A love letter to home, independence, birdseed, and the little inventions that keep a body going…

I suppose when you reach a certain age, you ought to have purchased more than one thing that turned out to be a blessing. If you have lived long enough, moved enough, learned enough, and maybe limped through a few seasons you did not see coming, then surely there are some things you can point to and say, “Now that right there made life better.”

Not necessarily fancier. Not necessarily prettier. Just better. Easier. More functional. A bit happier. Sometimes the bestest things do not come with sparkle, status, or a warranty worth reading. Sometimes they come with four wheels, birdseed, a porch view, or enough quiet to hear your own soul exhale.

My Swampy Bottom Acres, my Brantley County homeplace, is one of those bestest purchases. I say that with my whole heart. This place is good for my soul, my heart, and my chaotic mind. The quiet here settles me in a way I cannot fully explain, except to say this: it is a God thing.

I love the nature of it. I love the peace. I love that the world can be loud and foolish and demanding out there, but here, the trees mind their manners, the birds provide the music, and the land lets me breathe. I find my zen here. Or, as I sometimes spell it in my own heart, my “xen,” because peace does not always arrive perfectly spelled.

Now, this was not the only home that ever felt like the best thing at the time. My Mississippi home was one. My first home in Brunswick was one. And that is as it should be. Different seasons of life need different shelter. What blesses you in one chapter may simply prepare you for the next.

I leave out the duplex, not because it did not teach me anything, but because it taught me plenty. It taught me that my country-girl heart and soul need space. People are a blessing, for the most part, but people also make noise, have opinions, start lawn mowers too early, and generally cause me to need a place where I can regenerate.

So maybe that is the real bestest thing I purchased… an escape from the world, if only temporary. A place that gives my soul the space and time it needs to catch its breath and hand me my smile back.

Another one of my bestest things is my AMES cart, my equalizer. I bought it back in 2006, which means that little workhorse is twenty years old now. There are marriages that do not last that long, and my cart has never once complained about hauling groceries, tools, plants, laundry, or whatever else I decided needed relocating.

I call it my equalizer because that is exactly what it is. I use a hemi walker for balance because of an accident long ago, thirty-six years ago now. I cannot carry things like most folks can. My hands and body have rules, and not all of them are convenient.

But that cart? It has four wheels, and I can push it and go. It comes in the house. It goes in the yard. It helps me do for myself. It lets me be more independent, and independence is not a small thing. Independence is dignity with wheels on it.

I admit it… Alexa is also on my list of bestest things. Some folks may roll their eyes at technology, but I am not too proud to appreciate a little voice in the house that can turn on my lights, tell me things I need to know, play my music, wake me up, warn me of impending bad weather, and even sing me happy birthday.

She helps me jam out to the good tunes whenever I want, and that matters. A house needs music. A heart needs rhythm. And sometimes a woman needs to say, “Alexa, play something good,” and let the day improve itself.

She can also call for help if I fall and need it, and that is no small comfort. There is a special kind of peace in knowing help is a voice command away.

Then there is my bird feeder. It may not look like much to some people, but to me it is a tiny invitation that says, “Come on by, little friends.” And they do. The redbirds come. The sparrows come. The rest of the feathered congregation shows up outside my window like they have been personally invited to Sunday dinner.

I get to hear them sing. I get to watch them visit. I get to be reminded that life is still moving, still fluttering, still showing up in small bright flashes of red and brown and wing. That is good for my soul.

Science may have its own way of explaining why nature and birds help us feel calmer and more restored, and I am glad for that. But I knew it before I read it anywhere. I knew it because I have sat by the window and felt my breathing change when the birds arrived.

So yes, there can be more than one bestest thing. In fact, I hope there is. I hope by the time we have enough years behind us to know better, we have gathered a handful of things that helped us live more fully.

Some purchases are practical. Some are sentimental. Some are necessary. Some are plain old good sense. And some, if we are blessed, become more than things. They become helpers. Shelter. Freedom. Companionship. Peace.

My homeplace gives me quiet. My cart gives me independence. Alexa gives me convenience, safety, and music. My bird feeder gives me visitors with wings. And all of them, in their own way, give me a little more ease, a little more joy, and a little more of myself back.

That is the thing about the bestest things: they are not always the most expensive things. They are the things that help you keep going, keep smiling, keep breathing, and keep remembering that life, even with its bruises and detours, still has blessings tucked all through it.

And I am blessed to have many…