Today's song to read a blog by: The Giving Tree by the Plain White T's just because I love the imagery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1tM3DnFWLY
It was nice to get a real email with a nice message in it. Rainell has caused me to reflect while I do laundry - clothes for a week, sheets, etc, and run the Roomba. God, I'm so lazy. I use a robot that can barely suck up a cat hair and I call it vacuuming!
Somehow Rainell jogged my memories of moving to Seattle 16 years ago. When I read that number, I can hardly believe it. I'd been with Alex for about 4 years, and I really had to make a hard decision on moving up here. Both kids were on the march into their adult lives at that time. They'll always have a mom but didn't need a mommy anymore. I once read that your children will never love you like you love them. And that changed my life forever. Parents would never dream of going away on a trip and not calling every day to check on their kids. Parents would never dream of letting their children worry. (We are talking about GOOD parents here- not the methy ones.) You could make a really long list of the things parents would do for their kids. But the kids, wellllllll, not so much. And why? Because if they loved us as we love them, they'd never go off and get a real life of independence. They'd never be able to fall in love with someone else. They'd never bond to their children. So we do that circle of life over and over. But once I got a grip on that sort of thinking, I did just fine. I let my kids call ME. Because they should talk to me when they want to. They know I'd call them 5 times a day otherwise. Email sort of helps with that. I digress.
Anyway- when I moved up here, I had no way to meet new people without joining a singing group. And for about the first 11 years, I always had a group to go to. Then I quit singing. Right in the middle of a full concert version of the Messiah. For the second time in my singing career, I opened my mouth and blood splattered in little misty drops out of my throat. I'd ruptured the same little crappy blood vessel on my right vocal cord. Weirdly, my conductor was pissed off. But I knew I didn't want to go have some steroid injected in there. I was just done. It happens to singers. You just don't hear much about it. But to take its place, I got active in my college sorority alumnae group. But that has sort of fizzled out because we were too tiny to keep it all together. We tried though I've kept two friends from it. And now I have my Daughters of the American Revolution friends! I am really looking forward to next year. But it does sort of explain the devotion to Facebook that people can get. It is like a little village where you get to choose the villagers. Unfortunately, the village sometimes gets people who are really interlopers because you just couldn't keep them out of the tent for one reason or another.
But what I miss is the friendliness and general happiness of Louisiana. I'll bet you could go almost anywhere in Louisiana and it would be the same. Louisiana is one of the poorest states in the union. It is abused and used for its resources and left for dead with the dire results of that. And yet, these wonderful people would help you fix your flat and give you a sandwich if you were hungry. They'd cry if you told them your mama died. They'd hold your hand if your child was sick. They'd have a crawfish boil for no reason but that you came to town. It sounds stupid to people in other states- but being raised in that atmosphere can color how you view everything in other states. I was reminded this morning that when I first moved to Seattle, my dreams were all of Spanish moss and trees- to the point that I thought I should go home. All the way home. I was born in Louisiana by accident- my birth parents were from Tennessee. But I wouldn't change any of that for the world. I am proud to be from NOLA.
My clothes dryer keeps buzzing. Zoubi has pushed India out and is taking her version of a bath on the cat bed on the table. The sun is out (we'll see how this all goes when we start the cold, dark, rainy season). It is a very peaceful house- I just have to sit back and appreciate it.
Hollis is raising butterflies by using a beautiful cage she has modified. Evidently, all you have to do is plant a milkweed and a caterpillar will come. Then you put the caterpillar in the cute cage with all its milkweed , clean out the caterpillar poop, and wait for the chrysalis. Then the butterfly. She has let a few out now. I'll post those pictures with the view of the day (the cat with the butterflies is named Kona):
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