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an everyday life

Tag Archives: Oklahoma City

Fat Tuesday Snowflakes

12 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by Janell in Life at Home

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Birthdays, Lent, Love, Mardi Gras, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Gardening, Oscar nominated films, Relationships, Snow, weather

photoToday, a wintry mix of rain and snow falls outside my window.  But we might as well ignore that old news … because in the time it has taken my eyes to move from computer to window screen, the light gray sky has become full of fat, fluffy snowflakes.

So it goes with Oklahoma weather… and life and… well, I’ve been thinking of late… those relationships with whom we love more than words can convey.  All of them suffer droughts and seasons of moisture and gladness and sorrow and times when things just seem to sync and other times when we just feel walloped by our powerlessness to fix or make things better.

City officials — was it last week or the week before last?– began brainstorming on further water conservation strategies should our unwelcomed drought linger on and on into infinity and beyond.  Lawn and garden irrigation may be outright prohibited — and/or those of us who use more that what the city deems “their fair share” may incur a surcharge.  For now, we are under a winter rationing plan, following rules once reserved only for the depths of summer hell … which means, that all my big ‘ole spring gardening dreams have blown away in a cloud of dust.

There would have been a time, not that long ago, when I would have plunged ahead with plans of all sorts, come the proverbial hell or high water.  Why, by now, I would have already planned which new shrubs would be going where..and lined up contractors to break up old backyard concrete so that new paths could be drawn to enlarge and soften and fill in new garden lines.  So, I wonder: Is it age that causes me to listen to the weather forecasts and adjust plans, to listen more closely to what people say (or don’t), or to listen to the rhythm of my days in order to move more in keeping with their changing beat?

The local AMC movie theater is offering a 2-1 special for anyone who wishes to view the Academy award nominated film, Beasts of the Southern Wild.  Half of me wants to go, because I know this film would stir my soul and sprinkle in new seeds of thought, that only this particular piece of art has in its treasure box.  But instead, I’m sitting here in from of my hearth, in my Hemingwayesque, Havana inspired living room —  a decor, if you can believe it, that sprung out of last year’s visit to Key West, where we vacationed exactly a year ago today, while meanwhile, back at our OKC ranch-house, it was snowing and my youngest son was turning twenty-four and some of his siblings were picking him up for a birthday dinner of sushi.

388-0

So… though half of me wants to go to the movies the other half — perhaps the better half of me  — prefers to watch the real-time show of falling snow outside my picture window.  Already, the trees are sugar-coated with snow.

I tend not to sugar-coat life — just ask my children — and too often, what I say is just more than they can take.  It makes me sad that I can’t do better… that I can’t share my thoughts in a way that is healing rather than hurting, where words spoken would fall gently, oh so soft and quiet and beautiful like this snow falling outside my window.  When I serve up too much truth… I tell myself I’ll do better.  And maybe, sometimes, I do.  But for better and worse, I am who I am, and I slip into old molds of living, often hurting those I love most without trying, and, often, without even knowing it.  Until days or weeks or months down the road, when I begin to wonder why I haven’t heard from this loved on or that one….

It makes me crazy.  So much so that I try to rationalize away the pain by telling myself that my children (and others whom I love) have many, many friends willing to put the best gloss on life… and that, well, they have only one me… who is willing to level with them… who is willing to share the unvarnished truth with them… well, at least, the truth according to Moi… but it’s poor comfort with no staying power, that melts as fast as an Oklahoma snow.

Today is President Lincoln’s birthday… and if you haven’t seen it… Lincoln would be another wonderful Oscar nominated film to catch today… if you are not catching, like me, a better reality show of snowflakes falling on a drought-thirsty land.

Today is also my youngest son’s twenty-fifth birthday… and I wish… oh, I wish for all those sorts of things that mothers everywhere probably wish for their children, you know, that all his dreams might come true and that life itself, everyday, will be better and more magical than the best dreams can conjure.

Today is also Fat Tuesday, which means tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and then Lent and a forty-day season of time for thoughts such as these.  What else can I say… but God, have mercy?

Chasing Fireflies

13 Thursday Aug 2009

Posted by Janell in In the Garden, Mesta Park, Soul Care, The Great Outdoors

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Everyday Life, Fireflies, Heritage Hills, Mesta Park, Oklahoma City, Overholser Mansion

Once upon a time, attending a local firefly dance was as easy as taking a few steps into a warm summer’s evening.   fireflyjarAnd in this old neighborhood where I am grateful to live, the grandest dance of all  took place on the grounds of the Overholser Mansion.

The many keepers of Oklahoma City history record that the Overholser’s were known for their grand and gracious entertaining.  Going even further, some say that Henry and the lovely young Anna were the hub of early Oklahoma City’s high society.

Henry was one of the first to purchase property  in the subdivision north of downtown, that is now the heart of the historic preservation district of Heritage Hills.  The story is fondly told of how Henry purchased three residential lots, which bordered Hudson Avenue and Northwest Fifteenth Street, when the land was nothing more than a cornfield.

Henry’s cornfield cum mansion grounds reminds me of another cornfield cum baseball diamond and that mysterious whisper that repeatedly urged…

…”If you build it, he will come.”

As the story was told on the silver screen, the cornfield cut diamond went on to host the ghosts of some famous boys of summers past, most notably “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and his teammates who were caught up in 1919 World Series “Black Sox Scandal.”

overholserThe Overholser Mansion is not host to any scandals of note, though apparently the Mansion is  no stranger to ghosts.  With more than a few reports of paranormal activity floating on the Internet these days, who knows but that maybe Henry heard his own mysterious voice while looking across his own field of dreams; for sooner rather than later, this “Father of Oklahoma City” built his dream mansion…and the invited citizens of Oklahoma City came.

In the book, Oklahoma City, Land Run to Statehood, one local historian notes that,

“Mrs. Overholser gave her first party in 1904 to 400 lucky guests. The Times-Journal society column reported that as guests entered the home, they were greeted by a string quartet playing on the second floor turret landing, hidden by a blanket of palm and fern.”

firefly

It’s been two dry summers since I last attended a firefly dance at the Overholsers, though not for wont of trying.  Many evenings I have put on tennis shoes for a short walk down Hudson Avenue, hopeful of crashing headlong into a firefly ball.

Previous rendezvous have taught me that these shy little social-lights never gathered on the front lawn proper.  Rather the fireflies gravitate to the east side-yard,blog_DSC01705a where they danced above dusk-tinted lawn between an old Model “T” clothes line and the tree-lined sidewalk.

Like a curious child chasing fireflies, I used the net to discover where the fireflies have flown.   The answers I caught at firefly.org knocked me for a loop though;  unless something changes their fate, these charming bugs of summer will soon be ghosts; or in the words of the website, “glowing, glowing, gone.”  Just as sad for this drylocked Oklahoma gal is to know that fireflies prefer life in the warm humid wetlands, the sort of place where tall grass hits water.

Our typical carefully groomed neighborhood lawns, along with other regions of Oklahoma, must have resembled a wetland two years ago, as our rainy month of June left us with non-mowable yards wallowing in standing water.  But it’s interesting that with so many neighborhood wetland yards to choose from, the Overholser place still held a monopoly on firefly dances.

Blog_DSC01713aAnd why not?  There’s simply no better place in the neighborhood to gather than this place that has long been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  And just as fireflies are anything but a typical guest of an Oklahoma summer, the Overholser place is anything but a typical house museum.  As noted by the Heritage Hills website,

“The Overholser Mansion still contains all of the original furnishings and belongings of the Overholser family, making it one of the rarest house museums in the world. The silverware, dishes, drapes, carpets, furniture – even little Henry Ione Overholser’s doll collection and other toys remain with the home providing a rare snapshot of life at the turn of the 20th Century.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, the Overhoser’s firefly dances of 2007 provided me with “a rare snapshot” of summertime life in Oklahoma.  That little bit of white magic on a former Oklahoma cornfield was something infinitely precious, and though blind, I now see it was a bit of amazing grace served up by a rare summer monsoon followed by a little firefly chaser.

“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? — every, every minute?”

-- Thornton Wilder, "Our Town"

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