Folks, I am so tired of feeling depressed and listless. I know I’ll continue to feel sad, at some times more than others, but I want to pick up my life again. So, of course, I’m going to start off with a bit of overdoing. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t overdo things.
Over on Substack, Summer Brennan will be hosting “Essay Camp,” five days of prompts and readings and general encouragement to write every day for five days. You can get more info from her post here: https://www.awritersnotebook.org/p/essay-camp-a-november-write-along. It’s free to join. I’ve tried participating in other essay camps that Summer has hosted, but Life would always get in the way. My fingers are crossed that this time no life-changing, trauma-inducing events will occur; that is, not within my personal life. I’ve given up on the world outside my fence.
Of course, November 1 is also the start of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo to those who have participated before). I won’t be writing a novel. I’ll be writing essays or maybe memoir-like bits. I plan to use NaNoWriMo to track my writing in Essay Camp and beyond. It’s not relevant or important that I write 50,000 words. I’ll be happy with whatever I have to show for myself by the end of the month.
Meanwhile …
I am so loving this plant that sits outside my window.
It’s called Cat Whiskers so you know why I had to buy it from a local nursery. (For you gardeners out there, the scientific name is Orthosiphon aristatus). At the time I bought it, I wasn’t aware that its flowers would attract hummingbirds and butterflies. In truth, I’ve only seen a hummingbird occasionally check out the flowers, but I LOVE the flowers. And, turns out that Cat Whiskers blooms in April and October. I was really surprised (and thrilled) to see so many blooms this month.
Another favorite is this Indian Blanket (Gailardia pulchella).
The first time I saw an Indian Blanket plant was at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. A small cluster was nestled alongside the trail I was riding on. When I saw this joyful plant at another local nursery, I grabbed it.
Both of these plants would probably be happier in the ground, but they lift my heart when I look out my window on my writing days. I need them where I can see them.
Meanwhile …
The Zebra butterflies are still making whoopee on our Passion Flower vine. I had the pleasure of watching one very delicately lay a few eggs on a stem while another butterfly flitted about, no doubt giving her encouragement. My hands were full of gardening tools so I couldn’t take any photos then. Later, I managed to get this macro shot of several eggs.
Looks like we might have an explosion of Zebra butterflies before too long.
Finally … remember what I said about Life not getting in the way of my writing plans? Well, Wendy went off her food for about a day this weekend. (Why do they always do things like that on weekends?) We had no clue as to what was troubling her. She had seemed fine right up until she refused to eat.
Of course, I panicked, but Greg (my husband) stayed calm. (Like, what else could he do while I was having a meltdown?) We gave her time. Didn’t force anything on her. Monday she started eating again, just a little bit here and a little bit there. This morning (Tuesday) she had the zoomies with Raji and she ate most of her breakfast so I’m thinking she’s okay now.
Old photo … taken in late 2019, but she hasn’t changed a bit.
Thank you for reading! If you want to join me at NaNoWriMo, my username is MarieAnnBailey (natch).
On this day, October 25, my mother would have turned 100. She died on September 22, peacefully by all accounts, but, sadly, not in her home as she would have preferred. Up until September 3, she had been living alone in a double-wide mobile home, coveting her independence which was only possible because of my brother and our cousins who brought her food, cooked for her, cleaned up after her, and gave her company when she was in the mood for it.
My mother didn’t mind being alone. She had her phone if she wanted to talk to someone. She had the birds outside her kitchen window to entertain her. She had a front porch where she would sit on warm days and watch her neighbors come and go. She had her TV shows, and she dozed … a lot.
One could argue about how independent she truly was. The thing is, while others worried about her being alone at night, she didn’t.
Then she fell one night and wasn’t found until the next morning. From there, it’s textbook statistics. Hospital, surgery, rehab, COVID, comfort care, death. Just as with her life, her dying seemed to go on much longer than we thought possible. But, as far as anyone could tell, she was sleeping those last few days. At peace.
She missed “her girls” terribly.
My mom’s girls–Shirley and Charlotte.
First, Shirley died in July 2022, then Charlotte in November 2022. My mom might have been happy to live to 100 if my older sisters had still been alive. They had been her constants, more so than my brother or myself.
My mother married in 1942, I think. Pathetic that I don’t remember her wedding date.
My mother and father’s wedding photo.
Charlotte came around in October 1944, Shirley in August 1946. For the next eight years, it was just the four of them: Dad, Mom, Charlotte and Shirley.
Dad with Shirley and Charlotte.
My brother didn’t show up until August 1954, then me in June 1957. I once made the mistake of asking my mom if she had planned our births so that Shirley and Charlotte would be old enough to babysit me and my brother. She admitted that she hadn’t expected my brother and me. She hadn’t planned our births and, she added, something like abortion wouldn’t have occurred to her because “it just wasn’t done back then.”
My mother was sometimes too honest.
Mom.
I remember my mother as always working, inside the house and out. If she wasn’t working at a grocery store like Philbrooks’ Market or a discount store like the Big N, she was busy working inside the home. Cleaning, cooking, fixing. Even when she finally settled down for the night to watch a TV show with us, she had mending to do. I used to watch as she slipped a glass jar inside the leg of her pantyhose and stitched up the runs. I wonder if she is why I always feel like I’m wasting time when I just sit and watch TV, my hands idle.
I remember our relationship when I was growing up as mercurial. One minute we’d be laughing at some joke together, the next we’d be throwing daggers at each other with our eyes. Of course, it was worse when I was a teenager. I was the youngest, but, by no means, did she spoil me.
She once said she didn’t want to make the “same mistakes” with me that she had made with my brother. Whatever that meant. My brother was in trouble no more or less than any other kid his age. But my mom took every mistake we made as a slight on herself, as an accusation of bad mothering.
My mother wanted to let me go but without me ever leaving home. She wanted me to learn but without the benefit of experience. She wanted something other than an early marriage and babies for me, but she was afraid of what that would be. For all of her independence, she didn’t want to teach me to be independent. So we fought and eventually I left.
We fought even while I lived in California, sending angry letters back and forth. I remember reading one of her angry letters while I was soaking in the bathtub. I remember tearing it up, but I no longer remember what she wrote.
When I was growing up, I rarely felt that her love for me was unconditional. I often thought that I bored her or exasperated her. Sometimes she even scared me, her anger unexpected, her silent treatment dropping the temperature in our house to freezing. And yet when she hugged me, she hugged so tight I thought my ribs would crack.
As I developed physical and emotional distance from my mother, I started to understand. She was one of 12, born somewhere in the middle to a middling farmer and his wife who died too young. My mother did what all her six sisters did, which was to marry and have babies. I don’t know how long she and my father enjoyed their marriage. I was about 10 when I witnessed for the first time my father having a nervous breakdown and listened to the soft brushing of her palm on his back while she tried to comfort him.
But it wasn’t his first breakdown, and it wouldn’t be his last. And here was my mother who was somehow expected to keep us all afloat while my father went in and out of the state hospital, then to a halfway house, then through a divorce and finally into the care of my sister Shirley.
My mom and dad when they were so young.
As I began to imagine the weight of responsibility she must have felt, I also began to be fascinated by her. I became less concerned with her as my mother and more interested in her as a woman who was once young like me, who used to watch sunsets with her sisters and wished she had clothes in those colors.
(She did eventually. At one time, after she remarried, she had a pair of polyester pants in every bright color that you might find in a box of 64 Crayola crayons. She was also quite proud of the fact that the pants only cost about $2 each. My mother was frugal from the day she was born until the day she died.)
In writing this post, trying to celebrate what would have been my mom’s 100th birthday, but, frankly, feeling tired of writing posts like this, I find myself struggling to avoid the obvious.
How could I have been a better daugther?
Let me count the ways.
[Insert list that never ends.]
My only comfort is I really believe she knew how much I loved her. That, despite all the struggles, the frequent shadow-boxing of our personalities, she made me fall in love with her by finally becoming herself, becoming something other than a wife and mother.
She became Florence, a woman who loved to watch birds, to pick berries, to play the slot machines, to eat two hot dogs with chili sauce, to gossip, to talk on the phone, to know whose birthday is when (and how old they are), to live in the moment because the past is past and the future might never be.
I’ll end this post with the verse I picked out for her prayer card:
Fill not your hearts with pain and sorrow, but remember me in every tomorrow. Remember the joy, the laughter, the smiles, I’ve only gone to rest a little while. Although my leaving causes pain and grief, my going has eased my hurt and given me relief. So dry your eyes and remember me, not as I am now, but as I used to be. Because I will remember you all and look on with a smile. Understand, in your hearts, I’ve only gone to rest a little while. As long as I have the love of each of you, I can live my life in the hearts of all of you.
It’s no longer a question for me. I’ve deactivated my formerly-known-as-Twitter account. Although it was still easy for me to share posts via the formerly-known-as-Twitter site, I’ve just become so disenchanted with the formerly-known-as-Twitter experience that I’ve decided to just dump it.
I know many of you still use the site and are happy with your community there, but I’ve been spending less and less time on social media. It’s enough for me to check into WordPress on an irregular basis. Generally, I approach most social media sites these days with a Meh.
In and of itself, that’s not a bad thing. It means I’m busy doing other things. Frankly, I don’t know how anyone keeps up with all the sharing on the formerly-known-as-Twitter site and Facebook and Instagram and wherever else people are congregating.
Then there’s Substack. I do some reading over there, but Substack is kind of like a closed loop. The platform has it’s own Twitter-like function but, as far as I know, you can only share Substack posts on it. I have not tried to share other links. I can understand why Substack chose to direct their writers and readers away from the formerly-known-as-Twitter site, but there’s something a little creepy about it. Creepy as in, “We’re special. We don’t want people outside of Substack to come and hang out with us.”
Maybe I’m being hyper-sensitive because I write on WordPress and am only a reader on Substack. I’m not interested in being a writer there even if it’s free (for now). With WordPress, I feel like I can pretty much be myself. I don’t worry about whether readers sign up for emails or even just follow me. I’m not writing to make money or become famous.
Of course I want to be read. I want to make connections. I enjoy the community I’ve found here. Too often, though, on sites such as Substack and Medium, I find writers who start off just writing and sharing and seeming to have a good time and then somehow drift into writing about their stats, their efforts to increase subscribers, etc. Meh.
As you can see, I’ve changed my blog theme/template … again. The thing is, although I don’t want to be a writer on Substack, I like the layout, the simple style of the posts there. I guess I’m just trying to minimize how crazy the world looks to me at times, an explosion of links and photos and emojis and memes.
So, let’s see if this theme sticks. Meanwhile, I have two wool potholders ready to go to a special person.
These potholders were made with Hillcreek Fiber Studio‘s Solar Eclipse bundle of wool loops. While I love the colors with this pattern, I’m already imagining how I might weave them differently.
Thank you for reading. Here’s an oldish photo of Junior (RIP) (circa December 2020). Sometimes after dinner, Junior would insist on jumping up on the dining room table and snuggling. Good times.
My oldest sister Charlotte would have been 79 today, October 7, if she had lived. She died on November 26, 2022.
Charlotte was my mother’s first baby.
My mom and Charlotte in December 1944
The first-born child of Florence.
She was a few months shy of 13 when I was born. Here she is with my brother sitting between her and our sister Shirley. I am, of course, the baby in the photo.
The four of us: Charlotte, my brother, Shirley and me.
Over the years, Charlotte blossomed into a beautiful young woman. I was often gobsmacked by her beauty. None of these photos have dates so the order is possibly random.
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My sisters Charlotte and Shirley took radically different paths from each other. Shirley married the man she first met when she was 16 and stayed happily content with him and their growing family until her last breath. Charlotte suffered through two failed marriages and then became a widow after six short years into her third marriage to a man who possibly loved her more than all the others that came before him. He also loved to sing as did she.
Charlotte being serenaded.
Charlotte had rheumatic fever when she was a young adult, leaving her with a weak heart. She was cautioned against having children because of it. According to one of my cousins, Charlotte had the fever during her first marriage, and it was our mother, not Charlotte’s husband, who got her medical care.
I often viewed Charlotte as a tragic figure, looking for love in the wrong places, struggling to support herself, pining for the children she could not have. She eventually found happiness in St. Petersburg, FL, which too quickly turned to grief, but through it all, she had friends who made her feel loved.
I failed at that. During the last several years, Charlotte and I shared a mutual dislike, due in no small part to our political differences. When my mother started spending winters with her, we would drive down from Tallahassee and visit, trying to be as pleasant as one could be with someone who didn’t welcome our presence. It hurts to remember those tense visits, the TV so loud that we could hardly converse, my sister quick to argue if I said something she didn’t like. I came away from one visit, the last one we had, feeling that my sister actually hated me.
We had had some good times together, times when we’d go out for a few drinks, long phone calls where she’d tell me stories about coworkers, the two-and-a-half weeks I stayed with her while she underwent heart valve replacement surgery. There was something about my sister that made you want to help her. I might have gone a bit overboard with that back then, helping her when she didn’t want or need it, and then feeling resentment it when she didn’t seem appreciative. That wasn’t fair of me.
Eventually our phone calls became shorter and farther between. I felt that the harder I tried to find common ground with Charlotte, the more I realized what little in common we had. It hurt. It hurt to call her and not be able to say something as simple as “How are you doing?” without her snapping back, “I’m fine. Of course, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine?” It hurt to think that the sound of my voice was enough to twist her mood into something ugly.
It hurt, but what hurts even more is that the last time we did talk on the phone, when she was in hospital because she couldn’t breathe on her own anymore, that last time I was so close to telling her I love her. The words were in my mouth, but I couldn’t say them. We had been so angry with each other for so long. Somehow I knew that by saying I love you, I’d be saying Good-bye. And I just couldn’t do that. I couldn’t admit that she was dying.
Friday evening, at about 7 pm, I got “that call” from my brother. Our mother had died. Florence Reynolds (Bailey) Minch left us before seeing her 100th birthday which would have been on October 25. Many of us believe she wanted to be with her girls (her oldest daugthers, Shirley and Charlotte, who died in 2022) more than she wanted to see another birthday.
Last year, she had her annual exam. Her doctor pronounced her a “fine specimen of a woman.” She corrected him: “I’m a lady.” After that, I and other family members often referred to her as “a fine specimen of a lady.” Indeed, she was.
Several years ago I wrote about her and my aunt Edith who was dying from cancer at that time: Meditation on Life and Mom Near the end of that post, I wrote “it’s listening to her talk about her birds and squirrels and the occasional woodchuck that I’ll miss.”
Over the last few years, she became entranced by Baltimore Orioles, particularly the males since they have more striking plumage. In fact, during the last couple of phone calls we had before she broke her hip and went to hospital, she’d say, “I just want to see the Baltimore Oriole one more time.” I never asked what she meant by “one more time.” I chose to think that she meant they were migrating, and she wanted to see another one before they were gone for the winter.
This past week, our feeder was being visited by a female Baltimore Oriole. I couldn’t tell my mom because she had stopped taking phone calls. Her voice was too weak and the effort too tiring.
This morning, while fixing coffee, I saw a male Baltimore Oriole at the feeder. Maybe I should have felt sad that I could no longer tell Mom of my sightings, that I couldn’t pick up the phone and call her or ask someone to pass my message along. But I didn’t feel sad. I felt a surge of joy. One of my mom’s favorite birds was visiting my home. Coincidence? I think not.
My mother over the years.
Aunt Edith, Aunt Bea, my mom, Aunt Orvetta, Aunt Lee, Aunt Alice, and Aunt Mildred. My aunt Orvetta is the only one of the seven sisters left now.
My mom, teenaged me, and Aunt Alice (in red). Sometime in the mid-70s.
“This is not about you.” So said her daughter Lydia’s therapist to Eileen. I approached this collection of essays by Eileen Vorbach Collins with that in mind. Her stories would not be about me.
And yet they were.
Eileen’s daughter Lydia–artist, writer, supernova–died by suicide in 1999. Ever since then, Eileen has been writing through and into her grief, trying to make sense of her fifteen-year-old daughter’s decision to end her life. I’ve known people who have committed suicide–a cousin, a friend–but they were adults in their 30s and 50s. Their deaths were tragic nonetheless and while I can understand a terminally ill person wanting to “leave” while they still have some quality of life, the suicide of otherwise healthy people leaves the living with too many questions, too much guilt, too much of everything but what we want most: that person back with us.
All daugthers are special, but Lydia seemed to have a gift to zero in on the essence of things, whether it be her uncanny ability to find four-leafed clovers where no one else could see them, or her acute horror at the loss of an innocent’s life, whether that innocent be a spider or a goldfish, or her fascination with odd objects: broken tiles, Pez dispensers, plastic rosary beads. She was an artist, a writer, a supernova. And, I guess, it all just became too much for her.
By the time you reached your teens, you could not see a silver lining through your darkness. (p. 71)
And yet, even if we could understand the why of suicide, would that lessen the pain? I think about my own contemplations of suicide, starting when I was in my teens and continuing periodically through adulthood, occurring often enough that I thought it was normal to consider suicide, to feel so low and with such despair that taking one’s own life seemed rational. That I’ve never attempted suicide is a testament to my fear of the unknown. There might be Purgatory.
Eventually I learned that suicide ideation is not a healthy activity, my first hint being the shock on my husband’s face when I told him about my thoughts.
So I read about Lydia with great interest, finding myself identifying with her in that we both experienced “Weltschmerz, literally, world pain” (p. 21), although it was far more acute for her than it ever was for me, and, for me, sometimes world pain was simply unbearable.
Although most of the essays are about Lydia and Eileen’s grief over her loss, she also writes about other losses: the loss of a beloved pooch, the lost opportunity to be a better daugther.
I didn’t know when I was ten and the center of my own universe that mothers have feelings. (p. 64)
Her essay, “Hold You Closer, Tiny Dancer,” left me feeling seen and heard. Eileen’s relationship with her mother, a woman who had suffered from depression, then strokes and suicide attempts, mirrored my own relationship with my father, who also had mental health problems. I don’t think he ever tried to kill himself which is surprising since he blamed himself for the Vietnam War and all the boys that were killed. I was ten when I first witnessed one of his nervous breakdowns. My father had feelings, but I was embarrassed by him. I didn’t have friends over when he was in-between stays at the state hospital, and I avoided him when I was home. I was “ten and the center of my own universe.” What kind of relationship would we have had if I’d only been kinder?
Eileen’s essays are not about me and yet they are. They are because she gives voice to my own grief, all the griefs I hold in my heart, whether it’s grief from euthanizing an old sick cat, grief from losing both my sisters, grief for not being a better daugther to my dad, or grief for my dying mother.
Eileen’s humor and honesty, her economy of words carried me through this collection. I’m grateful for the opportunity to get to know Lydia. I share Eileen’s grief that such a beautiful (body and soul) person is no longer with us, no longer sharing her gifts with the world. I’m also grateful to Eileen for letting me know that I’m not alone in when and how I grieve.
We’ve lost the filter that kept us behaving like normal people.
[…]
We might howl at the moon, tear our clothing, throw ourselves on their graves, starve ourselves, or use food as an opiate to soothe ourselves into obesity.
[…]
Or, if we find our way there, we might gather in communion. Feed one another, hold each other up, become the trusses to bear the unfathomable weight of this collective sorrow. (pp. 171-172)
Love in the Archives is scheduled for publication in November. You can pre-order your copy from Bookshop.org or Amazon.
Love in the Archives includes this list of resources:
At times like this, words don’t come easy. Thank goodness for poets. For the full poem, “The cat’s song,” go here.
Junior was euthanized at about 5:15 PM on Thursday, September 14, 2023. A clinical exam revealed that what we thought was a stubborn case of chronic rhinitis, was in fact a huge mass pushing aggressively through his nasal cavity, causing not just congestion but also swelling along his nose and pain. All options except one promised more suffering without any guarantee of relief.
My big boy was suffering big time, and the best we could do for him was help him over the Rainbow Bridge. At least he’ll be in good company with Maxine, Luisa, Mikey, Elodea, Joshua, and Smokey.
I’m going to miss … I am missing his sweet, sweet face, and his utter dependence on us. I miss how he would sit in the kitchen, an hour or so before lunch time, and wait for his midday meal. He was often underfoot in the kitchen, pushing me to scold him and even chase him out. Except he always slipped back in, his stubborness always making me give in to him.
I miss how he would join us for our meals, knowing that my husband could be counted on to slip him a bit of meat or cheese. I miss how he would lounge with us on the loveseat while we enjoyed a stay-at-home Happy Hour. I miss how fickle he was about which lap to lie on when we were watching TV, sometimes switching laps a couple of times over the course of a movie.
He entered our lives as a fully grown “neighborhood cat” around early 2009, Greg patiently earning his trust with kibbles and shelter. Fourteen years sounds like a long time, but it went by too fast.
Here’s a few of my favorite photos of Junior.
Back in the day when Junior had at least one tooth.Junior toothless and showing off his long tongue.Junior wasn’t much of a reader, but he did enjoy lying on top of magazines.A winter routine was for Junior and Maxine to lie on my husband’s lap while he drank coffee and read. This particular morning, Junior decided my husband’s chest made a good perch.Junior posing for a centerfold.Keeping my toes warm on a cool March morning.
Junior loved heat, especially from the sun, to the point of trying to lick it.
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While I considered Junior to be my “big boy,” he was partial to Greg, inclined to go into full sleep mode while straddling his leg.
When the going gets tough, I get my hair dyed. Here’s my latest do courtesy of Chelsea Salon and Spa.
A selfie I sent to my husband to give him a heads-up about my dye job.
So what’s so tough?
Firstly, about ten days ago my mother fell while on her way to bed. Broke her hip. My brother found her the next morning. Yes, folks, the scenario we all dread when our elderly relatives live alone. She is fine right now. She had a simple surgery and was in hospital for a couple of more days before they scurried her over to a rehabilitation facility. My family has a long history with this facility.
It’s the same facility where my sister Shirley spent a couple of months recovering from a broken ankle. Also, a long, long time ago and known then only as “the infirmary,” it’s the same place where my father was cared for until his death. And it’s the same place where my surrogate grandfather Ted Albers was cared for until his death. It’s now called River Ridge Living Center.
My mother is in a safe place. She’s not quite the happy camper, but her see-saw moods could be post-anesthesia blues or side effects of morphine or the realization that her days of independent living are over. My brother visits her a couple of times a day, other family are there frequently, pretty much the same or more as when she was living in her trailer, but now we have the benefit of knowing that she is getting the kind of care she has needed (and resisted) for a long time.
I am hoping and praying that she relaxes into her new life at River Ridge. Even before her fall, she was already living in the “here and now.” She wouldn’t remember what happened yesterday or maybe even a hour before. She can’t conceive of the future. If you try to tell her about something that will happen the next day, she’ll just shake her head and tell you she won’t remember that.
So my brother (her primary caregiver) is doing all he can to make sure that all her needs are being met and will continue to be met. I don’t believe she will or even should go home again, not without 24/7 care which she can only get properly at River Ridge. I said as much to my brother, and it wasn’t easy. I’ve never wanted my mom to wind up in a facility, but it’s really the best place for her now. She has said she is being treated well, and that gives me hope that she’ll become more comfortable with the place as time goes on. I’ve only talked to her a couple of times. Talking on the phone tires her out quickly. I miss our daily phone calls, but as long as others are there with her, I’m okay.
Secondly, Junior’s chronic condition has worsened. He was getting better, but then the lining of his left nostril became swollen and inflamed. With Dr. C’s permission, I started giving him steroid nose drops again, but with no appreciable improvement. Worse, he stopped eating on Tuesday. He had been getting picky with his food over time, preferring dry food to the wet, then treats to the regular dry, and then skipping meals altogether.
His left nostril is congested. We suspect he stopped eating because he can’t smell his food or the congestion makes his food unappetizing or both. We have used a baby aspirator to suck some of the snot out of his nose, but apparently not enough to give him comfort. I take him into the bathroom with me when I shower, hoping the steam will loosen the mucous up. The problem is that he’s not sneezing, not expelling the mucous himself, and our efforts at aspiration are probably too little too late. I’m angry with myself for not scheduling a recheck, instead waiting until we were in panic mode.
In the meantime, my husband devised a system where we essentially force-feed him using a syringe and pureed wet food. We’ve done this successfully a few times now, although all of us wind up with squirts of cat food on our hair and fur.
His appointment with Dr. C is a drop-off, meaning I drop him off at the hospital in the early morning and then wait to hear from Dr. C. I try to avoid drop-offs because I don’t like leaving my cats at the hospital all day (separation anxiety), but this is the earliest we could get him in.
So stay tuned and thank you for reading! Here’s a few pics of Junior from this morning, obviously taken against his will.
To quote my recent Facebook post: Hurricane Idalia made landfall this morning, a bit further south than expected. Good for us, not good for others. We feel very lucky. However, we don’t have power so I’ll be turning my phone off soon 🙂 Just wanted to give you all an update.
You know, it really wonderful to have so many people care that I worry about running down the battery on my phone 😉😊❤️
Some of you may be following Hurricane Idalia. She’s shaping up (and over) to be the first major hurricane to hit the Big Bend area of Florida, where we live. In fact, weather experts are calling it an “unprecedented event.” Tallahassee is a band or two out from the purple in the image below, but close enough in that we are under a hurricane warning.
Thankfully, we live far enough inland that storm surges will not be a problem for us personally. But wind will be.
Am I scared? Yes.
We prepped as much as we can, but I’ve never ridden out a hurricane of this magnitude before so I can only hope we’ve done enough. The cats will be getting anti-anxiety meds with their evening meal to keep them from bouncing off the walls.
Last I heard Idalia should make landfall in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, so I guess I won’t be getting any sleep.
We’ll hunker down and hope that our little piece of property won’t get too torn up. I don’t expect miracles. I do hope this will not be a new normal for Florida. If we had wanted to ride out hurricanes, we would have moved to South Florida or the coast when we came here.
I used to joke that, thanks to climate change, we might eventually have beach front property without ever moving. We’ll see if I still have a sense of humor tomorrow.
Although I’ve been more absent than present on my blog over the last few months, I felt I should come on and say something about Hurricane Idalia. If I’m able to (depending on power outages, of course), I will do what I can to update this post once the wind has settled. That’s one good thing about Idalia, I guess. She’s supposed to move through fast.
See you on the other side of the hurricane!
If we live here long enough, Raji might get to enjoy a blue bayou right outside our door.
Looks like we might have an explosion of Zebra butterflies before too long.
Marie at 1 Write Way 