Try to Find the FUNNY

"The Bride Wore Tube Socks"

Do me a favor.

Do yourself a favor.

Try to find the “funny” in every single day.

Even Abraham Lincoln once said:

“Were it not for my little jokes, I could not bear the burdens of this office.”


Hope your day is filled with FUNNY!

MY PROFILE. . .

In the event that I am ever incorporated into the game of “Trivial Pursuit”, following is some information about me that is a “must have”.


I believe I am a complicated person.

In fact, a couple of people I worked with, on different occasions, told me I was complicated and went on to say that they were trying to “figure me out”, but had not yet done so. I took that as a compliment because I find it rare that anyone would care enough about someone to spend time trying to “figure them out”. I think this must be the reason my husband stayed with me for so long – he must have liked that about me. In fact, he said this to me many times, now that I think about it: “Jo, I CANNOT figure you out!” (Oh - I miss that so much!)

Although I have always felt there was something else I was meant to do, I was a manager at a large corporation for an entire career. That worked out quite nicely. For part of my life, however, I had a secret desire to be a cashier. As a child, I was fascinated by cash registers. Then, everybody got rid of the old cash registers with the delightful-sounding clackety keys and I lost that desire.

Sometimes now, I have a secret desire to be a waitress. I am a pleasant person and some people seem to enjoy my company, and my family has ALWAYS enjoyed having me do things for them, so I fantasize that I could rake in large tips. Then I remember that I have been known to trip over my own feet, so I probably need to stop thinking about this.

I think I have a very strange sense of humor. I try to “find the funny” in everything, and usually do. However, I have never learned to appreciate bathroom humor (and I hope I never will).

I have been known to cuss, but I have just about given that up altogether, as I realize that it never accomplished anything whatsoever.

I believe I would enjoy dancing – but have never had anyone to dance with. My husband didn’t care for such nonsense – so I really don’t know why I have this belief. (And then there’s the tripping-over-my-own-feet thing…)

Candy I like: Orange slices - any brand as long as it is fresh. Malted milk balls - Brach’s brand only.

Things I like: Clean Sheets

People fascinate me. As a child, I would rather have listened to an older person tell a story than to play outside. And I loved playing outside!

It is my goal to improve myself each day – even in the smallest way. I want to “let my little light shine” and be a blessing to everyone I meet. It is my wish to learn to love others completely and without judgment because, I think, after all is said and done, it is the only thing that matters.


Oh – and I love that little saying that I saw posted the other day:

“Jesus knows me – this I love.”



Note: If you ask me about myself tomorrow, I will probably write something completely different. But I suppose that is because I am really just like you – complicated.

...to be Loved....

"My Quiet Place"

I’m sitting in my favorite spot – my swing on the back porch. Today isn’t exactly like the ‘good ole days’ because I’m not SWANGING and eating chocolate pie. Today, I have my laptop on my lap (instead of pie).

I have a vine that has wandered up the porch posts from several feet below. It’s called a Carolina Jasmine. If you GOOGLE this vine, you will find that its description says it will climb to heights of more than 20 feet in its quest for sunlight. It is true that it will climb, but I tend to think it is because the plant is also in search of a place to "belong". If you get close to one of the tendrils, it will reach out and gently nudge you - in a soft, loving kind of way.

Everyone…everything…just wants to be loved!

Hope you will get – and give – lots of hugs today!

Blessings!
Majo

Homeless?

Of all the articles about grief that I have read this past year, the one that stuck with me was the one that told me I am miserable because I am no longer with the person who DEFINED me.

Okay – so maybe that is it - the answer to this sorrowful plight. So, if it is the answer, now what?

Could it really be true that I don’t know who I am anymore because I WAS who I was because we were together? Now, who am I? How do I feel? I don’t know how to say how I feel. What’s the right word? Today it struck me that maybe I feel like a homeless person. That would sound strange to someone who knows me because they can see I live in a comfortable little cottage. It is dry and safe. I can have anything I want to eat. I have more clothes than I need. Homeless? The word entered my mind because the feelings I have are those of a lost, helpless person, stumbling around, wondering things like how I ended up like this and what’s next for me and how the rest of my life is going to play out. Sure, I have gone back to work, and I have laughed – things I thought I would never do again. But something keeps nagging at me – wanting my life back the way it was. Nagging enough to keep me uneasy and uncertain and afraid. A bad dream isn’t just a bad dream anymore. I wake up to a second nightmare when I find myself awake and alone.

Why do I mentally insist that I want my life back when I know it is impossible? When I was not alone, there were days when it was so hard that I fantasized about being alone. (Yikes! Did I really say that?) And therein lies much of what makes my grief harder and more terrifying – those unresolved issues. The KNOWING that there were things both of us should have taken care of and didn’t – and now they are forever undone.

So I wander and wonder in this current “homeless” state, not comfortable in my own skin. I will wait for peace and acceptance of my "new normal".

Blessings to all!
Majo

GLORY DAYS!

So, I just joined Facebook and I got to thinking about my “Glory Days”…

I was in Heflin way over a year ago (maybe 2?) and saw a sign that said POPS BAR-B-Q was for sale. I went in and got a shake and cheeseburger and thought about my school days and old friends – even though the restaurant wasn’t at the same location as when I was a kid. The little red-haired lady who ran the original POPS in ’68 was still there, taking orders! I haven’t been back since I saw the FOR SALE sign and I wonder…do I dare go look to see if the building is still there? Oh, I don’t think I want to know!

When POPS was at its original location in Heflin, those were the Glory Days. To “circle POPS” was the ultimate Sunday afternoon experience. I tried to be good all week so Mama and Daddy would let me “go riding around” on Sunday. You could always find a girlfriend with a driver’s license who was going to POPS – it was a standard question at Sunday School: “Do you know anyone who is going to POPS today?”

Just a bunch of good old girls and boys, riding up and down the main street in Heflin and then whirling into the POPS parking lot to circle the building. Around and around we would go! We didn’t know what “loitering” meant and no one ever told us to stop circling! Waving at friends, and making new ones! You never even thought about ax murderers or kidnappings or any such nonsense in Cleburne County in those days.

If we had some change, we could stop and get something to eat. (Actually, it’s the only time we would get out of the car – we just rode and circled!) The milkshakes and the cheeseburgers were so good! Absolutely nothing tastes that way anymore.

I met the sweetest boy in the parking lot at POPS once. I was with a crowd of girls and we were circling POPs and he stuck his head out of the car window and said, in a voice I will never forget: “Hey Girl, what’s your name?” Yep, he was talking to ME! Let’s see, what did young girls do back then when a cute boy spoke to them….oh, I know - I just about had a COW! (What was that saying all about, I wonder?)

Okay, Boss Bruce, I’m gonna borrow your little ditty:

Glory days well they'll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye
Glory days, glory days

Mama's Zinnias

Spot of Gold...

I remember the year Mama planted Zinnias. I was ten.

I thought about it today when I “turned my garden over”. It’s a small plot, less than ten paces long. This year I decided to plant Zinnias in my little spot. Just Zinnias.

So today I dipped my shovel into the earth. I pushed on the end of it with my foot, lifting out as much dirt as I could hold on to. I raised each scoop high and then I let it go. The clod would fall from the shovel, crumbling as it hit the ground. Over and over I did this until all the dirt was overturned. I began raking, to smooth the little mounds. It seemed there was more earth within that little rectangle than when I started. Finally it was smoothed and then, with the hoe turned sideways, dragging it along, I made rows. On my knees, I carefully planted the seeds and smoothed the dirt over them by hand. I struggled to get up – my back was weary.

I remember Mama’s Zinnias. She raked the dirt a little bit and then scattered the seeds. They landed in just the right spot. The business of planting Zinnias seemed so effortless! I wish Mama had been on Earth with me today. Maybe she would have told me her secret as I pawed breathlessly at my little spot of dirt.

I remember Mama’s Zinnias. Oh the colors! Flower heads as big as our supper plates, it seemed. They danced in the wind but always stood still for butterflies. Oh the butterflies! They flew from no-telling-where to visit Mama’s flowers. Not since that summer have I witnessed such large and colorful insects. A stunning display of flowers and wings - for the inspection and delight of anyone who walked along our dirt driveway.

My job was to water Mama’s Zinnias - before they sprouted, after they sprouted and all the way through blooming. So that year, once a week, more when it was hot, I would drag the hose from behind the house and down the driveway, making a snake pattern in the dry silky dust. During watering, something magical happened to me. I was in charge! I could make it rain! With my thumb held just right on the end of the pipe, I could put on the most dazzling show. If the green wiggly hose was held just so in the sun and my thumb was in the perfect position, a rainbow would appear through the spray of water. Either a small shower or a mighty storm was at my command. And, oh, the rain-dancing I could do as I twirled the hose high above my head! After they bloomed, the flowers would seem to sway with me, bowing and begging for a drink.

Will my Zinnias be the same? Can I recapture that moment in time?

No. I cannot imagine that that joyful event - of running barefoot, back and forth on the dirt driveway when the Zinnias were in full bloom - could ever dare happen to me again on Earth. Moments like that must surely be part of the Glory of Heaven. A moment in time, forever gone, but lingering with me forever – a startling shock of color in my mind – an explosion of hues I had never seen before - a memory picture I will always carry with me. I don’t know why Mama chose to plant Zinnias only one year – maybe it was for me. Maybe, after all these years, as I struggle with sadness, suddenly alone and longing, on my knees in the dirt, she wants me to remember the gloriousness of that one summer and the things we take for granted that can never be duplicated or recaptured.

I hope my Zinnias make it. But I know that hoping they will be like Mama's is futile. It's the same as trying to recapture my very first taste of Coca Cola. Impossible, no matter how many swigs I take. I will not try to duplicate Mama's Zinnias or even hope for such a miracle. I will hope for butterflies to visit whatever pokes its head out of the ground and enjoy the memory of that Zinnia Summer.

Blessings!

Majo

Summer leaves me...

Summer Leaves…

Through my grief I watch
Summer
waving goodbye
too.
One by one
Leaves
fall to the ground.
some lingering…
as though Summer doesn’t really want to
Leave me

too…?

Majo

I Wait for God

On Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 9:57 pm, two became one. I was alone. My husband of many years took his last earthly breath and left me alone.

I move more cautiously now. I am more careful when coming down the stairs, when I walk down the sloping yard behind the house, when I drive the car….
It is painful to realize ALONE. It is a painful, sharp, and dull black hole kind of feeling.

I am trying to move on, as my family says I should, but I do not know what I am supposed to move TO.

Every day, without fail, I ask God to show me the way, to tell me what to do, as I seem to be paralyzed and do not know what to do by myself. At the end, my husband suffered a massive stroke. The same thing seems to have happened to me – in a different kind of way. I cannot seem to step out from underneath this heavy blanket of nothingness that has enclosed me.

Grief is not kind.

My physical body is not motionless. I am busy every day doing some kind of physical work, as I cannot sit inside this house and do nothing. But my mind and spirit remain almost numb and I feel so much heaviness in my chest.

And so, I wait for God…

Joanne Saxon Hill

Looking Back...

Looking Back...

When I was five, we moved to a little country town that had a big sign planted at the city limits just before you go over the railroad tracks. It read: “The biggest little town in Alabama.”

That sign confirmed my feeling that EVERYTHING was big when I was in the first grade. My school. The trees I hugged in my yard. (Yes, I used to hug the trees.) A big cedar tree in our side yard was my favorite. The bark was rough and prickly, but the tree smelled so good I could never resist pressing my nose against it. Try as I might, I could never get my arms all the way around it.

Yes - everything did seem large when I was five. Except one tiny girl in my class. Donna was no bigger than a minute. She didn’t look tall enough to be in in the first grade. Donna had a lot of purses and a watch with a safety chain on it. I thought she was rich.

One day after school, we went downtown. I don’t remember why. But there I was, walking past the town drugstore with my Daddy when I saw her through the window. Donna was sitting at the drugstore counter, her little birdlegs crossed and swinging from the barstool. One of her black Mary Jane shoes was dangling from her toes. She was looking at a magazine and sipping something from a straw. I guessed it was a chocolate milkshake. I stopped for a minute, even though Daddy was saying “Come on now – hurry up!”, and pressed my face against the window to get a better look. Donna never looked up so I could wave at her, but I was glad. I was like a big old floppy stringy-haired doll I had seen in a coloring book one time and Donna was like those girls Elvis Presley was always kissing.

It was one of those photographs you have filed away in your memory that looks that same every time you choose to recall it.

I went back to that little town the other day. My eyes searched for something familiar – the way a baby searches for faces in everything. We had moved from the “biggest little town” when I was in the third grade. I drove up and down all the roads around the school, but I never found that little house that used to be surrounded by cedar trees. I struggled to recall the route the schoolbus took to my house - to no avail. Everything seemed so tiny now – even the school that had been enlarged by at least ten other buildings. But altogether, the school did not appear as large as it did so many years ago when I walked up the steps through the front curved brick arches to the first grade – to a fresh sea of faces and voices that I still, unexpectedly sometimes, see and hear today...

Joy!

"Her Old Homeplace"

When I was a kid, we had a neighbor named Joy. Joy lived down the road, less than a mile from us, in a little white planked house with peeling paint. She lived very simply and only wanted two things that I ever heard her talk about. The first and most important thing she wanted was to go to Heaven. The second thing she wanted was to get bricks put on her little house. "Just like that third little pig," she would say. I loved her house the way it was - a safe haven for me when I felt so alone.

To this day, I have not found joy to match the warmth and delight I always saw in that sweet lady's face.

I was just a poor little kid and thought no one really cared about me. But Joy was always glad to see me. She spent a lot of time sitting on her couch by the front window, watching the cars go down our lonely little road. She would start waving when she saw me coming across her yard. “Hey!” she would holler, and come running out of her little house. “Guess what happened to me today?” she would ask, with her eyes sparkling. She always had a little story for me. One day an angel had visited her. One day she found a special beautiful leaf – it had floated right up to the window – and she claimed the Lord had sent it to her. She had it in her Bible. And one day she realized how blessed she was to have the view of a beautiful mountain in her own back yard. “The Lord has put me in this place”, she declared with a smile.

My Grandmother told me that Joy was not right in the head after her husband ran off with some old hussie, but I had never heard Joy talk about that. She seemed to be filled all the way to the top with happiness and when she talked it sounded like laughing spilling out of her mouth. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with Joy at all. I thought it would be nice to know a lot more people just like her.

One day, I walked down the road to her house. I was sixteen and I was running away to get married the next morning. No one knew what I was planning, but Joy was one of the people I wanted to see before I left my childhood behind. I walked across Joy’s yard and she immediately popped out of her little house. She had a lace tablecloth around her head and shoulders. With laughter spilling out of her sweet face, Joy exclaimed, “Look - I am the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ!”

I hugged Joy and said, “see you tomorrow” – but it would be many years before I saw her again.

One day, a few months ago, my two sisters and I drove up into the “country” to see our childhood home. We stopped at Joy’s house. She came spilling out to greet us. Time almost stood still and, for a moment, nothing seemed different except Joy’s pretty black hair had turned to silver. And - oh yes - her little house now had red bricks on it - all the way around!

With smiles and tears, we left, each of us carrying a batch of teacakes. As we backed out of the driveway, Joy came tottering across the yard again. “Thank you for coming to see me,” her laughing voice said. “I’m going to call everyone and tell them what happened to me today. I’m going to tell everyone about my blessing!”

It was my blessing too. Oh what a joy!