The first part of the day on a Saturday morning is a favorite time of mine.  I “rise and shine” everyday and wait for the morning light.  Every day feels like it’s my birthday, when I get up early.  I love the changing light.  Its’s an old and familiar magic-and nothing less.

The time of very early morning slips away dependably too quick for me.   I love to spend some time hoping for the best- and wondering what that will be.  It is a time to send prayers and best wishes to the world. I remember the reasons I have to be glad about.  This is the shine after the rise.

When I linger too long in sleep,  I feel like I robbed myself of something beautiful-truthfully that is exactly what happens.  Those days start with a hurry, which  I have decided is unhealthy and ought to be avoided .  All day long I miss my lost time at my morning table with its’ books, coffee in a china cup, journals and favorite pens.  That table is neatly piled with things that I love- And on Saturday mornings I spend a good deal of time there.

This morning, I am glad for Magnolia trees.  They are already showing off this year!  I walk by a row of them daily.  They are young trees.  I have been noticing their dear-to-my-heart blossoms in the highest branches.  I have smelled the fragrance that makes me stop in my tracks to breathe it in deeply.  A young friend of mine, Melissa spotted a flower on a lower branch, yesterday and invited me to go with her for a closer look and of course I did.  It was a lovely thing to do and I considered it time well-spent.

Finally, my “Mothers Day  Rose” is blooming.  It is really a pink ladybank rose, but it faithfully has bloomed on Mothers’Day for as long as I remember, until this year.  It is too beautiful for me to complain about that, though.  When the little pink roses hang about a picket fence and spill on to the grass of the “Quiet Garden” I feel like singing an out of season “Joy to the World”!

I plan “Sunday Dinner” on the first part of the day, on Saturdays.  Tomorrow will be an especially nice one  as Mama, daddy, and my  daughter, Jenny is coming with my son-in-heart, Will and our Lyla.  Lyla is just one. Lyla was born on an Easter sunday, which is a big factor in the “rabbitpatch” naming.  She calls me “Honeybee” because of a silly song I made up to make her laugh.  She says “Bee” with a french accent of sorts and it is adorable!  I will show her the Ladybanks  in all its’ glory tomorrow.

I heard a beautiful family story this week.  I wrote about my great-grandmother recently and how her husband died young and suddenly.  She was left with four children and a farm in a time void  of any organized social assistance-but she got some anyway.  As it turns out, the situation was as dire as I had imagined and it came the time that the farm was to be auctioned off.  Mama Hodges had lost her husband, and now she was losing the farm.  When the day of the foreclosure dawned, she and all the farmers in “Old Ford” turned up at the courthouse.  Not one farmer would bid.  They had made a pact that they would stand united on her behalf.  Mama Hodges bought her farm back for $1.00.  The compassion of those farmers did not last just that day.  Their nobility meant something for four generations.  This happened around 1940.  For four generations, that was our Mama Hodges’s house-the house known for its’ daffodils and  where Christmas came every year and called us all home. 

Beauty has many sorts of forms.  In the first part of the day I think about that- and my heart is grateful for  things like ladybanks roses and magnolias, for Sunday dinners with loved ones -and  an old story about a young widow and some noble men who conspired together to become heroes.

 

The light on the rabbit patch is as beautiful as it has ever been these days.  Fog and light seem on the same mission.  They are casting an enchanting spell-and I am taking note of this occasion.

Morning makes its’ presence known without hurry.  The nature of fog is slow and it has no shame about that.  Fog mutes the color of the days’ first hours or the day altogether, like a silver shadow. Like its’ cousin, rain, fog begs for our attention-and with dependable success, we notice.

Once in my life, I saw fog roll in.  It is not the same as when fog seems to fall.  It came across the field on the north of the rabbit patch and moved like an ocean wave. It is odd for me to describe fog as having a “force”-but on that day it seemed to, and I have yet to forget it.

When we were young, my cousins and I played hide and seek in the fog. The usual chores on the farm were delayed on the foggiest mornings, so we loved fog.  By breakfast, one of us had already gotten hurt or somebody was mad about something. Still, playing hide and seek in the fog remains something I like to remember.

I am in the habit of going out after dark to see what the night looks like. This week, the moon and the stars shone through the fog . The silver of the fog made the stars look like little, scattered pearls .  It made me want to gather them, but I was sure it would offend the moon.

 Fireflies are back and I have seen them.  When I grew up, we called them “lightening bugs”. Either name is a good one for those little bugs with flashing lights.  The fireflies love pine trees and when they conjugate in  one, then the pine looks like a Christmas tree, even in May.

Children take great pleasure in catching fireflies in mason jars. I gave that habit up early in the game.  I caught them as a child, regularly in the spring. I was never able to collect many.  I was too careful not to harm one, and it made me slow.  We always let them go before we went in-but one time, I decided that a mason jar full of “lightening bugs” would make a great night light.  I fell asleep and woke, only to find to every little one of them had perished.  I felt just awful.  I was ashamed and I felt selfish, all at once.  I never caught another one.  I have been content for many years since to watch their shine from a distance. The world does not need one less firefly.

Today, the rabbit patch is a bright and shining place.  The sun is out with a golden glory.  The sun does not whisper, as the fog does, but shouts its’ light.  Nature has a lovely sense of balance and the light tells the story to teach us the lesson thoroughly.  Light changes as it needs too, and we ought to do the same. To me, light is a natural clock and I hope that one day, I can acknowledge that .  I dream in a “far-fetched” fashion and I am well aware of  it. . .  but while there is light, there is hope.                                                             Live happily, ever after.

There are all kinds of beautiful moments in life.  Most  every day is full of them. I look for them diligently and am rarely disappointed. It seems that whatever we set out to look for, we usually find and so I think , it may as well be something lovely that I seek.  Usually, I just need to get still-and there it is right before me.

This week is an especially busy one for me. I have all sorts of obligations right now and the rabbit patch is a bit more demanding this time of year, too.  Grass is growing and so is the garden.  The flower beds are waking up and so are the weeds.  No matter  the “state of the rabbit patch nation” and all of the world around it, I get still and quiet anyway.

When I got still on Monday, I saw children catching tadpoles  and it made my heart glad.  They were very serious in their work. I watched them peer into their little buckets for a while and then they poured those little tadpoles right back in the same pond they came from. I remembered doing the same thing a long time ago.  It was a good thing to be reminded of .  I felt like something lost was found- and it was.

Honeysuckle is blooming .  Old abandoned barns, half-gone fences and every patch of woods around is decorated with the sweet smelling blossoms. The evening air bears witness to the presence of the beloved  wild honeysuckle vines.  The vines sold in the civilized nursery must be a very distant cousin to the ones in the woods.  The wild variety is far superior in fragrance.  They grow as they please, and some people complain about that -even so the one that cuts and tears the vines can not help but smell the sweet blossoms.   I have a place where honeysuckle grows wild because I love it like that.

I love clover too .  The flowers are good for honey bees and the scent of clover is shamefully under rated.  Clover smells like green and sweet all mixed up.  Little girls make necklaces and crowns with the lowly flowers and wear them proudly. People complain about clover too, but I let mine grow for a good long while.  In evening, the rabbits come out and eat clover in the moonlight.  It is a beautiful event to see.  If I were a rabbit, I would do the same.

The iris is back.  Someone before me planted them and so my heart is grateful for a stranger, that loved flowers too.  Mine are shades of blue and lavender.    They look like a  living watercolor with their soft colors. Some way or another, there are irises in the edge of the young woods of the rabbit patch.  It is a charming mystery , and I have spent a fair amount of time wondering about it.  If there is such a thing as a wild iris, then I know where some grow.  Sometime, in the dead of winter, I will remember the iris.

There is an art to living well and the older I get, the more I reflect on that. It seems we spend a good part of our life collecting.  These collections add up, and then we begin the process of discarding what has lost its’ appeal.   Finally, we understand that “All that glitters, is not gold.”

 Time has a way of defining authentic “shine” for us.  

When days are busy and complicated, it is good to get still, even if it is just  for a brief moment . It gives you a chance to find your  shine – Mine , is when wild things are blooming and rabbits are playing in the moonlight. 

 

                                                            Live Happily Ever After

 

The “sweetest month” is here. . .and it came bearing gifts.  Roses are blooming and strawberries are ripe- and the world is better for it.  The beauty of May is showing up everywhere and refuses to be taken for granted.

The strawberry fields are ” alive and well”.  They are happy places for all ages. Nobody leaves a strawberry patch empty-hearted or empty-handed.  Most people end up picking enough to share.  Twice this season, I have been gifted with a basket of the sweet berries-both occasions made a nice difference in my day.  Strawberries are pretty to look at and their familiar  fragrance is nothing short of delightful.  A  kitchen full of strawberries is a happy kitchen.  A meal that ends with strawberry shortcake, is a good one.  There are plenty more options  of things to do with strawberries and none are bad.  Last night, I made a strawberry bread pudding and it felt like a holiday at the rabbit patch just because of that.

I used to grow my own strawberries, but I couldn’t get enough to make a pie because the rabbit patch community seems to like them as good as we do.  I am generous by nature, but to say it was a “fruitless” endeavor is about accurate.  I did throw the scraps of the berries out last night and the first-born bunnies of this year found them quickly.  I have only just started seeing baby rabbits these last few weeks.  Cash, my boxer, and I go out at the twilight time and watch them . Cash has too much pride to be mistaken for a “rabbit dog” and  so does not hinder their play.

The smell of roses is heavy in the early night air now. The “Quiet Garden” is bragging like “nobody’s business” and without shame.  I best like small flowers, but the rose is one of my favorites.  It is hard not to love a rose.  I love the fragrant varieties best, but any rose is worthy of  adoration.  Roses seem to have a language all their own-one that is felt, not spoken and not easily forgotten.

Redbirds are all over the rabbit patch and everywhere else now-a-days.  Cardinals are a noble bird.  They will perch in flowering trees with “airs” as if they are lending some prestige to the tree-and they do.  A male cardinal must be a very brave bird.  It matters not if he rests in an old magnolia or on a ditch bank-he is easily spotted with his flashy feathers- which ensures the safety of his wife.  Cardinals  mate for life.

 In a world full of schedules with quick ticking clocks and all sorts of obligations, it is good to remember that the  roses, redbirds, young rabbits and strawberries of May, come without demands and price tags.  Things in the wild do not honor such systems- and the world is better for it.

There isn’t another place on earth like the heart of a mother.  It is a place of immeasurable love and unlimited forgiveness.  Her heart is a storehouse of memories .  You can safely store your secrets there too ,without the slightest fear of betrayal.  The heart of a mother, is the first miracle we encounter in our life on this earth.

I have been blessed all of my life to have a constant dose of women, who were on a mission to make sure that I was loved like the first child ever known. It has made all the difference in my life.  Besides having my mother, I had a great-grandmother and great aunts- as well as grandmothers and aunts to help me grow up properly.  Mama had learned from them the way of motherhood, and she learned it well. Those women were like a book of life when combined.  I am quite sure, that as a unit, they knew mostly everything.  They had seen it all and there was “nothing new under the sun” to them-when it came to raising children.   

My mother was so young when I was born and I was her first child.  People had hardly started writing ” manuals” on raising children at that time.  She loved me instinctively  because her heart knew how.  As much as I love books, some things are not in them and a mother’s heart is one of them. 

The women in my family all came bearing gifts, like good fairies-each unique and equally important, when I was a child.  They were a generous lot and gave as naturally as they breathed. Character was of utmost importance. A little southern girl had to be well-mannered too. They taught me work ethics, generosity and gratitude. I learned compassion and how to practice it.  Wastefulness was to be avoided and cleanliness was to be embraced. It may seem old-fashioned, but they weren’t wrong.  Some things do not change, but instead are worthy through out a lifetime. They took their duty seriously-I was that precious to them.

My mother did all of that-and took me on picnics too – and I mean real picnics with a basket full of everything and a pretty cloth to sit on.  She talked to me about things as they came up and that wasn’t on anyone else’s agenda. I told her  my secrets without fear. I told her “my truth” and she listened.  On top of all that, she explained “the world” to me-while we were cutting paper dolls out, picking strawberries or hanging clothes on a line.  A mother’s heart is always open for her children, no matter what else is going on in her world.

When I had my first child, it seemed like a light came on. I realized how much I had been loved and it was about overwhelming.  Something changed inside of me that I had nothing to do with-and it was beautiful.  I loved my own mama even more in just that moment.

Now, my own daughter is a mother.  I see her with all of her countless details in a day-her world is in that little daughter.  Her mission is to raise her well and she thinks long and hard about how to accomplish that.  The conditions sure have changed in the last fifty years, but the mission has not altered a bit. The heart of mothers is  a dependable   force.

If you had a good mother, you were born with a “silver spoon in your mouth” and nothing less.  The wealth of a mama ‘s love is endless.  It shows up her entire life and takes different forms, depending on the needs of her children. Children grow up and with them goes a lot of “busy”‘-mamas get still, so everyone else can move.    `A mama will not leave you stranded when she “goes home” either .  She leaves her story, a tale of love as constant as the North Star and every bit as bright.