by Victoria -

Pinecones and the Ocean

I originally wrote this post back in February of 2012, when I was transitioning from living alone in Arizona to moving back to Michigan to help my dad take care of my mom who had been diagnosed with dementia.  I knew life was going to get difficult, and this vacation in Florida at the time was a welcome hiatus.  Having family close when life gets tough is priceless.

I awoke to the steady, almost deafening, drumming of rain on the metal roof of the beautiful rental we were calling home for the week.

I know its February, but I thought it was supposed to be sunny and warm in Florida.

I left Arizona for this?

Ah, yes, because there’s something else here of more value to me than the mountains and desert and sunshine and heat of Arizona.   Although, come to think of it, those are really, really nice things.

As I began to collect my thoughts, I heard the muffled sounds of the television emanating from the other room. Sounded like my grandsons Noah and Luke were watching cartoons again.

After washing my face and getting dressed, I wandered downstairs to find some life-giving coffee. My daughter was busy reading a book, and the boys were running around still in their pajamas.

After a while the rain let up, so I braved the front porch, perched on the porch swing under the safety of the roof, and listened to the birds. They were quite busy breakfasting on small red berries. I’ve never seen so many robins perched together in a tree before, and a small one at that. The sound of their constant twittering and the whoosh of their wings was calming, and I smiled.

I watched as the gray clouds skittered across the sky and patches of blue began to peek out. I sipped my coffee and sighed a deep sigh of contentment.

Maybe the rain would stop soon and we could go for another walk to gather pine cones again.

Here we are in Florida gathering pine cones. Seems like a funny thing to do.

It was like a scavenger hunt, or trick or treat, finding the pine cones. We found some discarded plastic bags and the boys and I loaded them up. Along with a few sticks and acorns. But mostly pine cones.

We took turns holding hands and running and laughing.

It really doesn’t matter what the weather is doing when you’re with family, does it?

Of course, when I’m in Florida, every day is a bad hair day. This I have come to accept. Frizzy hair is what I have there and that’s just the end of it. I can fuss with it all I want, and within minutes – poof – back it goes to frizz again. I just give up after a day or two, knowing that I look a bit wild. I avoid mirrors.

The boutique shops are always fun to poke around in. I don’t usually buy anything, but virtual shopping is satisfying in a virtual sort of way. I really liked the brightly colored skirts and tops, but I didn’t like the price tags attached. So, that was that.

When it looked like the rain was done for the day, we made our way across the street, down a wooden walkway, and found the Gulf in all of its majesty right there at our feet. The sight made you stop and drink in the view. The water was gorgeous. The blue-green waves with their ruffles of white lace stretched to the horizon and met with the grays of the sky to frame the pictures I kept snapping. I kept some of the soft white sand in the photos too for contrast and context. Lots of memories.

The wind was whipping up pretty cold coupled with the continual crashing sound of the waves as they met the sand and then receded only to gather themselves again and fling their combined droplets forward, stretching, stretching. The mark the waves leave in the sand is temporary. No matter how loud and how strong. Only temporary. The next wave washes away the evidence over and over and over.

The only things left behind are small shells and bits of driftwood. And those are picked up and carted off.

Do you think the ocean gets frustrated? All that effort and nothing much of lasting significance to show for it?

He can be content in knowing we hear and see and enjoy the show. The sights and the sounds mesmerize us. The sand tickles our toes and transports us back to childhood again, as we dig and build sand castles and write our names with sticks just out of reach of the next wave.

Hopefully, I’ll have left some lasting impressions when my waves are finally stilled.

Like collecting pine cones and holding hands and laughing.  

Yeah, I think that will be ok.

by Victoria -

Bicycle in the trees

This article was originally published in the Lynn Haven Ledger as a human interest story in June, 2018.

The leaves, fluttering in the now cooling breeze with the sun dappling their faces, saw it there once again. But that was not unusual. It showed up there most days for a few minutes. The season changed and the rains started and the leaves, now old and heavy with water, let go of their branches and pirouetted to the ground, adding to the ever increasing layer of nature’s detritus on the woodsy floor, soggy and soft, muffling all sound except for the wind.

The next summer came and still it stood there. The trees didn’t mind. The squirrels and lizards, rabbits and neighborhood cats believing themselves to be dangerous predators, crawled, jumped, and climbed around, over, and through as it stood there patiently waiting for someone to return.

As years passed, the trees grew ever taller and greater in girth like older men who love to eat and hate to exercise. As each new season’s leaves looked on, the tree eventually absorbed much of the abandoned and forgotten bicycle now rusted through. Almost like the trees in Fangorn Forest that sucked the unsuspecting Hobbits inside their trunks to devour them whole. But there was no wizard in Lynn Haven to deliver the bicycle.

It was Wes’ bike. Back in 1986, Jeremy’s parents had built their house on a lot they’d recently purchased, and, as parents are wont to do, also put up a fence to not only keep neighborhood kids from using their backyard as a thoroughfare but to corral Jeremy’s younger brother who loved to wander.   They included a gate so Jeremy’s good friend Wes could meet him in the morning and together they’d ride their bikes to school.   The boys were both in 5th grade at the Lynn Haven Elementary school when they started journeying together.

The small copse of trees bordered the two properties, lending some privacy to each family’s backyard. The boys would meet at the fence in the mornings before school and, together, they would ride their bikes there and back again. Jeremy and Wes were good friends and continued their daily routine until they graduated to high school where it was too far to ride their bikes.

Life moved on for the boys who, 32 years later, have careers and friends and don’t remember much anymore about those daily rides to school. Or the whereabouts of Wes’ long forgotten bicycle.

I tried to interview the bicycle, but it was not in a mood for conversation. I’d love to hear its perspective on what it heard and observed as days turned to months and then years to decades.

I remember about five years ago traveling through Kentucky on Highway 31. We came to a sign that said “Prehistoric Indian Artifacts”, and I remember laughing out loud at such a silly attempt at marketing. Wes’ bicycle isn’t prehistoric, or buried treasure like you might dive for in Panama City Beach, and it doesn’t have any monetary value.

But it’s a pretty interesting thing to see. Two trees, instead of pushing a foreign object out of their way, instead patiently grow around it until the bicycle becomes an integral part of the landscape. It’s hard to see in the shade of the trees.

There’s certainly a life lesson here.

I have Facebook friends from Michigan where I grew up. They regularly complain about the weather, especially in the long and seemingly unending winters. I tell them, “pack up your crap and move down here”. But they always have an excuse. They’re kind of like that bicycle letting time and lack of ambition keep them stuck in a place they don’t really want to be, but the effort to change is greater than their dissatisfaction.

I think Wes’ bicycle would have preferred to have been kept inside a garage out of the elements and over time passed down to the next generation of adventurous children wanting a quicker way to get to where they wanted to go.

But, like I said, the bicycle refused to comment, so I can only speculate.

by Victoria -

A Love Song

I wrote this way back in 2010 when I was exiting a bad relationship.  It always amazes me now when I read these old posts from another life, for that is what it is to me now.  God has changed me and my circumstances so much in eight short years, that my past abusive relationships truly feel like a life-time ago.

Why do I get tired of giving in, backing down? Isn’t that what love is?

Maybe I just don’t know how to really love someone else, or, maybe I’m not very lovable and it’s my fault.

Yes, that must be it. I’m not enough – kind enough, or smart enough, or giving enough to warrant his respect.

Respect – is that what I really desire? Do I deserve respect, or do I deserve just exactly what I’ve been getting. I mean, anyone who knows me knows that I’m far from perfect. I mean I don’t always keep the house clean enough, and I forget to fold the clothes, and I fail to get a bill paid on time, sometimes. I’m really a lot of work for him, at least that’s what he tells me.

I guess that means I deserve to be yelled at? I deserve to be called names, and told I’m worthless, right?

I’m pretty used to the way it hurts. My heart is very acquainted with that particular pain. That’s just life, you know? If I were really smart, and really beautiful, and a better person, then I’m sure he wouldn’t need to say those mean things.

He’s just trying to help, right? He wants me to be better than I am. He knows me and he says he loves me. So, that should make it alright for him to do anything he wants. At least, that’s what he tells me.

I don’t know where I’d go if I left – I don’t think my family would want me back. They must see the bad things about me that he sees too. So, I guess it’s best to stay where I am and try really, really hard to make him happy.

Maybe someday he’ll be happy with me, and then I can be happy too.

———-

One sad day there was a young woman who found herself lost in the woods. She wandered around, stumbling over roots and stones, scratching her legs and bruising her feet. She cried out in terror over and over again for someone to come and help her, but no one answered. No one came.

She eventually found what looked like a path of sorts, so she carefully followed it, and after a long while came out of the woods into a beautiful meadow covered with golden flowers that smelled sweeter than anything she had ever smelled before.  The young woman had never seen a field so full to overflowing with such beauty. It almost blinded her.

She should have been afraid, because she didn’t know where she was, but she wasn’t afraid at all. She listened for a while to the bees and the crickets, felt the warm, soft breeze caress her face, and watched the sun as it moved across the cloudless blue sky touching everything with life.

While she was standing there in that peaceful place, she thought she heard a still, quiet voice on the wind. She strained her ears to hear it more clearly, and suddenly heard a voice that sounded strong, yet gentle whisper oh, so softly, that he was watching over her.

A sob caught in her throat, and as she fell to her knees, that comforting voice began to sing a song to her of how much she was loved, and how beautiful he saw her, and how she was one of his most cherished creations. As the hot tears streamed silently down her face, the song came to an end on a fading note of hope.

As a parting gift, the wind softly stroked her face as if with a caressing finger.

When she opened her eyes, she was no longer in the meadow, or the woods. She was in her own home, surrounded by her own things. She turned around and looked at herself in the mirror. For the first time in many years, she saw herself just the way her Creator saw her.

Beautiful and loved and cherished.

She was never the same again. From that day forward, she began to grow into the beloved treasure that she truly was and now knew herself to be.