And It All Went Quiet

I have worry. Is worry fear? I do not know, but I do have worries. I think we all have some, or a lot. 

 I worry about my husband going off to the police department each day riding in a vehicle shared by others. I worry about my friends who are nurses. I worry about the women who have recently been diagnosed with breast cancer, needing surgery and treatment.  I worry about the health of my Make-A-Wish kids that I’ve helped to grant their wishes. I worry about my daughters, my son-in-law....

And while I worry I also miss things, simple things. I miss sitting close to a friend, sipping wine and sharing laughs. I miss hugging my children. I miss kissing their cheeks over and over again until they laugh and giggle and tell me to stop. I miss standing in line at Starbucks for a coffee treat chatting with complete strangers about whatever is happening that day. I miss running into a friend at the grocery store and stopping to chit chat. 

What I’m not missing out on is the opportunity to be more intentional, even at a distance, with the people that mean something to me. Whether it’s a text message or showing my friend for the first time in all of her years of owning an iPhone that she can FaceTime. My best work friends and I have had a great time this week with Marco Polo by having show and tell every night. We showed off our most fabulous shoes,  showed off our most amazing earrings,  showed off our favorite products...adults being silly, laughing.  That is tending to mental health. 

My lifelong best friend and our six daughters have a group Snapchat that we entertain each other with. A snap might be my BFF’s oldest daughter sharing the beautiful landscape from her home in Arizona...or it might be all us sharing our poorly pedicured feet. We reply with lots of laughing emojis. We share texts of virtual teaching, confused faces of remote working, the nurse uniformed to care for the contaminated, and lots of general silliness. These are a group of girl pictures of: connected by love.  

Keeping routine, now that keeps you healthy. I wake up every morning and I make my bed, make some coffee, open all the blinds in the house so the sunshine pours in, I apply mascara and lip gloss and every day at 11am I go for a walk with my lunch buddy— just like we would on any other Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,  Thursday or Friday. Except we are not walking side-by-side. Nope. Instead we send each other a picture of ourselves and say “go!” and go we do for 30 minutes. 

Yes, life is different. Life is still. Life is quiet. But what life isn’t [for me] is lonely. 

Even in this unprecedented time that I hope I, that we, never have to experience ever again...I found a way to let God‘s blessings of good friends shine on me each and every day. Stop, look around, listen to the birds sing, notice neighbors taking walks.  Don’t look past your mailman, grocery clerk or your trash man...be thankful for their service, their commitment to us all.

One day we will wake up and the world will have it’s arms open, ready to embrace us all again. And we will forever be changed by one thing—a virus. 

Mountains or Beach?

When asked the question mountains or beach, I will always reply mountains. That’s not to say that I don’t love the beach, because I do. What’s not to love about the beach...staring out at water that looks like it goes on forever and ever, or that you could swim out to the edge of earth? I do love the beach for about four straight day...not seven, not fourteen. 

I grow weary of sand weighing down my swimsuit bottom, or sitting idle for hours. So you might find it odd that every year for spring break King Ralph and I pack up “The Vessel” heading down to the beach in Alabama for seven days. That is exactly what we do every year. We go to warm our winter bones. 

The great thing about camping at Gulf State Park is that it is so much more than just sand and water. There’s a great pool, playgrounds for the kids, tennis courts (mostly used to play pickle ball), shuffle board and trails.

We spend a great deal of our time riding our bikes. The morning weather is glorious...it’s mostly sunny, but not super hot. The days that are cloudy make it a ride without breaking a sweat. The trails change from paved and canopied by trees dripping of moss to boardwalk over the marsh...where an alligator is likely to be spotted. We bike in the morning to a favorite coffee shop. Then we bike to Walmart to rent a Redbox. Sometimes we just bike to clear our minds and fill our souls with peace and serenity.  After we bike, only after we bike, we head to the beach to grab a couple of hours of sun and sand. I always laze about in a chair with a book in my hand, feet in the sand, and my body dosing itself with Mother Nature’s natural source of vitamin D. 

Here’s what is exciting to me about this trip

1. Last year I was healing from cancer surgery, my boobs held together by stitches and sterie strips. I could not just plop right down in the sand, or rotate myself like a chicken on a rotisserie. Nope. I had to set in a chair, careful not to get sand in my wounds. I was bronzed on my front, white on my back. I looked like yin and yang. This year I’ll have a full balanced sun kiss body.
2. Escaping to a state where there is no confirmed cases of COVID-19. Hopefully people aren’t packing their RVs full of toilet paper and bottled water. If they are, no worries, I stocked The Vessell with its season’s worth of RV quality biodegradable toilet paper.  

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I drafted this post prior to hitting the road. I can report that the sun shines, the bike trails are lovelier than ever, the beach was bursting with weddings (three to be exact) and children were flying kites (including me). I can also say, sadly, this state has fallen prey the toilet paper craze (as the news shows). 
While people continue to fight for toilet paper....my skin has a sun kiss, the pages of my new book has sand granules sprinkled on the pages and margaritas taste better in a Yeti cup with feet in the sand. 
Happy spring break! Stay well friends.