I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: photography

  • I hope you dance

    I hope you dance


    I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,
    You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger,
    May you never take one single breath for granted,
    God forbid love ever leave you empty handed,
    I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
    Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
    Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance,
    And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

    I hope you dance… I hope you dance…

    I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,
    Never settle for the path of least resistance,
    Livin’ might mean takin’ chances, but they’re worth takin’,
    Lovin’ might be a mistake, but it’s worth makin’,
    Don’t let some Hell bent heart leave you bitter,
    When you come close to sellin’ out reconsider,
    Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance,
    And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

    I hope you dance… I hope you dance.

    (Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along,
    Tell me who wants to look back on their years
    And wonder where those years have gone.)

    lyrics to “I Hope You Dance” by Tia Sillers and Mark Sanders

    For my actual birthday this week, Pretty took me and our granddaughters to the zoo. She carried Molly in her car seat, diaper bag on her back, often carrying Ella in her left arm while I tagged along with my two bionic knees. We had a small parade of our own. Please know that I offered to rent a stroller when we entered, but Pretty said the line to rent one was too long to wait. There were two people ahead of me.

    The day was a memory maker, and Pretty deserves an award for creating a magical time for the four of us. I love all my girls.

    I hope they both dance…

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

    Slava Ukraini – for the children.

  • make a wish – then blow

    make a wish – then blow


    granddaughter Ella clutches dandelion at Eudora Farms

    No matter her new flower discovery at age 2 1/2 years was actually a weed whose fluffy top took flight when she followed her Aunt Kaka’s admonition to “Make a wish, then blow.” Ella blew enthusiastically as Aunt Kaka said she wished for many more days like this one, and I totally agreed.

    Everyone was in high spirits as we began our road trip mid morning to the Wildlife Safari Park at Eudora Farms in Salley, South Carolina. Ella was taken with 4 year old Collins, the granddaughter of Kaka and Kitty; exactly one year before she and Collins made a memorable trip to Riverbanks Zoo together. Collins lives in the low country area of the state so they don’t have a chance to visit often. But whenever the girls get together with their grandmothers, it’s a memory maker.

    Collins was the only person festively attired for the trip which officially marked the beginning of my birthday week – I was thrilled for her magic wand but a bit disappointed when she couldn’t make my position in the middle of the second row more easily accessible.

    This trip was different in many ways from the zoo trip last year at Easter. Ella now had a 3 month old baby sister named Molly who sat in her car seat with Nana a/k/a Pretty on the third row of our new pre-owned GrannyMobile made necessary by the birth of our second granddaughter in January. Aunt Kaka drove with Aunt Kitty riding shotgun in the front seats – a term we used in Texas when I was growing up there but now seems oddly offensive. Mea culpa.

    After two detours for potty breaks, french fries and exotic candy purchases, we saw our first exotic animals at the park. That is, Kaka and Kitty saw them up close and personal while the rest of our group kept our windows rolled up. The woman in the window suggested we purchase four buckets of carrots when we entered the gate – those disappeared too quickly.

    Aunt Kitty attracted buffaloes and longhorns much to her chagrin

    (I read the animal fact sheet during the encounters

    – no one paid attention)

    The little girls who sat in the second row were at once fascinated and fearful when the large heads poked through the open windows looking for the carrots – the grandmother who sat between them had the same reactions. The Park designers had cleverly provided a reward for every car that survived the winding road of our make believe safari: fast food that had State Fair flavors, a petting zoo of smaller animals, a parakeet cage with food available for the birds, an antiquated large tractor, and best of all a large corn box that closely resembled a sand box capable of holding a dozen small children who needed to be set free from car seats. The corn box was total genius. Trust me on that one.

    Collins and Naynay loved the petting zoo with the goats and ponies

    Ella and I fed the parakeets together – more our style

    We all loved the tractor

    Molly took everything in – but was more concerned about her food than the food for the animals

    What a difference a year makes – too much sadness, too many tragedies everywhere far away and close to home – but I will pick a dandelion for my birthday, make a wish for more days like these, and blow with as much force as my 76 years can exert.

    Thanks to Kaka, Kitty and Collins for not only the road trip but the pictures they shared. Please stay tuned. Remember Ukraine.

  • disaster strikes Carport Kitty

    disaster strikes Carport Kitty


    The routine Carport Kitty has trained me for begins with her breakfast every morning. The time varies, depending on when she decides to welcome the new day. She seems to rely on the ridiculous barking of our three dogs who have the advantage of being inside and, therefore, closer to the food source. That hullabaloo usually takes place shortly before 8 o’clock.

    When the dogs eat, the barking mercifully stops and I look through the glass window in the kitchen door to check on Carport Kitty who typically exits her heating pad throne in the laundry room, stretches, stretches some more and sits next to her food bowl as if to say, what’s for breakfast today O Fickle Food Provider. Don’t forget the Fancy Feast.

    Any change in routine makes me nervous. And I mean any change in routine so when Carport Kitty didn’t make her customary appearance one morning last week, I was wigged. What could have happened? Where could she be?

    Oh no, I cried when I went into the laundry room to check on her! (Cleaned up language for cyberspace.)

    I picked up four pieces that had been one of Pretty’s heavy wooden rolling pins she kept on the top shelf of the laundry. The pieces were scattered near Carport Kitty’s throne. OMG, I panicked. What if one had hit CK in the head and knocked her senseless?? What if she had wandered into the street, gotten hit by a car and couldn’t make her way home? What if the accident happened during the night before and, again knocked senseless, she became easy pray for a coyote eager to gobble her up?

    That coyote thing was over the top, I thought. We had never seen a coyote anywhere in our neighborhood. I had to dial it back before I rushed inside to wake Pretty with the news. Pretty somehow slept through the early morning routine every day, but when a Major Disaster strikes, Pretty is your voice of reason.

    She and I made a thorough search of the area around our house and yard, and Pretty tried to calm my nerves by saying Carport Kitty was probably fine. She could miss breakfast but would be back later for her afternoon snack. I wasn’t overly optimistic but tried to look less worried when Pretty left for work a little while later.

    Almost immediately my phone rang with Pretty’s special ring. She had spotted Carport Kitty two houses up from us in Neighbor John’s driveway. Neighbor John was the carport she frequented before she came to ours so of course she would go there when the sky was falling in. I was beyond relieved. Bless her heart, I thought. I would have a special snack for her when she got hungry if she somehow managed to come back to us.

    I began a vigil to wait for our poor pitiful pussy.

    WTF?

    When I was finally rewarded with her joyful return that afternoon at snack time, this was the look she gave me. More disdain than delight.

    She didn’t return to the pantry for two days but then cold windy weather hit the sunny South. Carport Kitty was home – and warm.

  • it’s April 1st, fool! march madness is over, right?

    it’s April 1st, fool! march madness is over, right?


    South Carolina Gamecocks Coach Dawn Staley

    says two more games!

    The month of March may be over, but the Madness of NCAA basketball has one last hurrah this weekend. The Final Four for the women will be played in the frozen tundra that is more generally known as Minneapolis, Minnesota under the Friday night lights of Target Center in the heart of the downtown district on April Fool’s Day, 2022.

    The Gamecock women have been ranked #1 in the nation during the 2021-2022 season with a record of 33 wins and 2 losses. They will play the Louisville Cardinals (29-4) in the semi-final.

    Pretty and I love women’s basketball – the game is part of our inherited DNA in our respective families that became a jointly shared passion in the Dawn Staley era at our alma mater. Coach Staley has ignited not only the University of South Carolina fan base but also the love of the sport across the nation with attendance increases for women’s basketball programs everywhere. Thank you, Coach. Onward.

    Ella and me going into Greensboro,

    North Carolina Regional this past weekend

    (first weekend overnite for Pretty and me with our granddaughter)

    Ella’s favorite discovery at the game was Lay’s Potato Chips

    (she is her Nana’s granddaughter for sure –

    Pretty never met a potato chip she didn’t love)

    Ella’s mother Pretty Too a/k/a Caroline told Pretty yesterday that when she rocked Ella to sleep the night before, Ella whispered defense, defense. Caroline was so startled she asked Ella what she was saying, and Ella shouted DEFENSE. That’s our girl. She’s going to be a true Gamecock.

    Special shoutouts to our basketball buddies who have shared another special season with the Gamecock women, Pretty and me: Garner, JD, Brian, Joan, Robert, Susan, Chris, Pat, Number One Son Drew, 2.5 year old Ella, the Upstate Double Ds Darlene and Dawne…Brenda, Tony, Baby Dawn and her mothers in front of us, Jennifer R and Lisa – you all cheered throughout the journey. It’s been a great ride.

    I would be in big trouble if I failed to mention the men’s basketball teams also have their own Final Four this weekend, and my most faithful reader Dick Hubbard’s North Carolina Tar Heels will play archrival Duke tomorrow night in their semi-final in New Orleans. This is the first year in our 40-year friendship both Dick and I have had teams we passionately pull for in the Final Four. When he called me this morning to remind me, I said I hoped this didn’t mean one of us might be checking the score from St. Peter’s gate.

    Whether you follow the Final Four with your personal bracket or don’t follow basketball at all, enjoy the first weekend in April and please stay tuned.

    Go Gamecocks!

  • the battle my grandmother lost

    the battle my grandmother lost


    March is Women’s History Month. I planned to write a new post today to celebrate a universally celebrated woman, but I have two excuses for re-blogging this post from February, 2019: (1) I was glued to the televised Senate confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court nominee by President Biden of a Black woman, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who I sincerely believe will one day be universally celebrated (2) I unabashedly celebrate one of the women who was certainly not well known beyond Grimes and Walker County, Texas but a woman who loved me dearly for as long as she lived.

    my early years in my hometown of rural Richards, Texas

    (circa 1949)

    my dad and me at a family picnic in matching shirts

    made by my grandmother (circa 1951)

    a birthday party dress made by my grandmother (circa 1951)

    my grandmother made this dress and a  picture postcard of me

    for her family Easter card in 1949

    Bless her heart. My grandmother tried and tried to reshape my fashions which upon reflection she probably hoped would reshape my life. One of the most dreaded phrases my mother ever spoke to me – the one that made me cringe-was “Your grandmother is making you a new dress and needs you to walk down to her house to try it on. No arguments, no whining, just go.”

    I absolutely hated to stand on her little stool while she endlessly pinned away to make sure  the pattern she bought from a grand clothing store in the much bigger town of Navasota  fit perfectly on my small body. She pulled, tugged here and there, made me turn around as she measured whatever cloth she had purchased when she bought the pattern. I prayed silently that the aroma I smelled was her pineapple fried pies…the only possible redemption from the hell of being poked and prodded for a new dress I didn’t want to wear.

    My grandmother Betha Day Robinson Morris and I lived within shouting distance of each other in the tiny town (pop. about 500) of Richards until my dad found a new job that took us out of the place I called home when I was 13 years old. Our new home in Brazoria was less than two hours from Richards so we came back every other week for most of my teenage years. Distance did not deter my grandmother from her sewing, however.

    She usually managed to have something for me to try on whenever we visited. I finally surrendered to her passion for sewing because as I grew older I came to understand sewing was an important part of her life, but to this day I dread hearing Pretty say she brought something home for me to try on.

    my grandmother surveys her granddaughters

    before Easter Sunday church services in 1963

    I was 17 years old and wearing a dress my grandmother made for me

    while my younger cousin Melissa modeled her store-bought outfit

    My grandmother continued to sew for me until I was in my twenties. Every Christmas she wrapped a large box in her best wrapping paper and favorite bow saved from the previous Christmas to give to me. I always opened with feigned surprise at the dress she made for me to wear to church and praised her for being able to still find the perfect pattern and material for me even when I wasn’t there to try it on.

    I’ll never forget the last time I opened a gift of clothing she made for me. She had made a pants suit – unbelievable. I could see she was pleased with herself for breaking from the dress tradition she wanted me to wear to making the pants she now understood would forever be my choice of clothes. The year was 1968 – I was 22 years old – my grandmother would have been 55. The pants suit represented a rite of passage for both of us.

    Unfortunately, I never could bring myself to wear the pants suit which was made with a hideous polyester fabric and a horrible bright green and white large zig zag pattern. I couldn’t bring myself to wear it, but I carried it with me around the country wherever I moved for the next 30 years. I would carefully hang it in my closet as a daily reminder of  the love my grandmother gave me for as long as she lived.

    My grandmother Betha was a flawed individual but what I wouldn’t give today to hear my mother say “Sheila Rae, your grandmother is making you a new dress and wants you to try it on. No arguments, no whining, just go.”

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

    P.S. When our granddaughter Ella gets new clothes, she can’t wait to try them on! Her mother Pretty Too has a friend Nicole who has a sewing machine and recently taught herself how to sew in a week – my grandmother would have been very impressed with that.