’twas two weeks before Christmas…

…and all through the yard only Spike and I were stirring,

Pretty and Charly were inside and warm.

Pretty and I like to keep the pool open in the winter,

but it has a much different look from summer fun

Spike keeps me company whenever I walk around the pool

(I think he likes the cold, and I like his company)

so beautiful, but Pretty battles the leaves until they’re all gone

the bottom of the pool looks like a Rorschach test picture to me sometimes

even the bottle tree loses its colors in wintertime

Spike is ready to go inside to check on Pretty

While family members in the upstate of South Carolina have been without power this weekend after unusually large amounts of snowfall, we have been covered in grey clouds peppering us with rain, rain and more rain. Almost cold enough for snow, but not quite.

I am reminded of Granny Selma’s motto: Sheila, we have to smile more on rainy days.

Think about it, and stay tuned.

Published by Sheila Morris

Sheila Morris is a personal historian, essayist with humorist tendencies, lesbian activist, truth seeker and speaker in the tradition of other female Texas storytellers including her paternal grandmother. In December, 2017, the University of South Carolina Press published her collection of first-person accounts of a few of the people primarily responsible for the development of LGBTQ+ organizations in South Carolina. Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will resonate with everyone interested in LGBTQ+ history in the South during the tumultuous times from the AIDS pandemic to marriage equality. She has published five nonfiction books including two memoirs, an essay compilation and two collections of her favorite blogs from I'll Call It Like I See It. Her first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing received a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Her writings have been included in various anthologies including Out Loud: the best of Rainbow Radio, Saints and Sinners New Fiction from the 2017 Festival, Mothers and Other Creatures; Cowboys, Cops, Killers, and Ghosts (Texas Folklore Society LXIX). She is a displaced Texan living in South Carolina with her wife Teresa Williams and their dogs Spike, Charly and Carl. She is also Naynay to her two granddaughters Ella and Molly James who light up her life for real. Born in rural Grimes County, Texas in 1946 her Texas roots still run wide and deep. View more posts