Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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a much happier storm season blowing through us

When the farm has just emptied of kids, evidence is plenty. The deck, pool, and surrounding lawns are all festooned with brightly colored plastics: Water guns and leaky swim masks, half-inflated floats, sun-crunchy pirate beach towels, and orphaned flip flops and hair ties. They are all scattered like confetti across the calm, green expanse. We discover an empty juice box here and there, a chewed-to-nothing melon rind, a discarded (hopefully used up) bottle of sunblock.

The chairs and chaise lounges are all askew, abandoned and resting happily like exhausted chaperones after a late night middle school dance.

When we bought these nine acres in 2007, our dream and vision was to give our girls, then 10 and 12, a second half of childhood, a healthy, wholesome coming of age with lots of space for deep breathing and long-leg stretching, animals to love and learn from, and much more.

The seeds of that vision had barely germinated when some destructive life storms blew through our family and changed everything for a season. We hung on, everyone survived, and eventually the sun came out again, brighter than ever. But that’s another story for another day.

Now I sit outside soaking up the cheerful debris of a happier storm, one of so many like it, each one important. “Cousin-Palooza 2017” came and went in a flash, leaving in its wake all this color and all these good vibrations. I sit here taking note of how much love and joy have actually grown here in the midst of that other storm.

Despite it? Or because of it?

For all the years that storm took from our family, has it actually nourished our foundation?

I think so.

I think, I feel in my bones, that the culling and strengthening and the deep watering from both tears and sweat have all contributed to an ongoing beautification. Not just a bigger deck or prettier gardens, not just faster internet, better food and more artwork on the walls- although yes to all of that!

But really, more trusting hearts for my husband and me. Freer minds. Effervescent joy that is actually pretty difficult to flatten.

We are blessed beyond reason. Thankful for adult siblings who trust us with their children so we can share these nine acres in some of the ways we always imagined. Happy to cultivate memories and bonds with our nieces and nephews that, despite inevitable storms headed our way in the future (that’s just how life goes), will last a lifetime and anchor us all.

Chloe, Kenzie, & Greg. July 2017 xoxo
Daybreak in Fort City, upstairs in the Apartment. They slept hard for almost 7 hours then sprang awake at full power, ready for chocolate chip pancakes and more fun.
Little fishes doing tricks all day long.

I always resist the hurry to clean up after a party. I am in no hurry to see it all wiped away, all the colorful debris that kids especially leave behind.

Except that other good stuff is on its way, and we need to make room. Every day, every moment, holds a new promise and a host of surprises. The whole big, beautiful, equally colorful future is about to happen.

I’m ready.

XOXOXOXO

 

looking around to improve your perspective

Yesterday afternoon I stumbled into the weirdest funky mood. It lasted maybe 90 seconds and had the effect of a low, dark cloud crawling meanly across an otherwise brilliant sky. It was so distinct and forceful that it literally stopped me in my tracks. I was walking downhill toward the vegetable garden and paused, looked around like maybe I heard something behind me? Klaus stopped too and crooked his head to wait for my next step. His face and the green lawn and a few other beautiful things reminded me that I was home. That the moment was good and the context was magical. 

I’m grateful for awareness when my perspective is shifted negatively and for the power to bring it back to center. It’s often just a small exercise of noticing physical beauty, then maybe indulging in the quiet, inner messages some of them bring:

Fallen tree branches that resemble antlers. I cannot resist collecting them and inserting them into every flower pot, and it gets me thinking of the hundreds of patterns in nature, in the universal patterns of the human experience, from one generation to the next.

A stout gray and white horse who loves to scratch the hollow of his chin against every T-post on the farm. Oh Dusty, I love you.

That weird but pleasant summertime fragrance combination of latex paint, sweet clover, and manure, all warmed by the sun and stirred by the breeze. It’s just nice.

Watching our German Shepherd (I can no longer in good conscience call him a puppy) and our llama play together like little boys. Remembering the girls when they were little and prone to indulging in “Mud Monster” afternoons. Dreaming of their futures. Watching the dog and llama again, best friends on the muddy edge of the pond. 

The pond is still so high! Exceeding its banks, our own small lake, all these weeks after the heavy rain. Grace is abundant. We are fattened by it.

Walking around the bee hives, seeing the Honeymakers float and parade near their respective porches. Each colony is so unique, and all three of them are so entrancing. This is an endless metaphor.

Raking up great, thick, heavy clods of crabgrass, recently tilled, and shaking loose the dirt. Looking up just enough to visualize the food that will soon be growing here.

Checking for the day’s newly laid eggs, having to gently lift each hen to find them. Feeling the warm, sticky film on eggs that stay in the nests, waiting to hatch. Learning to trust the life cycle without counting chicks too early.

The lingering smell of marigold blossoms and arugula, the rough texture of kale, the jewel toned petunias and geraniums near the kitchen door. Oh man I had the best Grandpa…xoxo

Neatly pruned trees that had once been a chaotic black jack grove. Peace and strength that have brought some order to a fearful heart. Order and more beauty.

Frozen things are long thawed, mountains are moving, fear is losing once again to Love.

“Most people think it takes a long time to change. It doesn’t. Change is immediate! Instantaneous! It may take a long time to decide to change…but change happens in a heartbeat!”
~Andy Andrews in The Noticer
XOXOXOXO

home sweet home

That last morning we rose to a gentle cell phone alarm, dressed quickly in still wet swim suits and cover ups, and scrambled across to the beach for an even gentler sunrise.

It’s the exact opposite of a mountain-enclosed sunrise, in that it begins ahead of schedule and is far from shy. That far south, dawn illuminates everything with concentric rings of glowing pastels, not unlike what we love so much at home.

The sky above us was ice blue, and the sky that drew our gaze- all the way to the razor edge horizon- was now stacked with intense pink and lilac, no longer stormy grays from the day before. The moon still hung smooth and silver over the fishing pier. Just barely less than half full.

The waters were evenly choppy, calmish, a brilliant metallic blue. Sparkling. Again, not unlike our pond at home lately. What few waves cropped up in little crescendos managed to strike flashing moments of gold in the blooming daylight.

We fed the birds again and walked barefoot once more on the damp, pliable sand. We inhaled the salty air and scanned the bay for our shark friend. I felt that familiar mix of emotions tied to leaving a place you love to return to a place you love. We had just done this a few days before.

A little while later, dispensing hotel coffee into my Styrofoam cup, I thought of buttered grits with salt and pepper, of dense, creamy scrambled eggs and warm watermelon. Chicory coffee and the smell of powdered sugar and fresh pralines. Spicy shrimp scattered over excellent salad greens and sub-tropical potted greens exploding from every iron balcony. Live music and unbridled artistic expression, crooked sidewalks and smooth carved statues, some of them now removed.

Then I thought of our beautiful farm and even better coffee. And my own wild gardens and that upstairs closet full of recently edited artwork that wants to see the light of day again. I thought of our animals and our family, of Mother’s Day and summertime and new adventures on the horizon.

I thought of Colorado sunrises and a certain artist who enjoys them.

This morning I woke to the strong fragrance and gurgling sounds of my own coffee machine. I felt my big, muscular, silky dog nuzzling my feet and growling in that early morning, contended way he does. We crept outside together to see the shimmering daybreak and feed the horses and chickens, explore the gardens again, and play an early round of fetch.

Our own Big Easy, our own beachy sky, our own home base thrumming with all the Love we have cultivated.

And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
XOXOXOXO

 

monday may first

How fun to begin a fresh, new month on a Monday. And what a gift that our Oklahoma skies are (at least temporarily) clear and blue, warm and friendly. This has been an auspicious beginning.

I spent most of today setting up for the rest of the week. It’s an easy-rhythm thing around the farm, every Monday, and I like it. Plenty from my list of good intentions remains unfinished, but I feel content and even a little drunk on tiny pleasures.

Honeybees exploring tomato blossoms near the kitchen door. Pacino chittering to the wild songbirds. Klaus, black and shining, panting, catching his breath after several exhaustive romps with Meh.

Our pond is higher than we’ve ever seen it, rippled by the stout afternoon breeze and glittering, really truly glittering and navy blue instead of muddied by clay It’s a welcome sight, as are the rolling green hills and soft, lush pine trees. 

Having neglected to collect eggs yesterday, today I found twenty-six! They are scrubbed clean and drying now on a thick towel on the kitchen counter. The smell of soap. I have this ever-expanding vision of supplying fresh edibles at a local market. A detail of this vision is inviting people to select their own eggs, taking home only the shell colors they like best. I have a large powder-coated basket and stack of empty cartons perfect for this fun. Until then I mix them up, tan and green and dark brown. ($3 per dozen, locals!)

As Handsome was driving home from the City, I sat on the kitchen patio and wrote and played some easy fetch with Klaus. The breeze was mostly cool, but sitting still in the afternoon sun baked my jeans against my shins and melted away some tension. Like a massage for my bones and my emotions. I stood up, stretched, and planted a new rose bush he had gifted me before bedtime last night.

I feel full and empty all at once, and I have stories stacking up inside me like hurried, disgruntled train passengers desperate to disembark at the perfect destination, heck any destination; but I can’t slow the train to let them exit safely.

Things I hope to tell you wonderful people this week:

  • All about the Listen to Your Mother event on Sunday. Wow. 
  • Some exciting running accomplishments from a few of my favorite humans.
  • The easiest non-recipe I have ever shared. I made it by accident last Friday.
  • My own running lately and a plan for May and June
  • Two books I read recently that you just might LOVE. Or hate. Your choice.
  • Bliss Lists!!
  • Even more about LTYM because I just had no idea what it would really be like. 

As we go about the first few days of this gorgeous new month, let’s urge each other to be grateful for the gifts we have and gentle to everyone who crosses our path. Let’s work really hard at our goals (more focus, smarter ingenuity) but also rest more often and luxuriate in what we have already accomplished. Best of all let’s take time (and help me remember this ok?) to sometimes not even think about those things. Just love our men and our dogs and our horses and gardens. Once in a while that has to be enough. And, because life is truly magical, it will make us stronger for the things we can’t do much about, after all.

See you soon, magical hard-working people.
XOXOXOXO

“I knew it could be done!”

A story goes that he and his daughter-in-law, my Aunt Deni, went to the State Capitol for an afternoon of dancing. A Western Swing band was playing in the Rotunda, and they dressed for the occasion. She led him by following in reverse and counting out a smooth, circular waltz. This was some kind of very exact thrill for him, having been told be previous dance partners that waltzing would never work for country music. But they continued swirling and counting, keeping beat and broadening their smiles. “I knew it could be done!” he exclaimed. He was overjoyed by this simple breakthrough, this very real pleasure.

With my Mom, his youngest, and Miss Judy, his very sweet long time girlfriend.
With my Mom, his youngest, and Miss Judy, his very sweet long time girlfriend.

Once on an average visit to see my sweet Grandpa, at his last house before moving to assisted living. the first thing he said when I walked in the front door was, “Honey you have grown!” He exclaimed it, really. With a lot of emphasis. And friends, I was forty years old when this happened. I had not grown in 28 years, at least not vertically. Grandpa was always keeping track of how tall we were.

On this day we hugged tight then walked directly to the sun room in the back of his house, Here he kept a menagerie of tropical plants, art projects, hand-lettered signs of every variety, books, cards from loved ones, and very comfortable chairs for sitting. In the corner of the room was a heavy electric organ with a painted portrait of my Grandma perched on the music ledge. Nothing in there matched exactly, but everything together looked so perfect. The room made you want to sit and stay for hours, which he would tell you was exactly his plan every day.

We sat and watched through the expansive glass windows as dozens of different birds visited the seven or eight feeders he kept full of seed. Cannas grew in every tight little corner. Hot pink crepe myrtles. A new peach tree. Tomato plants, green beans, even corn… All wedged neatly in his postage stamp back yard, backed by a pristine white vinyl fence. In the middle of it all was a small garden shed painted the color of cannas leaves in fall. I remembered him planning this building addition several years before, explaining that he wanted to paint it this exact color so it would blend in with his favorite plants. And it did, perfectly. It wasn’t quite brown, not quite purple. But a wonderful muted bruise color, deep and alive looking.

With his great-grandson Greg.
With his great-grandson Greg, in that same sun room.

He always loved little girls and women wearing hats. He loved music and dancing and greatly preferred collegiate sports over professional. He gave himself Spanish lessons late in life to make the most of a road trip to Mexico with his best friend Roger. While there he hiked the Aztec ruins with Roger’s pregnant daughter. I would love to have heard his joy at seeing all that evidence of ancient history, right before his eyes.

gps fam C

He served in the Navy at the end of World War II. He married his high school sweetheart, my beautiful Grandma, after wooing her with a Portuguese sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which he claimed to have penned himself. She knew the poem already, and its true author, but preserved the moment by letting him keep the secret.

tall tomatoes july 2016

Grandpa Stubbs was an avid and self-taught home gardener, all my life growing the most delicious tomatoes, fragrant herbs (lemon balm and basil will always remind me of him) larkspur, and more. I can scarcely walk outside at the farm or think of one gardening task without hearing his voice. He taught me how to use grass clippings as compost, how to double dig a new vegetable bed to eliminate weeds and grassroots, and how to plant and prune tomatoes in a cool, weird way. If I ever asked him a gardening question (or any question, for that matter) to which he didn’t have an answer, his response was a swift and silly, “Well honey I just don’t want to tell you right now.”

gpas boots
These were his actual gardening boots which he gifted me the same autumn we bought this little acreage. He also gave me his tan quilted zip-up vest, which I always wear over a sweater on chilly days. It has pockets.

He and my grandmother raised their family of five, two girls and a son, in small town Oklahoma and then spent the oil-bust years in Oklahoma City. He was an avid salesman, providing to the buying market everything from bristle brushes to caskets, wholesale.

gps baby gen C
Holding my baby sister, Viva Michelle.

When we were little and spending gobs of time at his and Grandma’s house, most evenings ended with an ice cream sundae, unless for some reason the day called for a tall glass of cold milk with saltine crackers crushed up in the bottom. If we could not quite finish our treat, he would cajole us onward, to take just a few more bites, “C’mon, be a sport. Be a sport.” And he would wiggle his substantial eyebrows at us.

gps w greats C
Grandpa Rex with four of his great-grandchildren. Jessica, baby Chloe, Jocelyn & Dante.

From when I was a little girl until very recently, any time I would walk into the room he would call me his pretty little granddaughter. To him (and to my Dad) I am “Ma-ree-zie.” And I always loved the way that made me feel.

Grandpa made friends easily and had no boundaries that I could ever detect. He had a deep, clear voice, warm and welcoming, energetic, not intimidating at all. He laughed hard from a place deep inside himself, somewhere strong and limitless. His smile was genuine and warm.

gps klaus LOL C
Last summer and again at Christmas, every time Grandpa came to the farm and interacted with Klaus (my gigantic lap puppy) he laughed in that best Grandpa way. I loved every second. He also laughed this way watching Klaus and the great-grand kids play in the pond.

I always thought he was handsome whether clean-shaven or wearing a trim mustache or covered by a full beard and shoulder-length hair. In fact he is one of the few men who to me still looked gentlemanly groomed this way.

In my mind he is always wearing either a pair of pressed slacks and a high-sheen golf shirt or Bermuda shorts and a white tee, sweaty from working outside.

The sound of football on t.v. will always make me think of him, as will the smell of strong (pleasantly stale) coffee and tobacco. I cannot walk into a garden center and see onion sets or bagged flower bulbs, smell all the fertilizers and peat mixes, without thinking of him. Driving past the old Horn Seed on Northwest Expressway has for years made me cry, just from nostalgia.

Did you know that my Grandpa once played in a professional golf tournament?

Later in life but when he was still driving, Grandpa took great pleasure in scaring his passengers half to death. On more than one occasion, after making a risky left turn against traffic, he would grin and pat me on the shoulder, assuring me he wasn’t worried because had we collided with anyone, “It was on your side honey.” 

You know about Grandpa’s peanut butter cookies, right?

pb cookies bowl unmixed

This recipe is one of my most favorite treats to make for people. Lots of love is stirred into it, because it was by sharing this with me over the phone that Grandpa made sure I had enough groceries when I was a young mom. (Side note worth mentioning: He was never convinced that I had installed my baby’s car seat correctly. I came by my worrying genes naturally.)

What children need most are the essentials that grandparents provide in abundance.
They give unconditional love, kindness, patience, humor, comfort, lessons in life.
And, most importantly, cookies.
~Rudy Giuliani

He was a ravenous student of history, ancient history was his favorite I think. Or maybe it was WWII. He was unashamedly fascinated by mysteries like Stonehenge and Easter Island, loved the Northern Lights, and was the first person to spark in my mind the amazing truth that what we call “history” was actually not that long ago. He illustrated for me how recently, in fact, Abraham Lincoln walked the earth.

Grandpa seemed to understand how quickly time passes and how temporary everything is. Surely that is why he developed such an appetite for squeezing life out of his days.

At age 51, together with Grandma and my Dad, he started Village Art Lamp Company. They literally started assembling lamps and lamp shades on the floor of their living room floor, built up a unique inventory, and proceeded to sell to retail chains and hotels all over the state, eventually nationwide. He was stern about selling by consignment at first, and he was attentive to his lamps’ shelf placement. A natural salesman, Grandpa knew how to be seen and heard and how to get the same attention to his merchandise. That one chapter of his life illustrated my entire childhood and provided an excellent living for dozens of big families over the years. 

After a hard-earned retirement Grandpa delighted in announcing, each time as if the first, that he had the day off. When I was first a stay-at-home Mom, he would frequently drop in for coffee or call and invite me out, enjoying the joke together. I wish I still had a “day off” to enjoy with him.

He lived a life of variety, passion, joy, hard work, constant seeking, romance (definitely a ladies’ man), pleasure, overcoming of hardship, and genuine interest in things past, present, and future. He eschewed organized religion but made frequent, friendly mention of “The Man Upstairs.” 

gps chrismtas 2016 C

 

As our family has sat in vigil this past week, exchanging memories and simmering in love and grief, I marveled at how each of us clearly felt a unique bond to this man. Everyone told a story that no one had heard before, and I suspect I am not the only one who over the years felt a little extra special to him. That is just how he managed to love everyone, no matter how big the family grew.  He imparted great doses of himself to each of us in vivid ways. More family members are gathering in Oklahoma City tonight, and I am excited to hear even more. 

He has been the very best example of Carpe Diem to my life. And for that I will always be deeply grateful.

Friends and loved ones, I would appreciate it greatly if you knew Grandpa Stubbs, to leave us a memory here. Thank you so much, and thanks also for your condolences this week. He passed peacefully on March first, at the satisfied end of a life nearly ninety years long. 

“Well how do you like those apples?”
~Rex Stubbs
XOXOXOXO

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