a slice of cake

There were only three of us for the holidays - me, mama and daddy. In fact, it was always just the three of us. And that was just fine by me. 

As each year came to a close and the north Georgia mountains took on its icy glaze, I was certain of a few things. 

First, it was time to kill the hog, and that meant, all the fresh sausage I could hold. Biscuits and thick, bubbly sausage gravy with tidbits of meat weighing it down as only mama could make. Daddy preferred the red-eye gravy, and mama would make it for him. I would turn up my nose and reach for the creamy goo instead. 

Then, there were fried pies. In the fall, mama would dry the apples on tattered, discarded front door screens. After a few days, she would gather, then freeze them in the little quart boxes for a winter treat. I couldn't stand it. Inevitably, within a couple of weeks of stacking the boxes neatly in calculated rows in the freezer, I would drag out a box and beg for fried pies. She'd roll out a dough, cut it hap-haphazardly, stuff it with cooked apples, and with bubbling oil in the iron skillet, she'd drop them in. I'd hold my breath until I finally saw the edges turning brown. She would scoop each ready one onto a towel and simultaneously give me the evil eye. I had to wait. Not long, but I still had to wait. Finally, she'd nod and I'd grab. The taste of that first bite would hold me all winter.

Finally, her orange slice cake. We hated fruit cakes, but there was something about this cake - even though it had most of the same ingredients - that had the perfect crunch, the perfect flavor. I honestly can't remember taking part in the baking, but I do remember the moment she took it out of the oven. She'd pour the glaze onto the steaming cake, and it inhaled the orange juice mixture. I'd watch puddles form on the plate, and it took all the strength in me not to run my finger around the plate's edge. Again, it was the evil eye. 

For those fruit cake haters, here's a variation that just might turn into a tradition. A couple of things to keep in mind: it takes forever to cook and it weighs a ton. As for the evil eye, you will have to work on that one yourself. 

Juette's Orange Slice Cake

For the cake: 

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 (12-ounce) box dried dates, chopped
1 pound orange slice candies, chopped
2 cups pecans, chopped
1/2 cup flour for dredging
2 cups sweetened coconut flakes

For the glaze:

2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup orange juice

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Grease and flour a tube pan.

For the cake: In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. In a separate bowl, dissolve baking soda in buttermilk. Add flour to butter mixture alternating with the buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with flour. In another bowl, toss dates, nuts and chopped orange slices in 1/2 cup flour until coated. Stir in coconut until well-combined. Add to batter and mix until well combined.
Bake in a prepared pan for about 2 hours or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

For the glaze: Meanwhile, combine powdered sugar and orange juice in a small bowl until smooth. Remove cake from pan and cool cake completely. Drizzle glaze over cake. Or, when cake comes out of the oven, use a toothpick to poke holes and pour glaze on cake. Let cake stand in tube pan overnight before inverting. 

traveling full circle

Gone November 16, 2012

Can it be? No more Twinkies? No more Ho Ho's? Why do all the things that we love - and cake and goo are at the top of love list - disappear and fade away? Albeit greed, in my opinion, that erased this icon from the grocery store shelves, it seems to be following the lead of most everything in life.

My daughter's new do.

What became of the classics? The Huckleberry Finns and the Tom Sawyers replaced with vampires and werewolves? The Louis Vuitton Speedy or a string of glass pearls fall behind Juicy or Vera Wang? The classic and sleek bob has been replaced by mountains of gel and long locks trimmed in green (I know the picture is side-ways. It doesn't look any better the other way.). My grip of reality is slowing slipping.

It's those things that are steadfast, consistent, resilient, that we come to appreciate most of all. We know that in the morning we'll wake up and there will be coffee brewing in the kitchen, the cat will be cuddled on my legs, and my slippers will be just a leg drop away. This assurance, I suppose, is something we all take for granted until the world turns on its axis rather unexpectedly. I don't like it when this happens. I like to know that if I eat my black-eyed peas on New Years, I will definitely accumulate thousands of pennies during the coming year. This is so. I have a waist deep plastic cola-cola shaped container that holds mountains of concrete proof from 2012. See, I ate my peas and I have pennies.

I guess everything comes full circle. Things begin with contagious hope, run their course, and then in the whirl-wind of life, they lose a bit of steam after they have given it all they've got, they slow down and bow out with a graceful good-bye. With lots of successes, lots of memories and lots of stories.

Those stories - of a life cycle well traveled - are those I want to tell and record. There are people and places and things that must not be forgotten. Like, the normalcy I felt when mama opted for my first store-bought dress instead of a hand-made one. The teenage tears that poured upon cutting my waist long hair up to my shoulders. Touching my children for the first time. Holding my breath as the gavel fell.

Tell me your story, so I can tell your story. I am looking for those who have lived a long life, those that have wisdom and advice that should not fade away. Stories of hardship and triumph, war heroes who went to war and those who waited at home, lovers, dreamers, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. I want to find you. Help me find you.

My full circle journey begins now, and I'm proud you're going with me. The website will be launched the first of the year and you'll get to meet some great people that will change your life. In the meantime, please help me find the stories before they fade.

Contact me at seeingsouthern@gmail.com. 

from farmington to sydney

"Oh, no mama. That's awful. You have a million just like that in your closet."

I couldn't decide what was worse, that I had a million in my closet or that it was awful.

I peered at my avant-garde daughter, raised my eyebrows and contemplated her signature move of rolling my eyes.

She continued on her persuasive course.

"Mom, you have to think outside the box," she pressured. Her fingers tripped through the endless TJMaxx shirt selection, and stopped at a red fixation. "See, like this." I looked at the tiered, paper-thin drape sequined excuse for a shirt she held in her hands and then, as if touching it would convince me, she pressed it to my chest. "Nice," she said.

"Are you kidding?" I replied. I took a second look at the classic white v-neck long sleeve t-shirt I held in my left hand and stared into her big baby browns. "Sold." I'm a Diane Keaton-Annie Hall wannabe, and that will always trump what lives outside the box.

I miss deal-discovery at discount stores. No matter how wrong you are about my style, my heart dances each time you try to convince me that somewhere inside me lives a twenty-something. I miss large frappuccinos and tall caramel macchiatos. I think we're more like friends than mother and daughter, and I know that is what sucks the most about distance. I miss road rage in the green bean. All mothers understand that somewhere down the line, your baby will break free and find other characters that will take center stage. There will be other acts and other performances, most that will not include me in the cast. 

But as far as friends go, I want those forever. I shouldn't have to say goodbye to anyone, child or otherwise, that ever called herself a friend. Time. Geography. Craziness. I've had many sidekicks that have involuntarily said good-bye simply because that's the direction life took them. It made sense on the outside, but never on the inside. Their absence was like one of those paper cuts that you never knew existed until you accidentally spritzed the spot with perfume.

It's my best friend that has ducked away now and that is who I miss the most. There's not even a phone that can satisfy the void. You had to go to the other side of the world where civilization is questionable at best and phone plans set you back the cost of a kidney. Whoever invented Skype is my hero, right along side the man who invented post-its. There's genius in simplicity and economy.

Daughters can be best friends. I had no clue that would be the scenario when I first wrapped you in grandma's crocheted blanket. You were just a tiding of great joy, one that I would learn would stretch my patience and my love to infinite boundaries.

So, go, dip into the aborigines society or whatever that Aussie world calls itself. Just don't turn into one.

Remember these updates from your best friend: you are Southern to the core - ain't no such word as mum; no matter what color you choose to put on your hair, you are and will always be blonde; Silas runs circles around Cody, and then Cody runs circles around Silas; I make a mean Brioche French Bread Pudding now; Len jets to work in the green bean and is living his second childhood; Logan misses you more than he can put into words; Ty needs a push into flying; Colquitt is as dangerous as ever; Bear lifts his head when he hears you on Skype; photography and writing rock; and there's never a sunrise on Mayne when I don't think of you.

So until it's time to come home or until the VISA runs out, whichever rolls around first, take care of yourself and follow your dreams.

The mama in me says "use your common sense"; the friend in me roars "kick ass!"

53 from the heart

October, 2012, signals my 53rd year. Humbling, I know. I have learned many truths during this sprint. My thankful list is long overdue.

1. I get to work at home, at my desk - surrounded by the things I love most - every single day.
2. He's the last sight at night, and my first sight each morning - the glory of second chances.
3. My children are living their dreams, not mine.
4. I can walk on two feet again.
5. My husband pushes me to follow my dreams.
6. Bear keeps me company while I sit at my desk. He never complains when I get to sip tea and he doesn't.
7.I have learned to make the perfect meatball.
8.When I'm thrust back into my past for a brief second, I'm so thankful I'm not living there.
9. I can make as many pots of coffee a day as I like, and every cup is mine.
10. God never left me.
11. Ty has figured out that the truly important things might take a wee bit longer to accomplish.
12. I had the best mama and daddy ever.
13. My mama taught me how to make homemade applesauce, sauerkraut and cat-head biscuits.
14. I finally get that doing the right thing is the only option.
15. God saw something in me worth saving.
16. My husband can do all those things that you normally have to pay repairman a ton to fix.
17. I made several steps toward squashing fear this year - small steps, but they're a start.
18. I have put most of the events in my life in perspective and left most of them in their proper place.
19. My ipod and all the Barry Manilow and Blake Shelton I can stand.
20. I can finally say I'm half-Italian.
21. My daughter actually likes to hang out with me - that is when she's in the same zip code.
22. Logan still hugs me - always.
23. I can laugh about the really sad things.
24. I have three sisters.
25. Thoreau got it right: simplicity.
26. I get to meet amazing people and become their storyteller.
27. I have a really cool boss who lets me vent and rant and write.
28. I have a horse (JACK) with a sense of humor.
29. My children transcended what fate threw at them and knocked it out of the park.
30. Sorry Thomas, but you can go home again - and I will.
31. I have a few good friends that have stood the test of time - and really, that's all you need.
32. I started life all over again - on my terms.
33. Dreams are freakin' amazing, and I will never stop - so there.
34. Starbucks still makes me think of New York City - and I close my eyes and travel there.
35. Mama's words teach me just as daddy's image on the sofa comforts me.
36. I'm not superficial.
37. I can still hold books and magazines in my hands.
38. As hard as it was, forgiveness allowed me to get on with living.
39. At long last, I don't really care what others think of me.
40. Not only can I make a fine meatball, but I make a killer homemade pizza. See, half-Italian.
41. I enjoy TV, my husband and quiet evenings. Not always in that order.
42. I grew up in Clarkesville, Georgia, a truly authentic Southern town.
43. I get to travel the world over and still ohh and ahh.
44. I went through the adoption process, opened records and finally understood.
45. I let go.
46. Sweetwater Brewery makes tasty liquids.
47.  My children still want to come home.
48. They do make cute shoes for old women - you just have to dig.
49. My daughter's unending advice: outside the box, mom. It's soooo hard.
50. I got to traipse through many cornfields with my daddy and go into the woods shopping for Christmas trees. How many kids can say that.
51. I have a front porch with rockers and that's where I go to do my best thinking.
52. I fell in love for the last time.
53. I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

you gotta have friends

It's like a cool drink on a scorching summer day. The refreshment, the rejuvenation, the joy. Squeezing the stuffing out of an old friend erases time and distance, and it is just like it was yesterday. We tooled around Habersham County in a bright red Pinto daring the world to interrupt. It never did. It knew better.

That was me and my bestest friend, Susan.

It has been 15 years since last eye contact. Almost 25 years since we were freshman roommates at Truett - both purchasing the same sheets for our dorm room beds and not knowing until we made them up. More since the day bat-welding Bianca  - aka Shittenbarger - chased me through the campus street threatening bodily harm. More since those afternoons after school on the pinnacle of the golf course with Rowena, Susan's mom. More since the days of hearing Hubert's, Susan's dad, silly giggles. More since the days of Acteens and "steps" and a 16th birthday party in my daddy's '48 Chevy and sneaking alongside the gray bomb to get in the Cornelia drive-in - free. Even more since the days of Brenda's pea green Mustang called Henry and rolling yards and Brenda's wearing of cotton underwear on her head to keep her hair manageable during sleep. And the pepper in the pillowcase at Rock Eagle. Oh my, the pepper in the pillowcase. I plead the 5th!

These memories keep me alive and moving forward, simply in the hopes that, when I least expect it,  I'll be able to relive them again in a small bistro in Asheville. As I get older, true friends are harder to come by. The daily walk of life leads relationships in different directions and life sets the new priorities, a fact that I detest, but one I must accept. I give thanks for these moments and realize I was, and continue to be, one very lucky girl.