I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: photography

  • Gamecock women went to Duke – and so did we

    Gamecock women went to Duke – and so did we


    thanks to Gamecock Jennifer for great seats behind our bench at Duke game

    Duke took early lead, but Gamecock women finished with 77-61 win

    Pretty and I have made the 3 1/2 hour road trip from Columbia, South Carolina to Durham, North Carolina three times in the past eight years to watch our Gamecock women’s basketball team play the Duke University Blue Devils. The trip this year was unique with a new traveler on board: 23 month old granddaughter Molly. While older sister Ella performed in The Nutcracker ballet in Columbia this weekend, Molly had a number of firsts with us starting with our first road trip together.

    Molly’s mom Caroline always has her hair and clothes fixed so cute

    another first for Molly was staying in a motel room with her Nana and Naynay

    (she found Naynay’s Crocs next to bed and took off like a herd of turtles)

    Pretty and Molly outside Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke University on Game Day, Molly’s first basketball game

    Molly happiest when looking at pictures of Ella

    Our personal record with the Gamecock women is now 2-1 at Duke (yes, we were there for the loss in 2016), but while the first two games we saw at Cameron were exciting, this third game in Durham was a winner not only because we won a basketball game but also because we shared a memory maker experience with two North Carolina friends who are ardent Gamecock fans as well as our first attempt to indoctrinate a new little Gamecock fan who now shouts “Cocks” whenever the people around her shout “Game.” Sigh. If only we could have had a different mascot.

    Gamecock women’s basketball won at Duke – and so did we. Go Cocks!

    **********************

    Slava Ukraini. For all children everywhere.

  • is a thing of beauty really a joy forever? not necessarily

    is a thing of beauty really a joy forever? not necessarily


    In 1818 the poet John Keats wrote “A thing of beauty is a joy forever…” from his first published book length poem Endymion, the name of a young shepherd boy in love with a moon goddess according to Greek legend.

    In 1954 Nat King Cole sang the title song for the movie Autumn Leaves which was also about a love affair but with a much more sinister plot twist involving mental illness. Think an older Joan Crawford in love with a much younger man played by Cliff Robertson. If she had been a teacher obsessed with a student, she might have been arrested. A love song that began in France (where else?) as a poem in 1945, crossed the pond as a song in America in the late 1940s by pop singer Jo Stafford whose claim to fame was “the wistful singing voice of the American home front during WWII and the Korean War” per an article in the New York Times in July, 2008; however, it was a piano solo by Roger Williams in 1955 that placed the song on the charts for six months.

    The falling leaves drift by the window
    The autumn leaves of red and gold
    I see your lips, the summer kisses
    The sun-burned hands I used to hold

    Since you went away the days grow long
    And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song
    But I miss you most of all my darling
    When autumn leaves start to fall.

    Lah-de-lah-de-dah. Okay, I get it. I’m all about the beautiful leaves of red and gold, drifting by my window or just outside my back door or front door or on the carport or in the yard or most importantly…in my pool. So romantic except for the ongoing war with the endless leaves in the fall.

    Carl checking out leaf situation with me this morning

    the last reminders of summer covered with autumn leaves

    I fought the leaves, and the leaves won.

    but Pride flag keeps watch over us through every season

    The Thanksgiving season is a time of reflection for yesterday’s summer kisses, today’s beautiful leaves of red and gold that will bring old winter’s song with their brown colors signaling a thing of beauty may not quite be a joy forever. So I’ll miss you most of all, my darling, when autumn leaves start to fall.

    ************************

  • Happy Birthday to the oldest Huss Brother!

    Happy Birthday to the oldest Huss Brother!


    Oscar was almost three years old when he signed this card for me at Halloween in 2011

    These pictures of Oscar and his younger brother Dwight who would be one year old the following January made me smile when I first saw them twelve years ago, and they continue to add smiles for me when I see them today. I named the little boys The Fabulous Huss Brothers when we lived three houses down from the Huss family during the time Pretty and I had a second home in Texas from 2010 – 2014. They were my first introduction to being a grandmother; their biological grandparents lived great distances from the boys so I shared some fun times with them as well as the closeness of family life that helped make my time away from Pretty and South Carolina a memorable experience.

    Every year their mother Becky sends me a Mother’s Day card from the boys (now three brothers with the birth of George in 2012):

    the Fabulous Huss Brothers in 2023

    Happy Fifteenth Birthday, Oscar! I hope you have your best year ever at school, with your extracurricular activities, with friends new and old – and especially at home with your family. Be kind to your mom, dad and those two brothers, too. You are loved. The whole earth is your territory. Explore.

  • Lessons from a Butterfly Concerning Casualties

    Lessons from a Butterfly Concerning Casualties


    Five years ago in August of 2018 I published this article I found when I determined to look for inspiration among more than 900 past posts over a dozen years of blogging. More specifically I looked for anything I’d written about “casualties” because it’s a common term the media glibly tosses around in reports about loss of human life in war, natural disasters, mass shootings, epidemics – which seem to multiply with each news cycle. This morning the focus was on the Israel – Hamas War that has already resulted in staggering numbers of death with estimates of more than 1,400 Israelis and more than 10,000 Gaza citizens. What I found when I listened today was how easy it is to be swept up in the totals and to forget that each casualty also represents one person: one man or one woman or one child. A butterfly reminded me on a hot summer day that the cost of individual grief is immeasurable.

    One week ago today I was doing my pool exercises when I saw something so very extraordinary I took a calculated risk to retrieve my cell phone from the buggy it rests in without disturbing the amazing sight.

    butterfly on caterpillar body – gently folding and unfolding wings

    as it moved its legs across the still corpse

    The carcasses of two recently deceased caterpillars lay next to the steps where I entered the pool every day. I scarcely paid any attention to them when I moved down the steps and into the water. After all, the bodies of caterpillars that were casualties of the chlorine were common and a dime a dozen, weren’t they.

    I also paid very little attention to the small dark colored butterfly that flew around me in wide circles for about 15 minutes until it came to rest on one of the caterpillar bodies lying on the cement next to the pool steps.

    I was so startled at the sight that I stopped my pacing to watch as the butterfly established a kind of rhythm – opening and closing its wings while it moved its legs back and forth across the dead caterpillar. I felt like I was an intruder in a private ritual of grief reserved for these tiny creatures that made our human tears a poor substitute. And then I began to think the butterfly didn’t fly away from me because it sensed my shared sorrow.

    Today, exactly one week later, I was on the last leg of my routine early morning walk around the pool when I saw this remarkable sight.

    a beautiful large blue black butterfly landed right in front of me

    This gorgeous creature flew next to the pool steps, landed, and began to open and close its wings just as the one had last week. I sat down in my buggy seat to better observe what I believe was…what?…the same butterfly from last week…another butterfly…what does that matter really…

    What I learned was a powerful lesson about the importance of all creatures great and small, the individuality of grief, the exquisite beauty in hope embraced by a spirit willing to take flight following great loss.

    ********************

    For all children everywhere. 

     

     

  • the legacy of Carport Kitty grows

    the legacy of Carport Kitty grows


    October 22nd. was the one-year anniversary of our final tearful goodbye to the calico cat Pretty and I called Carport Kitty, the urban neighborhood legend whose physical heart could no longer support her brave spiritual one. We were desolate with grief for months whenever we drove up our driveway toward the carport that seemed bare without her.

    Carport Kitty dined with dignity

    in January, 2023 this Dynamic Duo dropped by occasionally

    I recognized the pair as Carport Kitty’s friends but told Pretty we couldn’t encourage them.

    that ship had sailed

    Sigh. So to honor the memory of Carport Kitty we fed her two friends.

    then along came a mysterious stranger in the spring of 2023

    Sigh. Sigh again. So to honor the memory of Carport Kitty we fed a young neutered male who had never laid eyes on her. In order to avoid becoming attached to this young whippersnapper, Pretty and I decided to call him Cat.

    our friend Nekki fussed at us about a cat named Cat

    and suggested we name him Moses

    Moses is my new assistant in the laundry room adjacent to the carport.

    winter carport cat cribs

    Lest anyone forgets Carport Kitty’s “Frenemy” the OG Bully Cat, I can report he also returns regularly to patrol her former kingdom and snack on leftovers.

    OG Bully Cat in his collar looking fat and sassy on carport patrol earlier today

    (Bully Cat’s home is in a garage one block down the street – his peeps call him Romeo)

    Bully Cat never met a meal he didn’t like

    This evening when Pretty gets home from her antique empire duties she will see not one, but three cats who reside in our carport in one fashion or another – all sharing the legacy of the little calico cat who chose to call us her family for a time we will never forget.