In the memoir strand of Rain Dodging, I document my turbulent journey to acknowledgement, but it hasn’t all been chaos and calamity. There have been periods of grace and calm. For instance, when Jesse was four-years-old, she and I were invited to a grill-out hosted by a family we had gotten to know in our charming rural community. Angela was one of my queenies. She had an adorable family: Her eldest of three, Michelle, was Jesse’s babysitter on Saturdays when I worked. Already at fifteen, Michelle was a talented artist and writer, perfect for my inquisitive, creative daughter, who thankfully hated when I returned and her time with Michelle ended. Thankfully, because I never felt guilty for leaving every Saturday for my job as director of our county library branch.
That Sunday afternoon, Jesse and I drove down a charming gravel road to a hollow, where a 100-year-old small yellow farmhouse nested. Rolling hills enveloped the property, rocky ledges on one side of the property providing habitat for Angela’s goats. A beat-up but functional chicken house standing just behind the back door. Road Island Reds pecked, a few Plymouth Rocks strutted, and a handful of good old Leghorns roamed the hilly 80-acre property. Idyllic.
By this point I was fairly numb in my marriage. I had hoped the move from Los Angeles to Tennessee would help. When Jesse and I stepped up to the farmhouse porch, Angela was sitting contentedly on her husband’s lap, in a wide rocking chair. His Martin acoustic leaned next to them. He would be strumming bluegrass later with other Bethesda musicians. It all seemed so perfect. A cozy house and a hot husband in a little yellow farmhouse.
Fate intervened. Angela and her husband were renovating their huge barn at the turn of the drive for their residence. Guess who ended up renting the cozy little farmhouse with her darling daughter? Yes. For the first five years after I left my marriage, Jesse and I lived a sublime life on the farm—until I realized I should probably consider buying my own house to build equity. Jesse grew up immersed in imagination with precocious Jenny, Angela’s youngest daughter. The two girls spent hours and hours outside, sharing “Rock Land” with the goats, using Well House, Chicken City, and Happy Hills as settings for their escapades, pretending they were black panthers—the leopards not the superhero.
One night, after a heavy snowfall, unusual for middle Tennessee, Tony built a bonfire at the top of the steepest Hargrove hill. He and I sipped whiskey by the fire while the children sledded down the hill, ecstatically, time and time again. Tony and I were so happy there.
My bedroom had a stone fireplace. Sigh. It was a double fireplace, the other side, in the living room, had a pot-belly stove where we queenies congregated once a month or so. At that time, we called ourselves ‘The Twisted Sisters.’ Angela was the only queenie without a sordid past, but she was allowed anyway!
On the farm, I blossomed, independent but in love, when I thought that all-encompassing feeling would never happen again.
Perfect.
I gave private art classes once a week 
Jesse and Michelle Saturdays 
At the front gate 
Do I look happy?
When was a time in your life that you felt utter bliss?
