So it’s been a busy two weeks or so since the cousins got here. Lot’s of explosions, overalls, firewood, beer, Grandma, cooking feasts, storytelling, plan making, life strategizing, memory trading. Here’s what we’ve been doing, so two nights ago we had a few of the cousins’ local friends over and had a fire up at the Labyrinth and skewered hot dogs over the flames. We didn’t feel right leaving grandma in the house all by her lonesome while we went up to the spot so she decided she’d just come up with us. “Hey Grandma why don’t you come up to the fire pit with us for a little bit?” “Alright, I’d like to see that. You know what I’d really like to see sometime is the Labyrinth.” “You’re in luck Grandma, that’s where we’re goin’, that’s where the fire pit is, right next to the Labyrinth.” “Oh Boy!” Having Grandma up by the Labyrinth really tied the whole scene together. Before Pop passed she wouldn’t leave the house because she wanted to always be there by his side, but now that she’s freed up a little bit her curiosity is getting the best of her. The other thing I noticed is the chair by the picture window, Pop’s chair, is now Grandma’s throne. She love’s that thing, sits there all the time now and looks out the window. “So this is where you come every night, I seeee. Sure is a unique place to sit and rest your bones after bein’ in the sun all day. Yes yes, I see. This really is something special.” Tyler dropped his hot dog in the ashes and we told him he just needed to give it a beer bath and it would be fine. We relayed this to Grandma to which she replied, “Shoooot yes, that’s a good idea!” The next night we took her out to Brooks’ restaurant and showed her another great time. Five young men and Grandma have quite a presence in Classic Joe’s. There was even a band playing out on the patio under the oak tree so after we finished eating we all went and sat out under the tree and listened to music. Josh was after the hostess but the only contact he made seemed to be an exchange of smiles. We also cleared out the patch of trees in the field straight in front of the house and collected some big rocks and made a new fire pit, which is actually six pits in one. We burnt off all the brush and grass we cleared out of the cove today, and I think we’re going to wait on havin’ a gathering there till it gets a little damper. We also discovered that all the locals hang out in the parking lot of what was formerly known as the Winn Dixie. We also realized we don’t need to stress about meeting locals either, we might be cooler than the locals and that’s just fine. The Suttles never really did fit in just right in this valley, and we kind of like it that way. We made it our own.
It’s also been a month as of Wednesday.
Night before last we cooked ribs.
Trey and Mike and the Duo played in Atlanta n Saturday so I went over to see it with some friends and some old friends. The show was pretty good, the scene was bigger than I expected. Phish fans die hard it seems. They didn’t play any Phish songs except for an acoustic Mexican Cousin which was pretty sweet. Drifting, Sweet Dreams Melinda were favorites too. They covered the Who’s Who are you? Who Who Who Who? (oooh I really wanna know) and that song that goes “Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged…” Song choice seemed fitting, it was a good time all in all, nothing the fanatics would go insane about, but I think that’s what they’re goin’ for these days. New fresh music, nothing insane, manageable good times, rock stars with families. I went down Friday night and hung out with the Cook’s and got to met a few of their family friends with Bowen and James and then spent the night at the Wesley’s in Norcross. They’ve got a beautiful set up by the Chattahoochee river and all in all it was a great time. I seem to be drawing myself as close as possible back to the people my Dad knew and the Wesley’s were friends with my parents since before I was born. I think Tom and Dad kept each other in competition for an edge on the god life for a long while and it was god to see traces of my father there. Nothing too specific, nothing I could point to exactly, but the vibe was there. For example, their perfectly ordered and appropriately labeled garage reminded me of Dad a lot. It’s so nice to be around really good people. Good to the core. I’m not going in order so back to when Sunday I drove up to the Wesley’s lake house on Lake Burton in northern Georgia and met up with Lance and Troy and Josh and Tyler and the rest of the Wesley clan, Emmie, Tom, and Kathy. They were fantastic hosts and we had a great time all around. Can’t thank them enough for that, they did everything they could to make sure we had a great time, and we did. Coming back we stopped at a Georgia fruit stand and I picked up some Pear, Peach, and Black raspberry preserves for Grandma because I know she love’s them and then headed back to the farm where we proceeded to run on high octane and be wild Indians in the fields all night. Someone somewhere ordered a box of about 100 glow sticks and we all painted our face and opened our toy-testing clinic for the night. Last night was really special and the cousins all swapped stories about Pop and talked about how important the farm is and why it’s worth sacrificing for because it’s the realest thing in the world to us. We played with the acoustics in the valley, philosophized in the fields and thanked God for where we are. Lance and Troy used to live on the farm when they were younger and so they had a bunch of Pop stories I hadn’t heard before. My favorite of the night had to be that they remembered when Pop would spend all day on the tractor out in the field in the fall, then he’d come in and build himself a fire in the fireplace and then lay down right next to it on the floor, warm himself and take a well deserved nap. Perhaps this explains my affection for warmness. This is a pretty surface level rundown but it’s been a while since I updated so I figured I should start with the surface and work in the deeper revelations of the week in the days to come. The cousins leave tomorrow so we’re doing a final meal at the farm and then it’s back out into the real world for them, and back down into my soul for me. A lot has happened, we’ve had a few “day of days” and I’m deciding how much I should post and how much I should funnel to the publisher. You never know where it’s going to start or what’s going to start it. Seed crystals come in all shapes and sizes, in all sorts of moments, from behind all sorts of eyes. A smile from the girl you didn’t know you loved, a handshake from a stranger at the cafe, a punch across the face from the person who deserved it, you never know, it just happens and if you notice it's happening as it happens it sort of like, you know, spirals into an attitude boost and a self shaper latte. For example on the way home from Atlanta I stopped at a Waffle House surprise surprise and had the most memorable Waffle House experience of my life to date actually, which included an hour long conversation with a late sixties year old stranger named Francis Beedle who told me to really see, to really understand what’s going on in the world, you have to detach yourself, and I mean really detach yourself. “You gotta go sit on the moon and look back and then and only then can you really see what’s happening.” Like I said, there’s a lot more to that story but it’s dinner time and I’ve got to run…
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