Wednesday, May 21, 2014

•´♥¨`*•✿(ˆ◡ˆ)✿ ~ 1 woman , a beach ....flip flops and cold strong drinks



. .´¨`*(ˆˆ) ~ 1  woman , a beach ....flip flops and cold strong drinks.
The last leg of the family is driving in from Louisiana.
Little Feat singing to me and I notice the boat parade is rolling this evening.
Much needed family time.
Little feet will be running on the tile floors tonight.
Missing the old man.
On his way.

Clean soft cotton sheets on each luxurious bed.
Fluffed pillows and dusted end tables.
Clean towels and good smelling hand soap.

Prime rib in the oven
Red wine chillen.
Sunset paints the backdrop.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

¸.•´♥¨`*•✿(ˆ◡ˆ)✿The weather has permitted

The sun is rising over Ono Island.¸.´´¯`.¸¸pinks and tangerine hues are now stretched by the sun breaking through.

.• •❥ Brighter, more fantastic colors are coming up.
This late spring morning brings the first warmth felt to my cheeks this year.¸.•´♥¨`*•ˆ)
The weather has permitted. ¸.
Permitted the life to happen in front of it.
The weather has been memorably spectacular.¸.´´¯`.¸¸.Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ..(¯`´¯) 
                                                                                                                                 *.¸.*✻  
The tide goes on bringing life in and out of the pass.
Sand outlines the happenings like an eyelet boarder.`*.¸.*
The sweet smell of the ripe fruit in the bowl beneath my nose, hangs in the air capturing my senses.´´¯`.¸¸.Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ..

¸.Soon the house will be full again.
Laughter and small feet bare on the tile.

Missing family who are not here with me.´´¯`.¸¸.Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ..


Friday, May 16, 2014

The Place on the Beach will soon feel complete



I have become comfortable in these surroundings.
Welcoming in the last cool front of the season.
My heart is warming. 
Family is beginning to arrive.
The Place on the Beach will soon feel complete with them in the midst.
Days will roll into nights.
Good times will pass between us.
Music and photographs.

Laughter and tenderness and awkward moments will paint our memories.
I am happy.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Lisa



Her idea of friendship can seem one sided.
I suppose she would say the same of me if asked.
I mean doesn’t everyone see their own side when things go bad?

Why doesn't she ever offer.. to pay. to place the call, to organize things?
..never.
She sits in the background, out in the open waiting,  
She dares the etiquette in each one of us to take the higher ground..
Passively casting emotional threats  ~ unsaid but present.
We do take the higher ground and avoid conflict.  Our good upbringing and manners have us hardwired to avoid conflict even when it’s uncomfortable, but it is present none the lesshanging there like smoke in a still room.

She is smart but has trouble beginning sentences.  It’s as though all of her thoughts are trying to get out of her at once.
Every once in a while a glimmer of the hurt little girl comes through. 
For an instant empathy takes hold. 
Then she doesn’t offer and you’re reminded.

She is a contradiction between vulnerability and bravado.
She acts like she doesn't care what others think but hangs on every word, taking it deeply into her, and storing it away for another time or conversation.

Over a lifetime I have learned that it is tiring to love Lisa.  
She is someone who’s glass is never ½ full. Her angst has become ritual.
Her pain spills over into the outside. 
She arrives to each and every conversation baggage in hand
I have begun to notice that it’s as if the air gets sucked out of the room when she speaks, and her pain spills over into the outside.

I have tried to help her unpack her luggage.  
To unburden her soul. 
I have tried to carry her baggage, but the weight of my own fills my arms and leaves me with no space to fit anything else.

More times than most she speaks through text. Half complete sentences and phrases, requiring you to ask for clarification drawing you farther into that room where the air had been sucked out earlier.

I love her, but increasingly as time goes on, I am faced with a Gulf that has grown between us. 
I am not sure we will be able to get back to where we were. 
So much water fills the gulf now and as time passes the current gets stronger.

For now I will avoid swimming upstream and remain on the beach, soaking up the sun on the side lines. Time is on my side.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

...as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party ~ Jimmy Buffett


Lazy morning on Balcony. Back Bay breeze. 

Better Than Ezra singing "Extraordinary". Humming along happy.

"Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party."

Jimmy Buffett


.•´♥¨`*•✿ riding shotgun on the way back towards New Orleans

“No need to turn on the G.P.S. I know where I am going.” Stephanie pulled off in the black Cadillac with Adelle riding shotgun on the way back towards New Orleans.

As Adele tells it; ”when we passed the giant ferris wheel, I realized that Stephanie’s measure of her knowledge far surpassed reality, and included no hint of spacial concepts”. .•´♥¨`*•✿

Stephanie entertains at times. Scathing wit.
Detailed knowledge about so many things…... things you wish you knew, but don’t because of the amount of random brain power it takes to retain it all.

Sista is geographically challenged and in denial about this deficit . The story Stephanie told was that to avoid hitting the car she drove off the road. ~
The cops had to tow her out of the ditch.

She can be such a pain in the ass.
High maintenance has a new face.
Jersey girl takes effort to love. But oh my god, her energy lights up a room.
She brings “Tastee Cakes” and “Crispy Cream” doughnuts to the beach.

So many good times are had with her somewhere in the picture. Love this one deeply.

Adelle explains “Several miles past the giant Ferris wheel, she saw she was Lossed.”
Stephanie said “I don’t remember that water, this pond, no this bayou".

As Adelle was plugging in her G.P.S. she cleared her throat by “saying…that's because we are going the wrong way.”
Stephanie says “yeah, but we can get there from here.”
Adelle replies “ yeah because we will now be using a G.P.S.”.

As Adelle was telling it, I saw one of my favorite story parts. Alice standing beneath Cheshire cat in the tree. Alice says:














Listening to Adelle’s tale I see with clarity and utter comedy the gifts these woman bring to my life.
Comedy and clarity.

Uniting some of my favorite sayings, drinks, songs, memories.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

I am fetching her a glass of Moscato.

Adelle  was a dark haired girl who grew into a Platinum Blonde.
Sultry doesn’t touch her vocal treasure chest.
Mannerisms are refined.
Classic southern beauty .
A Flaming overture of charm, wit and depth of understanding..
I am fetching her a glass of Moscato.
Bare feet,
Stone balcony. 
Flip Flops.
To the bar the clink of a wine glass.
Search for corkscrew.

Splash into cup.bubley.

Friday, May 9, 2014

Forever Returning There


.•*¨*¨*• Bad Company singing Lunch to Us.

.•*¨*• Bad Company singing Lunch to Us  .
It's  brunch.  Really lunch time, but on Orange Beach time. Paul Rodgers is singing about the sky being silver, blue & gold. ••
 Here it is simply a magnificent Gray..•*¨*••*¨


Somewhere between flannel and smoke ~ but lighter and fluffier.. 
The sun is on retainer for another day and time.
The waves roll this morning on the Back Bay, 
constant and methodic rocking me through the day. Its marvelous how the air moves up here on the balcony above life.

Elton John is guiding me we have gone crazy lately.. my friends out there.. Sugar Bear.. butterflies are free to fly.   
Life is good. I am blessed.


A Southerner


Darkness Falls


Thursday, May 8, 2014

A Balmy Night on the Balcony











The most beautiful moments always seemed to accelerate and slip beyond one’s grasp just when you want to hold onto them for as long as possible.” 
~ E. A. Bucchianeri,
 
from  brushstrokes of a gadfly.•

´♥¨`*•ˆ) ~  Back at the Condo in Orange Beach, Alabama. Stress rolls from my temples, over my shoulders and down my neck. The drive through Loxley, Alabama is like a portal between 2 worlds. 
Past the farmers stands with Sunset colored Alabama Peaches, Silver King Corn wrapped in Silk to the roadside boiled peanut stands mixed with blank farmer’s fields and a feeling of “coming back”.
Not home.
But that “I’ve passed this way before” feeling overcomes and warms me.
 A balmy breeze glides by the hairs on the back of my neck. Deep breaths between contented sighs.
The rain sheens from across the Back Bay where they are under a deluge of wet.   
Hear dampness whispering “You are blessed. You are blessed”.
Peace and antipasta on the balcony

Relax

It plays like an old episode of Seinfeld

Down time.  Poolside with the girls.  

A group of “somebody’s Mommas” on deck soaking up the sun.
The air infused with Coppertone and a hint of pool chlorine mixed with the perfect amount of breeze.
Suns feels warm on the eyelids when pausing long enough to take stock of where you are … and where you aren’t.

Spring break had come and gone. Summer had yet to arrive.
Few people were poolside on this day except for a few vacationing families with Midwestern accents.  Grandma and grandpa with Baby and parents in tow.  Dad lapping the pool.  Over and over again he goes back and forth.  Each lap getting closer to me and the girls. The pool is immense, empty like a vacant parking lot. Why is he getting closer and closer to us?  Then it hits me like something from an old episode of the Seinfeld Show…
This guy is a “close swimmer”.

Ignoring social norms and invisible lines defining personal space, this guy is lapping right up close and personal. As engineering would have it, the placement of the posterior on the cedar poolside chaise lounge is exactly 1 and a half feet from the surface of pool.  Thus a bobbing head or lapping Midwestern daddy has an eyeful when breast stroking toward our nether regions.
 
Reaching into the rolling igloo ice chest I pulled up a blender filled with the frozen concoction of the day. The more we drank the less we noticed the close swimmer.  The less we noticed the closer the swimmer got.  When we got to the bottom of the blender he and his Midwestern family had left us alone at the pool.  

Lesson of the day…sometimes you can drink your problems, or a close swimmer away. 

Monday, May 5, 2014

Sex in the Magnolias

I wrote us to be a modern telling of “Sex in the City” meets “Steel Magnolias’.
Different women .
Different childhoods.
Different ages and backstories.
Brought together by common threads of experience and ideals.
All grounded in friendship grown from offshoots of a job that spilled over into our personal lives.   
This lazy morning Otis Redding painted the background music like curtains in a big room..
We waxed poetically on the balcony overlooking the Bay in Orange Beach, Alabama..
The temperature showed mercy.  It was comfortable and familiar like a tepid bath.
I found comfort in the licking mellow breeze I felt on the back of my neck..
Coffee cooled and conversation drifted into the comfortable silence that only comes to longstanding relationships and friendships.
Night clothes became daytime lounging attire.  No rushing this spring day.
Enough time spent to get comfortable and allow the weave of the chair to imprint on the back of your thigh, .Shamelessly so.
That’s when we heard the heavy squeaking and tense rolling sound as the ropes sliding over the railing of the balcony began to tremble.
Fast is not a term loosely applied to the speed that I move. 
Fast is a term used when describing speed buy to purchase a Dooney & Bourke Purse from the shopping channel, but not used to the describe the time it takes to vacate an area of our presence.
The latitude of the 2 men on the scaffolding was raised in direct proportion to the speed that we used to get the hell off of the balcony.
The last thing that those young painters needed to see was “Sex in the Magnolias”. 
Like a scene from a John Hughes movie, we laughed ourselves silly as we drew the curtains between our nightshirts, underwear and the young unsuspecting painters.

Making Memories in Orange Beach, AL.

The hands of the clock move on forward...













The hands of the clock move on forward.

The sounds of waking fill the rooms and drift out towards me and onto the balcony.
Laughter erupts and tickles my ear.

The smell of strong coffee gives way to the melodic grind of the blender.

A tall fruity drink with a kick is handed to me in an insulated covered cup.
Dolphins can be seen playing hide and seek as they break the surface of the water.

Time to get wet and enjoy the beauty that is this day.

Today I play hooky… •´*¨`*•✿¸.• •❥

Sunrise in Orange Beach Alabama is remarkable. 
Bucket lists benefit from mornings like this.
Seagulls chatter Wake up and Play.
Brown pelicans float by on the breeze with foreboding shadows flying ahead… proof that caring and concerted effort can bring legends back.
The day brings familiar open opportunity. 
A tinge of guilt for friends who have begun the Monday morning grind… fleeting.

Today I play hooky… 

Can you hear it hiss as it sinks into the pass?

Sunset in Orange Beach, Alabama

Sunday, May 4, 2014

¸.•´♥¨`*•✿(ˆ◡ˆ)✿ ~ 6 women , a beach ....flip flops and cold strong drinks

•´*¨`*•✿,
If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things in nature have a message you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.

~ Eleanora Duse ~
   ..¸.•´♥¨`*•✿(ˆ◡ˆ)✿ ~  6 women , a beach ....flip flops and cold strong drinks.
Today the skies are floating above the sandy beaches.  
Waves are a constantly  licking at the marsh grass. 
Splashes Batting against the boat docks pushed outward by an occasional passing boat.
South Alabama, Orange Beach offers one the most welcoming of spring beach getaways.  
Never pretentious.
Slower pace. 
Sweet ligustrum flowering all around us.
Southern Nirvana. 
I am at peace. 



....the sight of the blue skies fills me with joy, it moves me. 
Irejoicefor my soul is alive.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Sangrita chaser


Selflessly doing a quality control check on the comfort level of the settee on the balcony .
....while Stephanie and I take shots of tequila with Sangrita chasers. 





Flip Flop Culture


Flip flops, Gauzey cover-ups. Thirsty beach towels.



"Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one." 
 
Flannery O'Connor

"We are still able to recognize those moments that make memories we have forever." Those moments are happening now.
Timeless friends.
Mulled Clinatro with fresh mango.
Dave Matthews playing followed by Susan Tedeshi & Derek Trucks singing me on.
A breeze from the Back Bay passes by my cheek. 
Sun, deep breaths, sighs and strong drinks.

Flip flops, Gauzey cover-ups. Thirsty beach towels.