Does This Moon Make My Butt Look Small? Renae Brabham

I sped over the Isle of Palms connector bridge to the island. I had vowed that even if the moon had risen and peeked over the buildings I wouldn't look until my toes hit the sand. I fed the meter it's dollar and headed down the wooden public access planks at a good clip. My gait ended in a snails pace as a man guided his mother up the small incline. It was an obvious role reversal, contrast of life. She had no doubt held his hands tightly as he took his first steps and crossed roads and now he returned the caring. She minced her steps and he held her arm firmly. I was glad that I was behind them and wouldn't have sped on for the world. I shared in her son's reward when I heard her exclaim as she saw the peregrine moon before I did. "Oh my!" she stopped mid stride. Her son watched her face smiling and then guided her to the side railing. I stepped over to share her view at the exact second that the moon inched into the horizon. And there it was, a thin red line stretching over the horizon. Growing by the second and changing hues from red to yellow. In minutes it was casting a beam of iridescent light over the waves. The extremely high tide had forced everyone to crowd onto the narrow strip of unscathed surf beach. This lent an air of event as we all stood crowded in the narrow swath between the waves washing in and the few feet of embankment. Scores of people still swam in the tide at dusk. The light of the moon called to their carefree spirit, thankfully without a hungry fish feeding. I walked backwards as I was leaving, not able to take my eyes off of the phenomenon. Two granddaughters’ did the same with me last year in March at the super moon. Driving back home over the bridge, I concluded that I am indeed dangerous in situations of extreme beauty. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to watch the sunset out of my front windshield or the moonrise out of the back and contemplated a u-turn at the bottom of the hill to do it all over again. Once home I plug in my camera to download the pics. I was shocked at the tiny white ball that replaced the yellow gargantuan moon hovering over the pier that I left. I can understand that I am light-years away and the image would not show without proper magnification lens. But shouldn't the picture at least portray what my eyes had seen? I began questioning my perception. Which I have been told I should do anyway for years. I scroll through other pics of items in horizon that I had taken recently, they were all in proportion to what I had viewed. So I did the old google search. According to Wikipedia "For over 100 years, research on the Moon Illusion has been conducted by vision scientists who invariably have been psychologists specializing in human perception. After reviewing the many different explanations in their 2002 book The Mystery of the Moon Illusion, Ross and Plug conclude "No single theory has emerged victorious. The Moon illusion is an optical illusion in which the Moon appears larger near the horizon than it does while higher up in the sky. This optical illusion also occurs with the sun and star constellations. It has been known since ancient times, and recorded by numerous different cultures. The explanation of this illusion is still debated." Hmmm...Maybe I need to open the receptors to the illusions of the spiritual world that I live in while here on earth. Those moments when the veil is lifted and I'm left to wonder at the unexplainable. We are not earthly beings living in a material world. We are spiritual beings living in a spiritual world. Eternity is a curtain away, maybe we can slide back the curtains more by allowing ourselves to believe that we don't see everything, we don't know everything and wonder is bliss. In doing so we could possibly unclog receptors that would allow us to participate in more of life's tantalizing experiences. What else am I perceiving to be factual in the universe that may be skewed by my perception. Did the man beside me see the same moon? What if what I see is only what my eyes tell my brain to comprehend? That leaves a whole lot to imagination! Maybe the colors of life would become such prisms of clarity that a rainbow only suggest it's many hues. Maybe I'm thinner than the mirror says. But I'm incredibly comforted by words and phrases like inconclusive, debatable, undetermined. I don't want to know the answers to every little thing about this universe. I will happily transcend from here to there in my chimera's.

Get off of your Jack Arse

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — Mark Twain

She Thinks My Crab Pot's Sexy ~Renae Brabham~

I am flitting around the house Saturday morning trying to ignore the brilliant sunshine streaming into the window. By 7 a.m. I have gathered clothes to wash, stripped beds and I am eyeballing the Hoover when Don calls from out of town. "I checked the tides and the wind on the charts, you should go fishing this morning." he says. I took one look at the pile of laundry and thought, heck yeah, I should go fishin. I throw on my ~go to heck hat~, pack a small cooler, grab my rod and tackle box and head to Pitt Bridge, stopping only long enough to get some frozen shrimp and coffee. I audibly breathe out an "Aghhhhhh" as I get out of the car. By 8:15 I am walking the planks to the end of the bridge. The air is still and so is the marsh with the exception of the gurgling hermit crabs in the plough mud. Herons swoop from the brilliant blue skies. I greet at least 30 runners and about as many walkers and dogs on the trek to my destination.
Coffee clarity reveals a few shapes at the end of the bridge in ~my spot~ No problem, there are side slips that I like as well. Two teens sit cross legged facing each other, they talk and laugh in low tones as they roll up and unknot line from a crab pot. They smile and we say our good morning's and howdie doo's and then I dart down the little slip to start fishing. My breath is almost taken away by the serenity of the morning. Cove Inlet is as quiet as I have ever seen it. No ships, boats or noises other than the slow ebbing tide gently pushing against the barnacled concrete pylons. I just can't start fishing yet.
After a few minutes the guy and girl get up and lean over the banister and ask me what I am going to fish for. "I'm not choosy, whatever wants a bite of these." I replied holding up the line that I am threading a shrimp onto. "How about you two? Any luck?" I ask. She looks at him with a coy grin and nods yes. He does the same. "Well, I had the pot out all night, but it didn't catch anything, I got it hung up in the pylons." he explains. But, it's ok, she said yes. It was then that I noticed the steel boxed crab pot with plastic coated signs on all sides that read "Prom?"
Bobby Roscne tells me how he rigged the signage and came to set the pot last night with hopes that he would bring Kirsti down here this morning to check the pot and hopefully pull it up brimming with crabs. But he hit a snag. Before daybreak, he enlisted the help of his mother and they scurried down to get it untangled and reset. They succeeded. When Kirsti Robertson came down with him she was surprised, but no crabs. I told Bobby the glitches made the gesture more endearing. The both agreed. We say our fare-thee-wells. They are heading down the bridge, him unashamedly carrying his proclamation crab pot and she carrying the lines. I am overcome with the magic and promise of their young love. I feel a twinge in my stomach, a reminder of an era long gone. Before they could disappear and become a memory, I call out to them to stop. I thank them for making an already beautiful morning fantabulous and ask them if I can take their picture and tell their story. As the picture shows, Bobby and Kirsti said yes. They attend Ardrey Kell High School in Charlotte. I fished on Pitt Bridge by myself until I left at 12 o'clock. As the tide crept back in that morning I watched two of the largest stingrays I have ever seen ease by me under the bridge. Dolphins dove and corralled their breakfast. Sailboats and cruisers slipped by as I fed the fish my frozen shrimp. The previous weekend I had been on the harbor looking to the shore from the Jabez yacht with the Ya Ya girls. I am so thankful for the blessings of Southern living. Seriously, all you have to do is show up. That crab pot beat the hell out of a dozen roses!

Wisteria Hysteria

A friend of mine recently coined the phrase Wisteria Hysteria. I loved it. We have a love/hate relationship with these southern vines don’t we? I was talking with a lady recently about the first signs of spring in the low country. Honeysuckle, Wisteria and Jasmine. I told her I loved the smell of Wisteria. I was dumbfounded when she asked "Does it smell good?" Honeysuckle,the same thing. You have never experienced anything until you walk down a country road at dusk when the heat of the day has vaporized the droplets of the tubular Honeysuckle plant and a soft breeze wafts the heady aroma into your path. Pure Bliss. I imagine that it was this aromatic euphoria,aided by inebriation that caused Washington Irving's character Rip Van Winkle to drift into a twenty year induced sleep in the woods. Several years ago I visited a plant store in the spring. I purchase this non-assuming sprig, Wisteria Sinensis, winding up a 12 inch stick. Getting home I wind the little sprig through the post of the first stairway. It climbed like Jack's beanstalk. Second year,it topped the stairwell at 14 feet, I thread it back down. Third year,the steps are encased with heady purple blossoms and then the honey bee's come. Don is allergic to bees,so year three, Wisteria is gone. About a month later,we plant an arbor on the other side of house and Don landscapes a dog leg shaped garden. With all the tilling done and soil prepared we head to the plant store. Don walks by a potted flowering vine that smells delicious,he puts it into the buggy. The tag says Wisteria Sinensis, hmmm..where have I heard that plant name before? We plant it at the base of the arbor and it takes off. By the end of the summer it is covering the top. By the next spring, It bends the arbor and is shooting 20 foot into the air searching for another structure to climb onto. We can't drive the lawnmower through the arbor anymore. I come home one afternoon and the Ford f-150 is full of tangled arbor. A chain saw, pruners and a chain that looks like it should have a cargo ship anchor attached adorn the ground. Minutes later the chain is attached to the truck. The tires struggle for grip and tear into the lawn as Don tried to pull the Wisteria root from the ground. We never got to the bottom of it. Don pours root killer on it's nubby stump and hauls off the arbor and vine to the dump. The best smelling load of garbage in the landfill that day. Before we moved back to SC from NC two years ago, we were still cutting tendrils of hope sprouting from the Wisteria stump in search of new footing. I don't cut the grass anymore,smiling as the landscapers cranks up their mowers, hedge trimmers and blowers. I don't plant large gardens anymore,but enjoy fresh local veggies from local vendors at the Farmer's Market's. On a quiet evening not long ago I walked the wood's edged, grass path around the pond at the condominiums. A breeze sways the moss, tiny tendrils of purple are on the sandy pathway. There it is, Wisteria. Pines and oaks are wrapped with gnarly thick vines, deep purple flowers sprout from the maze in the dark swampy terrain. I stand for a few minutes with eyes closed and may have accidentally snorted a petal as I inhaled. I clip several of the clusters and bring them home to put them in vials of water and place by my bed for ~sweet dreams~ While reading in bed. Don comes in the room, sniffing the air. "What's that smell?" he asked. I point to the Wisteria. He lifts the vases. I watch the petals seek his nostrils. "You need to cut a lot more of those" he says. I smile.... I spy with my eye...Jasmine and Honeysuckle on the Vine...Next weeks bedside vase.

Flash Back ~Renae Brabham

FLASH-BACK (condition when you find your hot flash isn't limited to just your neck anymore)

Ok, I'll admit I struggled with this story for a bit. I had a hot flash, left to go get some snacks, forgot what I was doing, remembered what I was doing and came back. I thought of the Jeff Foxworthy Line and replaced Redneck with Menopause. You might be going through menopause if:


You would like to start a focus group to study the benefits of providing menopausal parking spaces at the grocery stores, hospitals, malls and chocolate shops. Remember ~Tawanda~ in the movie (Fried Green Tomatoes)
You are absentminded, hmmmm, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Absentminded.
You are acting just plain stupid. e.g. Standing at the front door of my house clicking the unlock button on my car keys, trying to figure out why door won't unlock.
Your husband is sitting on the couch with a blanket rather than you.
You find yourself ripping open a bag of m & m's in the store before you get to the register.
You do things you wouldn't do, because what the hell, you're 50 and invisible anyway.
You feel sorry for your old make up brush when the hair starts falling out.
Won't pluck eyebrows for fear they won't grow back.
You don't want to brush the loose hairs off your shoulder, it's too final.
You think of spray painting your scalp to a more neutral color, like your current hair color.
You realize that you will have to go to prison to finish your latest projects.
You don't buy green banana's anymore.
 You wake up one morning and your hair has taken on the texture of a Brillo pad.
You talk to your body in the mirror, "What the heck is that!?"
You don't turn around when you hear a wolf whistle. Because you did once and it was a parrot.
You have a brief moment of "I've still got it" when a trucker honks his horn. Then pulls along side closer to motion that your gas cap door is open.
Your sister calls your mole a liver spot.

These were my "aha" moments. Everyone has their own I am sure. There were signs it was happening. You just ignored them, like you ignored that aged poofy person that mimicked your every move as you walked past the store windows. I'm not depressed about it. I just haven't embraced it yet. There are benefits I am sure. I just don't have enough material to write a page on it yet.

I Want To Hold Your Hand ~ Renae Brabham

Loving,Touching,Squeezing each other... I could belt out Journey's 80's hit as well as Steve Perry's clone.That's where the touchy feely ended. Frigidness founded in earlier years, add society's embedded etiquette of politically correct touching and wah lah! Hugging me was akin to a rigid fish stick standoff. Try to hold my hand, I would wriggle out of it lickity split. Touching or hugging outside of my immediate trusted family was about as anticipated as the dreaded command to ~Kiss and make up with my brother or sister~.

That was then, I do believe I could hug a Michelin tire now. A lot of the credit goes to a massage therapist/friend that I met at our NC herb shop fifteen years ago. We offered therapeutic procedures in addition to alternative medicine. Linda would come in twice a week to perform massages and reflexology. She always hugged me when we greeted and would touch my arm in conversation. I found both to be uncomfortable. There was no threat involved, but I perceived the touch as such or at least of questionable intent.
For the next six months I learned a lot about the art of reflexology, touch, and massage from Linda. I witnessed personally what touch did for her clients. One customer that intrigued me was a quiet demure lady that came in bi-monthly for a massage. After a few sessions I noticed that she would wipe silent tears away as she browsed the store. I asked Linda one night "Why does she cry after she comes out of her session?" Linda replied "A touchless marriage, she has to pay for what should be the free gift of touch." I watched this lady cocoon over the next several months. She was still saddened sometimes after her massage, but she became genuinely and expressively involved with familiar contacts in our classes and visits.

Linda gave sports therapy massages to some hockey players in the shop as well. I was taken aback on several occasions with the post-massage demeanor of these rough and tumble guys. Linda also visited the nursing homes in the area. She told me that the quality of their lives was enhanced by touch as well. The absence of spousal affection, children or grandchildren s touch removes them quickly from this world.

It didn't happen overnight. Linda probably doesn't even know that she helped me. I mentally evaluate how far I have come. I can grab a friends hand and walk, hug and mean it, receive hugs, believe them and determine intentions of a hug. The simple act of hugging, coupled with the proximity of closeness eradicated the stigma of bad touch, replacing it with endearing endorphins.

The senses associated with close life enhancing touch come back to my mind. The heads and necks of my children and grandchildren in the crook of my arm, the finger placed under the nostrils of my sleeping children to feel their breath, the clutch of the arm of a friend signifying a funny event or a fright, the soft skin of my grandmother's forearm, an aunt that was really glad to see me. I am reminded of my oldest granddaughter. One of her first signature character traits of personal expression to me was to hold my hand and try to wedge her tiny fingers into the space underneath my fingernails at the early age of 6 months. I believe she wanted to be closer to me than touch could actually bring her. She still does this sometimes and she is 15.

I have learned the immense pleasure of a heart felt hug and to give one that says the same. Sometimes I am not giving you a hug, I am taking one away.I could learn something as well from the animal kingdom. I am not saying we should preen each other like monkeys, but they are so familiar with their tribe or herd that they can sense compassion, passion,threats and fear through touch and smell. There are about 100 touch receptors in each human fingertip. For all intents and purposes touch is the connector and receptor that links us to well being.
“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” — Albert Einstein

Bohemian Rhapsody Parody ~ Renae Brabham

If I see one more social media share of the ~Arrested Drunk Guy Sings Bohemian Rhapsody ~ I am going to scream. The You Tube video has forged those verses into my head for several days now. I thought I had conquered the beast yesterday and expelled it from my subconscious. It returned this morning with a vengeance. Freddie's Back! My eyes scan the first several pages of the newspaper, the familiar tune crept back in. Freddie Mercury had found another venue! I burst out laughing at my kitchen table as I made the paradoxical summary of Bohemian Rhapsody's lyrics to the headlines of the paper. Governor Haley's remarks on contraception, weather, the Republican presidential candidates, Obama, murder, mayhem and on to the Charleston Scene. I filled in the top five, you'll get the drift. Lord help me I am thinking in music this morning. Now I have Stevie Nicks ~Landslide~ stuck. I got a kick out of a similar situation recently when I received a note from a lyricist/musician,some words were broken into syllables..and some capitalized in the middle of a word. He told me later that tells him to hold the note when he is writing a song and it spills over into his general writing.
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?(Gov on contraception, really Haley?)
Caught in a landslide, No escape from reality, (Obama)
Open your eyes, Look up to the skies and see, (Weather)
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy, (Santorum)
Because I'm easy come, easy go, Little high, little low, (Romney)
Any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me, to me, (Gingrich)
Mama, I just killed a man,
Put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger now he's dead
Mama... life had just begun,But now I've gone and thrown it all away
Mamaaaaa oooh, Didn't mean to make you cry,
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow, Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters
Too late, my time has come, Sends shivers down my spine, body's aching all the time
Goodbye, ev'rybody, I've got to go, Got to leave you all behind and face the truth
Mamaaaaa oooh,I don't want to die, I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all
I see a little silhouetto of a man, Scaramouche! Scaramouche! Will you do the Fandango?!
Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo
I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me, He's just a poor boy from a poor family,
Spare him his life from this monstrosity! Easy come, easy go, will you let me go
Bismilah! No, we will not let you go (Let him go!) Bismilah! We will not let you go
(Let him go!) Bismilah! We will not let you go