family

We laugh about them and their relationship and how close he was with them back then.
If there ever was a reason, it would be these people.

Today I am grateful for a conversation, a card game, and sharing a laugh with a guy.

Kick it. (parental discretion is advised on this entire blog)

quotable quote

"Life in San Francisco is still just life. Now if you want any one thing too much it's likely to turn out a disappointment. Now the only way to live as I see it is to learn to like all the little everyday things."

Augustus "Gus" McCrae

evenin'

He's being led and leading and taking his whole family with him.
Mama said, "There wasn't a dry eye in the room."

I've been thinking about being led lately.

Tonight I call a friend. "Have you ever been led to do something?"

"Yes," he says.

"You have to be careful with that, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is it ego that turns being led good into being led bad? Sometimes people do bad things because they feel like they were led and doesn't feeling like you are being chosen for something an ego thing and don't we have to watch our egos?"

"So what's going on?"


Today I am grateful for a shiny bathroom, Sprite, and a conversation with him.

yellow dog

Today I am grateful for time and a dog.

on the other side of the window

They talk alike, those two. In front of Doug's camper on Okatibbee Lake, mother and son discuss happiness and sadness. It's either happy or sad, that camper, that yard, that house, or that porch.
Not people, just places. "Get that swing and bring it over here under these two trees," she says.

And she drives and talks, and that woman is hilarious. She and her son are a blast.


Today I am grateful for a long walk, a swim with her, and a family who lets me tag along.

retreat

We need to talk.
I need to ask him about work.
I forgot to tell him about the bees.

I screamed when he called to tell me he was sitting on the front porch. Screamed, "Go away!"

It just seems that once a month maybe I need to get in my own little cave and miss people.
My brain is way too slow for a fast life, and my boss is a basketball coach.



Today I am grateful to be able to trust people, for quiet, a visit, a text, a call, and a weekend.

friday music

He is safe and kind for times when I just need to fantasize.

Today I am grateful for him.

I mess up a million times a day and I plea forgiveness

They get out of the truck.
They smile.
They sit on that couch next to each other,
squeezed up, palms up,
and their mama hands them her.


Today I am grateful for a homecoming,
for a couch,
for a call I forgot to make,
along with another mistake I certainly made.



She, of course, kills it.

the romantic

He writes, "The average daydream is about fourteen seconds long, and we have about two thousand per day. In other words, we spend about half of our waking hours - one-third of our lives on earth - spinning fantasies."

"What do you daydream?" I ask.

"My wedding," she answers then instructs, "Don't write that."


I am grateful to sit across from an intelligent, beautiful, and hilarious young woman as she explains how she is going to disappoint everyone in her life except the man she loves.

happy birthday

It is chaos and anarchy and organized clutter of arms and legs and you're my hero and superheroes and how many mothers are in this room. Every last one of us, even that crazy daddy of yours.

I do hope you like your first pictures, smallest one.

Today I am grateful for family.

beach music

Today I am grateful for sleeping in, a bowl of Texas cheese steak, a huge sandbox, the wind, the waves, that he hit water, and one of the two best gumbos in Alabama.

alabama

We modify and take to concrete. A little incline is nice now and then.

Today I am grateful for a hike.

florida

He tried to sleep, and I tried to call anyone who would talk to us. She laughed, laid on the couch, and we went to our rooms. Rambling sleepers we were. I've now had two baths and thinking about getting in that still warm water again. Bless it.


I am grateful for bath bombs, bubbles, jets, and time for bath number three.
Fifteen miles tomorrow.


We shared music on the way here.

scene

Grateful.

chance

"That's what you said the last time I showed you. You have to show him."

We leave today barring the creeks don't rise which I think they already have but hopefully not so much it keeps us from spending time with each other. We know how to swim.


Today I am grateful for the chance to look at maps,
learn names of towns,
check equipment,
take notes,
and walk.


Cue some old music.

now it ain't

It was the swarm of 2019, just enough to make me close the door and call the landlord who in the end discussed how much better it would be if I called someone else about bees and him just about turkeys. If ever there were a swarm of turkeys taking over the place, inside and out, then I should call him. But bees. Uncle Ronnie on the bees.


Today I am grateful for some help, some comedy, that everybody is okay, and that no, it wasn't the tribulation or some horror movie I witnessed as a kid. That was simply a burst of energy and a dang, dusty room. Now it ain't.

what if you lost your mind

It's a spontaneous adjustment, a curve, a turn, a let's see where this leads.

He says, "This fence seemed so much taller then."

"She threw up candy corn right there."

"I remember that," he laughs.




Today I am grateful to follow a daily path of where it leads but lately I wish I was better at doing this. And doesn't it seem as if there is a call for you to leave, that wouldn't it be better if you did.



I think I need to go on the trail with him, but I don't know if I can and I should be ashamed of myself because haven't I always told him that he could do anything he put his mind to. How dare I not put my mind to this? He is going to put his mind to suffering, to small victories and potentially desperate cries for help. I must make plans to see him. I'm too chicken to be him.


Tonight's tune.


He says, "No. Just go visit on weekends."

boys

Today I am grateful for an evening walk, a drive home, a knowing that she will be alright.
She has a good daddy.

documentary

That was a lovely way to spend time.


Today I am grateful for real and struggle and that he was and had friends like Judd Apatow.
Beautiful way to get lost in someone else's life for an afternoon.

every day counts

Four days not counting this one, and why would you?
Because no day should go without counting and wind and rain and thunder and lightning.


Today I am grateful for the nature of a day.

kindness on Friday

It's just a thing this thing of kindness on Friday. You've lost kindness. Kindness is lost to you.
You end up grappling for a time and place where you're not trying to tell somebody something in a world of where do I end and you begin and how many ways can be up and down and I got beat up this week (thankfully metaphorically speaking). Anyway, as usual I came out fighting about an issue of telemarketing.

Ridiculous.

We all have issues. It's like I'm ready to put my foot down on selling through a system which should be utilized minimally. Right? You don't know. I just think so.


Only hours before he and I sat and talked. Him in some existential, what is human in the form of looking at people as meat and does a soul exist, last night's podcast crisis.

He asked me.

I said, "Yes."

"I used to think so."

"I know," I nod my head in agreement. Everyone wrestles with that one.

Anyway. The room's light may not have actually increased in whatever wattage needed, but he did smile when I told him the story of that dog and Sipsey and real is when your phone stops working and there's nothing left but what's right in front of you.

It's where your love is. It's where you find your kindness on Friday.


Today I am grateful for a conversation we both needed.

what is real?

This.


Today I am grateful for scientists, podcasts, a show, a meal. People dressed up. Real.

oh yeah, I need to write

How many times do writers not write in a day?
When do you lose the claim of simply describing yourself a career?
Must write something today.


Today I am grateful for emails, notes, transcriptions of interviews.
I am grateful for a thing, a reason.

the trail

Fifteen miles of bridge and sand and ocean and hotel and breaking for lunch at a really cool restaurant is the new 50 and I can't help but smile when I think about this trip with him.  The heat of the sun, the pavement, the traffic, where do we start? I have to map it for us.

Get there Friday. Leave from a fruit stand.
Travel down a road to bridges.
Bring sunscreen and a liter of water.
Hit the pavement early.
Insect repellent.
No poles needed, but the click is nice.
It's a celebration of our first trip, a plan for a future one.


A book with him, a screenplay with his uncle.



Today I am grateful for that trail and this trail and all the others.

backpack

Startkist Selects E.V.O.O. wild-caught Yellowfin Tuna in Extra Virgin Olive Oil
It may have been less about the tuna and more about how hungry I was when I finally ate that day.



Today I am grateful to feel hunger.

(what an awful thing to say)

weekend

It is an invitation which marks the celebration of done exclamation written in cursive and now to make the fridge's door of fame. I make the call.

Taste Every Bite is written on my wrist.


Today I am grateful for a cut-through road, a screenplay, a walk, a sit, a talk, a weekend.

the kid, the lady, the people

It is rushed and ragged and hot enough to sweat for those who dress against better sense.

But the blue. That navy.
And the privilege to be a driver.
I just had to accept a thing.
Sometimes it takes me a minute or two.

He's leaving.
But it's not.
We can still talk.
I'll know more about where he will be than I already do.


We sit on the second level and look down over a town and an old hardware store. She cries twice but we also talk about the kids and our opinions and how grateful dot, dot, dot we are for this,
these.



Today I am grateful for the kid, the lady, the people.

his music, his dance, their photographs

I can't wrap my brain around it so I don't know how to wrap someone else's brain around it. Items must be combined to form an online show which will feature photographs from kids about positive change in their community or their school.

But also video of a metamorphosis and his music which I now hold as if it's a treasure.

Cue our inspiration.


Today I am grateful for the ones who keep showing up,
and for what they show me through their work.

it

The challenge now is to get a different photo. If you take over 15,000 photos of the same place, the same people, the same same, how do you create another one? I don't create it. I wait for it. Trust it will show up.


Today I am grateful for it.

Mrs. Diane

It is not often that she will announce someone is here to see me. So when she does it's curious. I am a go see them kind of girl but yesterday she announced and I said, "Send 'em on back."

Within moments I looked up from writing to see her face peeking around the door facing and smiling to the point of shining. She is a gift of light and energy and laughter, and the first time I ever met her she was posing as Tina Turner. She still has the poster. And I would do anything for her and she is amazing.



Today I am grateful for her and that insanely wonderful daughter of hers.

fat camp

We already know that I have lessened my chances of succeeding by simply stating that which was what I planned to do. Just the act of saying I was going to fat camp has already turned into brain juices and assumed the past tense with the verbs here.

But tonight I heard from my fat camp buddy.

Today I am grateful for a mama and her kid, a lady I can trust, and a job which provides and forgives. You know you don't have problems if your problem is that you have to figure out how to control your intake of food. That must mean I have plenty of food around me. And yes, I am grateful for plenty though it does appear and is the case that I have taken that for granted.

Cue music.