The best laid plans.....

For the past few evenings, Cindy and I have found ourselves going to bed later and later and finding myself waking up later and later. I suppose that is the natural result of the first action; however, it would be nice if the behavior would change on its own. Nevertheless, I had told Cindy that we need to go to bed sooner and she agreed and tonight, when she first fell asleep with the television on and the ipad in her lap, and I noticed, because I wasn't napping, and I suggested we go to bed and we did. But now, a few hours later at 2:17, I am awake again and watching television and trying to get my body back in slumber, while simultaneously writing this blog. Damn it.

Relative weather patterns

I drove down to Bonaire today. Home of former governor, Sonny Perdue. Yesterday, I was driving around Central and South Georgia like the steel ball in a pinball machine. Yesterday, the sky was partly cloudy, but basically dry. It was starting to warm up from the cool, wet weather we have been having lately. Today, on the other hand, it got warm quickly and continued until it reached late March hot in Georgia. I accepted a closing in Bonaire this afternoon. The news was filled up with stories about the tornados which struck Oklahoma City yesterday. John was at ground zero through a coincidence of computer apps trying to find a cheap motel room. Cheap motel room turned out to mean sleep with your head near a tornado's devastation. After downloading the loan package, I headed down to Bonaire. The skies were blue with big billows of clouds presaging the rain which would come later. I drove down I-75 toward Macon, then flipped off down 41 toward Robins Air Force Base and my destination in Bonaire. I was talking to John on the phone, as he was telling me stories about his adventures in tornado alley. I drove past the flight museum on the south end of Robins Air Force base. I would like to make another visit to the museum. It is a hidden treasure in that part of the state. The contrast between the relative peace and quiet of Houston County and what happened in Oklahoma was striking. Even a rain shower which showed up on the northside of Macon was gentle and kissed with the sunlight above the clouds. I made it home in the darkness and was able to eat supper with Cindy for a change. This is a large country. So much can happen in one part of the country while the other parts of the country are untouched. I am wondering about the fronts which are headed our way. We have escaped so much violent weather over the years. I wonder when it might be our turn. But it was so beautiful today. So beautiful.

Mother's Day thoughts

It is a pretty day for all the mothers. Cindy has been sleeping late today. We are basically ready to pack the car and get on the road to Dunwoody for Maggie's graduation and the Mother's Day Celebration. It is odd that these colleges are having their graduation ceremonies on Mother's Day Weekend. That is the way that Presbyterian College has been doing it for a long time. Is there a need to combine the celebration of graduation from higher education with the celebration of our mothers? At PC it might make sense, since PC was started as a college for the orphans at the Thornwell home in Clinton, SC. I'm not sure that is the derivation, but it is something to consider. Parenthood is an interesting concept in regard to the differing roles of the father and the mother. The mother is impregnated and she carries the physical burden of the maturation and birth of the child. She has the real, physical connection to the child. It is automatic and immediate. As the child grows in her womb, she cannot help but feel the growth of the child within. The father, on the other hand, is somewhat more tenuous. There is no physical connection, except the sensory connection, and the connection, in some sense, requires the effort of the father. It is an easy thing for a father to walk away. Perhaps that is why it seems to happen so often. It is true that the mother to abandon the child. This too does happen. But she has to turn her back on that physical connection from the gestation period. That has to be hard for a mother to disconnect. It seems common for situations where young mothers have to "grow up" and become a responsible parent to her child, while the father continues to play the carefree adolescent. There is a scene in Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities in which the main character comes to his father, a New York lawyer, for assistance when the law comes down on him after the incident in which he runs over the child in the Bronx. The character looks for emotional support and help from his father, but his father offers little more than legal aphorisms toward his legal problem. The main character realizes that his father, despite his age, has not progressed much past seventeen years of age, in consideration of his emotional life. And so it seems with fathers as concerns their children. Mothers are different. It was only after my father passed on that I realized the emotional elements of my father in my life. I remembered how emotional and sentimental my father was. I realized how much I was like him. I saw the poet and artist within him. I see it in my father in law. But today is Mother's Day. I have always been proud of my grandmothers. My grandmother Gary worked in the clerk's office in Christian County and compiled marriage records for books for genealogical research. She was loving and kind and but smart and disciplined. My grandmother Baynham was a teacher and a businesswoman and she took care of the farmhouse and raising my father and caring for my grandfather and was smart and funny and loving. And now that my father is gone, I see the toughness and wisdom of my mother. She is surviving because she took care of the important things. She still does. When I was in college it occurred to me that my father seemed to come to the wrong conclusions for all the right reasons and that my mother always found the right conclusions for the wrong reasons. That may be so, but it is still a matter of conjecture. My mother contiues to give me suppport . She is still my mother. Happy MOther's Day, momma.

My favorite moments

There is a moment in the afternoon Where the gold of the day is refined By the growing darkness And light and shadow are combined To slow down the running of the day Through my mind and I pop A soft jazz tape in the player And the car flows through the miles and minutes Into the sanctuary of the evening In a sweet twist of taffy pull through time

Overcast skies

I was hopeful that we might have seen a temporary end to the overcast skies and the precipitation, but I drove South to Camilla and found some and then the skies seemed to get darker as I returned to the middle of ths state and now the radar shows showers all around and it is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow and Sunday and Monday and so on and so on and so on until we have our fill, I guess. After I came home this afternoon, I went out on the back porch and found it cool, but not that cool and so I pulled the tv and the modum out on the back porch and watched "Remember the Titans" and then watched a bit more, then came inside and finished the last of a giant slice of red velvet cake, which I had never tasted until I was an adult and which is one of my favorite cakes nowadays and, anyway, Cindy and I finished off the cake and I am now sitting and watching JImmy KImmel and Cindy is taking her third or fourth nap in the green chair since I came home. She doesn't want to go to bed and she doesn't like the green chair, but she seems to be able to find slumber, in spurts, as is. I need to go to sleep soon. I am working on it. I wanted to write about it first.

May Day

Today is May Day. For most people in Western culture, this is the day when the Soviet Union trotted out their large, intercontinental ballistic missile and marched in lockstep in front of the old, grey men on the dias above. In traditional English culture, the young ladies of the village dressed in their Spring finery and danced around a large pole, decorated with colorful ribbons and celebrated Spring and the joy and abandon of life itself. I had an English professor at W&L who referred to this as the first day of outdoor sexual intercourse. Personally, I like the traditional English version. The old communist version was a celebration of raw power and death, a celebration at odds with the time of year and the usual weather of early May. The English tradition is a more appropriate celebration, which draws the villagers out into nature, where we celebrate the raw, flow of Springtime. Even in a day of grey clouds and brisk, cool winds, it is not too far beyond us to fail to consider the wisteria and the late-blooming azaleas and the remnants of the dogwoods that are still hanging around. The warmth is hidden within the tapestry of Spring. The rain comes and goes, but we are still a day away from the warmth and sunshine. The three year old colts will run on Saturday, rain or shine. It is time to feel the new life flowing through us and celebrate the life that God grants us.