My husband and I attended the Southern States Little Guy Meet-Up over the weekend at F. D. Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia. There were 21 Little Guy campers occupying campsites and probably 35 or 40 people gathered for the campfires each night, so I wrote a Luc Bat today about my weekend. At http://www.ethicalela.com, our third day of the October Open Write is being hosted by Wendy Everand of New York, who introduced this poetry form and inspired us to write one today. You can read her actual prompt here if you’d like to try one of your own! If you are interested in next year’s Meet Up, it will be at Roan Mountain State Park in Tennessee from October 16-20, 2024. Come join us – to write poetry, to camp, or both!
Notes about this form from Wendy: The luc bat is a poem with Vietnamese origins. It means “six-eight” and consists of alternating lines of six and eight syllables with an unusual rhyme scheme:
There is no set length to a luc bat: you can make it as long as you wish. And there’s no set meter.
Little Guy Southern States Meet Up
Southern States Campground Meet: from all around, to greet the day there’s just no better way for LG folks to play and chat we roll out welcome mats put on jeans, don camp hats, build fires, give camper tours, check wires make our beds, shine our tires…….relax!
Getting set up Picnicking at Dowdell’s Knob overlooking the valley
Fitz kept my seat warm while I took a breakfast picture
A group of LG folks at pumpkin archery class
Group fire in the evening – one member shared chocolate from a box that was the size of a wall poster
We threw in color flame to have a colorful fire that lasted about 30 minutes – blues and purples and greens!
Always the sad part – coming home from a great camping weekend!
7:15 a.m. – I was sitting in my camp chair at Hamburg State Park in Mitchell, Georgia wrapped in a white fleece blanket, drinking black coffee from my favorite oversized Snoopy Halloween mug. 64 degrees of hot flash heaven! The smoke from the neighbor’s fire last night was still rising in spiral-y wisps from the pit, scenting the air of burnt wood. My clothes didn’t match today, and I didn’t care – floral shirts and a tie dye t-shirt. I had a bad hair day, too, and that was fine with me. And no makeup to top it all off.
8:00 a.m. – Across the lake, I spied a lone angler in a jon boat, fishing the uninhabited wilderness island shoreline in his sun hat. Hamburg State Park is said to be the most remote of all Georgia State Parks, and forgetting the WiFi hotspot was at first disappointing, but then it wasn’t. My husband had found himself a Harlan Coben book in the Little Free Library, and I’d done some reading and writing, too. But at that moment, he was still snug in the camper, wedged in like tire chocks by 3 snoozing Schnoodles who like to be cozy in the covers.
8:30 a.m. – In the far distance, I heard the boom of gunfire and my heart wept for the doves losing lives and mates. Dove hunting season just opened in Georgia. Don’t even get me started.
9:15 a.m. – A middle-aged woman wearing a mid-calf navy skirt, a gray sweatshirt, and a pair of laceless Keds that reminded me of my grandmother’s Grasshoppers walked a slow-moving Border Collie mix along the camp drive, neither in a hurry to be anywhere. A bald man on a white e-Bike sped past, then a man on a regular bike, turquoise with a basket, eased by and tossed a morning greeting hand in the air, smiling big like the fresh air exhilarated him from the inside out. I smiled and waved back.
9:30 a.m. – We had one of those neighbors this time – you know, the kind with the voice that carries all through the campground, informing everyone across all 30 campsites of her daughter’s Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, the current plight of her own insurance woes, and a cousin’s wedding episodes of family members who didn’t get along ruining the day. It takes a good bit to really get on my nerves, but I came very close to standing up and shouting FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS PEACEFUL, WILL YOU P L E A S E STOP TALKING???? Her husband kept taking the dog for a walk – a little dachshund puppy in a red sweater – telling it, “Heel, Heel.” And I didn’t blame him one bit.
A leaf twirls groundward from a water oak
9:45 a.m. – An occasional leaf turned loose from a branch and twirled to the ground from the water oaks lining the lake, and every now and then a fish broke the surface, ploonking back into the water as its silvery scales flashed a watery hello. The Blue Jays were the other loudmouths on this campground, and yet I understand their marked presence – and purpose – there with all those oaks and acorns now that I’ve read Slow Birding by Joan Strassman.
9: 50 a.m. – My husband emerged from the camper and had finished reading his book. He was ready for his typical breakfast of graham crackers and plain Chobani Greek yogurt, with coffee. I fixed my yogurt with fresh diced peaches, and we talked about the (probably) 5,000 pictures of the sunset I took (quietly) from the campsite over the weekend.
10:00 – Neither one of us wanted to leave. We were just ready to see the noisy neighbors pull out. He asked, “Is it just me, or did this trip seem a lot more relaxing than any camping trip we’ve ever taken?” I assured him it wasn’t just him – that we really did relax deeply, and that tomorrow we’d be back at work – – but that for today, we were savoring this Labor Day as we celebrate of all the workers who make our country an amazing place to live.
We raised our mugs to working hard so that we can play hard, too.
I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for several reasons.
An Indigo Bunting performs acrobatic moves in a tree
I’m cooking dinner for a friend who is now cancer-free after radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery, and I’ll get to see her today for the first time since early June.
I’ll finally finish a quilt for my new granddaughter and get to see the true “rag quilt” look of the final product.
I’ll get to read from the next book in Sarah Donovan’s book club, even though the hammock is out of the question on what is supposed to be the hottest weekend of the summer here.
The weeds that are completely out of control will get handled by someone else.
There’ll be some time for birding before it gets hot outside, when the birds are most active.
There’ll be some time for writing chapters in two books I’m working on with my writing group.
Some pressure washing might happen.
And the other thing that might happen is a trip to an underground bookstore where they sell these candles that use the scents of things in the books they’re named after, like Alice in Wonderland with the unbirthday cake fragrance, and Anne of Green Gables with some lemon and jasmine. A co-worker told me about this place, maybe an hour from here, where she started Christmas shopping last weekend because of all the unique gifts she’d found when her husband took her there as part of her birthday celebration.
For now, I’m settled into my writing chair, enjoying the early morning silence of the house. I’ve taken the boys out for their morning relief romp, and they all came back in and settled back to sleep right away. I can hear a Carolina Wren singing at the top of its lungs through the kitchen window, and the faintest light looks like pinholes through the tree leaves against the eastern side of the Johnson Funny Farm.
Five minutes from now, at a quarter to seven, I’ll be outdoors with a steaming cup of coffee, starting a bird count to mark the species I hear and see.
And I won’t be rushed to get showered and dressed today. I’ll savor my coffee and my own private bird concert on the front porch way out here in our remote corner under the Loblolly pines of rural Georgia and give a thousand thanks for the blessings of another sunrise to enjoy the spectacular splendor of the woods.
Think of the world which you carry within yourself…pay attention to what arises within you. – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
We recently spent another Saturday savoring the morning hours with coffee and conversation in Zebulon, Georgia on our town square. We love the atmosphere of our small town coffee shop, restored from a historic building to the place we love and enjoy today by Dr. Dan Dunnahoo. You can read his story here. Dunnahoo, a retired Pike County art teacher known affectionately as “Dr. Dan” by locals, named the coffee shop 1828 Coffee Company because it was built in 1828 by Samuel Mitchell and still has the same wood floors that creaked under folks’ boots all those years ago, every plank restored and returned to its original position in the floor.
You can step back in time and order a cup of Zebulon Pike or any of their unique blends of coffee or tea and a cinnamon roll, then sit back and wonder about the history of this place and your own indelible time stamp on it, the dust of your own shoes settling somewhere beneath your feet between a crevice in the wood on the very dust brought in by those who used it as a trading post when it was first built. You can also wonder about those who later became proud first-ever owners of automobiles within its walls when it was a car dealership, and all the romance that bloomed here when it was an ice cream shop and young men brought their sweethearts here to share a date night treat – many of whom no doubt brought their own children back years later when it was a restaurant or an office.
Today, you can find a book in one of three Little Free Libraries here in this coffee house, hear live entertainment, or listen to students reciting poetry or performing a dramatic reading. Dr. Dan and his son-in-law Bryan open their doors to welcome a variety of events that shape the culture of this small town.
Next time you’re traveling through Zebulon, Georgia, be sure to stop in and say hello. Order coffee upstairs, admire the art, and then stroll downstairs where you can play a board game or sit outdoors on the brick patio and enjoy the sights of the town. If you happen to see a middle-aged woman huddled in a corner savoring coffee, reading, or writing, come introduce yourself – – it may be me!
Common Threads 