Whenever I see an Oatmeal cream pie I am immediately brought back to my childhood and the visits when great grandma Creech would come stay with out. My great grandma was a unique woman. She was taller, and always skinny – although I don’t think she tried. Even at 98 she had very few wrinkles. When I asked her once why she told me it was due to the Jergens lotion she used on a daily basis. I don’t ever remember seeing her with gray hair – even the last time I saw her I think she still had it colored dark. Best of all was that she was full of life – and of spunk. She was the kind of woman who told you exactly what she was thinking when she was thinking it – and I loved her dearly.
About once a year grandma Creech would come visit. She always brought the requisite three things with her – oatmeal cream pies, apple jelly and a large box of Whitman’s sampler. The oatmeal cream pies and apple jelly were for her. The Whitman’s sampler was purely for my sister and myself. Grandma creech loved to spoil us – and we loved to be spoiled. I could sit for hours and listen to her tells stories about the days when she camped with my great granddad, about raising my grandmother (and my mom) and just about her life in general. She always put in her two cents (like the time she told me if my boyfriend tried to kiss me before we were married that I should spit in his face and slap him – and he would respect me for it) and while I didn’t always take her advice I did learn a lot from it.
Grandma Creech died when I was 16 years old. But in those 16 years she taught me a tremendous amount. She taught me that being ladylike and having grace, kindness, faith, love, and spunk were good things – and so were oatmeal cream pies.
With my eyes closed, I can taste the salt in the air as I breathe it in. I can hear the waves crashing on the shoreline, gently making a lulling rhythm that makes me sleepy. The hot sun warms my skin, which is a contrast to the cool ocean water lapping at my feet. The gentle breeze off the ocean presents a little relief from the squelching sun. To me, this is paradise.
Then I open my eyes, and I’m back in my office staring at the computer and trying to finish my variance report on the budget. But I am distracted, the anticipation of vacation always in the back of my mind. Next week I’ll be on the beach, taking in sun, laughing with family, and in my version of paradise.
Until then – I just have to close my eyes.
If you go to Atlantic Beach these days you’ll see a bunch of large beach cottages, most of them costing upwards of a million dollars. But if you travel down Atlantic Avenue – just two rows back from the beach - you’ll see something different – Hadley Hall. The beach house is nothing fancy. The front porch is sagging and has more then a few loose boards. The old dark green siding has faded and showing it’s age. The paint is peeling on the front railing and it is missing some slats. But to me, that cottage is worth more then any million dollar home on the Island. That sagging front porch is where I learned to shag to the sounds of beach music with my dad when I was a little girl. Inside, with the rich knotty pine walls, is where I spent many I night playing seven up, board games and UNO with friends and family. The downstairs bedroom is where my two best girlfriends and I stayed for a week and a half after junior year of college – and had the best vacation I’ve ever had. The street in front of the house is where my cousins and I set off fire works every year on the fourth of July. The lawn with the sand spurs all it in is where my sister and I searched for Easter eggs year after year. The kitchen, with it’s rusted refrigerator and stove that’s so old I don’t how to work it, is where my mom and dad cooked pancakes and spaghetti diners for the family. And the back porch, where we hung our bathing suits and wet towels, is where when I was only 5 years old I got married – to the 7 year old boy who was my best friend. So many memories are contained in that house.
Two years ago my father told me he was going to sell his portion of the beach house to my uncle, and so when I left for the last time in October of 2006 – I cried. I cried not just because I was losing the house, but because I was losing a part of my childhood and the place I had always assumed my children would grow up as well. The place where my children would sit on the porch and rock and listen to the beach music or where they would play with their friends. Just a month ago my dad told me the sell was final, and even though I understood the reasons, and hadn’t been back in two years – my heart still broke. That beach house was no longer mine.
But in a way it still is, and always will be, mine. It’s mine in my heart and in my memories. And I will always be a part of it, in the in sand I tracked in, the wear on the furniture and the floors, and the footprints I left behind.
It’s up to me to hold those memories dear, and to continue to make new ones with family – just not at Hadley Hall.
Disappointment comes at all corners of life. Disappointment is going to the ice cream shop... only to find out they are out of your favorite type. Disappointment is getting psyched up for a movie .... only to find it's sold out. Or disappointment can be getting your hopes up ... only to have someone bring it down (generally by pointing out the realities).
How a person deals with disappointment can say a lot about who they are. Do you sulk off and hide until you get over the disappointment or do you think of how you can turn it around into a positive.
Last year my boyfriend decided that he wanted to go on a fishing trip to Tennessee. He had to book it a year in advance to secure his spot with the river guide we wanted to go with - otherwise he wouldn't be able to go. About a week before the trip he got a call from the guide cancelling the trip due to the river being high and flooding. He was, for a minute, very disappointed. But, he decided there wasn't anything he could do about it, and so he planned another trip for next year and spent this years vacation time at the Roanoke River - where he caught over 90 Striped Bass.
So... remember the next time you have a disappointment in your life (weather it is ice cream or something more serious) that there may be something that you can do to turn that disappointment into a positive. And if you can't, then try to remember all the positives that already exist in your life.
An as an anonymous person on the Internet once said "When life hands you lemons make lemonade, build a lemonade stand, and rake in the dough".
While I've always considered myself an affectionate person, it wasn't until I was 15 that I truly understood the power of a simple hug. My parents had been having problems for quite awhile and before I left for summer camp my mother had sat me down and told me that there was a good chance that she would file for separation from my dad before the end of the summer. I left for summer camp with that in the back of my mind, but managed to put it out of my thoughts for most of the time there.
My summer camp was a Christian sailing camp, and as part of the experience we got to take over night sailing trips. We arrived at Yogi campground that night and went through the usual process of setting up tents and having supper before we were released for free time. All of us teenagers had different ideas of free time and separated. Somehow I found myself sitting in children’s play train and got lost in my thoughts of my parents impending separation. Who would I live with? Where would I go for Christmas? There would be no more family vacations with dad and mom and the beach house. No more trips to the ECU football games together, and it was at that moment that I began to face the fact my life would change. Thinking about it began to make me cry.
I took a walk thinking it would clear my head and ended up back on one of the sailboats that had been pulled up to the shore of the river. At that point I lost it. As I thought of my parents and what my life was going to be like I couldn't help crying. My friend Andrew (who had come to camp with me, and who I have known since I was 7) came looking for me. I heard him behind me. When he saw me crying he immediately asked me what was wrong. I let it all out, and told him everything - that first person I had ever told my parents were having problems.
I'll never forget... instead of trying to tell me it was going to be ok, that I would be alright. He just hugged me and held me and listened to me cry. He must of sat there, holding me, for a good 15 minutes in silence - just letting me be. At that moment that was all I needed, I just needed someone to listen, and to hug me. Eventually I stopped crying and went back to the campground.
But I never forgot, and will never forget, how much that simple hug and open ear meant on that summer night.
Pain. Searing, overwhelming, radiating pain. That is all I remember feeling as I laid in the cold, wet snow on the side of Sugar Mountain. Somehow, in managing to avoid the beginner skiers camped out in the middle of the ski slope, I had panicked and picked up uncontrollable speed and subsequently I had fallen. I don’t remember the fall itself, but I do remember the pain. Luckily, another lady had fallen near me (it must have been a real popular place to fall). I have to say she was my guardian angel that day. She crawled over to me (because if you ever been skiing you know how hard it is to get up from any fall). She looked at me from beneath the hood of a ski parka.
"Can you get up?" she asked.
"No… it’s my knee" (it was about all I could do to get that out).
"Are you here with anyone? Can I help you find someone?"
"My friend, Jennifer. She’s in a white ski parka with fur. She was coming down behind me. Please try to flag her."
The lady flagged a skier down.
"Tell them we need ski patrol up here. She’s hurt her knee and there is no way she can ski or walk down".
After she’d done that she immediately began to look for Jen. All I could think was that Jen and her boyfriend were going to get to the bottom and not be able to find me. They’d probably think that I’d gone up again and would keep on skiing – while I was hanging out in the ski lodge’s medic unit with a knee that felt like someone had twisted it out of the socket.
Lost in my thoughts, the ladies chuckle brought me back.
"Well, I found your friend. She feel about 3 feet from you"
My best friend had fallen only three feet from me. I couldn’t help but laugh. I looked over and saw Jen starting to get up. I called out for her and she finally turned around and saw me.
"What happened? Are you ok?"
I explained to her as best I could how I fell, and that I was sure I’d hurt my knee cause I’d never felt so much pain in my life. Finally John showed up also went after ski patrol. It seems like hours (although I’m sure it was only a few minutes) before the ski patrol snowmobile came to take me down the mountain. I’d always thought it would be fun to ride in one of those thing…. Boy was I wrong.
"Yes I am young? So What"
"Careful! Fragile!: Contents are Under Pressure"
"Better Than I Think I am"
"The New Kid On The Block"
Most people say that they know the exact moment that they fall in love. For me, that wasn't the case. I didn't fall into love, I steped into it - slowly, cautiously and then completely. I was the timid swimmer putting one toe in the water, then an ankle, a leg and continuing limb by limb until they are completely submerged. I fell in love with little things and big things, discovering new things each day - like the fact that you can read his emotions in his eyes or his selflishness. I fell in love with his hands, how rough they were and how they showed his hard work. Mainly, I fell in love with him. Does that mean we don't argue? No. Does it mean there aren't things about him that drive me up a wall? No. Does is mean I've never wanted to throw in the towel? No - but then I take a step back and remember that he is worth fighting for.
When I look at him, even now three years later, there are moments where I see my future vividly. I can see us when we're in our 60's on the beach (both of ours favorite places to be) talking, or just sitting, watching the waves roll in, the saltwater smell in the air, toes in the sand. Thinking of my future with this man, this wonderful man, who is my best friend, never fails to me make me smile. I know there will be hard times, but I have faith in God and us that we can, and will get through it.
