Thursday, May 25, 2006

a glimpse of home

everyone has been wondering "where the HELL are you?????". well i'm still here somewhere between hell and the outer rings of purgatory (same diff, right?). naw, it ain't that bad. i've just been otherwise occupied with the proverbial task of "gettin' my shit together" so to speak.
i'm making progress, i'm happy to report. i'm learning something i wish i had learned years and years ago. i'm learning to let go of stuff i have absolutely no control over. ain't no need stressing over things that i can't control. i gotta tell you, it feels really good to let go of some of the stress. i'm sleeping a little better for it and i feel like i'm ready to actually grow up. *gasp* i'm definitely a late-bloomer in a lot of ways, but that's a monologue for another time. as a matter of fact, i have a list of things to be hashed out here on later dates.
as most folks who have read my blog in the past know, i'm a southern gal living up north. from time to time, particularly during the long, cold, gray winters, i get pretty darned homesick. when i find myself getting homesick, i'll fix myself a mess of turnip or collard greens, a pan of cornbread, and some iced tea and i'll watch a movie like "o brother where art thou" or "a time to kill", both of which were filmed back home in mississippi. well i did this about three weeks ago. this time i watched "a time to kill" while eating a plate of fried catfish, hush puppies, and cole slaw. i noticed something delightful in the scene where jake goes to see judge noose at his big old antebellum home--a watercolor painting by wyatt waters. now in the scene it was made to look like the judge himself was painting this picture, but i recognized the style immediately. wyatt waters is one of my favorite artists. no matter the subject of his paintings, the colors are vibrant and the style is both soft and crisp at the same time. i've now made it my mission in life to own one of wyatt water's paintings one of these days. that way i can look at the painting on the wall every time i need a little glimpse of home.

4 comments:

srp said...

Here from Michele.
Oh, the letting go of the things we can't control, the absolute hardest thing we ever have to learn. And I'm not sure we ever really learn that lesson completely.

Anonymous said...

Mmmm, fried catfish and hush puppies. Don't have to be southern to love that!

Here's hoping things start looking up.


~K!

here frm Michele's

Unknown said...

Jac: So great to read this post. I think you would enjoy reading Sela Wards book "Homesick". It reads beautifully with magic from a very wise and funny lady I was privileged to meet. She's from Meridian, MS. Srp and I agree about the baggage. So good to grow. Always! lol!!

Jack H said...

Ho! What?! Greetings, then, you also "Jac" - for this is the "name" by which I have also been called here in the United "States" of America in the Northern Hemi-sphere. This designation was "selected" by my human parents and "given" to me when I was inchoate, as are all human infants.

I express condolences with the alienation of your displacement. To take up "residence" in a foreign body is quite "vertiginous," as all know. Your American society is ever so peripatetic, however, what?! Well do I myself know this fact so much, however, having been spawned and birthed here as happens with all such indigenous “country-men” as you and myself, both of whom are commoners.

And now I must flee to some amusing event or “pass-time.”

Farewell to you jac!


Jack H