Thanksgiving was great! I arrived in Tennessee on Wednesday night after a delayed flight. Mamaw, Papaw, and my Aunt Cheryl picked me up. It’s an hour from the airport in Knoxville to where they live in Tennessee, and Mamaw kept asking if I wanted to stop and get anything to eat. I said no, because I already knew she had green beans in the crockpot waiting for me. When we got home, I saw my sister, my dad, and the new puppy my sister had talked my grandparents into getting: her name’s Casey. So I ate green beans, talked to my sister for a while, and went to bed. Day 1 was pretty uneventful except that I arrived.

I’m leaving today for Thanksgiving break! I’m flying up to Tennessee where my grandparents (I call them Mamaw and Papaw) live for their 50th anniversary. There’s going to be a lot of people there; we’re basically having a miniature family reunion. I’m going to get to see my step brothers, one of whom I haven’t seen in a good four years, my sister, my uncle, my dad and step mom, my dad’s best friend, my aunt, and probably a bunch of people who live there and are family. It’s kind of exciting. The best part is: homecooked meals!! I’m so tired of cafeteria food (not that it’s bad) and I cannot wait to have my Mamaw’s green beans and chocolate gravy and cornbread (not all together!). The downside: No internet for a week. Therefore, no blogs. I will, however, try to keep a diary and inform everyone of my amazing week in Tennessee at some point when I get back. Oh yeah, there’s another downside: Mountains of homework. I’ll have to do homework while I’m there, which I’m kind of not looking forward to because it takes time away from family, but it’s gotta be done. I’ll probably try to do a lot of it on the plane rides. So anyway, I won’t be blogging for a while and I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

When I read books and poetry, I don’t like to read about nature. Pastoral poems don’t interest me and I could live the rest of my life very happily if I never had to read another excerpt of Thoreau’s Walden.  

 I find it somewhat ironic because most of my childhood was spent in very rural areas. I never even lived in a city until I was about 12. I was constantly outside as a child. And barefoot!! My family still laments that they could not get me to keep a pair of shoes on no matter how cold it was outside. I would climb any tree with a branch low enough for me to grab ahold of. When I lived in Georgia, I loved to go fishing at the lake that was a couple of blocks away from my house and I would always try to bring bread for the ducks that lived there.  As a child, I rode my bike around the neighborhood, went hiking, rolled down hills instead of walking down them.

Things have changed since then. I don’t go outside as often, but remnants of that childhood have been left behind. Little sneaks of it appear now and again. When I see a pile of crunchy autumn leaves (which never happens here in sunny Florida),  all I want to do is jump into them. When I’m passing an autumn leaf, I want to step on it and hear the crackling sound it makes underfoot. The birds on campus are especially tempting targets for me. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been walking with my roommate, passed a large flock of birds searching for lunch, and told her how much I wanted to chase them, just to hear them flap their wings as they try to escape me (it embarrasses her, so I haven’t done it….yet). Last year, I had an amazing view from my room of the best tree on campus–I call it the perfect climbing tree. My big dream was to climb in it and read a book. I did finally climb it, but I haven’t read in it yet.

These are things I should do more often, just to remind myself you don’t have to lose your childhood to become an adult. Some things we should never lose, and one of those things is childhood. So next time you’re outside, feed the ducks, chase the birds, step on a fallen leaf, roll down a hill. Bring out the kid in yourself. It probably misses you anyway.

It was my mom’s birthday today. She didn’t really do anything because she had to get Sandy’s husband’s funeral, but tomorrow she’s going to the Big E, a fair in Massachusetts. Or did she say King Richard’s Fair? I can’t remember. So anyway, this is a little tribute blog to her because she’s the most amazing woman I know. She is so generous to people, too generous sometimes, and it’s gotten her into trouble, but it hasn’t changed her. She hasn’t become cynical or pessimistic about life. Her eternal optimism is truly commendable. Her strength, though, is what I admire most. She would do anything for her children and she’s proven it time and again. Some don’t agree with the way she raised us, but she mixed the perfect amount of freedom with the perfect amount of discipline. Sometimes, I don’t understand how she could have allowed us as much freedom as she did; I can’t imagine how terrified she must have felt that we would get hurt. But she realized that sometimes, you have to make mistakes to learn. And she’s passed the knowledge onto me, I know. The best part is, when I realized that I made a mistake, she was there for me with advice to help me correct it. I can’t even explain how much it meant (and means) to me that she was always ready to listen to me and accept me, not judge me. She has always been one of my best friends and I’m so grateful for that.

I wrote her a poem about a year ago that I never did show her. I’m going to put it here:

My grandma’s friend Sandy lost her husband a few days ago. They live in Arizona (I think) and his wife was there in Massachusetts to help their daughter with wedding plans (she’s getting married sometime this year, I think).  They got the call a few days after Sandy had flown to Massachusetts, so he was alone when he died. I really can’t imagine what that would be like, and I hope I don’t have to find out. Not only did she lose her father, but she lost him just a few months before her wedding. She no longer has him to walk her down the aisle. Little girls dream for years about their wedding, and a father to walk her down the aisle is a natural part of that dream. The pain of not being able to see that part of the dream come true would be so hard to bear. My heart goes out to them.