While the Mockingbird Sings | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Please join me in welcoming Author Michele Rhem, who presents us with her poignant memoirs 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.

    As soon as the world starts getting light, birds begin singing. It was not this way just a few weeks ago. I can not make sense of this state of affairs. In February, I am usually hoping for snow, but the cherry trees are blooming along with the spirea, just now. As much I love snow, it would be almost sinful to wish for it now. I have paid great notice to weather, since I was very young. Journals, that are now thirty years old, have the records of all those seasons. Not once, did I record that the daffodils bloomed in February. Today, finally, I gave in and packed the cheerful little, ceramic snowman scattered throughout the old house, in a box. Maybe this year, spring will be a longer condition than previously. That is lovely to consider.

    As I sit at the morning table, by an open window, I listen to a mockingbird, singing with all of his heart. He is throwing "caution to the wind" and encouraging the peach tree to do the same. "Joy, does seem to come in the morning."

    All of my children are coming home this week end. It is the first time since Christmas, that we will all be together. Tomorrow, we are having a birthday party for Mama. It is no small feat to gather five grown children under one roof. Of course, this makes me sing, like the mockingbird-with all of my heart.

    Today, I have been writing in the rabbitpatch diary one year. I have written really, all of my life. When Brant was born, I took the endeavor of keeping an account of his childhood, very seriously. The same can be said of the four that came after him. When the children grew "way" up-I wrote for myself. My dear friends encouraged me to no end to take my writing seriously and pursue a path in it. Rae, may have been my biggest fan. Eventually, I felt "led" and thus the rabbitpatch diary was born, on a very stormy day. I have found, that when something comes about quite naturally, we often dismiss it as nothing of any significance. Artists of all sorts, do this. I think we have convinced ourselves that work must be "hard and taxing" to be valued. I do not believe such notions, any longer. I have often wondered if the age old question, "what is my purpose?', could be solved easily by replacing it with "what do I love?" It is no great wonder to me, to consider, that those things we love, are given for us to find our place, joyfully.

    I have clean linens on the beds, but the morning sun is bright now and showing me every speck of dust. I will clean the old house as if I am putting the Christmas tree up! It always feels like Christmas, when the children come home.

    I must say "Happy Birthday Jo Dee!" Jo Dee, is the one who makes the best barbecued chicken, and is also one of my dearest friends. What a sweet difference, she makes in my life-and the lives of many others. I hope you all have a friend just like her . . . for friendship is really golden, after all.