This is my first post. I started this blog 16 days ago and everyday since then I get a notice that tells me that it has been 16 days since anything has happened. The notice taunts me everyday when I log onto Facebook while I am seated in my recliner with my diet Coke watching another marathon of the same HGTV Fixer Upper shows that I have seen at least 23 times each. (Dear HGTV, please ramp up the production of this show so I can have some new episodes to watch. Or better yet, please consider giving me my own show.)
Maid of Cotton is going to be a place where I write my thoughts about anything I want. It is going to be about growing up in the South, specifically Memphis. It is going to be the place I write about being a mother to four now grown children, being married to the man I have been married to 31 years whom I jokingly call my First Husband just to keep him on his toes. I may want to write about the lady who gave me the stink eye at Kroger because I put 11 items on the conveyor belt in the Express Lane. Or maybe I may want to write about the total stranger who showed me so much love on a day I really needed it.
I decided on the name Maid of Cotton for a number of reasons. Both of my parents were born on cotton farms in Arkansas just across the Mississippi River from Memphis. These farms were not the Scarlett O’Hara and Ashley Wilks kind. They were born on the kind of farms where the houses were barely heated, outhouses were used, lots of biscuits and gravy were served. They graduated from high school and married shortly after. I am the oldest of their four children. My father went on to have a career and I was reared in Memphis for the most part with a few stops here and there in Mississippi and Arkansas if my father’s job required it.
Memphis is known for being a leader in the cotton industry. No matter where I live, I tell people that I am from Memphis even though I have not lived there in almost 25 years. We live about an hour away because of my First Husband’s (haha) job. We have reared four children of our own in that time. Memphis anytime of year is great but the spring is the best. There is a tingle in my soul when I am in Memphis in the spring and I see the redbud trees, dogwoods, azaleas, and tulips blooming. It smells like home.
When I am in Memphis, I see the movie theater where I went on my first date. I remember the place where I got my first kiss, my first job and all of the many other jobs that I had. I see the apartment complex that was the Honeymoon Pad my husband and I came home to. I see the house we brought our first baby home to and the restaurant that has the best hamburger that I have ever eaten to date. I see the University of Memphis where I met my husband in a summer school class although we are old enough that it was called Memphis State back then.
If you have read this all the way to the end I hope that it has been interesting enough that you check in on me from time to time or better yet “Like” me on Facebook and tell your friends.
Ta ta for now. Kiss Kiss.
She writes about life, death, grief, and recovery.
- Seven Years - September 16, 2023
- Healing After Child Loss - June 19, 2022
- “You Are So Strong” - March 11, 2022
