growing up

Going for a walk.

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Wow, if that’s not the most boring title ever. I would never ever read an article with that title. But I am going to write one. I turned 50 in March of 2017. I have not given it much thought, not the deep thought one assumes you would.

I have been purging through dreams and that’s not so pleasant. Everything I regret has been coming up in dreams. Mainly bad people I allowed in my life. To be more specific, ex-boyfriends. In my dreams, they are causing me stress and guilt and I can’t seem to get away from the situation. Dreams should be fun or even scary, but not a replica of real life.

I did decide I would do an activity each month that I haven’t done before or something I want to do. So far, it’s been spot on.

January – I walked in the D.C. Women’s March. It was crowded and not much walking was done, but the action of standing with that many people to prove a point – I am so glad I did it. And what I love is that it was deemed a ‘one-day protest’ but it’s turned into action huddle groups around the U.S. – and the world – that are making a huge difference.

February – I met one of my idols. And no, the person wasn’t a rock star. Shane and I spent the night in Americus, GA at a historic hotel and woke up at 5:00 am to drive the 15 minutes it takes to get to former President Jimmy Carter’s small Baptist church for Sunday School service. It is a two-hour process from car to sitting in the church, but worth it. Yes, he teaches and he calls on you! To get a picture with him, you stay for church service also and after, that’s when he and Rosslyn are available for pictures. We also visited his boyhood home and had fried chicken at the local cafeteria.

March – I threw my own hoe-down birthday party with the help of Shane, family and friends. I got to dance to ‘Dixieland Delight’ with my 94-year old great uncle. I had a lot of fun and got to see many cousins I never really get to hang out with. Someone threw up as we saw it the next day when we went back to clean up. Yesss, always the sign of a good party.

What’s next? Wait and see! But for my walking advice? As I did build this story around going for a walk!

I woke up on the most beautiful Sunday morning with cramps. YES, ‘those’ cramps. Doesn’t it seem like there should be a cut-off date for that? Especially when you have only one ovary left? Nope. Going strong!

I really try to not show PMS, you know – keep it inside like a bad, evil secret. Why lash out at the only other person that lives in my home that is not only a very nice and fun person but cooks my meals? That would be…not nice. I was all set up on the couch with coffee, cozy with dogs and the paper. What do I possibly have to ‘PMS’ about?

The dogs were barking at every new movement in the yard. I decided I wanted to have brunch instead of lunch and Shane didn’t read my mind. My coffee was cold and I had already reheated twice. So, I thought – I am 50. Instead of the crankiness against the family, I made myself step it off the couch, put on workout clothes and go for a walk. Without the guilt of walking by myself. No pulling of the leash by dogs, no pressure of a workout – just a steady pace and listening to the birds and looking at the sky and flowers. I said hi to neighbors walking their dogs. Nice.

Then finally, I did think: Shane and the dogs would enjoy this walk. I would like to be on this walk with them. So I cut it short and walked back to get them. They were waiting and we all four went together. Sometimes alone is good and sometimes, you need your family. And at 50, I can tell you that you can have both on the same day, back to back. No need to choose or compromise.

And maybe this is my April new experience – giving advice as a 50-year-old.

Picking pot

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When I visit ‘home’, I still sleep in the same bedroom I slept as a baby. That baffles my husband, who moved as many times as he ages. Which, by the way, I have slowed that down. Not his aging, but moving.

The mile-long road we lived on killed our animals-mainly dogs, some cats. It is where the bus stop started in the mornings and ended in the evenings. It hosts trailers, houses, barns and even one bar.

The last names of the homes said it all. Those so-and-so’s, who knows whose kid belongs to who – there’s so many. Some of the neighbors intrigued me, some scared me.

I used to go to school high in first grade. Just that one sentence spoken to my mom will send her into a tizzy, straight up rage. You tell stories! That is not true. Why do you have to make THAT up? Well, I am here to tell you it is true. It wasn’t by my choice. What six year old wants to be the first child shivering on a cold bus and smell the wafts of joints join you down the aisle of hell? By the time I arrived at school, my stomach was churning and my big brown eyes had devil red in them.

I get it though. Nothing speaks to an early morning wake up call as smoking a joint in your denim jacket-waiting on the bus. It made the wait – off and on the bus – tolerable. It made me much calmer when fistfights broke out between the female bus driver and her son. I surrendered to death quietly when a spider bit me on the chest. Instead of panicking, I just stared out the window waiting to die peacefully. I also endured tobacco juice in my face, spit out by a kid a few seats in front of me, with a calmness that had to be some type of zen before I even knew what that meant. Two hours with the bus stuck in the ditch in ninety-five-degree weather? I stared out the window with a tiny smile on my face.

Where was I? I have wondered this since childhood.

Oh, picking pot. The pot teens lived between my house and another family that had four children. These four were the smart kids and took it in stride as we would pass their father peek out of the county dumpster and wave at us. No one made fun, we knew he was one smart cookie. Brilliant actually, he made his own plane and would fly over all our houses. I can’t say my dad was happy about that, but I saw the positive in everything – to make a plane out of garbage and actually FLY it! wow!

One of the pot teens would help my dad clean his barn and my chihuahua had it out for him, a huge disdain for pot smoking. I witnessed her chew his ankle off and as fast as he could grab her (not very fast) he bunts her the length of the barn. Needless to say, I lost my ever-loving shit on his stoned ass.

His other brothers, uncles, sons – who knew who was who – that I befriended out of fear, had asked us to help pick butter beans in the woods behind their variety of homes on their compound. Myself and the smart kid that was my age obliged. It was fun, picking leaves with pods of beans. We felt cool and part of something bigger than our one-mile long road.

On a good picking day, the animals stayed in the ditch on the walk down. No one was injured and the shade of the woods and steps through the bog to get to the field of butter beans was an absolute adventure. We would talk and talk, pick and pick.

Later on, the smart kid told me we were picking marijuana leaves. I was stunned but didn’t feel like I had been a fool. I felt worldly. I felt ahead of the times. I felt like I had been illegal – in more ways than one.

Colorado has nothing on me.

 

Finding gold beneath the trees

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Papa and I used to sneak up on the Indians and the beavers ‘down in the field’. Problem was the overgrown chihuahua that was my sidekick since the day she walked up in the yard, made it impossible to sneak up on anything. That didn’t stop us from trying day in and day out.

My papa told me how this one Indian was all that was left. And he didn’t get left behind, he chose to stay behind and protect our land. I understood the comfort in that, but I always asked why he would protect our land when he was on it first.

That was when the conversation turned to the beavers. Unlike the lonely Indian that I tried so hard to see – standing on the edge of the swamp – I knew those beavers were within reach. I fished on their banks, I stared down at the chewed trees, I heard the splash into the water as my chihuahua ran before me.

Once, I caught a glimpse of the beaver. I thought I saw two. Papa would laugh and seem just as excited. His excitement would diminish when he realized no fish were left to be caught because of those no-good beavers.

Our favorite third topic were cousins who, as legend would have it, robbed a train and stole the gold. It was buried on our land and we were going to find it. The best invention at the time was the metal detector, so we walked those fields in search of the gold. I imagined all sorts of ways we would discover the gold. Beneath the big pecan trees by the old well. Under the half-fallen wooden house where the horses were fed. Surely it was in the tobacco barn. I wanted it to be in a brown paper sack in a wooden box.

Years later, after my papa had left this earth, my father took up a renewed interest in finding the gold. We invested in a brand new metal detector and one evening before dusk, I set out alone to find the gold. To my surprise, the buzzing went off and I began to dig. Sandy dirt digging, on my knees and with my hands, fast and feverish. As I pulled a rusty, red-brown scrap of metal out of the ground, most likely from farm equipment long-gone, I looked up and realized within an instant, it was pitch black dark. The kind of dark where you don’t even see your body parts in front of you.

A chill went down my spine. I didn’t move, a bit too scared to stand up and start walking. I knew the walk would turn into a full-out sprint with a pounding heartbeat so whatever loomed behind me couldn’t catch me.

Then I felt something different than the chill. The Indian’s cautious gaze on my back; my obtuse chihuahua waiting for my reaction to define hers; and my papa looking down on me knowing that I would always believe his stories.

I still do.