How my life's great love affair is like an Austen romance

I don't think it's been evident here yet, but I'm a rabid Austen fan. I have a great friend, Holly - my very stylish. artistic friend - who supports me in my addiction, even so far as conspiring with me to drag our men to England for a literary tour.

Recently, I've been reading North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell, on Holly's suggestion and watching the BBC series adaptation. It is a tale worthy of Austen, if not quite written with her flair and humor. It borrows heavily on the themes in most great love stories written in an age when society still believed in honor and God and character and men behaving as gentleman and women being ladylike. It's hero, Mr. Thornton, could stand proudly beside Mr. Darcy, Captain Wentworth, and Fairfax Rochester (Of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte) as his equals - tall, proud, passionate heroes skilled in making female readers admire them for their violent declarations of love to indifferent, strong-willed, highly-principled women.

And so I thought, Well, I have a romantic hero in my life, and, crying out loud, no one's more fit to be a spirited, opinionated, principled heroine than I am. How is our great love affair like an Austen/Bronte/Gaskell romance? Let me count the ways:

We met when he came to the country, I went to the city, and I became a governess to his ward (aka illegitimate child)

Actually....well, uh, no. My sister met him a few thousand miles away, and he thought she was quite pretty (the handsomest woman in the room, as Mr. Darcy would say), and she, married and blond, asked if he liked brunettes.

"Umm....why?" he wanted to know.

"I have a little sister," she told him. "She's a brunette."

And he thought, If the sister looks like this one, I'm in luck.

I was Proud and Prejudiced.

My sister Annie gave my number to a strange Texan so he could call me long distance? Boy, was I mad. My dad and I railed for half an hour about how "these things" never work out, while my mom stood to the side and said wisely, "You never know. Give it a chance. Let him call."

He did call, the bold guy, and I learned he was newly baptized Catholic, and I freaked out like any self-respecting Protestant would do for no good reason, wailing to my dad, "He's Catholic! A Catholic! Catholic!"

I was not handsome enough to tempt him

Once I got over my paranoia, for weeks we talked regularly, agreeing not to send each other our photographs. We planned to meet blindly for the first time in person at San Antonio. But I couldn't stand it, and I found the most unflattering picture of myself and sent it by the next post. It was a photo of me and my cousin, both with red eyes and disarrayed hair, and I was holding my pet bunny squashed against my face. The rabbit looked tame enough. I looked feral.

I thought the photo was an authentic representation and was utterly humiliated when Matthew told me in a subsequent phone conversation that he would now have to "wait and see" how I looked in person, whether I at least sometimes had decently coiffed hair, etc., and that he felt certain I had sent a bad picture on purpose.

I vowed, with my wounded pride, never to dance with him at a ball - even if he did ask me - while Dad, eager to marry off his youngest daughter so he would never again have to hear about her weird dreams, claimed I tried to sabotage the relationship before it could begin.

We first saw each other at a country ball, and there was an interfering middle-aged lady

Actually, it was a Mexican food restaurant, and - phew! - there was no chance of dancing, so my vow was safe. Matthew's friend had already informed him that I looked much better in person than I did in that atrocious picture. I could tell that Matthew thought so, too, as I walked by the pastry counter for our first romantic encounter.

We were with a large group of people, and one of them, a stout, well-meaning saleslady, told me over aperitifs  - right in front of my hero - that if our date didn't work out, she had a young relative to whom she would gladly introduce me.

I tried to be as changeable as possible

One day I flirted and was sweet and encouraged him, the next I acted as if friendship and respect were all he could gain if he worked hard. That's a woman's job; we do it well.

I wore a fancy gown, and he was speechless

We had a lunch date, and as soon as the door opened, I knew my power, one might say. He just stared. I was surprised by his reaction, because I had in no way engineered it. It was a simple cotton turquoise dress - no low bodice, satin or lace - that my sister had given me, a hand-me-down. I don't even think he knew why he liked it so much on me; it was just one of those magic moments.

There was a Wickham/Willoughby character

His name was Winters, a highly appropriate name, and he sold private planes for a living. He was dark, suave and debonair, had a fancy estate and an SUV with seat warmers that made me extremely nervous and fidgety on the drive home after our only date. Later, he told me that though he appreciated our stimulating, intelligent conversations, a man and woman should make "apple pie" together. He also asked if I shopped at Victoria's Secret and told me that Matthew had once robbed him of a valuable family living.

We were not suited.

Right before Matthew was to come visit at Christmas, I saw this man trying to ensnare another young lady at the mall and was reminded of how he had charmed me once. After climbing the escalator and calling mournfully, "Winters! Oh, Winters!" under the rain-spattered skylight, I got a sharp reproach from Dad for my silliness. So I murmured with a dignified air, "Go, go. I would not wish you back again." Or something like that.

Dad and daughter were close

My dad and I were buddies. We shared a love of writing, books, chocolate and nature and a passion for talking about God. Still, he did not say bitter-sweetly, "I could not have parted with you to anyone less worthy, Hillary, my dear." No, during Matthew's Christmas visit he suddenly announced, holding a wine glass aloft as if to celebrate, "Watch - these two will be married before the year is out."

I think he was ready to let go.

I had no family connections or fortune

I didn't even own a vehicle or know how to drive...mainly, because I had no money and failed my eye exam.

Though I didn't go sightseeing at his New Mexico family home with my kindly aunt and uncle after rejecting his hand, I did call his Acura "my car" on our second date touring his alma mater. I still don't know how that came about, but I was more embarrassed than Elizabeth on the beautiful grounds at Pemberley, I can assure you, and he teased me mercilessly.

There was a woman with a beautiful voice ready to take my place

An old girlfriend, she didn't call until a week after our wedding (oops - gave away the ending). A close escape, because I didn't want to resort to sticking my hat pin in her bum or pushing her into the nearest koi pond. Stooping to such unladylike tactics would surely have hurt my dignity. Any how, she had a beautiful genteel voice as she asked to speak to my husband, and he got on the phone and said as abruptly and bluntly as Darcy would have done, "I see you just met my wife."

I didn't refuse him but I tried to run away

He did not declare his love for me under a huge old tree or find me alone in the drawing room, because we didn't know where a drawing room was in Texas. Knowing my fondness for long country walks and exotic animals, he took me to the zoo. I noticed his heart beating wildly just before he proposed to me in a little sitting area by a large blue parrot. I tried to flee, crying, "No way! No way!" He kept a firm grip on my hand.

On our wedding day as we at last stood before the Catholic priest, his smile was more brilliant than Mr. Darcy's by far. But he always did have more of Bingley's jovial nature than Darcy's sternness.

****

But unlike the great literary heroes, Matthew never enthralled me with ardent words of undying passion or talk about his suffering. He never stalked the town piercing people with his intense gaze; no, I have to get him really, really mad for that. While dating he did tell me that he compared all women to me and couldn't find anyone like me, but to me that only meant he was still looking - to which I thought, Ha! Good luck, mister. I'm original, alright.

He's a true man, and I know very few who can speak about their feelings as well as women writers have them do in fiction...unless, of course, they're writers themselves. But he did give me his sports watch when I left San Antonio and swear he would give me anything in his possession (even the Acura?!). He also kept a token of me, a cheap little necklace I'd forgotten at his apartment; something I didn't find out until much later.

Once we got married, he found less use for words then before he'd won me. Now he communicates his adoration by smacking my fanny or squeezing my thighs while I'm cooking dinner. The only time he ever says pretty things spontaneously is...cough...never mind.

He has Thornton's business sense, Bingley's steady good nature and Darcy's reserve. He is nothing at all like Rochester...unless...well, there was that time he asked if I was willing to move to another state and be his mistress (I told him an emphatic No), and he did buy me an expensive bauble when we'd barely been together a month. But he's unique. He's my hero - tall, even-tempered (one of us should be), amiable, God-fearing and dark-haired as I knew he would be.

We're made for each other, Mr. Ibarra and I.

1...2...Tales of School

My tomboy kindergartener has a couple boyfriends. Well, not boyfriends - boy friends. She's taller than both of them, stronger, too, I bet. They get into shoving matches about who gets to stand behind her in line each morning. I was confused as to why that was the coveted position, but my husband understood perfectly: only if they walk behind her in line do they get to see her all the way to the classroom.

"Ah," I said. "To admire her beauty?" - her tomboyish charm with high pigtails, boy's shorts and high tops.

"Of course."

Yesterday morning I walked her late to the tot lot, and her friend Santiago, the short, black-haired one with an open, cheerful face, was sitting at the end of a slide looking down at his feet. She called out, "Santiago!"

He jumped up and ran toward the fence jumping and crying, "Gabriella! Gabriella! Gabriella's here!" Then he spun around and called to his rival, "Rio! Gabriella is here!"

My little girl has a thing for guys with exotic names. 

When she got into the playground, she and Rio, the short, sandy-haired, temperamental one, embraced while Santiago wrapped his arms around both of them for a group hug. I guess the two rivals could unite, if only momentarily, in their joy over seeing Gabriella after a whole seventeen hours apart.

As I finished telling this to my husband at dinner, Gabriella told another story about the class terror, a little boy who gets into trouble for walking around the classroom during learning time, touching the faces of all his classmates at regular intervals, and drawing Picassos on the tables. He had to go to the refocus chair and draw a picture of himself making better decisions. Then Ella told how the art teacher makes her whole class put their heads on the desk until they can learn to cease and desist with their constant babbling.

"Who's you favorite specials teacher?" I queried.

She named her kindergarten teacher who technically, Berto pointed out, is a specials teacher - the homeroom teacher.

"Ah," I said, smirking, and taking a deep breath in preparation to launch a long-winded tale of my childhood, something I try to do regularly for my children's edification. "I bet," I began, "that I could name every teacher I ever had in elementary school."

An expectant or fearful pause - either way I was encouraged.

"Well, there was Mrs. Weatherford....no, Weathersby? Weatherbin? That's not right....anyhow, she was a really sweet lady. It was in her class that I thought I was locked in the little bathroom between classes, and I kicked the door and screamed. It wasn't really locked, but I got out of there alive; that's all that matters. But, wait...Ms. Crow. I forgot her! She came first, and she would beat you just for missing words on you spelling test. Really. Then there was Mr. Cole, my second grade teacher. He's the one who used to throw erasers at you for talking, and they'd leave a big old chalk mark down your cheek." And I slid my finger across my face. "That's something you don't see nowadays. I dodged one once, and he let me get away with it."

"Then, in fourth grade...well, I don't remember her name, but every time she left the class, I got up and did a dance like this" - here a pause to show them, rewarded with broad smiles - "and then when I heard her coming, I'd run back to my chair like this" - frantic arms, scared expression - "That was fun! In fifth grade I had Miss Hooper, and I loved her, but her class was hard. I made my first B in her class. She had a wooden paddle hanging by her door with the signatures of all the students who ever got a spanking from it." I snorted. "Refocus chair? You guys have it easy. We didn't get no refocus chair! We had to sign our names to a wooden paddle! All the teachers had them. This was the South, people!"

I took a moment to reflect how strange a time and region I grew up in. Strangely, like many a devoted mother with a wayward, but charismatic, son, Miss Hooper's favorite student was a stocky, ginger-haired boy named Michael who got more than a couple paddlings in her class. Remembering that reminded me of something else.

"In fifth grade all the boys in the class called me Wild Woman," I went on. "Probably because I had hairy legs."

Here my story stopped. Berto had snorted gravy up his noise, and I politely waited for him to stop laugh-coughing into a napkin.

Not daunted, I continued:

"Finally, in sixth grade I got up at the Halloween party - I mean a real Halloween party with witches and pumpkins and scarecrows; we had real Christmas parties, too. Can you imagine?  - and sang 'Ding-dong! The witch is dead! The wicked witch, the witch-oh-witch. Ding-dong! The wicked...witch...is...dead!' All while wearing a witch's hat and dancing around, kicking my legs up in a circle. People were pretty annoyed with me for that one. But I also got up and told jokes to the class regularly and had my own little Bible study group in the corner. Boy, you couldn't do that nowadays! That's also the year we got to play on computers for the first time. The Oregon trail. Remember that, honey? Boy, you kids would laugh! And my teacher yelled at me once, when we weren't supposed to be talking, just for saying 'excuse me' to someone."

I was out of breath and out of listeners. Berto's nose still hurt, and Daniel and Ana had both taken up the refrain of "Ding-dong! The witch is dead. The wicked witch...is dead!" I was beginning to feel I shouldn't have taught them that. Perhaps its best in general if they don't know so much about their strange mother. Well, never mind. Next time it's Matthew's turn. He can tell how New Mexico teachers kept their classrooms in order with refocus cages.

The road I should have traveled (a warning for other wayward pilgrims)

This post is my gift of experience to my few readers to show to the young, foolish people in their lives.

I didn't go to college. I regret that. It's been on my mind for some time.

I'd like to justify my poor decision by saying that I could have gone if I wished to do so, that I could have gotten scholarships to pursue my chosen career path, but that means so little since I didn't even try.

The whole regimen of school made me nervous, gave me chronic anxiety on weeknights for years. Tests, especially standard performance tests, flipped me out, and I had to steal mantras from Beatles songs, writing them over and over on scraps of paper, to shore myself up in the face of possible failure. I hated school. Oh, I had friends, and I made consistently very good grades. There was no reason for my hatred other than my own character flaws: my love of the home environment, my lack of drive to pursue the extraordinary, my strong dislike of any regimen that stole me from my family and my own quiet pursuits and interests.

I remember once in my senior year, the guidance counselor wanted to see me, and I avoided his office like the plague until my friend Sarah dragged me down the hall toward it, my shoes leaving scuff marks. I thought he was going to inquire about my grades, college plans and the steps I was taking, and I acted like a child and created a spectacle in my fear at encountering his queries. You see, at that point I had already decided that I was not going to college. I was going to write novels, and novelists didn't need to go to college; they needed to write. But I felt certain he would pressure me about furthering my education in light of my school record. Turns out, he only wished to see me about some petty issue. Perhaps he had given up on me. I wish he had pressured me, told me emphatically that a writer should go to college, if for no other reason than to learn basic marketing, design and computer skills in case she or he ever became a weblogger.

You can call me lazy, but I am intelligent enough and talented enough - just not educated enough.

It is very ironic that I knew what I wanted to do very young. I knew I wanted to be a writer at age nine. Now I write, but I am not really a writer, not a professional writer. I'm a blogger, heaven help me, in a sea of bloggers, and within that sea of bloggers there are many who never dreamed to be writers who have found great success and quickly. The majority of them went to college and worked at other careers, gaining valuable skills. Some of them are far better writers than I am. Ironic.

Many times, tottering on the edge of dejection, I have said to my husband, "I should have gone to college and gotten a journalism degree, and then I would already be doing what I love and getting paid for it."

Should have, would have, could have. Now it seems silly to spend a fortune on my higher education when our four children will be pursuing theirs quite soon. Sure, an investment, a good example - but a really expensive one. At any rate, whatever I decide, my children are not blind to my regrets, I am certain.

What was it that Mark Twain said? If you write for three years and no one is willing to pay you for it, it's time to try something else...?

Here I do what I love, and freely, but it is not looking like I will ever find "success", may never even be paid for it. I do not call myself a failure. My humor pieces have been published elsewhere, but no one has offered me even a piddly check. Still, I write, because if I didn't, the depression and regret would be worse - a basic mental, emotional and spiritual need unfulfilled. And I have an audience. Just to know that several people, mostly my family and close friends, read my words consistently is something, better than writing for nobody at all, stacking lifeless paper in a desk drawer to be recycled on my passing.

But most great writers graduate college. They love academia as they love words. Many are professors. I should have gotten a college degree. I could be writing for one of those old-fashioned circulars called newspapers.

A good friend told me once that I was lucky that I knew what I wanted to do with my life creatively and professionally, because many people never do. How much better would it have been for me if, knowing the road I wished to travel, I had been wise and lucky.

Short, Mostly Unedited: Accidents

Well, I was going to be all glum in this post, ungrateful - gloomy, pitiful, cast down - but it goes against my nature.

I was going to point out in an oblique way the incredible amount of debris and blockage God expects us to wade through daily in our struggle to be good and hopeful, not resigned but steadfast, courageous. But of course it is ridiculous to even insinuate that the struggle is too much, the odds too great against us, for what do we do but sin against each other constantly for our own pleasure and convenience? No, we mostly create our environment, but there are unforeseen events not of our making: nature's whims, illnesses, accidents.

Accidents happen. Time and Chance stalk us all. But you can't sit on your hands and rock back and forth and wail that it's not fair. Just today I feel my family has had an unlucky year, and to myself I reply, Ha! Others have it worse and keep their grace. No one has it fair, after all. For some, it is brutally unfair.

No, we are not unlucky at all. We are blessed, happy, healthy. A little depressed today, but things are not worse than they are, so I am grateful.

God knows. He knows how often in this past year I have thanked him, praised him again and again just remembering how our children were unharmed in our car accident last September. I thanked Him when our drywall crashed in our carport, and we were all safe in the house to hear its effects, no one under it to receive its blows. I thank him today when my husband is safe, if injured, after his accident yesterday evening.

All the world's a stage; we are all bound to wreak havoc on the play, bearing, too, the consequences of others' missed cues. We thank God for the chance to go on, to ad lib.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm just off to read Dr. Seuss' book Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?

Ignacia's Kitchen : Banana Bread (just mix it up!)

 No Rules Banana Bread

(Makes 24 cupcakes)

Mix

·        ½ Cup butter OR ½ Cup oil (note from Hillary: I like oil, easy. Melted butter never seems to incorporate as well for me)

·        1 Cup sugar

·        2 eggs

·        2 Cups flour

·        1 tsp baking soda

·        ¼ tsp salt

·        1 Cup milk OR Buttermilk

·        2 Tbs lemon Juice (aprox)

·        1 Cup mashed bananas

Pour into chosen containers (I prefer cupcakes)

Bake

·        Bread Pan: 275 ºF for 1 hour

·        Cupcakes: 300 ºF for 35 minutes

Tips

·        Use a food mixer

·        Leave the pans in the oven after baked for a crunchier crust (pictured cupcakes are from the same batch, the darker ones stayed in the oven after oven was turned off)

 

·        Break eggs into a separate container to take out eggshells if you need, necessary if you are letting kids break the eggs

·        Add nuts if you want

·        Freeze bananas when they are getting too ripe for your taste, they will turn black outside while keeping the inside fresh

 

·        If you are using frozen bananas you do not need to mash them, they can be squished out of the peel

·        Cut frozen bananas into 1 inch long pieces and add to smoothies

 

My friend Ignacia returns to her home in Chile this week. She promises to send more recipes to me, especially for Chilean food as their Independence Day approaches in September.

I had planned a going away party for her, but my kids got sick, so all the moms in our group met instead at a Starbucks (so American of us). I wish we'd had these cupcakes to go with our espresso. 

Someday maybe - a dream but maybe - we'll all make it to Chile to visit her.

Virginia Snapshots

In June I returned to the South for the first time in fifteen years. My husband and children had never been east of the Mississippi. We visited my sister's family in Virginia, hoofed it around Washington, D.C., and wandered through Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania. These are a few of the memorable moments I had in that beautiful state of Virginia that belonged to so many of our nation's forefathers. I love the South. I was sure that I would hate coming back home.


Tree-lined lanes, avenues and back roads? Virginia has tree-lined highways like nothing out here in the West. The sun pierces the branches, and the effect is psychedelic, blinding. I'm used to constant shine, never-changing on our roads at home. It was hard to stare down these kaleidoscope highways, narrow, two-lane byways with no shoulders, only vibrant, verdant vegetation and brilliant wildflowers crowding the pavement and the sentinel trees bending the light above.

It was on the drive from the airport that I expected my kids and man felt like Dorothy: "Todo, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

~

I went with my sister to the church to keep her company as she prepared for a wedding Mass. But I didn't feel I should attend the service, so after sitting in the narthex to hear the homily make sense out of the Sunday readings' non-nuptial themes, I quietly went outdoors. In my tall heels and dress I past the shed, hoping to catch some rabbits, and hiked up the hill beyond toward a patch of woods.

The closer I got to the symphony of insects greeting me from the trees, the more I drifted back home to Tennessee as if I were walking toward my childhood with each spike in the dirt of my silly heels. I gazed into the black-eyed susans and cattails and all the exuberant plant life off the lawn, so familiar, breathing in deeply, and listened to the exotic sound of creatures, and I felt homesick, knowing I was home again and would have to leave it.

On the trek back to the church I surprised two rabbits in the grass not four yards from the door. They stood still as statues with stiff ears when I halted my approach, one lying and one sitting up. We were at an impasse: I wanted to watch them and they wanted to escape my notice. With my next step the one lying down bounded away toward the main road, and his friend hopped a few feet off into the lawn. I sat on the bench, very quietly, and when he had observed me from a safe distance, he grew bold, a curious little fellow, and began to hop a slow zig-zag across the stone before the building, getting ever so much closer each time to my perch. Every little bit he stopped and twitched his nose, flicked his ears and pawed the ground with his front feet. I started to get nervous when he was a mere three feet away, afraid he would use those muscular back legs to jump into my lap, so I stood, and he was off after his buddy. I remembered why rabbits were, and still are, my favorite creatures. He made my Sunday; I told my husband all about him when we got back to the house.

~

"Here, try this," my sister said, handing me a glass of wine, "and tell me what you think."

I wondered why she was watching me so intently, and then I tried it. Suddenly, instantaneously, I had visions of vines behind Mr. Hayes' house in White Bluff, TN, and then saw my siblings and I picking and eating small round fruit on the lane near the creek of our childhood home, by a gate into the field.

"It's like liquid childhood," I said fervently. "What is it?"

"It's muscadine wine. Remember the grapes we used to pick and eat when we were kids?"

I remembered. I also remembered our dad's good friend, Bill Cole, used to make his own elderberry and muscadine wine and bring it to my parents' Christmas party each year. So this was what it tasted like! And this was the reason the adults were laughing so much by the end of the evening. Vinca and I drank through at least two bottles while I was there. Matthew hated it, but it doesn't get better than liquid childhood, and Vinca has her sis' sincere, heartfelt gratitude for finding it already bottled.

~

Small towns, southern hospitality.

My husband and I took a walk by ourselves. As we strolled hand in hand down the quaint lovely streets, people waved and greeted us genially from the windows of their slow-moving vehicles; older folks called out salutations to us from their front porches or from the opposite sidewalk; and everywhere we went, obvious strangers to town, residents treated us like old, seldom-seen friends. We were not in the West anymore, that big sky and lonely hearts country, nor were we in the huge, indifferent city we call home.

~

I had the chance to take all the younger kids to the town park a few times. It wasn't manicured like ones in the city, and the water fountain drained at your feet, but it was a charming playground with nice equipment and great views down Main Street.

The first time we went, I suggested we could all stroll down Main, and my niece said we could get smoothies. I was open to it, an aunt who had not been good about sending birthday money and who rarely had the opportunity to treat my nephews and niece. Plus, I had their assurance it wasn't far. We came to the historic train depot. "Just down here," they said, turning right on another street. I had assumed the smoothies were to be had on Main, but they told me, "Not much farther."

Ah, the humidity hadn't gotten to me before, and the heat had felt like nothing, but as the walk lengthened with my four kids and my nephew PJ and niece Danni as my caravan, I began to feel that this smoothie shop they raved about was a mythical oasis in the humid heat; we would walk for miles - our clothes permanently moist and our mouths dry - and never find it.

But at last! After a few dozen miles, the tiny shop appeared; we got our cold, fruity drinks and took a shortcut home, taking breaks to sip, sit and stare at traffic.

~

I can't hold my liquor; that can be embarrassing unless you're with family.

For a double date Vinca, brother-in-law Dave, Matthew and I went to Barboursville Winery for a wine tasting. The vineyards are beautiful, and the ruins of the Governor's mansion are romantic.

But I had never done a wine tasting before. The tiny stemware has a splash at a time of each new wine, but it adds up. A quarter of the way through, I was giggly. Half way through, and I was rolling my head side to side and trying to smooch my husband as I swung toward him. I became the entertainment on our elegant date. At the end of the tasting, the rest of them deposited me at a table in a safe corner while they roamed the gift shop. I lay my head on my arm, and in a moment saw my sister coming toward me, bearing gifts of artisan cheese, crackers and honey to shore me up for our jog down to the ruins.

The four of us sat under a great tree outside the remains of the octagonal dining/ballroom of the Barbour family and chatted, joking that Dave and Matthew are pretty similar: so even-keeled like their mother-in-law, they could have married almost anyone and done alright. However, Vinca and I, more like our dad, found two of the few, if only, men who could put up with us and our hereditary temperament.

It was a great date, the first for Matthew and me in many months. That we got to spend it in the company of Dave and Vinca was awesome.

~

I saw Marcus B.; that five-year-old mischievous boy I used to watch while my sister worked has grown into a Marine with a wife. He claims to have a bad temper (it runs in the family), and I'm sure he does. But I found him to be the same lovable, smiley guy with a heart of gold like his mom. His wife Jen is a good match for him, and though it cost them some trouble to get to Virginia from where he is stationed in NC, I was honored and very grateful to get to meet the smart, down-to-earth and stable girl he fell in love with.

He brought up the fact, of which I am so proud, that I taught him to tie his shoes when he was a little tyke and, apparently, didn't teach him the right way. Everyone who sees him wrangle his laces says they've never seen anyone tie them like that, and Matthew quickly agreed, "It's messed up, isn't it?" For the life of me, I don't get what's wrong with how I tie my shoes or teach others to tie theirs, but I've surely made him unique like his Aunt Hillary, a true gift, and I trust he is properly grateful.

~

It had taken me so long to get back to the South, the region for which I have an affinity, I dreaded coming back to the desert. I had finally grown to like it, but now I would be dreaming of Virginia highways and history and charming southern manners. Seeing the stately brick homes with their spacious green lawns, porches and abundant wildflowers in my mind's eye, I would scorn the low ranch houses and xeriscaping of our southwestern home.

It didn't happen. We returned to Arizona and settled right back in between the saguaros and Palo Verde trees, watching the haboobs blow in. I married a New Mexico man, and we're home. Our babies were born here.

But I miss my family back east in Texas and Virginia and England. We began in Idaho and Tennessee and have scattered like tree bark in a dust storm. Our children are not growing up together, don't experience the craziness of regular holiday gatherings of cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. The visits are few and far between, and will likely remain so, but the memories sustain us.