The Dip

I cannot go yet…for I have not sat at a sidewalk café in Paris, sipped wine and watched the beautiful people stroll by. Wait…it is not time…for I have not stood at the rail of the ferryboat and looked up at the Statue of Liberty. There is still time…time to ease back in the lushness of the limousine seat, anticipating the curtain rising on a Broadway play.

I cannot go yet…I have not listened to God enough, nor prayed enough. Give me more time…time to hug my children fiercely to my heart and promise my love forever.

If I must go soon, let me watch the geese in strict formation heading south once again. Let me soak up once more the colors in God’s crayon box in the leaves of fall. I will not be ready until I touch the hands of my friends

I cannot go yet…for I have not finished the last verse of the song…the last chapter of the book…the punch line of the joke…the last stanza of my poem. I am not finished with the dance…my heart still full of the music. Let me dance to the end of the pavilion, circling, swaying, in love with love. Wait…I cannot go until the music ends and I’ve been dipped.

About Me

I've discovered Blogger! I am older than God...but decided in my "Youth, Part II," to become a writer, and will soon exchange the word "writer" for "author." Let me explain....When I was ten years old, I received a book, entitled, Pollyanna, for Christmas. Way back "then," at least in our family, we received one gift and an orange or apple. I was absolutely delighted with a book of my very own. I smelled it, I held it to my heart...and then, I read it, over and over and over. At that time, I declared I was going to be a writer. I grew up, married, had a family, and had very little time to write, if you don't count the creative excuses I wrote for my children when they were absent from school. "Please, Mom," they would beg, "just say I was sick; don't write a two-page summary about my throwing up six times." When at last they were all in school, I struck out to the local newspaper with articles entitled, Life, Love and Laughter. Erma Bombeck beat me to the top, but my children supplied the fodder to my long-running column in several newspapers.

Over the years, I carried the story of "Annie" around in my head. In 2003, I bought my first computer. After learning to turn it on, and convincing myself there was not a little man behind the glass censoring every key I hit, I began writing my book, The Story of Annie Chase. "Now, I'll have it published," I said naively to myself. After many rejection slips, I almost gave Annie to the garbage heap. One last try brought success (you see, you should never stop trying). It will now be published sometime next year. Please read about it at www.behlerpublications.com/authors. It will be under Author Titles, scroll down - down a little more - there, there it is! It's a book about friendship, loyalty, a secret and Washington, D.C. Thanks!

"Hi, Pretty Lady"

By Aileen Ridings Bennett

A yellow sticky-note stays on the dashboard of my car. “Hi, Pretty Lady!” is printed on it, put there by my older son on his last visit home from up North. It makes me smile each time I get into the car.

The expression, Hi, Pretty Lady” is a family joke. My four kids, mimicking my Southern accent, refer to it as Mama’s Southern thang. Since the saying came to me from a long-time Southern friend, perhaps it is a Southern thang.

It was one of those days when your kidneys are right behind your eyelids and you find yourself bawling like a newborn calf at the slightest thing. A black cloud hovers over you, and all you want to do is wrap up in a quilt, head and all, and disappear. I finally answered the persistent ringing of the phone to hear my friend’s cheery voice asking me to go shopping. “No way,” was my immediate reply, “I don’t like people today and they sure wouldn’t like me.”

There was a long pause, and I thought she had blessedly hung up on my surly self. “I want you to go to a mirror right now, any mirror will do, look at yourself dead in the face, and repeat these words: “Hi, Pretty Lady.” I thought surely she had been into the sherry cabinet. “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” I replied. “I mean it,” she said. “Go to the mirror, look at yourself, and say Hi, Pretty Lady. Call me back when you feel better, and I can assure you it will make you feel better.”

Pulling the quilt more tightly over my head, I kept my pity-party going until a will stronger than my own pushed me into the bathroom. Glancing into the mirror, an unkempt, down-in-the-mouth face stared back at me. Tentatively, I whispered the words, Hi, Pretty Lady. One side of the mouth in the mirror curled up. In a somewhat louder whisper, I repeated the phrase and both sides of the mouth curled up. Dropping the quilt, I brazenly stared at the face and, with more conviction, said, “Hi, Pretty Lady!” I began laughing, and the more I repeated the inane phrase, the more I laughed and the better I felt. While the simple words didn’t turn me into a vision of beauty, the spirit-lift they gave me quickly replaced the black cloud I was carrying around with me.

My son says it evokes an even bigger laugh when he says it to his reflection in the mirror. “It’s a Southern thang,” I say to him, “but it could work for men and Yankees as well.”