I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Reflections

  • 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.

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    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.

     

     

     

  • Celebrate Good Times!


    What do weddings have in common with the Southeastern Conference women’s basketball tournament championships?

    Ding, ding, ding – and the answer is The Daily Double or, in the case of the 2017 Lady Gamecocks, The Annual Triple. That’s right, Sports Fans. This year’s Lady Gs are the gifts that keep on giving – over the weekend they won their third straight SEC Tournament Championship much to the delight of 8,000 fans who drove 100 miles north from Columbia to Greenville, South Carolina which was the site of this year’s tournament.

    (By the way, my new best friend ESPN analyst Nell Fortner was in the stands for the final game Sunday afternoon and finally “came out” as a Gamecock fan after the game when she donned an official baseball cap for the SEC Champions. Nell, Yes!)

    A’ja Wilson and Kaela Davis made the All-tournament team and A’ja was also named the Most Outstanding Player of the week to add to her laurels as SEC Player of the Year for the regular season. You know what I love about her? Everything. She plays with grit and gusto, a never-say-quit spirit that inspires her teammates to focus and finish.

    As for the rest of the Lady Gamecocks, you know what I love about them? Everything.

    As for Coach Dawn Staley? How do I love thee – let me count the ways…

    Which brings me to the weddings. Saturday afternoon I skipped the semi-finals of the basketball tournament to attend another event that made my heart sing. Two young lesbians were married in a gorgeous ceremony attended by their biggest “fans,” the family and friends who promised to stand with them as they began their life together.

    The setting was a pastoral one outdoors on a lovely farm at sunset. As the colors in the sky changed from blue to shades of pink and red, the two brides exchanged their personal vows mixed with humor, promises to be faithful and most of all, to love. The smiles on their faces as they turned to walk down the aisle between the rows of white chairs and benches for the guests were, I’m sorry I can’t think of another word, radiant.

    The party afterwards was perfect with tons of food, drinks and be merry to the tune of live music in the farm’s version of a barn which was way too fancy for anything with four hooves. For sure everyone there had two feet – and most of them were dancing. One of my favorite moments was the first dances with the brides and their fathers…

    A wedding and a 3-peat SEC Championship – a beginning and a finish – both the best of times and causes for celebrations.

    Life is good.

     

  • A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever


    University of South Carolina Lady Gamecock Kaela Davis (#3) stole the basketball from a Vandy guard and dribbled it hard down the court toward her goal as the Vandy player tried desperately to retrieve that ball from her. Gamecock teammate Allisha Gray (#10), who always has a nose for the basketball, ran full speed parallel to Davis on the other side of the Vandy guard. The trio barreled toward the goal at an amazing speed as Kaela leaped toward the backboard apparently for a difficult lay-up when all of a sudden KD made a no-look bounce pass to Gray who caught the basketball and effortlessly made the lay-up for the two-point score.

    Man, oh man. Pretty and I were sitting with our Gay Boys Basketball Buddies in our regular seats at Colonial Life Arena which are directly above and slightly to the right of the goalpost – just in the perfect position to see the three women thundering down the court and cheer the beautiful pass from Davis to Gray as the ball swished into the net. It was a Harlem Globetrotters moment.

    My words don’t do it justice, but to me, as Granny Selma used to say when she was in her right mind, that pass was a thing of beauty. Whoa, Nellie.

    Davis and Gray are both junior transfers from different schools playing their first year in the Gamecock uniforms and figuring out how to maximize their play together is no small task for Head Coach Dawn Staley, but last night’s efforts against Vanderbilt showed a maturity and presence for the whole team that was fun to watch.

    001 For every game this season, my personal heroes have been our big girls who endure heavy blows to their bodies during the games but still have a smile for the fans whether they win or lose.

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    #41 Alaina Coates

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    #22 A’ja Wilson

    Alaina and A’ja are two fierce competitors who strike terror in the hearts of their opponents when they control the rebounding and scoring in the paint. They don’t mess around, sisters and brothers. You better have on your Big Girl uniforms when you come to play against them because they will be your worst basketball nightmare if you aren’t prepared.

    The good news is we won last night – the bad news is we are getting to the end of the regular season play, and Pretty and I are wondering what we will do without the Lady Gamecocks in our everyday lives. Sigh.

    Let’s hope our post-season play goes all the way to the Final Four in Dallas this year – now that would be a memory-maker!

    (My thanks to the USC Gamecock Basketball Gameday for the unauthorized use of their pictures.)

     And thanks to our Best Candy Maker friend Dick Hubbard for another thing of beauty this week…yummy…creamy fudge…mouth-watering…Happy Belated Valentine’s Day to all our cyberspace amigos!

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  • Top Dog Salutes Best in Show via Kellyanne Conway


    The new Chief of Staff for Kellyanne Conway released the following tweet from KAC twitter account moments ago:

    “Top Dog says Congrats to Rumor, Best in Show at 2017 WKC – world’s GREATEST  Dog ever!” (picture attached)

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    Rumor, Best in Show at WKC last night

  • I don’t want another dog or another husband


     

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    My mother Selma (left) and my Aunt Lucille

    in their younger days

    My mom was relatively infamous in our family for her conversations which she uttered more like pronouncements than regular chit-chat. You know, the kind of awkward things that made everyone uncomfortable, and I do mean everyone because her speaking voice was louder than most. She had no indoor voice.

    For example, “I wish all those gay people would go back in the closet. I’d slam the door on them myself,” was a personal favorite she occasionally pulled out of abstract thin air with absolutely no relevance to what anyone else was saying. Since all my family members recognized I was a lesbian except her, that tended to be a real deal-breaker for further small talk. People coughed or mumbled something inane as they melted away from her at family gatherings. My dad’s sister Lucille could handle my mother better than anyone with just a quiet, “Now, Selma…”

    As the years went by, my mother developed more mantras that became her touchstones which I now realize she needed in her life of quiet desperation as she slipped away from herself behind the barricade of dementia that must have made her so afraid.

    “I don’t want another dog or another husband,” was one of her select quotes in the years after her second husband died of leukemia. She did have many dogs in her 85 years – but she had been no Elizabeth Taylor husband collector – only two for her.

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    Mom and her last dog Alex

    Perhaps the mantra that affected me most – even more than her preference for gay people in the closet – was, “I am never lonely, and I am never bored.” This was truly an alternative fact for her because, of course, she was both.

    My maternal grandmother had been plagued with depression in the 1960s, and my mom had been responsible for managing her treatment options. I was a teenager at the time, but I have vivid memories of my mother’s carrying my grandmother to an array of doctors, clinics and hospitals before finally bringing her home to live with my parents. Mental illness in the 1960s wasn’t pretty or easy to deal with.

    Apparently some doctor somewhere told Mom her mother needed more to do since she wasn’t working anymore. Mom tried to interest her in countless books, recipes, puzzles and finally gave her a needlepoint sewing kit to make an elaborate tablecloth and 8 napkins which, as I recall, she ended up finishing herself when my grandmother was unable to concentrate on it.

    “I am never lonely, and I am never bored,” was Mom’s final defense against an enemy she didn’t know she had and one which may or may not have had any connection to the enemy which stalked my grandmother. I’ll never know for sure because she forgot all of her mantras in the last four years I was with her – even the one about where the gay people belonged.

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