Happy as a Lark | 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.

    It is the hour just after the "early service", (which happens no matter where I am) . . . . and I am as "happy as a lark". My Tres is home! He slept under my roof and will eat at my table. . . Moments I treasure, above most, are when the children come home.

    Tomorrow is another "holiday" for my family. We are gathering to celebrate almost recent and in the near future birthdays. We will honor Christian, Daddy and Lyla. Daddy and Christian had March birthdays-and Lyla has the "in the near future" birthday. Her third birthday is April fifth-and rest assured you will hear more about that.

    Tres and my son Brant, both live in Wilmington, about three hours from the rabbit patch. Brant is working this weekend or else, it would be a true "homecoming'. I did not know that Tres was coming til he called, in route. Linens were washing and a large pot of beef and vegetable soup was simmering within the hour of the good news. I had come home tired after work , but the prospect of Tres' arrival acted as a tonic on me. I set about collecting things to be put away . I lit the "welcome home" lantern at the back door and tied a spring pink ribbon on it, when all was done. Tres came in to a tidy house with a big pot of piping hot soup, ready to eat.

    I sat for a while this morning, before breakfast, feeling quite pleased with the current state of affairs. Later, I felt happy to be peeling potatoes for hashbrowns and brewing coffee. I looked forward to having a leisure breakfast with my sons, more so than I would have to a "breakfast at Tiffanys' ".

    After breakfast, we talked. We talked about small things and things not so small. We talked about Lyla, and a trip Tres has planned for Montana. He told stories about his cats, "Hank and Jolene" and I told him about a cat that I knew thirty years ago. If it came up, we said it, without a bit of hurry. For a while, we abandoned the complexity of the world and told our stories. How rare such conversations have become, I realised. I remembered, when they were not.

    Porch rockers were not so idle, once upon time- and served a purpose beyond adornment. It baffles me, that with all of our modern conveniences, that we have less time for meandering and less time to wonder where the robin nests. . . as the generations before us did. Modern communication keeps us aware of catastrophes and world wide sorrows, yet we know not the plight of our next door neighbors. We get instant answers and spend little time just being curious . I am not denying the many advantages we are afforded today, but sometimes, it feels like we lost something, beautiful. . .

    I am as likely, as anyone to carry "the weight of the world" on my shoulders as if it were meant just for me. It is for this very reason, that I read poetry and count butterflies-and have coffee with my sons while telling a story about a cat who stole anything not nailed down, many years ago . . .and feel "happy as lark" doing so.