Soaking it all in

Now that we are in the process of leaving the sunny state of Florida, I find myself looking out at the scenery that surrounds us with more appreciative eyes. Even when I was a little girl moving on to the next duty station, I would find one special thing to commit to my sensory memory that I could later always associate with that particular geographic area.

In northern Virginia, it was the smell, colors and sounds of the dry fall leaves that had quietly drifted to the forest ground behind our small home. In North Carolina, it is the strong sea grass that seems to dance and sway in the wind that rolls off the water. In Hawaii, it was the Plumeria flower. I will always remember the way they made our front yard smell in the spring when they opened their silky soft white and yellow petals. The sap from those said flowers will also stick in my memory...literally and figuratively. In Va Beach, the spring azaleas paint almost every suburban street with a pretty palette of colors. The colors of the azaleas are almost as predictable as the brown mucky mess they leave once the flowers fall to the ground a few weeks later. In the blue ridge mountains of North Carolina, it will forever be the memory of the wind; the smell was so clean and pure and the lullaby sounds it made as it whistled through every hollow and ridge sang me soundly to sleep every night I wasn't up writing another blessed essay.

From Jacksonville, I will commit to memory the dignified beauty and graceful elegance of the Spanish moss. It drips from all the most majestic trees as if its presence on their branches signifies a special type of worthiness.

I love its wispiness. I love how it falls over everything like a puffy gray icing. I love how it conjures pictures of ladies in big hats sipping mint iced tea while lazily rocking away on a big wraparound porch.

Watching it sway in the small breezes brings on phrases like: "Dadgumit!", "Lawsy and Mercy Me!", "Ya'll", "Bless your lil' ole heart", and "He's as worthless as tits on a boarhog" (this last one is from the vernacular of Chuck Herndon to which I will devote a future blog entry.)