Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

Wow! The past two days have played out so beautifully I keep wondering how everything seems to be falling into place lately.

It all has to do with my car. Yes…the good old Green Vue. It is still alive and kicking but needed a new headlight fixture and the air conditioning stopped working right after Easter.

I was scared to have it checked because I remembered the last time I took my car in…something was mentioned about probably needing a new compressor soon…but at that time I had been without a car for two weeks and had ended up with an expensive bill over a computer part that took three months of putting money aside to pay off. I had been in no mood to listen to what might need to be done down the road.

As Brer Rabbit would say: “Don’t go looking for trouble…it will find you soon enough.” So when the air conditioning stopped cooling in April…I figured it was the expensive compressor with all its other connected parts and at this point I just wasn’t sure when to call it quits and look for another car. I prayed for the right signs.

When my head light case got cracked awhile back I decided to order the part and then see about getting someone to install it…less expensive that way. And this would prove to be the catalyst for all the good things that have showered down on me.

I had a text from Auto Zone Tuesday afternoon saying the headlight kit had arrived and I could pick it up at any time. I decided to wait until it got a little bit cooler…( at least tolerable with the windows down before I left to get it.)

The clerk I had ordered the kit from a couple of days earlier had told me they couldn’t install the fixture but he had written down some places I could go to get it done. So when I went to pick it up…I didn’t ask about any help for the ordered item… except I did need some new windshield wipers and I knew they did put those on for you for free.

Just as my box was placed on the counter another young Auto Zone worker came in whistling away and announced that he only had ten minutes left before his shift was over…it was 10 minutes to 6. He asked if he could help me…I told him someone was looking up my car information to get me some new wind shield wipers.

“I will take care of that…no problem and I will put them on for you too. In fact I would LOVE to do that for you because then I can leave the parking lot to head home. I replied, “Well if you want to do it and would LOVE to do so…then please do…I would LOVE for you to do it!” And I giggled…then he laughed and said that was the way to end the day…with a happy customer.”

He grabbed the wind shield wipers and the box with my ordered headlight kit and out the door we went. He was so personable…and was having the best time squirting more window washer fluid around as well as testing the wipers. He, then stopped, and looked at his watch.

“It is  one minute after six and I am now a free worker…he walked to the back of my car and got the kit out…“Grab your iPhone and check to see how quickly I install your new headlight cover.”  

“I guess I can do it in 8 minutes” and before I even realized what he was doing he was bent over plugging and unplugging and six minutes later…it was installed.

In awe I responded…”I don’t know how to begin to thank you enough for doing this…now I don’t have to go to another place to get it done.” How did you learn all of this….did you go through the Summerville schools?” 

He looked down for a second and then replied sheepishly…”Nah…none of that book learning…and he pointed to his head…”I just see parts of cars in my head and know how to fix ’em.”

I scrambled to dig up some cash I had in my purse (not enough for his generosity) and I slipped it to him and told him I wish it was more…He said he wasn’t expectin’ nutting so this was a really good something.” He just liked that I giggled and ended his day on a high note.

“I am going to get me some supper with this and that makes me real happy” he grinned.

I then asked if it was possible for him to check my car to see if my Freon was low…my air conditioning wasn’t working right. He said he couldn’t do that there…but he had a buddy who could…and gave me his name and garage location.

Yesterday morning I left early to find the shop and when I arrived I told the owner about his friend from Auto Zone giving me his name . I explained that I needed him to check to see if my Freon was low or what the problem was…my air conditioning wasn’t working.

He told me to sit inside where it was cooler while the boys checked it out. I was so nervous…I just kept praying “Please Lord don’t let it be the compressor…please, please, please.”  Awhile later the owner came back and said they had replaced two valves, were taking some excess moisture out from under the hood with some vacuum looking machine and adding more Freon..that was the main problem.

I was so happy I could have fallen over with relief. The secretary started typing up my bill.. But then suddenly the owner came back in and said “I hate to tell you this but I think you have a weak compressor.“ I am checking it now and will get back to you when I know for certain”…he pointed to his secretary and told her to hold off on the bill.

The situation was getting dicey. ( involving a chance that something bad or unpleasant could happen) What to do…Pray! Hard!

When Walsh was playing football… he was the wide receiver on the Green Wave team. Every time I saw the ball headed towards him I would cup my hands and blow three times into them…all the while praying that he caught it. (Most of the time it worked!)

The young girl who was the financial secretary and I had started talking earlier while the car was being worked on…she had lost her mother to ovarian cancer four years earlier and I told her about living with breast cancer and how lucky I had been. I got her to tell me about her mother and we had really bonded in the “waiting room.”

So now when she saw me standing up nervously blowing in my cupped hands…she gasped, “You do that too!” “While mother was sick I did that all the time…do you blow three times?” I nodded and suddenly she was blowing too for good luck for me.

When the owner came back in…he said they had discovered that when the car was charged the air conditioning was working like a charm but when they cut it off…and it was  idle…it wasn’t staying cool.

I told him I wasn’t ready to put in another expensive compressor at the moment…with the age of the car and mileage…He nodded and said, “You are going to be alright…as long as you are driving and the car is moving you will have good cool air…it is just not going to be so cool if you have to idle long at any point.” 

I was so relieved…”That’s good enough for me…it doesn’t take much to make me happy and you made me happy.” I will be cool and comfortable on I-26 and 526…and those are the two main roads I need to be cool on…to get to my grandchildren and grand-dogs.” The secretary gave me a high five…and I ended up getting another discount to boot because the owner said he was taking an hour off the bill.

I didn’t even ask how long a “weak” compressor might last. Ever since my breast cancer diagnosis…I have learned that there is only one Being Who knows the answer to questions like that …God. So I will enjoy my cool air for however long it lasts and the same thing with my life.

Anne Peterson was the one who convinced me to let someone at least look at the car and see what the problem was….she had the same problem and discovered it was just a Freon issue and not a major compressor too.

Last night we celebrated “cool” cars ….Anne and I got tickets for the Piccolo Spoleto Festival Celtic Arts series being held at the beautiful, historical Congregational Church on Meeting Street. We heard Cillian Vallely and Colin Farrel in concert (along with Patrick Doocey…an amazing guitarist.) I have never clapped so much in my life and/or tapped my foot. They got standing ovation after standing ovation. What is it about Irish music that touches the soul?

We went to Tommy Condon’s Irish Pub before the concert…Delicious!

The round Congregational Church is one of the oldest churches in Charleston…it was purposefully build round, according to legend, because the devil can’t find a corner to hide in if the sanctuary is round. The only “devils” last night were the three good looking Irish ones playing on stage!

St. Phillips Church was beautiful off in the distance as we left the Congregational cemetery.

So until tomorrow…When life gets “dicey” ask for  Divine guidance…

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Tommy and Kaitlyn are keeping Tigger until John and Mandy return….it looks like Tigger and his girlfriend are back together again…could there be love in the air?

Dear Reader:

There are so many things that I like about Brene Brown and her books on imperfection. She is gifted at simplifying the reasons why imperfection is always more preferable than a life consumed in futility and frustration… a life always striving for something humans are not capable of achieving… perfection.

Eva Cate is learning this same lesson at her tender age…she is learning the importance of acceptance of  imperfections over trying to be perfect in all facets of daily life. It is an innate human desire to be accepted by others and it is this intense desire that drives us and causes so many anxious moments in our lives. The saddest part is that once “belonging” socially is achieved…we can find ourselves even lonelier than before.  Fitting in is not the same thing as belonging with our inner selves intact,

Brene Brown explains it well: (It is something we need to recognize in these polarized times.)

Brown’s research surprised her at first. She thought belonging was something people externally negotiated with the groups they seek to belong to. 

“As it turns out, men and women who have the deepest sense of true belonging are people who also have the courage to stand alone when called to do that. They are willing to maintain their integrity and risk disconnection in order to stand up for what they believe in,” Brown said.

Brown said that when we “fit in” as opposed to “belong,” we acclimate to the situation instead of standing for our authentic self. 

We are more sorted than we have ever been in the history of the U.S. We have built ideological bunkers. We are more likely now to live with, worship with, and go to school with people who are politically and ideologically like-minded,” Brown said.

While logic may suggest that this “sorting” results in more people feeling a sense of belonging, Brown warns these connections are “counterfeit.”

“It’s not real connection. All it is – I call it ‘common enemy intimacy,’ the only thing we have in common is we hate the same people,” Brown said. “We’re becoming more lonely as we’re becoming more Balkanized.”  

The solution, as Brown sees it, is to focus on what connects us as humans. As a Houston resident, she withstood Hurricane Harvey and lent a hand to her neighbors. The catastrophic flooding that brought the city to a halt and destroyed thousands of homes also brought out the best in many people.

In the shelter, nobody said, “‘I’ll help you, what is your political belief?'” Brown said.

For Brown, human connection is not breakable but it is sometimes, sadly, forgotten.

“We need to hold hands with strangers. We need reminders – collective joy and pain – reminders that we are inextricably connected to each other.”

Despite the positive stories coming out of Houston, there remains a deep political divide marked by heated rhetoric on both sides. Brown warns that dehumanization is a “subtle process” and it starts with language. 

For that to happen, “We have to slowly move groups of people out of what we consider moral inclusion. We have to move them out of what we see as humanity,” Brown said. “If you go on Twitter today, or Facebook, or any social [media] we see people on the left and right using dehumanizing language about each other like that. And it is terrifying.”

(It becomes easier to treat others immorally if we think of them as less than human. World history should have taught us these lessons through genocides and holocausts in the past and the ones on-going.)

“We are connected to each other in a profound way and the thing that moves us away from that faster than anything else is not politics – but fear.” 

So until tomorrow… let us remember

“When we deny the story, it defines us.

When we own the story, we can write a brave new ending.” 

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“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Aren’t we guilty of wanting to be the first one out of the gate some days, accompanied by our big to-do list…only to discover that God’s list doesn’t always resemble ours? His priorities take precedence over our narrower scope of daily activities or chores?

I can already feel it in my bones…this summer is going to fly by…regardless of what we do or don’t do…the only control we have over our most formidable opponent, time, is in the choices we make filling that time… from start to finish.

As much as I hate to see metaphors depicting life as a race…it certainly feels that way more often than not. School was officially out last Friday, June 1 for most students. I attended Rutledge’s pre-school graduation last Thursday evening and then I returned to Mt. Pleasant to John and Mandy’s house Sunday for instructions on getting Eva Cate and Jakie up, dressed, breakfast, and out the door early yesterday (Monday) morning with lunches, swim suits, towels and medicines….Jakie to pre-school (thanks Katie for helping out on that drop-off) and me taking Eva Cate to day camp.

I am the first shift in the “child-caring village” to keep the children this week. Then Katie, their babysitter, and then the other grandparents will come and take them to Isle of Palms to finish off the week. Tommy and Kaitlyn will take care of Tigger.

John and Mandy left (before 5 a.m. Monday morning) to catch their plane to Jamaica! This is where they went on their honeymoon and now they are celebrating their tenth anniversary! They will be gone a few days! Ten years ago…the wedding and weeks later my cancer diagnosis….what an amazing decade this has been.

This time around they are staying at the Goldeneye Resort with James Bond beach adjacent to it. I texted Mandy and John and told them they were hobnobbing with the “rich and famous” from my research on the place (for a few days anyway! 🙂

*Here are some celebrities who have stayed there from the Trivia Queen, me: Bono, Naomi Campbell, Michael Caine, Pierce Brosnan, Harrison Ford, Johnny Depp, Kate Moss,  and Richard Branson. (Sting wrote “Every Breath You Take” at Ian Fleming’s writing desk (author of the James Bond novels) while vacationing on the estate there in 1982.)

(Perhaps the popular adage about ‘it taking a village to raise a child’ should read “it takes a big family” -and sweet Katie, their favorite babysitter- to raise children and dogs.’)

So when it comes to the dogs and their care….Tommy and Kaitlyn come into play. They will keep Tigger so he can romp with his cousins for part of the week.  (And speaking of play they both came over Sunday afternoon and got in the pool with the children tossing them in the air (to their excited squeals of pleasure- Tommy I hope you aren’t down, too badly, in the back today).

Tommy and Kaitlyn also came bearing gifts from Ireland. They brought John and Mandy some Irish “drink” and me some Irish “Dingle” shoes I had admired so much on Kaitlyn, as well as, Irish memoir trinkets. Too sweet! Love it all!

As I have thought through the last two days…I realize that God has asked me to allot some unforeseen and/or unplanned time on several occasions to itineraries that weren’t on any check-off list….mostly dealing with little Eva Cate.

She was nervous about her first day of camp Monday morning because she didn’t know anybody going to this particular community camp. She grew increasingly nervous when it came time to go drop her off. I kept reassuring her that she would probably recognize  someone from the neighborhood or school…and if not make a new friend.

When I signed Eva Cate in…I saw a little girl, out of the corner of my eye, that I recognized from their neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt who had played with Eva Cate. I don’t know who was more relieved …Eva Cate or me as she ran over to join her friend.

I talked to the counselor and asked her to please try to keep Eva Cate and her friend together if possible on the road trips to the different events they would be experiencing this week. She smiled, nodded and made a note to do so. Eva Cate was smiling and laughing with several little girls when Katie (babysitter) picked her up.

However last evening as the sun was setting…poor little Eva Cate came down with  Boo’s childhood ailment… a really bad case of homesickness. (It was those old crickets and their “cricketing” that sent her over the top.) What is it about the time the sun goes down each day that is so bewitching? John and Mandy had called and were obviously concerned when they heard her crying so hard for them. Mandy texted me and asked if I would call and talk to her which I did.

I tried to use some humor and tell her about my own  homesickness experiences growing up and reassure her that what she was feeling was quite common…but that she needed to be a big girl and know that her mommy and daddy whole-heartedly deserve this wonderful get-away by themselves and that the best gift she can give them…the one that will make them the happiest is if she, too, remains happy and has a good time while they are gone. I told her that I knew she could do this for her mommy and daddy.

I got a text twenty minutes later from Kate…she was sound asleep.

I certainly hadn’t written this time in on my daily planner…but looking back on it…the time spent with Eva Cate, encouraging her, reassuring her… was the most satisfying time of the day…the most important. Yesterday was a chance to teach and hand down some life lessons that will hopefully stay with Eva Cate in her memory for a long time.

So until tomorrow…Sometimes getting out of the gate first isn’t as important as what happens at the end of the race…and what we did to make the world a little brighter or help someone else through a tough time.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*All it has taken is two days in the nineties with no rain and already the baskets and potted flowers are drooping. Tomorrow morning…out I go…it is time to water again. But how I love the little flowers that bloom in full sun and can withstand the intensity.

Dear Reader:

I could hardly contain my excitement Saturday when I strolled through the garden early in the morning and saw my beloved “Black Beauty” had returned. This day lily is my favorite of all! The burgundy is so dark…that in the early morning hours…it looks like black velvet. Breath-taking!

As you know by now my brain is a “connecting” machine…always searching for the link between a visual life form and a memory from the past. I had it…one of my all-time favorite novels…”Black Beauty.”

When I began my research on the book the first quote from it reminded me why I loved it so.

“…. there is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham….”

I was definitely old enough (I was about 12 when I first read this story) by the time I read this beautiful story…old enough to understand the meaning of the word hypocrisy…even if I didn’t recognize the word spelling. It was just starting to dawn on me that what adults said and what they did were often polar opposites. Sadly religion is an area where hypocrisy raises its ugly head way too often…most likely I think because there is so much trust involved …it hurts more.

As an adult I realize that it always goes back to that nasty old word greed. Kindness, generosity, helpfulness are all fine virtues unless money enters the equation, Then suddenly people change their stances on morality (with flimsy excuses and justifications) in order to make money doing something that is just the opposite of what they say or teach.

In a nutshell that is what the horse, Black Beauty, shows us from the unusual perspective of being the narrator of the novel. We see animal and mankind kindness and cruelty through the horse’s eyes.

Anna Sewell, the author, injured both her ankles while walking home from school in the rain when she was 14. She was never able to walk again due to poor medical treatment of her injuries. This lead her to use a pony and trap to get around in.

It was her familiarity with this form of transport that fostered her interest in and love of horses. She developed a growing concern for how such creatures could so easily be mistreated. She never married or had children. In visits to European spas, she met many writers, artists, and philanthropists. Her only book was Black Beauty, written between 1871 and 1877 in her house at Old Catton.

During this time, her health was declining, and she could barely get out of bed. Her dearly-loved mother was there for her constantly as she became a complete invalid.

She sold the book to the local publishers, Jarrold & Sons. The book broke records for sales and today is the “sixth best seller in the English language.” By telling the story of a horse’s life in the form of an autobiography and describing the world through the eyes of the horse, Anna Sewell broke new literary ground.

The first published book was dedicated to her mother for all her years of care-giving. Anna died five months after her only novel was published.

This copy of the first edition of the book was dedicated by the author to her mother. It was auctioned off at Christie’s in London in June 2006 for £33,000.

I can only hope my “Black Beauty” brings joy and delight to all who see it. I know it brings happiness to me.

Here are two more of my favorite garden delights…the very first bloom from my Mister Lincoln’s rose…an historical moment for the garden…June 2 2018!

Finally my Gerber daisy got enough to drink and look what it did!

The other day, when I was picking up prescriptions at CVS I saw it…two pineapple design (battery operated) lights. I thought of my two sconces in my happy room and I grabbed them. For the last two nights I have turned them on…so beautiful and hospitable!

So until tomorrow…Being true to our values is always challenging…but also worth its own rewards.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*I was just finishing up this blog when a summer thunderstorm (actually spring) blew in and the temperature dropped unbelievably fast… bringing in cool breezes through the window by which I sit to write the blog entries.

And oh that smell we have talked about…that wonderful sweet, earthy, fresh scent of rain is so powerfully evocative. Scientists say it is a mixture of two chemicals, one being ozone…but I won’t go there. Too scientific. For me it is God raining down perfume on His children.

Dear Reader:

Speaking for all human beings… don’t we wish that an operating manual came attached to newborns? …Instructions on how (not) to just survive the first year…but our whole lives?

Instructions like “Turn here, take a right, avoid congestion on third street, take a drive in the country, stop and smell the roses, don’t respond, remain calm,  laugh more, pray more, love more, be still.”

Some days I truly wish I came with directions because I feel that I am just spinning around and around instead of moving forward down my path. Ever had one of those days?

It is during times like this that I have to remind myself…that I am the book I so desperately seek. God is the author and every minute I breathe another sentence is being written in it.

As the main character in my own story…I can take the plot in a lot of different directions…depending on the choices I make.

Yesterday I came across a short message on remembering  what is most important in our personal stories… while editing the rest out of our life’s legacy as empty baggage.

“Things to Remember”

I find what I look for in people. If I look for God, I find God. If I look for bad qualities, I find them. I, in a sense, select what I expect, and I receive it.

A life without challenges would be like going to school without lessons to learn. Challenges come not to depress or get me down, but to help me master, grow, unfold and bloom thereby.

In the Father’s wise and loving plan for me, no burden can fall upon me, no emergency can arise, no grief can overtake me, before I am given the grace and strength to meet them.

I have also come to the realization that it is not enough to simply live our stories…but we must also share them. As Ira Glass has said, ” Great stories happen to those who tell them.”

Think of all the books we have read about other people’s lives throughout our life and what an inspiration and impact they have had on it. Everyone’s story has the same potential to help others…if we just tell it. Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt…I think… it brings connection. Let’s connect through telling our stories!

So until tomorrow…We must all learn to connect our lives through sharing our stories with each other…it is still the only resource humanity has for binding ourselves with humanity.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*An early morning walk in the garden, with the scent of freshly blooming gardenias, has me feeling so lucky and happy to be alive on such a beautiful morning!

*And a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our Loveable YA LIBBY! WE LOVE YOU!

(Libby is the second to the right…beautiful inside and out!)

Dear Reader:

I had an epiphany last evening as I pondered the direction my thoughts would choose to travel for the blog today. The realization of my acknowledgement that God leads each of us along our individual paths through our life journey (on a daily basis) here on earth suddenly clarified. It just doesn’t stop with His Presence observing our choices in life. Metaphorically it is the direction of our thoughts that become paramount with living a fulfilled life here on earth.

I think it was the beauty/glow from my two morning glories, early yesterday morning, that got me started thinking about the soothing presence of nature. Since starting my garden almost five years ago…it has become the salve that heals my own troubled thoughts. It truly is my personal sanctuary.

While these thoughts were running through my mind…a God Wink appeared! I “happened” upon a familiar poem by Wendell Berry. Suddenly all my muddled thoughts concerning the impact of my garden on me, my life, and inner musings… came to light through this short message/poem.

There it is…my garden has set me free! It is civilization that causes me the most concern…not God’s greatest gift to us through nature. It is man who spawns our problems in his attempt to “improve” our world through untested waters and missed priorities of a self-imposed, societal definition for what constitutes a “civilized” life.

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Friday was the first full day (in what seems like forever) that we didn’t receive rain in some form or the other…torrential rains, pop-up thunderstorms, steady rains, or soft drizzle. The humidity has felt like a thick veil wrapped around our bodies… tightly…continuously… upon stepping outside.

On the first day of June…the rains ceased, however, the temperatures began climbing and the nineties are now knocking on the door for the next several days. The gardener, in me, has gone back on daily vigil duty… assessing what plants, flowers, or trees need what sustenance, while adjusting to the brighter, hotter weather.

The one plant I don’t need to worry about are the hydrangeas…the blooms are literally toppling over each other. So far all my hydrangeas are “boys”….all different shades of blue…and they are so beautiful. Every now and then I peek outside my computer “office” window and stare down at the two dwarf hydrangeas I planted after mounds of leaves and debris were removed last fall from that section of my property.

*All the good earthy composition left behind is so rich in nutrients that the bushes have outdone themselves for their first revelation.

I am praying this citronella plant, I have on my deck, is going to do the trick…with all the rains we have had in our wettest May on record…the mosquitoes are busy having babies…it is going to be rough for awhile getting out in the garden.

Hydrangeas make the most beautiful flower arrangements inside.

Welcome to my two new mandevillas in the back yard. Since the morning glories seem to be struggling somewhat this year…I thought the mandevillas would add more color to the fence area. (PSST! These two-gallon pink planters had been $25.99 at Home Depot -a piece. While I was shopping last week they were literally marked down to $5.99!. Doesn’t a “steal” make us feel so lucky? It made my day!)

I think we must end this post with a chuckle and Jo Dufford can do it better than anyone I know. She had let me know that she had trouble leaving a response the other day…something popped up about cookies and privacy. She got her daughter, Kelly, to try to explain the tech jargon behind the term. (Jo thought she had gotten busted sneaking cookies out of the cookie jar!)

Then she ended her message with this fun excerpt….

…“Really I’ve always kind of enjoyed cookies so I should have felt that anything with the name cookie couldn’t be very bad.  I feel like the guy named James Lewis, whose wife yelled at him, “James Lewis, get a way from that wheel barrow because you know  nothing about machinery.”

*Jo, please don’t feel alone…anytime something pops up that I don’t understand I just delete or turn off the computer and go about my merry ways.

So until tomorrow…“For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and I am free.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Joan Turner, John’s mom, let us know that her beloved dog, Lucy, passed away. There is a long story here…but basically Joan rescued Lucy running down a highway…took her home where she promptly had four puppies that Joan provided a home for, along with their mother Lucy, at her house.

It was definitely a “God Wink” when a stray dog and a great humanitarian, like Joan, paths crossed on a busy highway. What a life Joan gave her…no dog could ever have been loved like she was! Heaven is going to have to “up their game” to come close to the life of unconditional love you gave her and her family in this world.

Dear Reader:

The other day as I started out the door something seemed off to me…however, I shook the feeling away and kept going with all my “important” busyness. It was only later, when I returned home, and started to open my glass storm door…I quickly realized what was amiss! My hanging birthday angel with the September sapphire (Marcia gave me) was gone…oh no…where was she…she was my good luck angel for the house and all within…surely she hadn’t “flown the coop.”

Apparently the suction cup that held her had dried up and fallen knocking the rusty hook from the cup and my poor birthday angel had accidentally been stepped on and kicked to one corner of the porch.

With great relief…I realized that the angel was okay…I just needed to purchase another suction cup with a hook attached…which I did. It was than that I noticed how different the angel looked with two diverse backdrops… depending on whether one was entering or leaving the house.

Leaving the house…the  angel is always “flying” over the front yard and fence.

Entering the house…the backdrop picks up some of the mantle, backdoor wreath and outside brick…a very curious “flying” area.

Like Alice in Wonderland (by Lewis Carroll) wrote — ‘Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).’ Alice grew so tall, like a telescope… so much so,  that she could no longer see her feet!

Rutledge has always been a curious child and last night he graduated from Primose Pre-School. Next year he will enter 5 year-old public kindergarten at the new Phillip Simmons Elementary School located closely adjacent to his neighborhood. He is so excited! (So are Walsh and Mollie…can finally save tuition money on one child…hurrah!)

When I asked Mollie for ideas for his “graduation” she replied that he is really interested in basketball now and there is a little basketball game/ alarm clock where you can press a button and try to shoot baskets besides using it to wake up with each morning. Fun! (When I ordered it…Amazon.com said it was for children five and up…but mentioned that it had been one of the most popular men’s stocking stuffers last Christmas. Most men continue to love their toys…shoot baskets at work and watch time fly.)

*It was a huge hit with Rutledge…he loved it…took it out to eat and was finally persuaded to leave it in the car right before graduation time.

However, it is his graduation card that I am most excited about…first just let me show you the card and then I will explain the story behind it!

When Rutledge was about two and attending an earlier pre-school their class apparently was doing an art project one day or perhaps a math lesson with beans. At that time Jakie was attending the same pre-school and I happened to be at Mandy’s that day so we both went to pick up Jake.

There was a lot of commotion going on…several teachers were encircled around one student…it was Rutledge. Being a “curious” child he decided to see if the bean would fit up his nose. With some pushing he got it up there…tightly wedged in…and the teachers were struggling to get it out.

Eventually it all ended well…Rutledge looked puzzled as to why the teachers were so concerned about the bean up his nose. (Thus the card…you’ve come a long way Rutledge!)

My favorite quote of Eleanor Roosevelt’s is:

“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

We all have curiosity as children, but sadly we  quickly lose it. Curiosity should be the best gift we are given and should never leave our side as we move forward in the time-line of our lives.

If I hadn’t been curious and taken a picture of the gates the other day I would have missed out on so much fun and local history.

*Thanks for all the nice comments about the history of the old Halcyon Inn…I learned a lot from some of the comments back from you… like those of Lisa Bell Boyd:

“I was so excited to see all this! Tommy and I lived there in one of their cottages in the first few years of our marriage!!! We did not know the the history!! We loved the Dions! They were so good to us!!!”

Think about this statement I once read and consider the truth of it:

“Adults who aren’t curious may do well enough in the world, but they rarely influence it.”

So until tomorrow….Rutledge…Boo Boo wants you to always stay curious because if you stay curious…you remain a child at heart…no matter how old you grow. 

If you want to know something Rutledge…like what is over the next hill or around the next bend, don’t let obstacles in your way stop you! Be curious enough to get back up when you stumble or fall and keep climbing until you find your answer…I know you can do it. Love, Boo Boo

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Don’t forget! Today is the first day of June…say “rabbit” first thing today and have a curious month!

It is the ordinary every day facets of life that turn out to be so fascinating if we just stop long enough to let our curiosity lead us on another exciting discovery.

Last night the “discovery” was graduation night for Rutledge.

Graduation pictures….’You know you are getting old(er) when you become emotional at every grandchild’s performance/program.’ It was a night of farewells to teachers and classmates who will be going to several different elementary schools throughout the Charleston area.

Dear Reader:

Sometimes the most interesting things in life start with one small pause…a quick observation. I will always thank SCE&G for bringing traffic to a complete standstill last week while they were trimming trees on Highway 17-S. Main Street.

If not for my car being completely immobile, I never would have have had time to roll down my windows and leisurely look around at the morning shadows falling across the highway from the overhanging tree branches.

…And I certainly wouldn’t have had time to suddenly notice a beautiful gate, which I had never seen before, with a house set back in the distance…and even take a picture! Little did I know that I was staring at some fascinating local history… just itching to tell its story! Life doesn’t get better than this…for a retired history teacher!

Through these beautiful gates lies the history of an amazing home….from its original construction in the 1830’s and 40’s (being named for its first owner/builder John Duke…the Duke House) to the Halcyon Inn during the Golden Inn period of Summerville history. The Golden Age of the Inns started in the 1890’s and began dying out after WWII when motels began springing up to accommodate more motorists traveling the new “super” highways.

Let’s start our story with the Halcyon Inn. First of all the term “Halcyon” doesn’t exactly just roll off the tongue without a second’s hesitation. One must remember his/her freshman Greek mythology course in  college (or even perhaps in high school) to get to the root of this word. It is pronounced HAL-see-un. It denotes a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful.

The phrase “halcyon days” owes its origin to a beautiful Greek myth about the goddess Halcyon and her mortal lover, King Ceyx. (Their love story is complicated to say the least…so if you have time to look it up…you will attest to that assertion.)

According to the legend, for two weeks every January, Aeolus, father of Halcyon, calms  the winds and waves so that his daughter Halcyon, the goddess disguised in the form of a kingfisher bird, can safely make her nest on the beach and lay her eggs. Hence, the term “halcyon days”  has come to signify a period of great peace and calm.

Since these weeks of peaceful, calm weather appear around the winter solstice…even into February…the Halcyon Inn once attracted northern residents/tourists, tired of winter weather, to come south for repose and tranquility…and stay at the inn named for peace and prosperity.

In 1909 an old plat showed the Halcyon Inn had eight acres with a famous octagon-shaped gazebo, servant quarters, and other outside buildings that were later turned into guest cottages. It was quite a spread and was known for its outstanding cuisine…with  the head of the kitchen staff having once run the Tea Room at the Middleton Place.

As the old inn died out in the 1950’s…it became a personal residence again for the Dion family and relatives of the family… including the Richardson family. (* I couldn’t get a time-line on all the Summerville families who have lived there in the past…if anyone knows of other families who once resided there…do let me know.)

I couldn’t help but wonder who might be living there at present…it is so beautiful when one drives by…I found myself yesterday pondering all the wonderful stories that surely have taken place in that lovely home over the many generations it has stood. The fence surrounding the home feels like a benevolent guardian to the privacy and safeguarding of its residents.

Then yesterday morning…I had a message from Lassie concerning the current residents and a whole new amazing story came to life. Lassie wrote:

“Becky, I think that gate is the Halcyon property. Last I heard Brett Gardner of Yankees fame lives there with his family in the off-season. Someone correct me if I am wrong.”

Wow! I immediately looked up Brett Gardner and was blown away by his biography on-line. What an amazing young man with enough perseverance to match all of us living in Summerville collectively, besides being an incredibly gifted professional baseball player! *And he is a “local” boy…having grown up and played ball in and around Holly Hill, South Carolina.

His father, Jerry Gardner, played in the minors for the Phillies. He owns a 2,600-acre farm in Holly Hill. Brett was raised there, in his childhood, on this family farm. 

The article, I read, had this to say about him professionally…

Player Profile: Gardner is considered one of the fastest players in Major League Baseball. He is best known for stealing bases and being very disciplined at the plate. He makes contact with 93% of his swings, third best in the American League. In 2010, Gardner saw more pitches per at-bat than any other player in the American League.

*The article concluded by saying that Gardner lives in Summerville, South Carolina with his wife and two sons during the off-season.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

So until tomorrow…Isn’t life astonishing when we take a moment to pause and look around us? Personally, I will never drive past these gates again without remembering some of the stories from my research and hoping/praying that the present-day family and whoever else in the future, resides there , will find the peace and tranquility associated with its name (Halcyon.)

I can only imagine, with the stress of playing a professional sport…that tranquility is what the Gardner family seeks upon their return each year in off-season.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*** A special thank you to two of my favorite Summerville Sleuths who helped me with the information I needed to be able to find and research this article. Honey Burrell and Lassie Murray! Good work ” Legally Pink” detectives…you deserve a promotion….how about  ice cream the next time Honey, that you are in Summerville…the three amigos!

Dear Reader:

Don’t most of us remember hearing our parents’ advice to us (over and over) when we would start squabbling with our siblings or neighborhood friends…”Remember if you are angry, take a deep breath, count to 10, and make yourself start calming down before you do something you will regret.”

It dawned on me as I was reading a poem called “Keeping Quiet ” by Pablo Neurada from Awakin.org that it seems like now 12 is the number needed to make ourselves stop what we are doing or thinking and play a type of spiritual “freeze frame” to keep us centered and in the moment.

Here is an excerpt (three stanzas) from his poem:

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

…If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death…

I loved David Doane’s response to the poem…

“In reading this passage, some of my favorite quotes come to mind.  Rumi said, “Silence is the language of God, all else is a poor translation.”  According to Pascal, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” 

And Lin Yutang’s “If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.”  ‘Do nothing’ means to me to do no thing, and simply be mindfully present.  I allowed life to interrupt sadness when I paused to sit in my back yard, took in the beauty of nature, settled into it, felt together with it, and felt soothed and nurtured by it.

Such moments are an example of ‘keep on moving’ by being goallessly present in the flow of life which is very different than keeping our lives moving by determined goal-direct effort.”

So many of us grew up with very specific goal-directed expectations from our parents. Few of us had the luxury of “finding ourselves”… we just dove into a paying job and had to ‘find ourselves’ along the way.

For me…I now realize that two benchmarks guided me towards my innate goal….retirement and a cancer diagnosis. Both incidences taught me that I knew I wanted to find my voice before I was no longer here to do so.

It took me two years of “being goalessly present in the flow of life” to recognize what had been hidden from my consciousness too long… I needed to write in order to breathe.

Haven’t we all, at one time or another, been caught unaware of something right within eyesight…but hidden in foliage…literally and/or figuratively?

This literally happened to me the other day…I was taking the Simmons Avenue cut-through from Central Avenue to 17-A. Suddenly I noticed a pond, trail, and what looked like a hippo with a bird on its back right smack in the middle of the pond. It was sprinkling but I turned off Simmons and pulled over to get a better shot of the statues in the water. How cool and how had I missed this all this time?

Farther up and across the way was a small playground…so much more convenient for me to take the grandchildren to than the Laurel Street Park. “Good grief Charlie Brown” I admonished myself..I live less than two miles from here…just across the highway and I didn’t even know it existed…because I had never turned to look to the left or right but just kept following the road in front of me.

These two incidents reminded me of an Edisto tour the Ya’s took a few years back and our tour guide, Don, showed us where a rabbit and an alligator had been painted on two different tree knots. How many times had I passed those two trees arriving and leaving Edisto on the only road leading into and out of the island- Highway 174- and never seen them?

Now I have a mystery I need help solving from any of you local folks…the other day as I pulled out of Miler Country Club taking a right onto 17-A heading back into town…I got caught in the standstill traffic congestion from SCEG cutting down tree limbs.

I rolled down my window and idly started looking around (I can’t remember if I had gotten to the Marion Avenue cut-through or not) but suddenly I saw these gates that were so beautiful. It startled me just knowing these gates had been there and somehow this was my first conscious sighting of them. I grabbed my IPhone and took a picture. It was while I was focusing that I noticed I was picking up some red tint and realized that there was a house behind the gates with a red roof.

One person who looked at the photo said it belonged to an old Summerville family but couldn’t remember which one. Can somebody please help me. I am hopeful that there is someone who recognizes this gate and house…

So until tomorrow…Let us pause in our daily lives to see things around us that we have seen never before…we just have to stop moving long enough to see what has always been right there in front of us.

*It is a cool thought though isn’t it…if every single human being would “Freeze” for just one minute…no motion at all across the globe at the same time…how phenomenal would that be? Pure silence…nothing allowed to move…silence would be golden. It would be a beautiful ‘hush’ that penetrates the noise of everything on earth. I get goosebumps thinking about it.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* Brooke came yesterday so we could have a girl day out…lunch at Oscars (seafood special for lunch) and then the movie (of course) The Book Club. Don’t remember when I have laughed for that long…in a long time!

As soon as Brookie pulled out…the gracious Gin-g pulled in…always bringing treats…so sweet. We had a chance to talk and then lo and behold as Gin-g was leaving she pointed to a gift Chris Frazier had given me…a decorated cross with the word Courage on it with a key and key hole in the back. *I had tried to see at one point if the key opened up anything in the back key hole but when it didn’t I just laid it down flat with the key beside it.

Gin-g took the gift…inserted the key and it created the “mount board” to stand the cross up. How many times had I thought it would show up so much better if it could stand…well…it can! Thanks Gin-g!

This visual mantra of Kelly Rae Roberts’  creative artworks needs to be placed with the Courage Cross…just as a reminder to me.

Dear Reader:

Memorial Day didn’t turn out quite as badly as the forecasters first predicted for our area…we certainly had some rain but it wasn’t continuous or torrential. We have a lot to be thankful for when so many harbor cities to our north had to deal with extreme flooding, as well as, the Gulf states. Hope everyone is safe and dry today.

So to paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote: ” Live in the Sunshine, Swim in the sea, Drink the Wild Air” Summerville hasn’t seen much sun, the rip tides are scary and most tourists are warned about them if they venture into the sea and the only wild air is pretty muggy…actually downright muggy… but still life doesn’t get much better these days. The long weekend was appreciated by those lucky enough to get it off at their workplace, so as to spend time with family, or read a good book, or start a fun project, or simply relax and catch up on deserved rest!

Speaking of reading books…it isn’t even June and I have devoured two of my favorite lowcountry authors’ latest ‘beach reads’ and just started on my third lowcountry author’s read. (Can you tell it has been raining a lot?)

The first was Dorothea Benton Frank’s latest book…By Invitation Only. When I heard her interview on our local Charleston morning program she said she got the idea for this new novel from her own life…since she has been involved with her grown children’s weddings over the past few years. She was lucky and everything went incredibly smoothly for her…but what if it didn’t? And those thoughts took her to the latest novel which is truly hilarious.

Frank is back on with her southern humor and just enough tragedy and sadness to make the story realistic, but also hopeful. A light summer read…which is where I am at right now…It hit the spot.

Mary Alice Monroe’s latest novel brought back some characters I feared were lost forever…but Monroe weaved in the new characters and latest generational family members so seamlessly with the more familiar comfortable characters we had come to love and adore. One always gets a lump in their throat throughout a Monroe book…but once again…hope prevails and nostalgia is left hanging from the trees like Spanish Moss.

Mary Kay Andrews’ latest beach novel just arrived yesterday so I haven’t had a chance to read it yet…but her novels are always filled with humor and interesting relationship twists and turns…enough to make you decide putting off going to the store one more day so you can keep reading. What’s one more day eating cereal for supper?

I love checking out my garden in between showers because the rain is just making the garden grow lovelier and the blooms pop out with raindrops hanging from them…absolutely breathtaking! Let me take you to my new favorite spot in the garden.

The photo below shows how my garden is finally starting to look like the ‘Secret Garden’ I have always dreamed of…I still have a long way to go… but certain spots now makes me breathe out a little more slowly and definitely longer.

So until tomorrow…Let’s make our own sunshine during the rainy days of late spring, enjoy a long soak in a tub or a long shower, and wait on the cool breezes of late evening or early morning …and be happy we are alive and grateful for it on this (now) past 2018 Memorial Day weekend.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh