A Tempest In My Teacup | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Please join me in welcoming Author Michele Rhem, who presents us with her poignant mémoires of the Rabbit Patch, where her diaries weave tales of a simpler, expressive life lost to many, but gathered together in her most familiar environs - the Rabbit Patch.

    Today did not start out like any other day at the rabbit patch. My internal alarm is usually quite reliable, still I set an alarm just in case. Neither did their job this morning. Kyle came rushing through the house yelling "Mom!" in a bit of a tizzy and I woke up with a start! His alarm had not worked either! We were scrambling but, somehow I remembered to let Cash out, anyway. The coffee is preset as I simply depend on it to wake up. I poured a half of a cup to go and hoped for the best. Moments later Kyle and I were getting in the car. He, without a lunch and me with my tempest in a teacup. The morning was as foggy as I have ever seen it and I had trouble getting my bearings straight. Fog does away with time altogether. It could have been any time of day, I thought. The rushing had to cease-but the state of panic did not. Then I remembered Cash.

    Cash is a boxer, the forever puppy breed. Boxers never quit playing, even in old age, hence they are worthy of the title . Cash is just two years old. He is obedient and dependable. I call him and he comes, even when rabbits are in his back yard, but this morning was not like any other and so today, in all that fog, he was playing. He ran by me at full speed several times before he dashed in the door, happy as a lark on Sunday!

    The drive to work was tense and slow. We were both about a minute late, but considering all things, we had done well on this last day of August, full of fog. I did not have the chance to see the quiet pastures with horses grazing and if the morning glory was blooming, then I missed that too. I did not consider beautiful words or songs on this day and I did not send best wishes out to the world-I didn't even know what we were having for supper! When Solomon, in all his wisdom, said "All is vanity" I do think he meant rushing.

    When I drove up to the rabbit patch in the late afternoon shadows, Christopher Robin was sitting in a window as if he had all the time in the world, because he really does. The rabbit patch is old and time moves slowly here. It seems to defy the clocks and agendas of man. It is a refuge of sorts. . . my saving grace. When I went out at nightfall, peace was covering the rabbit patch much as the fog had done earlier and all was rightly restored, within me, because of that.

    You can best believe that Kyle and I have several alarms set for tomorrow morning. This world holds an assortment of beauty and I aim to take great note of it. There will be a new sky in the morning with clouds I have never seen before. I sure hope to have more than a tempest in my teacup when the sun rises tomorrow - for it is the first morning of September , after all.