No photographs this time; the satellite is behaving badly and refuses to download any images. (This is the only bad thing about living so far from civilization.) Just imagine three towards elderly women setting out on a balmy full moon night, flashlights clutched firmly, ankles redolent of insect repellent. We are off through the field to look for alligators in the pond. I warn against the cow pies so we step gingerly. At the edge of the pond I scan the water with my mag light. We hear the bull frogs sounding like fingers rubbing against balloons. Then, there it is- the red headlights of an alligator on the far side of the pond. They disappear and then come back, very satisfactorily and definitely an alligator. Seems to be only the one tonight. We head back across the field with our flashlights on our heads between our eyes looking for spiders. You see them in the dark as diamond bright lights. Then you home in on the light you captured, and voila! There is a wolf spider! So cool, my friends exclaimed. We looked at the night sky and headed towards the gopher tortoise burrows, hoping to see one of them bedded down for the night, but they were too far underground to reveal themselves.
I love these guests! Andy's sister Nancy and her partner, Claire, my brother and his wife Carolyn, have been the bookends to a long tourist season of family. I love my children and their progeny beyond imagination. There is something special, however, in the connection to our siblings. They are all so curious and forthcoming about their lives and ours. We are adults together and our tracks through life are intertwined with the long history of shared family stories.
We take field trips, forays out from this farm (that is paradise!) and have a wonderful time together. Today we went to visit Selby Gardens, an incredible semitropical horticultural garden, different, but just as interesting as the trip to Wakulla Springs with my brother and Carolyn.
For me, the most wonderful part of our drive was hearing about Nancy's experiences last month as she was on her way to Burma to teach students who were preparing to study in the USA. It was a compelling lecture (in the best sense) where I could interject a question or two. She was so generous to me, considered my level of interest. I wanted every detail.
Without little kids who always need to interrupt or be put in and out of car seats and straps or go potty or cajoled into doing what you want them to do, I relax and enjoy and forget about being the one who has to think about everyone's happiness.
These 'bookend' family guests disappear for hours to read or play the violin or whatever. They don't complain about the weather or bugs. They don't want to occupy the spaces where we generally work. They cheerfully clean up after supper. (Not that our kids don't.) But, it's kind of restful. And, at the end of the day they quietly join us on the front porch to enjoy the deer and birds and they don't mind eating whatever is in the garden for supper.
We are so fortunate to have this large and amazing family who come to visit. But I must say that my youngest grandson, Quincy, who is the most frequent visitor is possibly the biggest under my heart, (along with his oldest cousin, Diego), has a special place here. His tracks are everywhere; there is the nest he made out of Spanish moss under the crape myrtle tree, and the shelf full of boxes in the barn so he can be a delivery man, and toys upstairs, and stacks of library books we chose last week, a bike and helmet, and tiny surprises left everywhere for me to discover. And, where are all the flashlights?
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