Thursday, April 25, 2013

a few of my favorite things...



anyone who knows me
knows
i.am.not.a.things.kind.of.person.

i
am
an
if.it.lives.and.breathes.kind.of.person.

however,
there are a few things i love.

~@~

i love...

flannel pajamas
hard-wood floors
ralph lauren tee shirts
double-dutch doors

violets and daisies
most all wild flowers
thick soft towels
long warm showers


my haflinger house shoes
abercrombie flip flops
my black madden sandals
i don't wear crocks

my johnny cash boots
my weekender jeans
my ribbed black turtleneck
and a few more things...

marzetti's honey mustard
heinz 57
nutella on most anything
tastes like heaven


diet coke from mcdonald's
with a fat straw
reese's cups and snickers
that's not all


mint chocolate chip ice cream
two scoops in a cone
martin's photography
pictures taken with my phone

ray ban sunglasses
paul sebastian's design
my pandora necklace
a good bottle of wine

fructis and secret

skintimate and crest
new sharp razors
venuses are best

cascade and dawn

downy and tide
bounty and charmin
the squeezable kind

my jeep commander

the one that guzzles gas
my john deere tractor
mowing the grass


floating in the pool
writing in bed
watching cnn
or breaking bad instead

when maggie snores
when a bell rings
when i'm feeling well
these are a few of my favorite things


love and God's blessings,
dani xxx

Sunday, April 14, 2013

sanctity of the lane...



for many reasons,
i have always treasured
my life on the lane...
especially in the spring
and summer.

when the flowers and trees
are in full bloom,
the lane looks much like
an original,
thomas kinkade
painting.

the lane is also a bit enchanted...
we have deer,
squirrels,
foxes,
raccoons,
opossums,
groundhogs,
moles,
turtles,
owls,
bats,
and
birds...
lots of birds. 

what i've always 
treasured most
though
are my next-door neighbors,
the davis'.

when i moved here 
as a little girl
with my parents,
jack and stella quickly became
my best friends
(even though i was only nine
and they were in their sixties.)
i remember in the summers
anxiously 
watching out the living room window
or them to arrive home from work.

i got so giddy 
when i saw their woody station wagon
 pull into their driveway.
like clockwork, 
the two got out of the car,
stella went in to start supper, 
and 
jack headed to his garage.
as soon as i saw jack 
sitting in his lawn chair.
i ran over to 
"play."

when he saw me coming,
he stood and 
grabbed an extra lawn chair for me.
"dani, sit down here with me!"
he would say.
we sat and watched 
sanford and son
almost every afternoon together.
although i was only a mere fourth-grader,
 jack talked to me like i was grown.
i liked that!
we talked about school,
politics, family, money,
bb guns, gardening, 
etc...

when stella saw that i was there,
she brought jack and me
Coca-Cola
or sweet tea
poured over ice
in ball jars.
she handed us our drinks 
and then dried her hands on her
apron.

stella was beautiful.
(stella.is.still.beautiful.)
she always had her hair
fixed.
and...
whether she was dressed 
for church
or
in shorts, a polo,
tennis shoes,
and apron,
she looked like
a model-modern-housewife-and-mother.

she never failed to ask me about my day.
i remember trying to come up
with a good tale
because i loved, loved, loved
to hear her reply,

"well, good grief!"

it reminded me of charlie brown
and always made me giggle.

she then usually returned to her kitchen
to continue preparing dinner.

jack and i sipped
our drinks
(well, jack took swigs of his 
after each spit of tobacco;)
all the while watching 
 fred sanford
grab his shoulder 
and tell his late wife,
elizabeth,
he was coming to join her.

jack could imitate fred
to a t, 
which also made me giggle.

after a while,
mom would holler 
for me to come home
for dinner,
and
stella called jack in as well.

~@~

many nights
after we ate supper
mom allowed me 
to rejoin them in their backyard..

i don't know if i was a bother to them,
but if i was,
they never made me feel like it.

there were no other children on the lane.
they were all i had.
they were 
all i needed.

i.loved.them.

~@~

when i was little
we never took summer vacations.
but,
that was okay
because jack and stella didn't either.

my jack
preached the sanctity of the lane...
he would scoot to the front of his lawn-chair
expand his arms as wide as he could
as if presenting something  really special
and rhetorically ask,

"why would we want to 
go anywhere else
when we have everything we need
right here?"

 i would look at him,
he had a sparkle in his eye.
grin,
and think to myself,

"why?" indeed!

love and God's blessings,
dani xxx

Saturday, April 6, 2013

i think he knew the way...


the first week of april always brings
about 
in me
a flood of memories
of 
a
most precious time in my life.
for
it was time spent with gary
in the days leading up to his
journey
home.

~@~

on several occasions
(first here and again here)
i've shared
the story of his death...

it.was.beautiful.

it was raw,
but,
yes...
oh.yes.
beauty full.

~@~

God's presence
was as dense and expansive
as the fog that hovered over
lake misty
on those last, cool,
april mornings
of gary's
life.

gary lived most of his life
admittedly 
without God in it.
but once he allowed
God in...

GOD
NEVER
FORSOOK
HIM!

GOD
also took 
great care of those of us
surrounding gary.
HE made sure to include
us in the details 
of HIS plan for gary.
HE
knew
we were watching
and
HE
didn't want us to miss a thing.
HE
knew
we would witness
to what we saw.
HE
knew
HIS HOLY SPIRIT
would not let us forget
a single,
important
detail
of gary's story.

i've written
(in the aforementioned places)
about the most important
details.
but there are others i have
of the time leading up to gary's
departure.

like...

when gary told me i needed
to see
remember the titans
and
gladiator.
he also told me
to listen to
the song,
time marches on...
that it's true,
it does, indeed, march on.

like...

when we were on our way
to buy new sheets and a comforter
for gary's hospital bed,
linda asked me what
i thought 
GOD
 was going to do.
and i answered
i didn't know
but it was going to be something
BIG
and i'd known 
that much
from the very moment 
of gary's diagnosis.

like...

when i left the house
that morning to go run errands
for linda...
while gary lay dying,
this song was on the radio...
(you should listen to the very end)




on a station to which
i didn't recall setting
my tuner.

like...

when i was reading the end of gary's book
to him,
there was a character named "violet"
and that our yard was literally 
full of violets 
when we returned home 
to prepare for his funeral.
and that in those few pages i read to him
before he
 left us
there were the two words,
rouge
and
arroyo,
in the text...
(the only words missing 
from the last crossword puzzle 
gary would finish
the night prior).
and how i paused and smiled
when i came to them in my reading.

like...

when john's sister-in-law
said
everyone was there 
when she saw gary's 
youngest sister's family
pull into his driveway...
and gary heard and believed
it was, finally, okay to
go.

like...

when gary's puppy, max,
went crazy as the backdoor opened
releasing gary's spirit
from the house.

like...

when gary's brother
headed back up to the house
(not knowing gary was gone)
saying he felt what he believed to be
gary's spirit brush by his face.

~@~

i remember all those things
and more...

love and GOD's blessings,
dani xxx