The Blink of An Eye

My son and his friends are looking at Denmark. Or the Netherlands.

Not for a visit, but to move there.

I'd say, "I don't know how I feel about that" but it'd be a lie. I know exactly how I feel about that.

I'm excited at the youth and strength behind such a plan- I remember (not that I'm that old)having much the same thoughts as they do, albeit less farther-focused. My main thought was to get the hell out of Wisconsin. Took me a while, but I did it and have never looked back. Actually crossing the US border and staying across never occurred to me.

I'm proud that we've raised a human with such an independent bent. A free-thinker who knows more about current events and social issues, politics and world events than most adults do. Someone who loves his country but is not brainwashed to believe that the US is #1, that the US must remain #1 and that everyone on earth wants to be us and all other places are backwards shitholes. I'm proud as hell of that. He doesn't HATE America---there's a big ol' middle ground between screaming "We're #1!" while wearing a flag t-shirt and clutching an eagle by the throat... and yelling "Death to America!". Big. Ol'. Middle ground.

I'm terrified that once he boards a plane and is out of my Mama Bear reach, our economy and society will continue on the ungracious, unattractive and (unless something changes RADICALLY QUICKLY) inevitable sliding into the social squalor that is the morning after for all societies that become 'too big for their britches' and I'll never see him again. I do not believe we are in danger of a Mad Max No Food Zombie Apocalypse. But we're NOT #1 anymore, we never WERE the gloriousness of a Leave It to Beaver fictitious utopia, and we're looking like a B-film starlet after one too many cosmetic procedures in a frantic attempt to still look 21 at age 51 instead of...Katherine Hepburn at age 81- gorgeous and not giving a shit, just going about living life.

So it scares the hell out of me.

But then I realize...if we are (and we are)headed for an age of disgruntled frumpiness and depressed economics, still steered by bullheaded backwards financial initiatives and punitive social agendas...where does that put my son, as an American in America?

If he can get college-educated and come out of it with zero debt (and he can in Europe), if he can get a job that can support him and won't kill him with low pay and dangerous workplace conditions as well as short work weeks and hours (and he can in Europe), if he can have access to health care without paying almost 20% of his gross pay in premiums (you see where this is going...), then that's where he needs to be. That's where I WANT him to be.

Until the US gets its head out of its far-right, pseudo-religious, egotistical ass, the only place my son and others like him will have even a marginal shot at having a life that is the Norman Rockwell American Dream...is outside these borders.

And that's a fucking shame.

Last night my son was looking for a 'new' book to read- he'd just finished up the last of the Game of Thrones series and like his parents he HAS to have a book in front of him at all times. He was going through all the shelves in the house that hold a total of about a thousand books- very few fiction other than the 'classics'. He found a medical guide (huge old tome) that was 'new and revised' in 1905. He found a little book of PHOTOGRAPHS (it was capitalized just like that because PHOTOGRAPHS were such a new thing) from a 1800's World's Fair. He found a box of crystals and yak hair that'd been sent to him for his birthday half a dozen birthdays ago.

He looked around this log cabin and said, "Our house is full of weird shit." And he smiled.

The world is full of weird shit, son. Most of it delightful, intoxicating and smile-inducing. I'm so happy we've taught you that, and I hope you never forget it.

Step across the borders and grab the American Human Dream wherever you find it- for yourself, your friends, and all humans.

A blink of an eye ago, I was fifteen and eager to find my spot in the world. Now I'm watching my son do the same. My great-grandparents came to this country looking for a better life and the next two generations stayed put in Southern Wisconsin. I left and came to Texas and now my Texas-born is looking even farther afield.

He has his roots here in a log cabin in East Texas full of weird shit.

No telling where his wings will take him.

Job Satisfaction

So we're building a house.

This has been years in the planning, since we're not building a house like most people do- pick a plan out of a book, hand it to a builder and tell 'em to call when you can pick out paint and whatnot.

I drew the house on graph paper. Refined it roughly 143,570 times in the last 10 years, and now that we're at the construction point, we're there every. Single. Day. Several times a day most of the time.

We're also not building a typical stick-built type home- we're building a log home, which means the "constructed shell" is being done by the log home company*'s crew, and our contractor and myself will go in and finish it out.

And that's who I want to talk about- this crew.

I could say they're professional, punctual, and very hard-working and all would be true.

But here's the thing.

While I (and most people I know) have a job where we go to work and do our tasks and if we're very lucky we
a) are doing something tangibly worthwhile and
b) we like what we're doing
the men on our house-building crew get to go to work every day and not just do a job,

but make peoples' dreams come true.

How magical to show up to a job site and see a slab of cement, and within just a few weeks leave out again and leave a HOUSE behind.

Oh, I know this is what they do, and they get paid for doing it, but to show just a tiny bit of appreciation to our crew- Mike, Jeremy, Darryl and DeWayne- I started cooking last night and continued this morning and we brought them lunch today- ribs, corn bread, potato salad, baked beans, and chocolate chip bars.

I don't cook from a box and I don't cook from cans- I start from scratch and set good food in front of my family- like these men started from scratch and have set our house, our home, firmly and finally on our land.

The crew is set to be finished with their part tomorrow, which means I'll be even more frazzled than I am now- because the finish work is where I'll be getting my own hands dirtier than they've been thus far on this project.

Just in case I let this writing thing slide till the house stuff is done, lemme leave you with my recipe for chocolate chip bars- a winner with my family for over 30 years.

And a little Stevie Ray to bake by. Peace.

Mama Dixon's Kickass Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

2 sticks butter, softened
1c brown sugar
1/2c white sugar
2 eggs
1tsp vanilla

Cream the above, then add

2 1/4c baking mix (I use Pioneer)
1 package milk chocolate chips

Spread into a buttered 13 X 9 baking dish
Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, or till set

*Satterwhite Log Homes in Longview TX- ask for Dusty.

Blogger Goes MIA- Story and Photos Below

*What a week*.

We're still in negotiations with the electric company- but I think we've worked out a scenario for both replenishing the areas that were destroyed AND coming up with a plan (having to do with strategically placed gates) so they NEVER have to cross the wetlands again.

I met with our contractor (henceforth to be referred to as "Ronnie") and he and his boys (3 strapping sons all grown up in the family contracting business and just as professional and courteous as their dad) measured out, mowed and flagged where the house is going to sit.

(Lets see if I can get through the rest of this without parentheses...bet I can't).

Now I was aware that SOME little pines would have to be sacrificed for this endeavor, but pines grow like weeds here (one reason I love this area of the country).

*(damn it- ALREADY with the parentheses??? OK- I'm REALLY going to do it this time)*.

And by little, I mean they were 6 inches high when we bought the place- see? Can't even see them above the grass.



Per the wildlife biologist, we'd left it all alone to grow up and heal. Here's what it looked like pre-mow.



I know, right? By last week I wasn't even sure we'd FIT a house in there.

Anyhoo, we'll snug the house in there right close- part of the plan to make it look like it's always been there and hopefully like it actually grew there instead of standing out like a big ol' boil on the butt of Mother Nature.

So here it is now-



Yesterday we met Ronnie and his lovely wife Tracy at the title company office and signed about a hundred papers all saying pretty much the same thing- namely that our ass is the bank's for the next 20 years. But the GOOD news is that we have a shiny new Interim Building Checking Account and are Official Home Builders.

The title company lady said the same thing the bank lady has been saying- "You know, you're a little more 'hands on' than most home builders, Mrs. Dixon. Most of our owner-builders pick a plan out of a book, hand it to the builder and except for maybe a once a week visit to the site, they say 'call us when we can get the key to the front door'". It really is odd to them that *I* designed it- like with graph paper, a pencil and a ruler- and *I* will be purchasing all of the incidentals like fixtures, trims, and doorknobs, and I WILL be on the jobsite every single day possible, I WILL be doing alot of the finish work my own self, and I WILL be going into work at the clinic to do my 'real job' after dark...till it's finished.

We have to be in Houston for appointments Monday thru Wednesday so will miss the first flurry of activity- the well going in, the dirtwork, resetting gates so the big equipment can get to the homesite- so we went out there today in the quiet of late afternoon and had our own little ground-breaking ceremony.



And Ward said to Alec, "Son- we're on our own now for the next few months- Mommy's going to be building a house".

And Alec sighed and said, "Yeah...I know".

What does that mean to my blogging community? That weird eclectic tiny buncha folks who actually READ this from all over the world?

When I started this, it was more of an exercise for me- as a writer I adore the Short Story, have attempted a tiny fictional work, a published journal, and a collection of beliefs, but I've got newspaper in my blood back 3 generations and have always fancied the notion of column writing. This- this blog- is my experiment to see if I can deliver something remotely worthwhile three times a week.

So I'll still attempt it- dropping off of my chair dead tired with dirt under my nails, sawdust in my hair and grout between my toes, and we'll see how it goes.

I ask in advance your forgiveness for those inevitable posts that will look like they're written in some foreign code used only by lemmings on LSD.

One more photo just because Ward's so deliciously cute-




(Ha. Made it without any more parentheses).

*(Damn it)*.

*(Grrrr....)*.

*(MAKE IT STOP!!!)*

The Aroma of Safety

I was hanging laundry out yesterday. Yes- I'm one of those nut-case ol' hippiechicks who uses a clothesline to dry our laundry on all but rainy days- year round.

It's Hot right now in East Texas- Hot with a big red capital "H". It envelops everything in a cloak of "Wow. So this is what Hell is like. Lets not go THERE". The cicadas buzz, the grass crackles underfoot, the dogs dive into the relative cool under the house or porch, and the ducks can be found in any water- pond, puddle, trough or dish.

As I was pinning items to the line,thinking of many things as I do when hanging out the laundry- my To Do list for the day, the excitement of our impending building of our little cabin in our woods, how much I love and will miss THIS house, and up on the tail of that thought, the question of "Well then, why are you moving?", the wind shifted almost imperceptibly- languidly, with an effort.

And I caught The Scent.

The Scent of summers long gone, of summers in Wisconsin, the summers of Safety.

Oh, sure. Most people say "Eww. Smells like melting pine trees".

That sharp, sizzling aroma of melting pine trees as the sap softens in the oven-like sunshine reminds me of why this cabin is so important to me.

When I was four years old I became Cabin Aware.

My grandparents had friends with a summer cottage on a lake in central Wisconsin, and were allowed use of it every summer. Nothing fancy- in fact pretty primitive, the cottage had a name as alot of them do, snugged up to the waterfront- pier and boat on the lake side and pine-filled sandlot with hand-lettered signs on the road side announcing to friends and family that Here was Summer. Right here. Right now. You've been to work or school, packed your car, drove the interstate to the four lane to the two lane and then woven through the thickets of evergreen on the silent sand trails and you've made it- Tall Pines Cottage, Grandpa's New Office, Sleepin' Inn, Lazy Daze, sign after lovingly crafted sign until the one we were looking for- Sunny Side Up.

Sunny Side Up was on Pine Lake (one of hundreds of Pine Lakes in Wisconsin), just outside of Waupaca. There was no indoor plumbing. Water was coaxed from the hand pump outside the kitchen- old, rusted, hard to start, perfect. The water tasted of the earth, of iron ore, of living things. Once, filling a pot for cooking water, a little frog popped out mid-stream.

Toilet-related issues were taken care of in the "indoor outhouse"- a closet of sorts up the stairs onto the back porch, but not yet inside the house proper.

Baths were swimming in the lake with Ivory soap- because it floats.

There was rudimentary electricity and if you were an adult, you got a bed in the house. If you were a kid, you slept on the screened porch. I pitied the adults.

Sunny Side Up was surrounded by plantation planted pines- acres of monoculture that I now recognize as less-than-ideal, but as a child it was magical- dark rows of perfectly planted giants, several feet of fallen needles muffling any sound at all except for the wind through that dark living tunnel- an invisible ghost train.

One year I "tamed" a chipmunk to sit on my hand to eat crumbs. Day after day I put the crumbs closer and closer to my outstretched fingers- matching unblinking stare for unblinking stare with the striped fluffball seriously packing morsels into his cheeks until the day he hesitated for a moment, then stepped onto my small six year old palm, grabbed the bread crumb and sat right there- eating out of my hand.

And the air was thick with the Scent of Trust, and Patience and the Aroma of Safety.

When I was in junior high school, my grandfather retired and attained his greatest dream- a lake cottage of his own. It was on a much bigger lake (Silver Lake just outside Wautoma) and had the added novelty of being not only on Silver Lake's shore, but having Fish Lake directly across the street- there was not a window in the cabin that didn't have a lake view. Unfortunately, the "street" is Hwy 21- 2 lane but a main semi-truck route, and Silver Lake is a very popular ski-boat lake. The sign painted on the cement block retaining wall said simply "Norm and Ellen Albeck" and I loved this cabin for all different reasons.

Where Sunny Side Up had been a lake cottage made of wood, but not log, Norm & Ellen's was log-sided- painted barn red, and lined inside with 100% knotty pine. The windows opened inward, like in fairy tales. There was indoor plumbing, and ample electricity.

By that time I had become a young lady of great independence and surliness and summers were spent spending as little time with my boring family as possible (except my grandfather- he remained Cool forever). Every day I'd collect up my little sheltie, pack provisions and we'd go hiking. For hours. And miles. Before cell phones. Without a map.

It was glorious.

We'd circle Silver Lake, Fish Lake, little lakes that had no names, through plantation pines and wild birch groves, past farms and fields and once, by accident, into a gravel pit. And through it all, all the miles and right back into the "new" screened porch overlooking the lake at night, over the big breakfasts on the griddle and the bonfires on the beach and the popcorn while playing cards late into the night permeated the Scent.

The Scent of Confidence, and Family History, and New Independence, the Aroma of Safety.

As a girl scout, back when that still meant tying knots, laying a trail and primitive camping, I went to day camp every year to Trefoil Oaks, the very old girl scout camp just outside Racine. Getting to camp meant well over an hour each way every day on a stinky old school bus singing camp songs all the way. It had a huge old true log lodge, water that had to be pumped and outhouses with gallon buckets of water tied outside- paper towels and hole-punched soap tied next to them. I adored it.

I tried sleep-over camp one year at Singing Hills- which had platform tents, showers and was on a beautiful lake, and spent some time at the New camp- Dreamsend, which had flush toilets and a duplex-type lodge that was of a contemporary design. I hated them both.

When I was too old to be a day camper at Trefoil Oaks, I became a counselor.

When I was too old to be a counselor, I became the director.

The lodge was solid, and old, and permanently anchored to the earth by a huge lopsided rock fireplace. The windows opened inward...like in a fairy tale. I'd sit at the desk, or be making gallons of Bug Juice in the old galley type kitchen that was open to the rest of the lodge- only a tall bar designating where the kitchen stopped and the rest of the interior began- and the noises of Summer- of children singing or chattering, leaves and gravel crunching underfoot as they passed by, the squawking of the pump handle and the splashing water, sunlight dappling through the open windows flashed off the dust of thousands of campers- including my mother, myself, my daughter, and I'd breathe in the scent of mosquito repellent, and campfires, and marshmallows, and the ever-present scent of the pines.

The scent of the excitement of new discoveries, the security of permanence, the Aroma of Safety.

And I realized (more quickly than it's taking you to read this, and much more quickly than it's taken me to type it- we don't even own THAT much laundry) that that's it- not in a nutshell, but in a pine cone.

Though we love our old house and it's always taken care of us, and we've looked at all sorts of things to live in out yonder- from yurts to earthbag homes to finished-out storage buildings- what I want, no. What I NEED for my family is to be Safe.

My family has seen more than its share of uncertainty and fear and flat-out horror and more than anything else, *I* as The Mom, Need for my family to be surrounded, sheltered, cushioned by things I've truly only felt from inside the stout, wood-grained solid walls of a cabin-

Trust
Patience
Confidence
Family History
Independence
Discovery
Permanence

*Safety*

And I closed my eyes and inhaled the Blazing Aroma of Melting Pine- till I could taste it at the very bottom of my lungs, and it was Good.