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Archive for July 29th, 2003

I Love Porches in the Summer

Tuesday, July 29th, 2003

I got to be in my hammock on my porch today for a little while. I love this porch, we built it a few years ago and it’s even better than the porch on my house that I had before I married Brian.

I had a hammock there, too. It was a different one, but I got both past and present hammocks in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. They make very fine hand-braided/woven hammocks there, just the best.

My first hammock (spelled hamaca in Spanish, pronounced ahh-MOCK-ah) was a tourist one, not too wide and not very long, in purple cotton. I got it in Playa del Carmen, around 1994 or so, on a trip from my then-boss.

The hammock we have now, we got with the assistance of my brother-in-law Pedro’s parents, when we stayed with them in February of 1996. It’s nice and wide, quite long, and some sort of synthetic or rayon shiny aqua. It’s a very fine item, indeed! In really hot weather in Mexico, they sleep in hammocks because it is the most comfortable way to deal with the temperature. Actually, some people sleep in a hammock every day. Pedro’s parents have a home that looks a lot like a home in Florida, but there are hammock hooks embedded into the cement walls above the built-in bed, for hot weather.

Here’s a poem I wrote while in my first hammock, on my last porch:

The Porch on Francis Avenue
By Lynn D. Troldahl Hershberger

Summer Day.

Cool iced tea.
Salty damp skin, yellow dandelions,
Bees buzzing,
Body baked by sunshine.
Sharp shadows, blue sky, white clouds.
Singing out loud,
Neighbors waving hellos.

Sunset.

Hammock, porch, children’s voices.
Warm sun on my skin,
Sleepy eyelids drooping,
A dog barking, birds scolding, the blast of a car horn.
Long shadows, a still breeze, the coolness of the evening.

Home.

Mom in Her Stole

Tuesday, July 29th, 2003

Mom wearing stole I knit for herHere is a picture of Mom wearing her new stole. I made it from five yarns I got at JoAnn Fabrics. She looks fabulous, doesn’t she? (Smaller picture is a detail of stole fabric up close.)

I stopped by Mom’s house late Monday night. One of her dear friends from the circle of women she’s hung out with since Daddy died, died this week of complications from melanoma. So sad. So I wanted to go and give mom a hug, and then give her the stole which can hug her when I’m not there.

Detail of stitchesI’m so glad I still have my Mom. She went through her own battle with cancer seven years ago, and now she has no sign of it. Knock on wood, we may still have many years together.

When your family is only you, Mom and brother Eric (and now our partners, makes six in the whole state of Michigan), you really know the value of one another.

And doesn’t she look just great? Go, Mom!!!