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Overbooked
After a busy two months, I did nothing one day.
As rain sang over my home, I lounged on my grandma’s velvet couch. Yes, I fed the animals. Yes, I connected with my adult children and God. However, my pajamas were not exchanged for clothes. The weather didn’t allow a long walk with my dog. Meals were small plates of whole foods, reminding me of the sandwiches my dad used to make me during my rebellious teens. The only thing we could agree on were a beefsteak tomato, cheese, and mayonnaise between bread.
Meet Renee Leonard Kennedy | Writer, Investor and Burgeoning Farmer as Featured by Shoutout Miami
Meet Renee Leonard Kennedy: writer, investor and burgeoning farmer according to a recent interview by Shoutout Miami.
My Last Great Drunk
Thirty cans of kidney beans and tuna fish stocked my basement shelves. Gallons of water and pounds of rice brightened all things tinned.
It was New Years’ Eve, 1999.
Newscasters whipped the world into a frenzy by questioning if computers could handle the digit change from 1999 to 2000. Grid systems could fail, many reported. The stock markets would crash. Airplanes might fall out of the sky. Store up a month’s worth of food, many encouraged. Hell in a Y2K handbasket it was.
Hawaii & Heart Attacks: When the Heart Breaks
That summer on Oahu, in our early twenties, Carol and I blew through mai tai cocktails the size of soup bowls. We wandered the shore, the Pacific waves burying our ankles into Hawaiian sand. A glorious confidence, fortified by palm trees and rum, salted our skin.
“Can we ride?” I slipped my sunglasses on top of my head.
The young man in charge of a catamaran was haloed by the sun. “Fifteen dollars. Each.”
Our bikinis left no room for cash, so we turned away. “Hey.” He lowered his voice. “You can go free.”
Grasping for Summer: Nags Head, 1974
On the boardwalk, the Spicer boys shucked their shirts, the oldest revealing a shark-tooth necklace, the youngest, smooth skin and his dad’s muscles. I’d overheard enough of my mother’s soap operas while folding laundry to know boys were a thing. Witnessing first hand two tan teens on a beach, I could only stare, this summer of ’74.
The youngest plowed through the sand dune sheltered by sea oats.
“That’s against the rules.” The hall monitor in me couldn’t help but show up. “We’re supposed to stay on the walk.” Mrs. Richardson, who owned the pine cabin we were visiting, would have sharpened her southern-pecan voice if she caught us hurting her sand.
Finding Home: A Year after the Tree Nearly Killed Me
Last year, we lived in broken rooms for months, after the oak tree fell on our house. The wear and tear on our health called me to action. We moved to a farm.
“It’s just like a neighborhood,” a fellow farmer said. “Our yards are just bigger.”
Love Letters to the End
By now, the zip of packing tape unnerved my spine. Cardboard dust skimmed my skin. We had one last room of my parents’ house to go.
“Let’s get this over with.” I handed my sister a box.
The oversized room used for Christmas decorations and the edgy books, not fit for the family bookcase, was packed. My energy drained. “We’ll donate this to the church?” I toed a red sleigh to clear a path to the back.
My sister prodded the woven rope that decorated their banister every December. “The Girls’ Club, maybe?”
Forgotten: We've Lived Through Tough Times Before
Both born a few years after the Depression, my father lived on a farm, my mother in the ‘city.’ Dad ate corn, cabbage, pork and beef. At four-years old, he worked with his dad delivering milk. He took over the chore of driving the truck at six. Although he was prone to exaggeration, this, I believe, was true.
Mom’s family bartered items. Mamaw made the best apple pie ever made from crabapples grown in the yard. They traded for eggs or whatever else they could find. They leased their land for others to live on. If the family stayed within budget, Mom purchased peanut butter with her wages. If her dad spent money on horses, they ate mayonnaise sandwiches.
Small
My dog came into the porchlight, her mouth holding a critter. “Drop it,” I commanded. She’s good this way. Tinkerbell isn’t a vacuum-eating sort of animal. She likes her organic tidbits, bathed in hot water, steeped for five minutes.
A baby squirrel plopped onto the brick, crying out in pain as it hit. Most every household has a designated critter handler. I’m mine. I have ‘shewed’ black snakes, carted baby bunnies into the woods, rescued stunned birds who’d hit the windows and nursed them back to fly. But a baby squirrel? That required round-the-clock feeding. Skills I didn’t possess.
Bowels
I don’t believe many of us who marry and say the words, “for better or worse,” truly know what we’re getting into. I don’t believe many of us stick around after the better ends, be it thirty days or thirty years. And I can “guaran-darn-tee” you (my daddy’s saying), that most of us don’t know how to approach an adult and say, “It’s time you start wearing diapers.”
Magical
The day the world broke, the telephone rang. Being eight, I wasn’t allowed to touch it. My brother had hit his first decade and earned the right to answer. He yelled for Mom. She hated the phone. It tethered her to the dining room wall. She couldn’t wipe down the cooktop or clean the frig with a toothpick, her tool of choice. Dad had installed a longer cord, but it stretched only as far as the formica table.
Appraisal
My girls and I crack open the door to my parents’ house on the hill. It is visited only twice a month by Anna, the cleaning person, and of late, the appraisers. Paintings, tall as my petite teen, line the great room. While high on the walls, the scenes spoke idyllic locales to me–one of a Roman aqueduct, another a rushing Cowboy stream, another a muted Italian bridge. Dad had bought them as originals; up close, the printed versions peek out behind brushstrokes.