July Fifth at the Family Fold Redux

For the past several months, I've been participating in what's become a happy tradition--the Blog Exchange. It's that time of the month when my regular readers (all four of them) invariably start to wonder what kind of schizophrenic spell has overtaken me and my writing style. The BE is the brainchild of Kristen at Motherhood Uncensored, who describes it as a place "where blog authors can stretch their writing muscles, discuss and debate timely topics, and gain new readers by placing their post on someone else's blog."

However, after speaking with a few of my friends-turned-readers, I've discovered that not everyone follows the whole "exchange" concept through to the end. They'll read the entry on my blog, but won't click on the link that brings them to the site where they can find my own guest post. To that end, I have decided to repost my latest BE entry right here on home cyber turf. If you've already read it, please excuse the redundancy--but feel free to comment on what you think about the whole BE concept.

And now, reprinted with my own permission:

July Fifth at the Family Fold

The writers challenge:
Write a post in the voice/style of a famous person (actor, singer, author, whatever). It can be a hot topic, current issue, or just a regular old post.

The readers challenge:
To guess the identity of the famous person

June’s smile was a gaping halo of summertime. She lit me up. I remember that night at the Grand Ole Opry when I told her I’d always wanted to meet her. She said, “I feel like I know you already.” I took her by the hand and she was warm, not hot like the Hell we went through after that.

My sky is June-blue. It’s wide open beyond the hewn beams of the Fold. The clouds take the shape of signs that I’m not alone, not unlovable. Once she said she was ashamed to tell me that she felt it from the very beginning, when I wasn’t hers to love. Then, I was afraid to say it, too. But the fire was there. She wrote about it in a song and the shame turned to pride.

I sang it today. I was hoarse beforehand. I’ve been surprised lately by how old and tired I feel. I swigged some water and apologized. I heard “it’s okay,” and other murmurings. One lady called out to me. She said, “You don’t have to even sing.”

“I don’t?” I looked up and smiled. “Okay.”

They laughed, all of them. And my fingers found the strings. I sang June’s song.

I thank God for June. I love her with all my heart.

It’s July now, and she’s gone.

Sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYFmQK2nOoU
www.johnnycash.com
http://www.carterfamilyfold.org/carterfold.htm