Travelling mercies..............

Does travelling have one "l" or two? Guess I could look it up. Oh!! I just remembered a very cool invention called spell check!! I spelled it correctly.

Jacob got stuck in Colorado today. I was on my way to Raleigh to visit my parents and planned to pick him up at the Raleigh-Durham Airport at 3:30 this afternoon. He missed his flight this morning and was stranded, almost hysterical with exhaustion and frustration. Between the two of us and the wonders of modern technology (i.e. cell phones), we got him onto a flight tomorrow. He should be back in Raleigh at 2, which will still give us some time to spend together before I have to head back to Virginia.

It's a bad feeling when your child (and I don't care how old they get - they're ever your child) is stranded and bewildered and there's nothing you can do for him or her other than to talk, listen, let the curse words fly free, keep answering the phone, and keep saying, "it'll be alright". I'll be glad when he's back. I'll be glad when I can see his face.

My trip was very uneventful except for the events unfolding on his trip. My drive was smooth, traffic was not too bad, and my folks are both doing alright.

I've got to go get some lasagna. More later......

Memory

I had a cool memory today. My friends Fred and Laura have introduced me to the web site http://www.pandora.com/. If you've never checked it out - I HIGHLY recommend it. It's the coolest website I've ever visited. I am addicted! I've heard so much great music, and I've been introduced to artists that I've never heard before. Go check it out!! It's amazing!

I wanted to share this site with a friend of mine who works here at the hospital. He and I had a discussion back in January about how hard it was to find good music on the radio these days. About how much trash there was out there plus you have to listen to all that yacking, which drives me insane. So I wrote down the link and some artist recommendations to kind of get him started and took them down to my friend. It was cool - he hadn't ever heard of the site either, so I actually got to introduce it to somebody else!! He got to telling me about an AM radio station that he used to listen when he was working in Kentucky. It was out of a university and was kind of a cross between a student-run station and an NPR station. He talked about how much great music he heard on that station when he could catch just right and tune it in.

And this memory came to my mind so clearly and so powerfully, it was like yesterday.......

It was at Christmas time in 1978. I had just finished my third semester at Appalachian State University and promptly dropped out, much to the profound dismay and disgust of my hard-working parents. My father's rule was our college experience was a one-shot deal and if you quit - that was it, his duty was done and we were on our own. And he meant on our own!! We were welcome to come home to visit but not to live. My father always meant what he said. Always. Six years later, when I returned to college, it was on my own dollar and I found myself wishing I could have had the benefit of foresight.........

I had just dropped out of school and was working at the ski slope on Beech Mountain. I was not quite 20. My father bought me a car!! I was floored. I was so surprised. He certainly saved me from a lot of struggle!! He told me that if I was going to drop out of school and work full-time I was going to need a car. It was his seeing-me-off-into-adulthood gift. It was a 1966 Volkswagon Beetle. It had a six-volt battery, dim headlights, and the automatic defrost was opening the window! Somtimes the windshields wipers worked, sometimes they did not. I loved that car. I had that car for 3 1/2 years. I drove the hell out of it!! I drove it everywhere!! It could go anywhere in the snow. It could go miles and miles on a gallon of gas. It had 135,000 miles on it when I got it, and I put another 135,000 miles on it before an obnoxious rich kid in his dad's station wagon pulled out in front of me on Highway 221 and totalled it. I cried for days. I grieved over the loss of that car.

The particular memory I had today was about the night I drove home to the mountains in that new-old car. I was only in Raleigh at my parents for two days because it was Christmas time and I was working at the ski slope - a busy time at the ski slopes. My mother made me a rust-colored wool poncho that year for Christmas with a hood on it and a big pocket on the front. Very hippie-ish, I loved it. I thought I looked very cool in that poncho (plus it was very warm which I would soon learn was quite important in that little VW for all parts of your body except for your feet - which tended to cook). So I loaded up my stuff and put on my new poncho and headed back to the mountains. It was the first of hundreds of drives I would make, alone, and then later alone with my children, between Raleigh and Boone over the next 15 years. It was that night that I started to realize how much I love to travel. Short distances or long distances, places known or unknown, it doesn't matter to me - I just like the adventure.

When I was coming up the mountain from Wilkesboro to Deep Gap, I got a radio station on that little AM radio that was being broadcast out of Ohio or Kentucky or Missouri - somewhere in that part of the country. It was coming a LONG way!! It was a folkie station and they were playing some great music. Some I'd never heard before, some that was as familiar as the songs I played myself on my beat-up Yamaha classical guitar. It was an absolutely crystal clear night. The stars were blazing over head. They were breath-taking. And I remember, more than anything, that I was filled with the great gift, the great sense of "possibility". I felt like I could do anything, go anywhere, be whoever I decided to be. And there was no hurry in making the decision. Not then. I had time and youth and that lingering adolescent sense of immortality that would stay with me until I became a parent myself!

I remember coming across the mountain and looking back over my shoulder and down into the valley below. The sight left me breathless, overwhelmed, in love with my new home - the beautiful western North Carolina mountains. And the music - that clear, lovely music from the heartland of America - my own personal soundtrack - folk music as ever and always.

I hadn't thought about that night for many years. It was a wonderful, small gift my mind gave to me today. Left me smiling, with an inside smile that's lasted all afternoon.

Pretty cool, huh?
Peace.

Spring Peepers.......

Have you heard them? I was driving over to my friend Laura's house on Thursday night and had the windows rolled down. I stopped at a stop sign on a back country road and heard the spring peepers singing with all their might. It was the first time I've heard them this year. They sounded ecstatic! They sounded like they were drunk with love and springtime. They sounded like they were overwhelmed with gratitude. They sounded free. They sounded happy.

The joyous singing of the spring peepers and the haunting, ethereal song of the whippoorwill are two parts of nature's symphony I look forward to every year. They are the precursor to spring. They sing her welcome back. I have listened for them now for many years. When I lived in the mountains and the foothills of North Carolina, the singing of the peepers could be almost deafening while the whippoorwill's cry could almost be missed in the spring if one's ear wasn't listening carefully or if one wasn't up late into the night when she was most likely to sing her lonesome song.

Poor little peepers - they came out last Thursday - on a gloriously warm day. The sun had been shining all day, warming the fields and the trees. I walked three and a half miles on Thursday, around the entire perimeter of the fields at the Homeplace farm where I live. (I know how far it is because I subsequently drove my car around the entire perimeter of the fields to measure the distance. No, it's not a SUV - it's a Mazda. My car did not appreciate this much, but my dog Baby thought it was the grandest car ride she'd ever had. She got to stand between the two front seats the entire way round, tongue hanging out, grinning and panting with sheer joy, tail beating the back seat furiously!). Thursday was such a beautiful day. I felt renewed, revived, like I was coming out of a long, heavy sleep or recovering from a long, drawn-out illness. Friday, the cold returned with a roaring wind and sheets of rain. Poor little peepers! I wonder if THEY wonder why they must go through this every year. It's amazing. The peepers and the daffodils - they come out and wave and dance about, praising the coming of Spring. But then Old Man Winter always has to have the last word, and he generally gives everybody a little smack with his chilly fingers, just to remind us all (peepers, daffodils, and me, too) that he is in charge until he decides otherwise.

Just between you and me, though, Spring kissed me awake on Thursday morning. I felt the wisp of her breath across my brow and her sweet kiss on my cheeks, each side, as if in greeting. She is coming soon to stay.

I am grateful for the song of the little spring peepers. It means Spring is coming soon.

Peace.

Eve Marie Carson

Eve Marie Carson was killed this week in Chapel Hill. She was murdered, shot in the right temple and left in the middle of the street. She was the student body president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was a brilliant young woman - a young woman who was destined to be a light in this dark world, to be a gift to all those who knew her. Her light has been put out, the gift she was has been taken away from the rest of us in the world.

I never knew her, but I am moved to tears at the loss of her. It is so senseless. It is so frightening. The world is so damn crazy. Is there no place or no one that is safe anymore? It is beyond anything that I can comprehend.

I think about her parents and I can hardly breathe. How do parents survive a loss like this?

I think about my son Jacob, a sophmore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I think about how he and all the other students at Carolina must feel, the impact this has on their lives, their ability to feel safe in the world around them.

I have been praying all day. I have thought about this beautiful young woman all day. There is nothing else I can do but pray. Pray and hope. Hope and pray. I lift up this young woman and her mother and her father. Her family and her friends. I lift up all the students at Carolina. I lift up the young woman at Auburn who was also murdered this week, also shot to death. And I lift up her family, friends, and fellow students.

I hold them up to the light of God and pray for protection from violence, for all of us.

I pray for my son Jacob, too. That God will keep him safe.

The long sleep...................

I went home yesterday afternoon with a bizarre episode of pain that radiated from the middle of my back down through my hips and from just below my belly button down to my thighs. It felt like my insides were going to explode. Being the compulsive nurse that I am, a myriad of things ran through my mind - kidney stone, a twisted ovary, appendicitis, pyleonephritis, colon cancer (I have a serious cancer paranoia), a rupturing ovarian cyst........ the list could go on, but I'll spare you. More than anything, I just wanted to get home and soak in the bath tub. Hot water is my cure-all for everything. That helped a little, but not enough. I figured if I could go to sleep, the pain would magically resolve itself while I was sleeping. And, of course, it did.

The interesting thing was that I went to sleep about a quarter till 6 and slept until 7:15 this morning. I was awakened at about 2:30 by thunder booms and lightening and realized that my dog Baby and Pete the cat were both outside in the middle of the big storm. So I got up to let them in. Baby came right in, but Pete was unwilling to come out from under the corner bush into the rain.

I slept a long time. I don't know why I slept so long. As folks always say, I must have needed it. I don't know why I needed that much sleep. I'm still sleepy today. I feel like I could go back to sleep right now and sleep until tomorrow.

Must be the last lingering vestige of winter hibernation. My body must be holding on.

Personally, I'm ready for spring and working in the garden and walking around the fields as the sun is setting and building a fire in the chiminea to sit beside at night.

This yawning thing, though!! I have yawned and yawned and yawned. Like a new baby or a new puppy. Nap time, I guess.

Peace.

Amazing picture

I thought this was just amazing.

Daniel and Emily

Daniel and Emily are coming to visit today! I'm so excited - I can't sit still! I've been cleaning and fixing things up and getting things ready.

It's a big event!

It's a mom thing, I guess, this cleaning every inch of every surface! And a middle-aged thing, too, this becoming such a big event! And a living-in-the-middle-of-nowhere, far-removed-from-family-and-friends thing, too! I can't wait!!!

This is my son, Daniel. Looks like me, don't you think? And this is his sweet girlfriend, Emily. She looks like me, too! She's a red head, so I liked her immediately. She's fair and freckled and she loves my son - so she's GOT to be a good woman!! In all sincerity, she is a good woman - smart, sweet, patient. I took this picture the weekend of the Surviving the Winter party. She spent the weekend surrounded by "the boys" - Daniel, Jacob, Sam, and Eric. And she was right there in the middle of things, not about to be overwhelmed by all the testosterone!

So I'd best get back to work. Dishes need washing and I'm determined to get the kitchen floor mopped if it kills me!! (I hate mopping!!). I've got to make a run to the recycling place and then on to the grocery store to get the stuff to make one of Daniel's favorite meals.

We're going into the studio tomorrow. Daniel's going to play bass, djimbe, and maybe even the mandolin on several of the songs I've already gotten recorded. I can't wait!

So celebrate the day with me! One of my soul mate's is coming to his mama's house for a visit. We'll be playing music and eating good food and talking talking talking! We'll be having a few Guniness, too, I'm sure, to toast the occasion.

Peace and love to you all.