Book Shelves: Martin Luther and Martin Luther King
Starbucks Wisdom: Chuck Berry and Elvis
Congressional Cookbook: The Junior League and the Congress
Library Desk: Doors and Desks
Sleigh Bed: Texas and Louisianna
Keepsakes: Earth Stars and Sky Stars
Portrait Table: Icebergs and Angels
Battle of Nashville: Slaves and Soldiers
Maid of Honor Portrait: Three Third Grade Bridesmaids and a Sexy Brilliant Woman Priest
Red Dining Room: Table and Chairs
Madeleines: Cornbread and Proust
Jubilee Singers with Lavender: Alfred Stieglitz and Fisk
Me and My Blog
Mirror Portrait Caroline: Caroline and her Portrait
Sofa: Couches and Dreams
Silver Coffee Urn, Saul Martin Portrait: Zelda Sayre and Gatsby
Sculpture, Candlesticks, Diamonds: Mamas and Vaginas
Magnolias: Magnolias and Magnolia
Harlem Chairs: Tammany Hall and Harlem
Dirty Laundry: Dirt and Laundry
Tuskegee Wardrobe: Brownies and Smithies
Portrait Chair: Harper Lee and Sigourney
Working Library: Cynara and Windsor, and Hope
Fort Pillow Massacre: Nathan Bedford Forrest and Madison Smartt Bell
My Boots: Nancy Sinatra and Roy Rogers
Longpage, 1913: Stephen Stills and Frank Lloyd Wright
Six Cases of Cookbooks: Julia Child and Caroline Williams
Statute of Alexander Pushkin: Pushkin and Othello
Take The Ow Out Of Now: Buddha and Nietzche
Stars and Bars: Stars and Stripes and Stars and Bars
New York Times Editorial: Copyright and the First Amendment, or Margaret Mitchell and John Seigenthaler
Me, Again: Alice and Remington

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    Sculpture, Candlesticks, Diamonds: Mamas and Vaginas

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    My friend Somers Randolph carved the green stone piece on the wood and marble table in my front hall. Peered at from one direction it brings to mind the head of a mother and baby. If you turn it up side down, it looks like rather vaginal. Right side up, some children see a snail. I show it like I see it, the embrace of Mama and babe.
                Somers is a Princeton grad who lives in Santa Fe with wife Hillary and daughter Comfort. He is very tall, falling somewhere between my six foot five husband and my six foot eleven and one half brother-in-law. If I am remembering correctly, Somers once lived in a teepee on some land around Princeton and he went to Exeter before arriving in New Jersey.
                   My husband’s family still owns a farm out near Andrew Jackson’s home on The Tulip Grove Road. We buried the woman who birthed me on the Ewing farm property in 2000.The service began just before daybreak. Courtney Little sang a song that he and I wrote for the occasion. It had to do with asking Eve to speak to Jesus on behalf of the deceased. All gathered scattered magnolia leaves. After the ashes were placed in the ground the grave was sealed with cement and Somer’s sculpture was placed to be the monument.
                  The monument looks something like a broken infinity symbol. The last time I went to visit Bettie Branham Randall Reilly’s grave sweat bees stung me. Somehow it seemed inevitable.
                  Nestled behind my Somers Randolph sculpture are a pair of candlesticks. Metal and enamel, these odd modern candlesticks, have center discs that turn to reveal a choice of color.They replaced a pair of fancy brass candlesticks that looked the same from every direction. That pair, given me by Bettie vanished when I had the good sense to tote them out the door and leave them in life’s way.
                 A generous friend, knowing everywoman should have a pair of candlesticks to welcome people into her home and to remind her of the duty to re-light the candle of her own femininity, gave me the pair that now sits with Somers’ sculpture. The diamond pattern in the background behind my candlesticks reminds me that the simple objects friends make and give are this life’s jewels.


    Bettie Branham Randall Reilly , Candlesticks , Courtney Little , Diamonds , Sculpture , Somers Randolph , Tulip Grove Road