Those Was Her Words

I’m so glad you came! I love your new bonnet! Go ahead and tie your horse up over there next to the wagon and come have a seat by the fire! Good thing you wore your shawl, because this might end up being a long night (post) and it may get chilly.

(You know I have to set the tone, right?)

So, it is early evening, I rented a few wagons, and “parked” them around our back yard. Hello!? I like to go all out for parties, even a book club!

I had John build us a fire, and I set out some rocking chairs because I thought it would be fun to rock as we chit-chat. There are also some vintage quilts by the fire in case you prefer sitting there. I even borrowed my neighbors dog, so we could have a dog lying by the fire like Sarah’s dogs did.

I had a hard time deciding what to wear, scarlet or blue? Scarlet, or blue? I decided on the blue thinking velvet might be a little too fancy for a book club around the fire.

I have a small table filled with all sorts of pies; pecan pie, peach pie, cherry pie, and berry pie. There is a pitcher of buttermilk to drink, and I also drew some water from the well. I even set out my great aunts china to eat our pie on.

So grab some pie, and let’s start talking.

I need to start with a disclaimer. I am not one of those book reviewers that talks about all the symbolism, or interpreting what certain things mean in a book. (Though, I would be interested in hearing what you thought about any symbolism of the book the author had in the story, The Duchess of Warwick and Her Sorrow by the Sea.) I like hearing what other people think about those things; I’m just not one to come up with it. I was probably scarred from my advanced English class in high school where I always interpreted whatever we were reading “wrong.” The teacher always left comments like this on my papers, “Not quite what the author was trying to portray, etc. etc.” And, no, I don’t think I ever understood what the feather meant in the movie, Forrest Gump. Needless to say, that class helped me decide not to take AP English my senior year (and I had really liked English before that class).

Anyway, this is how I roll - I will mention a quote or section from the book and give my thoughts. Feel free to share in whatever way you like to. Beware! This is going to be long. I really liked this book.

How’s the pie?

In all honesty, I started reading this book, and yawned. I read the first two pages and put it down. Once I picked it up again, I couldn’t put it down. Although, I think I wanted to, because it was really, REALLY depressing at first. My heart just kept breaking for this poor woman, how could so many horrible things happen to one person before they even get out of their teens? (I should have read the back part of the book first where it says that this book is mostly fiction, I think it might have lessened the blow a little bit.) Page 42 makes me sad, and page 51 breaks my heart.

This author had a way of wording things that really made me feel what was going on.



Examples:

“I don’t know what that is but he says it with a look on his face I seen with my insides not my eyes.” p. 9

“Mama came and held my shoulders and patted my head real gentle. She didn’t say nothing but her hand on my head did.” p. 16

“I feel like my legs are made of wooden branches and my heart is a hard rock inside.” p .17 (Can you even imagine having to deal with that? I could imagine after dealing with all she has already dealt with, you would have to start closing your heart so you wouldn’t have to feel pain or anything!)

“I felt brown and smeared, through and through.” p. 362 when Suzanne died. So sad!

“Then I went back to our place and sat by Mama and put my head in her lap, and said I was sorry. I tried by wishing and praying to make her recognize me and put her hand on my head, just for a little pat, just a little sign that she could come back if she wanted to. But she just sat there. Tears ran off my face sideways onto her lap.” p. 34 (This totally made me cry.)

You want to know what else made me cry? Page 127, when Jimmy was dying, “Then Jimmy stirred and said to Albert, Tell her I love her, will you? I began to let tears run down my face.” Then tears started running down my face, and then I read the last few sentences of that chapter, and was like, “WHHAAT?” “Oh, no he didn’t!” Oh my goodness! I felt so bad for her!!

I did love the small bits of humor in this book too! On page 148, she writes, “That man makes me feel like I have my bonnet on backwards.” Loved it! Don’t you know what that feels like though? I also liked this on page 5, “Mama poked my ribs and said any biscuits put in that better be named Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego.” Page 323 was funny too, where she says, “I am so thankful for all four of my children but equally thankful there are not eight.” I especially love this statement on page 348, “That woman grinds my grits, and that’s a fact.” Grits is one of my favorite breakfast foods! The coach in the movie, Remember the Titans, used this line that I love just as much, “You’re overcooking my grits, coach.” I need to use that line more!

I must admit I fell in love with Jack Elliot. I loved the night she fell asleep in the wagon full of books, and it ended up being her “therapy” session with Jack. How tender was that? How much pain she must have had stored up! I loved their first kiss on page 92, and their second and third. I also love this on page 342, “During supper, Jack looked at me across the table and the candles made us all kind of sparkly even with the gas lights burning. Once I caught him smiling at me during all the noise, and he winked like we shared a secret, and I smiled back. Then all our boys started talking loud and Celia’s and Savannah’s littlest both began to cry in the sudden loudness, and there was Jack, smiling through the candle flames, and he mouthed the words “I love you” across the commotion.” Mmmmm… delicious! I love what she says about him on page 326, “I do not know why I love that man so. He tries me to the last…” I absolutely love this on page 248; “Taking up marriage is a good excuse for taking up cursing, I think.” You will laugh I know, but I, on more than one occasion, have said this to my husband: “I am so mad right now, I want to swear! And I don’t swear, that’s how mad I am!” I am not one to claim that marriage is this foggy dreamland of fuzzy pink blossoms, and dreamy eyes all the time. Marriage is at tough at times, and there have been many times I thought I would “take up cursing!”

This book made me even more grateful for modern medicine! My heart broke when the mother gave birth to her stillborn child, and then died a while later (p.38). Then I laughed to myself when Sarah said if she had known childbirth was going to be so hard she would have “never married as long as I lived.” (p.120) I could appreciate this statement on page 303 as well, “Children are a burden to a mother, but not the way a heavy box is to a mule. Our children weigh hard on my heart, and thinking about them growing up honest and healthy, or just living to grow up at all, makes a load in my chest that is bigger than the safe at the bank, and more valuable to me than all the gold inside it.” This is oh, so true, and describes a feeling I really haven’t been able to put words to.

This quote brings us to the other side of that. “Mama and Savannah have both told me they knew of women who go insane from having a baby. Some of them it is before the baby is born, and some right after. It isn’t the same as having a houseful of crying children and no clean diapers left, that is a different kind of crazy. Adelita is off somewhere in a terrible place in her head.” (p. 333)

Okay, I think most mothers can relate a little bit to the different kind of crazy. I know there are a few moments I have felt a little insane. For instance:

I was pregnant with Trevan and had sent John to the grocery store, with a list. My lists are very specific (price, brand, etc.) to aid John in his purchasing, and to try and prevent him from coming home with two boxes of Fruity Pebbles, gallons of mint chocolate chip ice cream, chocolate milk, and other junk food. Don’t deviate from the list! (I sound horrible, don’t I? Someone’s got to enforce the budget.) Anyway, he came home (I can still picture it very clearly in my mind) and I was sitting on the floor organizing something, and he handed me the receipt as he walked by. I looked it over, and then literally lost my mind. “Why did you buy this?” “You weren’t supposed to buy this brand, the other brand was on sale.” “I wrote it down for you!” “These apples were too expensive, I never pay over…” “Why can’t you stick to the list??” In my head I knew I was being totally irrational, but continued the madness anyway. And then, it happened... I chucked a bunch of bananas at his feet. Literally. I then continued. “You have to take this stuff back to the store!” (not the bananas) So, my dear, sweet husband packed up the apples, juice, and carrot sticks and a few other things I can’t remember and headed back to Walmart. (I know! My poor husband.) He said when the lady asked if there was anything wrong with the stuff, he just said, “no.” I told him later he should have told her, “My wife is pregnant and has lost her mind, and she made me bring them back.” Can you even imagine returning bags of loose fruit? We laugh about it now, but seriously, talk about hormonal!

Being a mother is the most ridiculously fabulous things ever, but there are moments where I think my brain may explode. Thursday night happened to be one of those nights for me. I seriously cracked! I was at the dinner table with my bowl of chili in front of me, all smothered with melted cheese and a dollop of Daisy, and I lost it. I had asked Trevan to say the prayer, and he said, “No.” All of a sudden, it was as if someone struck a match and tossed it into a bucket of gasoline. I got fired up, and not in the “Go team!” kind of way. Normally, this situation wouldn’t have even fazed me, I would have just said, “No, go ahead,” or “I’ll just say it.” But that evening, my brain was fried. I was tired from jet lag and my allergy medicine, and Mallary was screaming at a decibel that your ears shouldn’t be exposed to.
Then, Trevan said it again, “No.”
Let me tell you, he was really grinding my grits!
“Trevan, either say the prayer or get down off of that chair, and go to your room.”
“No.” He just sat there!
Oh boy.
“Do you want a spanking???”
As the words came out, I was aware I had crossed to the “other side,” but kept on going.
“If you do not get off of that chair and go to your room, you’re going to get a spanking.”
(Now, just so you know, Trevan has never been spanked, ever. I’m a time outter, so, I knew when I said it, I had given an empty threat. But, it just came out. I have only said that to him two other times, both brief moments when I had crossed to the “other side.”)
At my threat of spanking, his broken heart showed on his face, but that was the only thing it produced. He still wouldn’t say the prayer, and he wouldn’t get off his chair. It literally felt like my head might explode over something so stupid. (Keep in mind Mallary screaming all through this.)
He eventually said the prayer, I don’t remember why though.

I ate my cold chili with my lumpy sour cream in silence, (I’m sure there was smoke coming out of my ears) and did not enjoy even one bite. I left to run errands, and he was in bed when I got home.

Later that night we had just finished watching a movie (or I had just finished watching a movie with John’s snoring in the background) and I was on the computer when I hear the pitter-patter of little footsteps upstairs. I looked at the time, 1:30?? I wait a few minutes to hear where they are headed. I went upstairs and Trevan had gotten back in his bed and was lying there awake. I talked to him for a few minutes then told him his breath stunk. He smiled and said, “That is why I can’t sleep. I need to brush my teeth.” He brushed his teeth; I got him a drink, and gave him a kiss goodnight. As I was walking out of his room, he called, “Mom?” I go back to the side of his bed, “Yes, Honey?” He gave me one of his impish grins and said, “What ship does Windoo fly? (Star Wars, and I don’t know how to spell that) “I don’t know honey, go to sleep. But, as I walked out of his room I thought to myself how much I loved that little boy!

We finally went to bed around two, and at 2:17 I see the outline of a little person headed to our bed. I told him to get in and snuggle with us. We lay there for a little while, and John fell asleep.
“Trevan?”
He rolled over partially facing me.
“I’m sorry for getting so mad at you tonight.”
He rolled over completely so we were face to face and said, “I was crying because you were getting angry at me.”
“I know honey, I’m sorry.”
He scooched closer to me, put his left hand on my face and said, “It’s okay, Mommy.” My heart melted, then I smothered him with kisses.
“Mommy? Daddy makes funny noises when he sleeps.”

Being a mother is the most rewarding, warm fuzzy thing, but it definitely comes along with some challenges!! After Mallary was born, I so had baby blues. John would be leaving for work, and I would be nursing or something and I would beg, “Please, can you stay home today?” Even though I knew the answer was that he couldn’t, I so wished that maybe it would be different the next time I asked. When he left for work in the mornings, I just cried, not really knowing why. John would ask what was wrong, and I couldn’t tell him, I would just be like, “I’m just blue okay!”

So, those are my confessions of a crazed mommy. Usually the craziness comes out in me when I am tired, and trying to do ten things at one time instead of the normal five. But, those moments do come, and post partum and the baby blues are very real things that I think a lot of people don’t think really exist.

I loved this next part in the book that could have easily taken place at my house. It just goes to show some days are just crazy days. Page 310, “All day long I had been at my wit’s end alone with these children, and just barely heated up some scraps of beef from yesterday and put in a little vegetable to make a stew, when here came Jack with Blue Horse and some other soldier I don’t even know as company for dinner, and on top of that asked me to cut his hair and draw him a bath as he was too tired to haul the water.” “I turned to Jack Elliot and said, “If you are too tired to haul water, you are too tired to bathe in it, and I am fit to be tied. Your supper is on the stove and your children are driving me to distraction (I think that means she is saying they are driving her crazy) and April has lost the scissors under the house through a crack in the floor… If that don’t please you, then I will put on a uniform and ride out of here tomorrow morning and chase around the countryside and you can wear this apron and tend these crying children and this drafty house from dark to dark and then tell me you think I should haul you a bath.”

LOVED IT! This happens at our house, but usually John comes home, and I say, “See ya! Dinner’s on the stove!” By the time I return home, I am better, and so thankful I have such a wonderful husband that lets me do that! Just like page 311. I won’t type the page, but well done Jack Elliot!

Wow, it’s getting late. Can I get you some more pie? Pecan?

I think one of the main messages in the book that I love are in these two passages.

“It seems there is always a road with bends and forks to choose, and taking one path means you can never take another one. There’s no starting over nor undoing the steps I’ve taken. It isn’t like I’d want to not have my little ones and Jack and that ranch, it is part of life to have to support yourself. It’s just that I want everything, my insides are not just hungry, but greedy. I want to find out all the things in the world and still have a family and a ranch. Maybe part of passing that test was a marker for where I’ve been, but it feels more like a pointer for something I’ll never reach.” (p. 309)

“He said wisdom is not a path, it is a tree. At the time I was too busy to give it much thought… Now I see that he was surely right. I have been sad almost a whole year, thinking that taking that test was somehow the end of my learning and that not having that as a possibility in my future left a big empty spot in my life that the children and the ranch didn’t fill. But my life is not like that, it is a tree, and I can stay in one place and spread out in all directions, and I can do more learning shading this brood of mine than if I was all alone. I declare, it is like some other part of me made up some rules about happiness and I just went along with them without thinking.” (p. 317-318)

I love to see this turn around. I know I have a tendency to think of all the things I wish I could do, and be kind of bummed that I haven’t been able to do them. I wish I could have been an architect, and design floor plans (still do). I had notebooks with drawings of houses in them, and the floor plans. (I think I stopped drawing when my friend, Jonny B. told me my angles were wrong, or something like that, and I didn't pursue architecture because I can't do math.) In middle school I would buy those floor plan books at the grocery store and study every floor plan. I still hope to design my own house one day. I wished I could have gone to culinary arts school, and go to some kind of floral arranging school, or learn how to cut hair. I wished I could have been a dancer, and an actress (childhood dreams, I loved being on the stage). I had always wanted to start my own business, and thought I would after my kids were grown or at least in school, and then one day I realized, “why, not now??” Just like in the thought in the book, “taking one path means you can never take another one.” I think mothers often think this, ‘Well, I’m a mom, so I can’t do this… or this…’ Why not? Why can’t you go back to school and get that degree you want? Why can’t you take that photography class you would love to take? Why can’t you pick up your favorite hobby again? Why can’t you? I know there is the whole time factor, and money factor, but if something is really important to you, and you want it bad enough, I really believe you will be able to find a way to make it happen, eventually, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually if you work at it.

Don’t we make rules about our happiness? I will be happy when we move into our own house (that was definitely me once upon a time), I will be happy when my kids learn to listen to me. I will be happy when this, this, and this happen. I will be happy when I can do this… We shoot ourselves in the foot when we do this! Why do we do it? We are the only ones holding ourselves back.

“But my life is not like that, it is a tree, and I can stay in one place and spread out in all directions, and I can do more learning shading this brood of mine than if I was all alone.”

I think if I am firmly rooted to the ground (my priorities are in order), and I let it, my tree can spread out in all directions growing more full and larger than I ever imagined. I’m not going to let me stunt its growth.



I can’t wait to hear your thoughts! (This was an insane amount to type, and I could have typed a lot more)

Before you leave I have some door prizes to hand out (I'm sure they did those back then). There is a yellow bonnet, a jar of rouge, some perfume, and a pair of knitting needles.

And, don’t forget to grab your favor; a bar of pink soap, wrapped in blue paper, tied with twine.