I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Lesbian Literary

  • Casa de Canterbury, A Retrospective: Part IV, Hope Springs Eternal


    If winter comes, can spring be far behind? Yes, apparently it can be far, far behind in 2017 because today is the ides of March and our high temperature at Casa de Canterbury is supposed to be 47 degrees this afternoon. We had a low of 25 this morning and while we are grateful to avoid the blizzards of our amigos in the northeast and certainly don’t want to complain, I is cold…you is cold…we is all cold in the sunny South just a few days short of official spring. Brr…we are sending our hope for spring weather to everyone in the northeast who is shivering and shoveling snow today.

    As the moving days get closer, I find more and more hidden treasures in my office that create more and more indecision. To keep or not to keep. That is the question. Where on earth do I put these memories…

    Red paced, Chelsea panted…

    Annie and Ollie contemplated the meaning of life

    in the spring of 2011 in our back yard 

    Welcome to Forest Hills from the magnificent 

    trees at the corner of Canterbury and Westminster.

    We will miss them.

    Manning Avenue behind Casa de Canterbury

     Casa de Canterbury – the intersection of two worlds

    Lyon Street Community on Manning – 

    Forest Hills on Canterbury Road

    We will miss our neighbors in both worlds.

    Oh my, the azaleas and dogwoods

    are incredible in the spring

    Pretty and I are still trying to figure out what to do with our Casa de Canterbury marker – unfortunately, our next house number is not 2501. Other than that small detail, we could carry it with us to Casa de Cardinal. (What’s with this “C” thing?)

    Spring is my favorite time of the year – next to fall – because it’s the time when new life bursts on the scene, green becomes a real color again, hope springs eternal for a fresh start; which is exactly what Pretty, Spike, Charly and I are about to have as we leave Casa de Canterbury after eight awesome years. We leave with a bucket list of memories, hope for the future and gratitude for the opportunity to once again move on…stronger together.

    Casa de Cardinal – our new home

    our knees are doing a happy dance!

    Stay tuned for more updates.

  • Casa de Canterbury: A Retrospective, Part III, Winter


    “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer” 

    Nope. Don’t think so,Will. At least not at Casa de Canterbury on this Sunday morning which is one of the last Sundays we’ll be in our casa before moving across the three rivers. Snow was noiselessly falling when I woke up today, and I thought that was a particularly appropriate Mother Nature trick in March after the azaleas, dogwood trees, red bud trees and all the other glorious colors had already popped out for us to enjoy too early. Now I am afraid the colors have an unpredictable future which is something we have in common with them.

    But this is a winter retrospective for Casa de Canterbury…brr…baby, it’s cold outside

    Canterbury Road, January, 2014

    Casa de Canterbury shivering

    The Red Man never liked snow – 

    hated to get his paws wet

    Slow never liked to get her feet wet, either

    The Red Man ruled Casa de Canterbury…

    …whenever it suited Paw Licker Annie –

    she was the Queen

    Chelsea just tried to find a place close to Red

    And speaking of finding a place –

    never good to be late to bed with Pretty

    and four dogs ahead of you

    Christmas at Casa de Canterbury, 2012

    All is bright

    Smokey Lonesome Ollie a bit disinterested in

    Number One Son’s Christmas gifts

    Paw Licker Annie found Christmas tiring

    Pretty Too loved Christmas

    But Pretty loved Christmas most of all

    Stay tuned – one more – spring. Summer, autumn, winter, spring.

    (Somebody should be packing instead of “retrospectiving.” Seriously.  Who can spell Packing P-r-o-c-r-a-s-t-i-n-a-t-o-r…)

  • Casa de Canterbury: A Retrospective Part II, Autumn


    Once upon a time on the corner of Canterbury and Manning in a city called Columbia lived a family of two lesbians and their dogs.

    And the family was happy in their home which they called Casa de Canterbury because one of their dogs (The Red Man) spoke fluent Spanish.

    For years and years the old woman Slow and Pretty and their dogs lived in the casa which saw seasons come and go because that is the way seasons act.

    The old woman Slow got slower and slower as her knees rebelled whenever she climbed or came down the 14 steps connecting the first and second levels of the casa. Even Pretty’s younger knees grew so angry with her she had to get a new one in 2016, but that really didn’t help her very much and didn’t help Slow at all.

    And so it became clear to Slow and Pretty they had to leave Casa de Canterbury for…what? new digs. So that is what they are going to do. They are moving west across the Congaree, Saluda and Broad rivers closer to Texas – but not much – to West Columbia, South Carolina, which is not to be confused with where Slow went to high school: West Columbia, Texas. How weird is that? Let’s hope she isn’t confused by this coincidence.

    As the family says goodbye to Casa de Canterbury, they invite you to take a little trip down memory lane with them through a few of the seasons at their casa over the next several posts.

    Looking up Canterbury Road

    toward Casa de Canterbury

    (November, 2012)

    The Red Man on backyard patrol

    (fall, 2012)

    Amazing foliage at Casa de Canterbury

    on Manning Avenue side of front yard

    (fall, 2012)

    Coming home to Casa de Canterbury

    from Worsham Street

    (October, 2012)

    From 2010 to 2014 the two lesbians and their dogs were bi-stateual because they lived on Worsham Street in Texas and also at Casa de Canterbury in South Carolina. They felt like they were always on the road between the two places they called home.

    Pretty was in charge of driving

    and dog walking while Slow was in

    charge of…well, nothing.

     (October, 2012)

    Pretty busy, busy with 5 dogs at Casa de Canterbury –

    they all became a blur

    But she was never too busy to celebrate Halloween.

    Pretty at the Mast General Store

    (October, 2012)

    Stay tuned for winter. Summer, fall, winter, spring.

  • My International Women’s Day


    I wrote this piece on March 08, 2017 and feel it’s worthy of inclusion in my Women’s History Month this year. I hope you agree.

    Spring, 2017 will be the year I move on to my 71st birthday. I know, I know…unbelievable…and apparently my Mouth Almighty, Tongue Everlasting in my seventies shows no sign of a slowdown – if anything I seem to have gained speed with my posts following the not-too-distant sixties.

    As I looked over the more than 80 posts I’ve made since April, 2016 when I began this year by talking about the need for a personal tune-up, I am amazed at how many opinions I’ve had on such a wide variety of topics. Geez Louise. Somebody stop me. I can’t shut up. Case in point, read on.

    Change is in the air at Casa de Canterbury this spring, and Pretty and I are excited about our trip to New Orleans for the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival March 24th. – 26th. I’ve been invited to participate on a panel called Home is Where the Art Is, or is it?  Plus I will do a reading from my short story that will be included in their 2017 anthology. I’m super thrilled.

    We’re hoping to go to Dallas the following week for the NCAA Women’s Final Four the first weekend in April which would give us an opportunity to return to Worsham Street for a long overdue visit with The Little Women of Worsham and the Fabulous Huss Brothers. That would be icing on the proverbial cake. (Michael Reames, are you making me a real birthday cake this year? Money is no object. Pretty will contact you.)

    Today I was cleaning out my extensive collection of family memorabilia which always reminds me of my need to let these pictures and items go – just let them go. They take up space needed for…what? Office supplies. Packing materials. Unsold books. Carolina Panthers commemorative coins. Five years of tax returns. Old cameras.

    This is one of the pictures I found –  I totally lost it when I saw the image of these two significant women in my life before their respective illnesses took them to a different place.

    m

    My two moms, Selma and Willie, and me

    This picture was taken in 2007 during a visit with my mothers for both of their birthdays in March of that year. Five years later in the spring of 2012, Willie died on April 14th. and Selma followed her eleven days afterwards on the 25th. Wham, bam…gone. Were they ready to go? Of course. Had they suffered long enough? Surely. But the loss of two women who had such monumental influence in my life was devastating. I felt like my connection to what had been my home was broken and couldn’t be fixed.

    In reality and from the perspective of five years down the road from that awful place, the connection to home and family isn’t really lost. Powerful images of the people in my past live on today and remind me of what is most important for the future.

    Today is International Women’s Day, a special time to honor the women we cherish, a day of reminder that our world would be very different without the women in our lives; it’s a woman’s day away from the ordinary.We are lucky because they’ll only be gone for one day and will be back with us tomorrow.

    Pretty, the adventure continues, and I thank you for the home we share and the knowledge that you’ll be here tomorrow morning when we start another day together.

    For the rest of my women friends and followers in cyberspace, celebrate yourselves today. You are enough.

     

     

     

  • Mouth Almighty, Tongue Everlasting!


    562 people who like “Sheila Morris, Author” haven’t heard from you in a while. Write a post.

    Alrighty then. This is the first time a Social Media Monitor has scolded me about too few posts so I am jumping right on it.

    Let me begin by apologizing to the 562 people who like me on my Facebook Author page, and I will add my apologies to my 706 FB friends on my personal page who apparently have no advocate and my special apologies to the 18 followers I have within that 706 friends.

    I imagine there is some overlap in these numbers since I don’t have 1,268 people that give a tinker’s damn about me to be either a friend or follower or page liker. Regardless, the Social Media Monitor has now given me an “F” for failure to post, and I have always been an overachiever so this makes me feel very bad.

    I’ve had a few mitigating circumstances this week which should count as excuses for not writing a post, but they are quite lengthy and convoluted and, in the end, probably add up to be no more viable than the dog ate my homework. Sigh.

    Hey, wait a minute. I just checked the date of my last post, and it was on the 20th. of February. If I’m not mistaken, today is only the 25th.? So I am being reprimanded for not posting in the past FIVE days?

    Whoa, Nellie.

    Attention, attention, attention Social Media Monitor: you are way too quick to jump me this week…there’s such a thing as too many posts which might lead to my being accused of having a Mouth Almighty, Tongue Everlasting which is my new favorite saying that I learned from my good friend Kati last night while I was losing money playing Shanghai.

    I see this phrase re-appearing in future posts – I can think of a prominent person at this very minute whose Tweets represent a Mouth Almighty and a Tongue Everlasting. This should be fun.

    Stay tuned, and have a fabulous weekend!