Category: Reflection

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May 14 – My Mother’s Daughter

I’m so proud to be my mother’s daughter! She was one of a kind, ever conscientious and always protecting all of us. She was a seatbelt enthusiast, a nighttime curtain puller, and an avid door locker. So when someone tells me I’m just like her, I am reminded how fortunate I am! Remembering Mom today on this 8th Mother’s Day without her. Hug your mom if she’s still here – tomorrow holds no guarantees!

My mother in the early 1960s
My Mother's Daughter

at the Dames Ferry
dump station
at the top of the hill
two and a half days worth
of our waste
sliding down 
a three inch hose
from the belly
of our camper
into the waste tank

you stepped to 
the back to check
the spare tire

I looked out over 
the lake 
at the bottom of the hill
and panicked
thinking you, too, 
might slide

ran to the truck
set the emergency brake
announcing in a high pitch

I SET THE EMERGENCY BRAKE!
for all to hear

to let everyone know you were safe

not about to get flattened
and drenched in pee
sliding all the way down 
to the lake

you walked up the hill
wiping your hands with
a glove
chuckling your 
secret knowing smile
satisfied with yourself

I searched your face

you raised your eyebrows 
in answer

I love you
you said
kissing my cheek

and there's nothing wrong
with this
but 
you 
are
your
mother's 
daughter
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May 12 – How Could I Have Known?

I’m missing my hairdresser and friend of 18 years, who died in May 2021. In our small town, everyone knows everyone, and my former hairdresser’s son is a school teacher in my district. I see her young grandson in one of our buildings, and I see so much of her in him. It reminds me to treasure every single moment. Tomorrow holds no guarantees for any of us. April 30 was National Hairstylist Appreciation Day, and I’m sending up a belated appreciation to Heaven for my friend and miracle-worker Penny. 

Be Like Leo 

how could I have known
sitting in front of the mirror
in your swivel chair
as you snipped split ends 
that by the next haircut
you’d be walking
down your hall, laughing,
talking one moment
and fall over and die the next

leaving your husband
your children
your grandchildren
your dog
smiling through their
knotty tears
scattering your ashes 
a mile off shore from 
your favorite spot in Florida
then all getting
GPS tattoos of your
final destination points

how could I have known
that one month shy
of two years later
your husband would suffer
a heart attack and die, too,
leaving two young married sons
their wives 
your grandchildren
anchorless 
and your banana-loving
goldendoodle 
masterless
searching for her people
ferrying out to sea once again
to scatter more ashes

how could I have known
that unexpected tears
out of nowhere would well up
in my eyes when 
your little grandson Leo arrived
for his first day of preschool
hair tousled
half-crooked smile
an image of you
(only not the hair, not the hair)
backpacked-out like a rocket man
his tiny hands clinging tight
to his lunch
something he could hold onto 

and that I let the tears fall for a moment
then took his picture on his first day 
of big school 
sent it to his daddy
in his science classroom 
at the middle school
greeting those who’d 
surely lost grandparents, too
only not this young

Your mama would be so proud
I texted him

I still have that picture
and more like it that I take
whenever I see sweet Leo

like yesterday
when the teacher was 
giving the hero compliment
to the line leader, who stood
with one hand on a hip, 
the other pressing a pointer finger
over his lips
still and quiet
(he knows a lot about that)
telling the others, 
I like how Leo is leading.
He’s quiet.  
He’s not touching anybody.
Let's see if we
can be like Leo.

how could I have known
that would be 
the last time I 
sat in your
chair?
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It’s Beckham’s Birthday!

Today, the baby of the family, our grandson Beckham, turns 2. It’s the last birthday he’ll celebrate as “the baby of the family” before his newest sibling arrives in July. We celebrate our Beckham today, and all the joy he brings to us!

Beckham sharing his ice cream with his dad
Beckham Cash Meyer 

Baby Beckham,
Everyone's joy!
Carefree days
Kayaking with Dad
Huddling up with Poppy
Appreciating these fleeting
Moments, savoring all the love

Careening on bare feet
Always listening for a blender:
Smoothies!  (His favorite)
Here he comes to claim his own (or yours)!

Making his footprint on the world
Ever the sweet little boy, another
Year older and still, 
Every day, 
Reminding us how blessed we are to be family.
In a tender moment at Christmas, Beckham chose Poppy as his person to snuggle up to in peace and warmth. The magic of his eyes and twinkle-cheeked smiles before he settles in to get sleepy were moments etched in time!
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May 9 – Put a Lid on It!

Kings and Queens are famous for their hats.

Everyone, it seems, was wearing a hat last weekend – at the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky and on the opposite side of the pond in England, and all points in between at those smaller parties the commonfolk threw to celebrate these events. I chose a sun hat purchased at Marshall’s for $16.99, designed by the swank San Diego Hat Company to go with my no-frills weekend, just in case anyone is wondering, and although it was tempting, I didn’t adorn it with little hot glued horses running around the brim – or oversized flowers or bows.

A fancy Kentucky Derby hat, perfect for sipping a mint julep and watching a horse race

It got me thinking about all the hats we wear. Last summer, I sent adventure hats to the coastal grandkids – to wear on the boat, at the beach, in the kayaks – anywhere adventure calls! I got the kind with a chin strap so they wouldn’t lose them.

I sent these hats to my grandkids last summer – adventure hats!

Ironically, I lost my son’s borrowed boating hat when my cap caught a breeze on a fishing trip in April. I’d needed my own chin strap.

I recently bought a new sun hat for kayaking and camping to replace the monogrammed one that a student gave me back in 2010 as a teacher gift – I’d given it a hard look and realized its age, like a teacher ready for retirement who has been worn slap down through the years. It was time for a new one!

The hat I lost boating, before it was windswept into the ocean and forever lost at sea
Camping Hat (my Kentucky Derby/Coronation Day replacement hat)

Bartholomew Cubbins knew a thing or two about hats. Kings and Queens, Princes and Princesses know that head pieces such as crowns, tiaras, and hats make statements. The most famous crown of all time hung on a cross as a place in Heaven was built for us.

Kate and William sporting a tiara and a cap
Crown of Thorns – a symbol of the greatest sacrificial love of all time
A Kissing Fish hat for all our throw-backs
Golfing hats

Ice Cream Hats
Napping hats
Bicycling picnic hats
Marshmallow Roasting Hats
Swinging Bridge Hats
Stick-Your-Tongue-Out Hats
Ugly Sweater Run hats (with my son acting like a dancing reindeer after a morning run several years ago)
Kite Flying Hats
Birthday Hats
Magical Old Silk Hat that Made a Snowman Dance

I shared a recent post where my dad entered a synagogue in Capernaum and he and his friend had forgotten to remove their Atlanta Braves caps (the monitor smiled and tactfully gestured for them to remove them), and it got me thinking about all our hats. With all the hats we wear, literally and metaphorically, what are your favorite hats? Please share your best hats and hat stories in the comments, and if you have any great hiking hat suggestions, I beg your secrets!

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May 7- Holy Ground

My father, Reverend Dr. Felix Haynes, Jr., shares his sermon from a few weeks ago, as he reminisces about Holy Ground and his Holy Land travels with my late mother, Miriam, where they walked the streets of Capernaum. They traveled with members of their church to the Holy Land several times, most recently when they lived on Hilton Head Island, SC in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Capurnaum
ON CAPERNAUM 

The setting of today's sermon is Capernaum, a very strategic location for travelers in Jesus’ day, always bustling and busy. It was a well-constructed city built 200 years before Jesus’ birth. The structures were made of unique materials, stone and plaster. Capernaum is situated on the picturesque Sea of Galilee. Just to the north, an easy walk begins the grassy slopes of the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus said, “Consider the lilies of the field…” 

I remember well our visit on tour. As you enter, you see tall trellises with Bougainvillea growing in splendid floral beauty. Miriam walked over for a close look at the deep red and purple blooms, her eyes sparkling in complete wonder. Laurie Atkins, a member of our church traveling with us, joined her and pondered the amazing beauty. 

As your walk the cobblestone streets, you observe the archaeological structures and artifacts that tell a story of rich biblical history. Capernaum is an education in the ministry of Jesus. 

The two most striking sites are the synagogue and the ruins of the home of Peter’s mother-in-law, where Jesus healed the palsied man. There is a bench on which Jesus probably sat when he taught at the synagogue on that memorable day. The flat roof was made of a sturdy mud-cement compound. This would be a “patio” where on warm evenings one could catch the sea breeze. 

Holy ground!

Jesus considered Capernaum a “home base.” The house is a three-room structure, one for sleeping, one for cooking and eating, and one for animals. There was also a courtyard. Today, a church has been constructed over the ruins of this house with a centered glass floor area where you can look down and see the interior where Jesus healed the palsied man. When my colleague, Woodrow Hudson, and I entered that church, we had forgotten to take off our Atlanta Braves caps. The monitoring priest smiled and tactfully reminded us to take off our hats. 

Holy ground!

I did a short message on the four friends who brought their friends to Jesus to our tour group. 
We moved about reflecting, remembering, and privately worshipping. I joined my dear wife who said, “This is one of the most beautiful and sacred places I have ever been.” 

Holy ground. 

And I stand there again every time I remember Capernaum.

We got on the bus to travel north toward Mt. Hermon. This scene remains vivid in my mind: Laurie Atkins looked out the window at the flowers in the field on the mount of the beatitudes, still struck by the Bougainvillea of Capernaum and musing.  Mr. Laurie Atkins was the town engineer of Hilton Head, responsible for irrigation and all the lovely landscapes in the main streets of Hilton Head Island in those days. He said to me, “I wish I could get truck loads of dirt from this place to take home with me.” 

Holy ground! 

I have truck loads of memory from Capernaum, …the most beautiful and sacred memories…”
Bougainvillea at the entrance to Capernaum, the Town of Jesus

I do not own the rights to the video below.

Joy Gardner sings Holy Ground in The Holy Land
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May 5 – Purple Martin Mansion Mosquito Control

Assembling the Purple Martin House

One of my 2023 goals is spending more time outdoors, taking more notes in nature observations, and learning more about the ecosystem and the creatures that do jobs I never fully appreciated until I became a little more educated on their roles in this great universe. A couple of days ago, I shared the plans for our bat hollow. Our first bat box has been installed, with more to follow. Today, though, is about another mosquito controller. Purple Martins, like bats, are environmentally-friendly critters who help control mosquito populations.

We weren’t sure how “involved” it would be to assemble a purple martin house. These houses are generally either a string of gourds hanging high, or a house reminiscent of a high-dollar condo situated on one of those tropical islands where the drinks all come with those little umbrellas and everyone wears floppy sun hats and sunglasses with cat-eye bling that sparkles as they sit back and sip in the breeze. Gourdless, we bought the high-dollar condo for them and discovered the pole was the same price as the house (12-20 feet in the air these places must be), AND has to be cemented into the ground.

So we took the unopened box camping with us one weekend, grabbing a multi-tool as an afterthought in case we needed a Phillips Head screwdriver or something. We found it remarkably easy to put the house together, and while we needed more than two hands, much of the structure was tabbed and punched so that it didn’t require a tool except on the roof. We put it together and brought it home. My husband fought mosquitoes with his bare hands while using post-hole diggers to set it deep in the ground, and then dumped a bag of Quikrete in to let it set overnight. We raised it to the heavens the next day, and now we await the migration that has, probably, mostly already happened. The late stragglers will find a vacancy in the inn…..we hope.

Rent-Free Purple Martin Condominiums, Johnson Funny Farm, April 2023
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May 4 – Lonesome Bee Haven

Johnson Funny Farm bee haven, April 2023 – baby bees at top right corner and entering bottom left tube

Forget Lonesome Dove. This one’s all about the lonesome bees – and putting food on Earth’s tables. One of my 2023 goals is spending more time outdoors, taking more notes in nature observations, and learning more about the ecosystem and the creatures that do jobs I’ve taken for granted. A couple of summers ago, we bought a bee house to provide safe spots for solitary bees like mason bees and leaf cutter bees to nest. These pollinators help plants like fruits and vegetables thrive. We have enjoyed watching the little bees come and go – they’re so cute – and so helpful! In rural areas like ours where agriculture is the name of the game, bees matter! Help with pollination – NOT PESTICIDES! We are doing one small part to make a difference – and watching it happen thrills our souls!

Lonesome Bee Haven

lonesome bee haven
apiculture hideaway 
pollinator post

baby bees buzzing
busy building businesses~
hungry world feeders
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May 3 – Our Bat Hollow ~ ~Free Housing for Chiroptera

Aidan enjoys helping us outdoors when he comes to visit the farm!

One of my 2023 goals is spending more time outdoor, taking more notes in nature observations, and learning more about the ecosystem and the creatures that do jobs I never fully appreciated. Both my mother and grandmother, avid gardeners, died of Parkinson’s Disease, a neurological disease that has been linked to pesticides. If my fish are not wild caught, I don’t buy them (my takeaway from Silent Spring). I’m doing all I can – one small part in a big world – to make a difference where I can.

I was driving along our rural highway last week and felt tears well up when I saw a sign advertising 52 acres for sale. I drove back around the loop, looking at all the trees – all the homes where right now, there are baby birds and deer and foxes and squirrels whose homes will be felled with the blade of an ax when the money changes hands. It hurts my heart for them.

We have been considering ways to control our mosquito population (quite possibly the only critter in the entire universe I would vote to eradicate), and one of our ideas is installing a bat village. So this past Saturday, I raised my husband and grandson up in the tractor bucket to install our first bat house. We’ve seen bats out by our driveway for the past several years, and we hope we can attract them to the bat houses from wherever they are living (we checked the barn and see no signs). We’ll add to the village over the next couple of weeks, even though the boxes should have been up by now since they are more likely to be inhabited over the summer when the bats emerge from hibernation in the spring, according to Google. I read somewhere that the occupancy likelihood is only 35%, but we’re going to give it a go since we know we have them nearby.

Plus, Halloween. It will just feel a little spookier and more seasonally festive when the pumpkins frost over and moon shines through the trees. We’ll enjoy batwatching almost as much as birdwatching! 

~~Bat Hollow ~~

house installation
erecting a bat hollow
mosquito control 

spooky October 
Loblolly pine neighborhood 
for night flight critters

vampirish creatures
welcome wagons circled up
upside-down hangout!
My husband takes direction on the exact placement of the box, which should be at least 12 feet off the ground.
Bat Box #1 being installed
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May 2 – And Just Like That, A Miracle is Taking Place

The first of the three bluebird hatchlings; one did not hatch.

I’ve spent the months of March and April writing among friends, celebrating the Slice of LIfe Story Challenge and #VerseLove – – and spiffing up my bird and butterfly garden. Each year, we discard any cracked feeders and add a couple of new ones so that we maintain the work that began in spring 2009, shortly after we moved to the Johnson Funny Farm on New Year’s Eve 2008.

I caught butterfly garden fever from my mother. Throughout her years, she planted fennel as host plants for butterflies to lay their eggs. Every summer, her fennel plants would sag with the weight of the caterpillars, each happily munching away to becoming a chrysalis before emerging as a black swallowtail. She also threw out rotting fruit for them to feed on, and taught me to do the same. She had attended a butterfly gardening workshop with one of the leading butterfly garden experts in Georgia and learned that butterflies like to feast on urea. So if you ever see an upside-down garbage can lid with rotting oranges and a wet sponge in a garden, you can bet that someone knew to invite their little grandson to go tee-tee on the sponge to make the butterflies happy. Mom grew nectar plants nearby, such as butterfly bush, azaleas, lantana and coreopsis. Every once in a while I can keep a flower alive, but it takes a modern-day miracle to make it happen.

A miracle. That’s why a week ago Thursday for the Open Mic, I changed up my whole reading plan less than an hour before the long-awaited event started. I’d stepped outside to toss a lemon rind out and to fill the bird feeders and birdbaths and check the bluebird house (again) to see if the eggs had hatched. I could see a tiny notch in one egg, and I knew the hatchling’s head would emerge within the hour if all went well. I waited awhile, watching from the front porch, and when I could see that no parents were coming and going, I returned in time to capture the moment of wonder! Watch the video at the top, if you haven’t already.

I headed out to the poetry reading, leaving my own poems at home, selecting one by by Mary Oliver instead. I stepped onto the stage and read This Morning .

Reading poetry at the Open Mic, 1828 Coffee Company, April 2023

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#VerseLove April 30

Sarah Donovan is our host for Day 30 of VerseLove and our host of this space each month for writers who crave togetherness each month as we come together to celebrate our words and thoughts ~to share the joy of writing. She helps meet a deep need in each of us. I adore the prompt today, and I ran for my journal from 2019 when I saw the topic. I thought back to the first year I participated in VerseLove and looked for that first prompt that changed the trajectory of my life from grief over my mother’s death to connection with others whose pain shone through their heart holes, too, who showed me how to use the sunspots to write and heal. To every writer who shares the journey, thank you for all of the inspiration you bring. This morning, my grandson writes along with me as I revise my first-ever VerseLove poem, Blackberry Winter.

Blackberry Winter, Revisited

It’s a Blackberry Winter I wrote in 2019
beginning a poem about all the good things

later this morning, my first grandson 
               will make elderberry jam toast
                         plus cheese omelettes 
                                   on the Lodge cast iron griddle
   wearing my apron 
         (he doesn’t know about the apron yet)

but first: raindrops on rooftop, fresh coffee,
wi-fi (stronger than coffee, finally), computer charged,
comfy chair, whisper-soft pajamas,

thoughts ready to materialize
three schnoodles tussling on grandson’s 
sleepover mattress as we write together
in the living room

words forming on pages: his pen, my keyboard
to the first #VerseLove prompt of 2019 from Sarah:

….the good things in our lives….

there are those who bring
more warmth than raindrops and coffee,
more comfort than chairs and pajamas,
more joy than words ~ 
   ancestors whose cast iron presence
      and apron strings linger in kitchens
       hugging us tight about the middle

and those we ancestor ~ grandchildren 
who write right next to us
about all the good things in our lives
on this elderberry toast and cheese omelette morning.

– Kim Haynes Johnson, April 2, 2019 and 4/30/2023