied doing it. That was not me, she claimed.

She was adament about her innocence. I would NOT have done something like that.

Now mind you, this is the same woman who drove off and left my niece ordering a milkshake at Jay’s Drive-In the other day and didn’t realize she’d left her until she got home, then had to rush back only to find her leaning against the bricks sucking on her straw with not a worry in the world. So laying a cigarette on a dinner roll and walking off seemed very plausible to me.

So I was all like, mom you probably just forgot. Who else would have done it?

And here I must give my mom a little credit. It wasn’t her after all. She was right. She would not have done something like that. Of course she wouldn’t. The heathen children later confessed (after torture and beatings) that it was them. They were playing pranks on the grown-ups. They felt we needed some revenge after forcing them to sit at Mr. Tiny’s table, which in itself is a whole ‘nother story.

Here are three of them shaking their fists at us just because we forgot they existed and didn’t have a table or chairs for them. I don’t know why they’re complaining. Children never get to sit at the grown up table during the holidays. It’s like the law or something.

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Here’s something funny that happened today. I was teaching my classroom full of second graders that I adore. There is not a single child in there that I want to hog tie and gag. Not one. We’re studying weather patterns and the water cycle. So I ask the question, “Who can tell me the four seasons?”

And one of my boys blurts out, “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”

I didn’t marry no pimp, that’s fo’sho’

My husband loves New Year’s Eve. To him it’s a sacred, holy holiday. To me, it’s just another day. And another night that I want to be in bed by 9:00.

In my marriage we don’t fight alot. We don’t have too much to fight over. During the past 6 years, the few times it’s turned ugly either revolved around food or New Year’s Eve. I have finally learned that food and New Year’s Eve are important to J-Dub. To love him is to love these two events as well.

For the sake of all that’s good and peaceful, I suggested we have a few close friends over for a small celebration. We had a little food, a little drink, and a lot of laughs. It was so fun, I can’t wait until 2012.

The next night, being the party animals that we are, we went with a couple of friends to a country-western dance in a nearby town. The music was great, but the crowd was young, and I do mean young. The thirty-something crowd that I was in was the geriatric group for the night. The dance lasted until 1:00, but by 12:00 the crowd had thinned considerably ; I imagine in order to make curfew and avoid getting grounded from their cell phones.

In the midst of this young, firm bodied, tech savvy crew, there was another character however. He wasn’t too young, but he was younger than me. Probably in his late 20’s. He wore a goofy knit hat, baggy jeans with holes in the knees, and he had way too much hootch to drink. He couldn’t dance but he thought he could. I spent my evening watching this idiot flit around the room, pulling women out on the dance floor and explain to them how to dance because he was so hard to follow. He would start out two-stepping (and I use that term loosely) in his converse tennis shoes and frayed jeans dragging the floor, and then suddenly turn and lock elbows with his partner, performing high kicks and attempting scottish dirges, as his trapped partners struggled to maintain an ounce of composure as they were dying a slow death of embarrassment.

I watched this moron and although I consider myself to be super easy going and tolerant of most kinds of people, I couldn’t stand this guy. Towards the end of the evening, after he had drank all he had brought, he went to an abandoned table to rummage through all the empty beer cans to see if there was anything left to drink in them. He picked up discarded cigarette packages in hopes of finding a forgotten cigarette. In between songs when the dance floor was partially cleared, he would take a run onto the dance floor and slide across the center. At one point he decided to break dance and he was even so bad mannered as to dart and flit between and amongst the couples enjoying their slow dance without any regard to anyone. I sat at my table thinking he needed a good punch in the teeth and I was about ready to give him one.

And then he walks over. He begins speaking to my husband. The music was loud and I couldn’t make out everything he was saying. I heard the word “bucks” and I presumed he was asking for money. J-Dub shook his head, some more words were exchanged, and he walked away.

“What’d he want?” I leaned over and yelled at J-Dub over the music.

I found out he didn’t want money. But instead he offered my husband 50 bucks for a dance with me.

I was appalled. I can’t be bought! What does he think I am? Some 2 bit hoochie mama that he can just throw money at and have his way with?

But …..wait……. on second thought…..fifty bucks you say?

I think I might know a scottish dirge or two.

And break dancing? Did I mention I was a child of the eighties?

I don’t know the point of this story. Perhaps the lesson learned in all this is:

The girls all get prettier at closing time.