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Nearing The End of April
The days are longer, walking in with soft daybreaks and shuffling out with glowing coral sunsets, and the early, surprising heat has modulated itself back to where it should be, and it would be easy to unwind at least eighteen of the hours of the day outside under the dome of pollen and barnswallows and floating spider webs. I’ll get this out of the way first — I haven’t even tried to work on my memoirs for a while. There are some things, some images and events that are too evocative of too much rawness, and my instincts tell me to sidestep them for a little while until it’s time…
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A Sunday
Winter feels over, though I suspect that we’ll have blackberry winter yet, and the frost will burn the tips of the tender things in the coming mornings. Today we saw 83F, and we were forced to put out the fans on the back porch. . The dogs lolled around on the warm boards, the bees and wasps flew their missions against us, the dandelions straightened themselves out on the green expanse, the birds gamboled and frisked, and the snakes made an appearance as well, prompting Mrs. Orr to ask me to cut down the Japanese magnolia at the southeast corner of the house. The lithe black things seem to be…
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Undisciplined
I have tried to keep to my schedule of weekly postings of memoir entries, but sometimes things just load up on me and I can’t do it. Lacka damn discipline, my Drill Instructors would have said. If I can’t offer my own words, I’ll offer someone else’s much more talented take on this life. For now, it’ll be Miranda Lambert and a little sample of her Marfa Tapes album. If you’ve ever seen the movies “Hud” or “Giant,” you’ve seen Marfa, Texas, a mysterious place of bleak and blasted beauty. Miz Lambert took two of her musician buddies out there, armed only with acoustic guitars and two microphones, and they…
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Shut Down Upon Our Little Days
I’ve always been something of a worrier, a personal trait that has never done me or anyone around me any good. Like so many other of my quirks, I have tried to pray it away or master it by stern self-discipline, but it remains as much a part of me as my freckles or my bone structure. Last time we were back in Texas, I found a tattered little prayer book in an antique store and bought it for five dollars (I’ve since learned that a used copy of this book sells on a major website for something like $80 or $90). Stuffed inside its pages were various holy cards…
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Dixee Update
The little girl made it through her surgery, and we are grateful. She’s limping like a fuzzy tripod, and unhappy with the much-needed cone, and we’re so happy she’s here with us and breathing her way into the next day of Holy Week. My sincerest thanks to James and Lewis and any of you who prayed for this scroungy little gray girl. We do appreciate it so much. ~ S.K. Orr
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A Little Dog
If you are the sort of person who prays for animals, please pray for our little elderly dog, Dixee. She is undergoing surgery today. A few years back, she developed a cancerous growth and was treated for this. A new, more sinister-looking growth has appeared on her leg and surgery is needed not only to remove it, but also to biopsy it and arrive at a prognosis. Our main concern is that due to her age and increasing frailty, the general anesthesia may be too much for her. We are prepared emotionally if she doesn’t survive the surgery, but I would still ask for your prayers, that the veterinary surgeon…
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Memoir 4
It’s no wonder I turned out like I did, given the arid terrarium into which I was hatched. My sister, older than me by almost two years, resented me from the beginning and never hesitated to show and tell her dislike for her younger brother. In our teen years and into our twenties, she used to tell me that she hated me, that she used to wish I would die when she would watch me in my playpen or running through the yard. I was never shocked by her admissions or her venom; they made perfect sense because I saw and felt them every day. And though we have largely…
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Saturday Before Holy Week
The day was odd. After mild temperatures all week, today saw snow all day, on and off, until about 5 pm. Sunny one minute, confectioners sugar in a tornado the next. It frosted last night and I covered Mrs. Orr’s new roses. I will do the same again tonight, because they are leafy and lush and thriving. One dislikes seeing good work undone. I’m uncomfortable in the shackles of the awareness that I’m almost three days late in posting my most recent memoir entry. I have half a draft ready and will, unless books and dogs and chores distract me, finish up tomorrow night and post it. I don’t listen…