Reveries of the Ring

Sunday, May 5th, 8:12 PM. More Tales from the Belly of the Beast.

Memories in the shape of a open loop caught me off guard there in the deli aisle. There they were, lying in their refrigerated splendor, decked out in casings colored a brilliant shade of red. I speak of ring bologna, friends, a humble cured meat that roots me firmly in my childhood.

You do know of the ring bologna, do you not? Show of hands?

I'll understand if you have not. Ring bologna is definitely an old school culinary creation that has usually---in my experience---been far overshadowed by the plethora of prepackaged, presliced lunch meats that most markets carry. I will confess that as a kid I probably ate more than my fair share of such things. Convenience and a narrow food focus saw to that particular fixation. But in many ways, that is over now.

I still like cold cuts, but I do not eat them like I did when I was a child. My tastes have changed. These days a good salad or a bowl of pot beans are just as likely to be found in my lunch bag. This is a shift that I'm sure is good for me on many levels. While I do make a pilgrimage to the deli counter now and then, I have drifted away from a lot of that stuff.

Which makes my encounter with ring bologna on this lazy Sunday afternoon all the more intriguing. I was meandering in search of queso fresco and cotija cheese---my personal frijoles de olla do not seem complete without one or the other---and not really in the mind of meat. I was pushing the cart with purpose, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw them.

I slowed for a better look, confirming my initial impression. Almost obscured by the packages of who knows what hanging above was a humble stack of bright red loops there on the shelf. I stopped to look closer; it was indeed a cluster of ring bologna. My nerd brain took over, noting that technically they were open toroids, cylindrical shapes formed by rotating a closed curve about an axis not intersecting or contained in the curve...

...I told my nerd brain to shut up. This was the grocery store, not a topology lab. I nearly walked away from the case at that point, but something made me pick up one of the rings. When I did so, a flood of memories came to me. My maternal grandmother's kitchen. A plate of neatly sliced coins of bologna laying on the crazed ceramic surface, accompanied by a stack of saltines and a generous dab of mustard. G-maw squeezing lemon into her tea while I sat munching in contentment, making little sandwiches by placing a coin between two crackers.

The memories moved forward in time, summer days when she would come to visit and bring a ring bologna with her and leave it in our fridge. Me in my hormonally induced ravenousness ransacking the same refrigerator in search of protein and calories. Later still, finding a care package waiting for me in my college dorm mail room. G-maw occasionally sent them along with crackers and some sweets, soup and the now famous ring bologna. She would pack it in dry ice to help keep it cool.

To me, those packages represented an anchor. They were something that kept me from always having to rely on the dodgy dining hall for snacks and late-night sustenance, especially when my funds for such things were slim at best. My roommates would look askance at me, cocking the eyebrow and teasing me for having gotten "baloney" in the mail. I smiled, nodded, and did not bother to explain what they missing.

The food itself, I know, would be on many nutritional "bad" lists these days. The usual suspects: sodium, nitrates, saturated fat. But back then, it was food for kings, I thought. It kept me from going hungry, it reminded me of home, and people who loved me. I figured out years later that my G-maw had probably eaten a lot of this very stuff when she was a kid, and in her younger days. She did not come from money, and things like ring bologna were relatively cheap and "rib-sticking". To her, it just made sense.

I felt a little dizzy, swaying there at the edge of the refrigerated case. All those memories crowding their way to the forefront of my mind. The package felt cool and slightly yielding in my hand. All my dietary concerns clamoring for me to put it down, convinced that it was something I did not need. I hesitated, then slowly moved to put the bologna back on the shelf. Halfway there, I stopped.

It was true that I had no critical need for the stuff. But need and want are two different creatures. I scanned the package again, vision overlaid by the ghost of my grandmother in her kitchen, talking to me of everything and nothing. Saltines and savor on my tongue, that I could almost taste in their piquancy. I turned and put the package in my cart. The diet would survive this diversion.

Maybe it is true that you can't go home again, but the heart knows that sometimes the tongue can taste it and the belly can be filled, when we dine in the house of memories.

Sunday Meditation #2: On The Problem Of Weeds

I look out my kitchen window at the riotous growth of the crepe myrtle in the corner of the yard, the almost tree-like bush resembling a prideful lion's head with its spray of mane-like branches.  The branches festooned with magenta blossoms.  The wild roses, like lion cubs, crouch at its feet, peeking their little leaves out from the protection of the myrtle.  It makes me smile and remember G-maw, my maternal grandmother.  She had a crepe myrtle in her yard, a large one, and I always remember that one as a tree.

The weeds, too, that desecrate the planting beds ringing my house, they remind me also of G-maw.  Not for any direct resemblance, no, but only the absence of weeds in my grandmother's presence.  She was a gardener, with a plot behind her house in which she grew flowers and tomatoes and other beautiful, tasty things to eat.  She had little patience for weeds, mostly.  She often tended the large, impromptu garden that sprang up behind my boyhood home, on a patch of land bordered by the neighbor's houses.  Many good things came from that plot, and G-maw helped them grow.  She was formed in a time where it was necessary for you to grow the things you ate, because if you didn't you might not eat.

The garden of my youth, the flower plot of my grandmother's home, has begun to fade somewhat under the pressure of time.  Fade is perhaps not the exact word, as I sit here and contemplate the setting sun. Blurred or softened is perhaps a better choice.  A view through thick panes of glass abraded by sand on the winds of time, the memories achieve a certain glow on the screen of my mind.

I remember the weeds, also, as I look out the window.  The weeds have grown fast and thick this summer, fattening their stems and fleshly leaves while I wasn't looking, or was distracted by the noise and clatter of the modern world.  I see the weeds, and I feel unsettled, because I know I have let some things get away from me.  Weeds are something my G-maw would have taken care of, right away, as she often did when she was still of this mortal coil.

Me, I dither too much, crow mind distracted by the shiny things.

I stand at the window and sip my glass of tea.  Silently, I send up a prayer, a request, or maybe just an ethereal "hello" to my G-maw, asking her to come visit, offer some advice.

There are weeds around me, G-maw, and I want to know what to do.  You knew what to do, always.

A Stalk of Grace

I'm sorry, I know I have been ungrateful, frightfully so.  All that time inside my head, driven there by the cold and the weather and general disconnect between my body and my mind and them to the universe at large.

It makes me distracted, distracted I am a walking ball of distractedness.  Crow-mind amongst the glittery things that draw my attention, I let them draw my attention in a desperate bid to draw attention away from myself.  Because I'm tired of thinking about myself.  Look, a bird!

I said to me "I'll allot you five minutes to find some grace, and don't come back empty handed!" ending in a yell.  A quiet yell, but a yell nonetheless.

I took to the kitchen as I often do, because cooking good things to eat gives me focus and a way to slip out the back door and let go for a bit, focus, focus.  You know, like the Zen monks do when they chop wood, carry water.

Grace.  Grace?  Where in the world was I going to find grace?  I haven't had grace in the house since...well, it feels like just shy of forever.  Remain calm, no freaking out, just breathe, cut, stir, simmer, taste.  That's all I needed to do.  While leaning against the counter, in a lull between stirring and adding the next set of ingredients to the pot, I found grace.

It consisted of a stalk of celery, slathered with some peanut butter.  Just like my G-maw used to make for me when I was a kid, at her house for dinner.  It was simply good.

I hadn't thought of that particular taste treat in years, don't know what made me think of it then.  All I know is, standing there in the pearly north light coming through my kitchen windows, I felt warm and content, and I was thinking that, somewhere in this universe, someone wanted me to be happy.

Grace, stay with me.

Crackerbox Reverie

The ghost of my maternal grandmother said hello to me on Christmas Eve.  It was right in the middle of the grocery store and I amazed that no one else heard her.  It was on the bottom shelf, on the cracker aisle, a bright red box asking me if I wanted some crackers.  Of course I said yes.

When I was a boy, the many visits to my G-maw's house were always a treat.  She always had some kind of snacks, ones that I liked, and she was generous in sharing them.  Brownies, cookies, crackers and even homemade chocolate candies during the holidays, or when the mood struck her to make them.  One of my favorite memories of childhood is of me perched on a stool at the counter between her kitchen and her living room, a big glass of iced tea (liberally laced with lemon juice) and two or three pecan sandies to munch on.  For some reason those cookies always tasted so much better in the summer time, washed down with that iced tea poured from a chipped enameled pitcher she kept in the refrigerator.

I still have the buttery, nut crunch combined with a slight grittiness, on my tongue to this day.

I remembered those cookies for years after I got older, had fewer visits with G-maw and then went off to college.  I think I even got a few boxes in some care packages I received while I was away at school.  Once I moved away out of state, though, I don't recall having purchased another box in all that time.  At least not for years, anyway.

I kept that memory.  Or should I say, it kept me.

It was a little surprising for me, this past Christmas Eve, when I stumbled across the crackers at the grocery store.  They were the kind that G-maw always seemed to have on hand, and ones that I scarfed down in probably greater quantities than the cookies.  They weren't the same ones my parents would buy, although those were good as well.  In fact, it had been my tendency as an adult to buy the same brand of crackers that I ate at home as a kid.

But it was G-maw's crackers that stayed in my mind, somewhere in there with a shipload of memories.  On Christmas Eve in the grocery store, I saw that bright red box, for the first time in years.  I did a double take.  I wasn't quite sure I was seeing what I thought I saw.  I stopped the cart and went back to look at them.  Sure enough, it the same ones.  I picked up a box, and immediately felt myself standing in G-maw's kitchen,  glass of tea in one hand and a stack of crackers in the other.  She smiled at me and turned to put the box back in the cabinet...

...and I blinked myself back into the present, surrounded by the rush and clatter of the store.  I realized I was grinning, for no other reason than a humble box of crackers had just taken me home.

Later that afternoon, after I had brought my daughter home with me for the Christmas weekend, I realized I might have a small hurdle to cross.  The Wee Lass is particular about her juice and snacks.  Not just anything will do.  She once refused to drink some apple juice because it was the kind that came in the yellow box, and not the green box, and "it tasted weird", in her opinion.  Her cracker preferences had always paralleled mine, by dint of habit and my control of the grocery shopping.  But here I was, possessed of a crackers in a red box, and not the white and blue box.  I was uncertain if she would like them, as I had when I was small.

I needn't have worried.  She asked for crackers to snack upon, as was her usual custom, so I put some in a bowl and handed them over.  About the time she bit into one, I was crunching my way through a cracker myself.  The taste was memory, years rolling back and summers revisited.  Humble, in no way extravagant, and so very good.

Wee Lass sat at her princess table, contentedly munching and watching television, as happy as I think I used to be in G-maw's kitchen.  Standing in the archway into my kitchen, watching my daughter eat, I heard a noise behind me that sounded like G-maw's chuckle, followed by the soft clack of a cabinet door shutting.  My pantry, my heart, became full.

Things That Make Me Go Hmmm...

A clipping that fell out of an old folder of mine...do you ever have that feeling that someone is trying to tell you something?

Dream of Salt and Bread

I opened the door that evening, to make my daily schlep to the mail box, to get my daily dose of coupon flyers and junk, and there was a thunk at my feet. Looking down, there was a small cardboard box lying on the threshold. The wrapping tape said “Food Network” and it weirded me out. I was not expecting any packages, and I could not remember having ordered anything from the Food Network. Especially small kitchenwares, which is what the mystery package turned out to be.

I brought it inside and turned it over to read the packing slip. Aha, mystery solved! No, I hadn’t ordered something while sleep walking or after a couple of gin and tonics. It was from my Ma and Da, and they sent me a salt dish for my dining table. Just what I needed, and a nice surprise.

Later in the week I arrived home in no mood to cook. Tired and ragged out, with the walls closing in just a bit, I made a spot decision to go on a picnic at my favorite local lake. So I grabbed my cooler and backpack, filled them up with bread, olives, cheese, pickles, and threw in a jar of salt and my pepper grinder. A bottle of olive oil topped it up, and off I went.

Good on me for finding the perfect spot to conduct my noshing adventures. It was at a picnic table situated under a tree and in just enough shade for me to relax and enjoy the setting sun. A gentle breeze and, strangely for a Baltimore summer, almost no humidity, meant a most pleasant evening to dine outside.


While sitting there, chewing slowly and ruminating like an upright cow, I began to feel dizzy and weak. At first, I thought I was coming down with something. The working of my jaws slowed even further, my breathing loud and languid in my ears. I swallowed. I became hyperaware of the birdsongs among the trees, the shouts and laughter of the extended family picnicking across the way. I heard the giggles of children, the wind in the grass, stirring the leaves over my head.

Leaning back and closing my eyes, I felt a sense of peace wash over me. The tensions of the day truly melted away. Realizing I was not going to be sick, I resumed chewing. The savory bite of the salt and the unctuous embrace of olive oil grabbed my tongue and lips, each working of the jaw a deeper exploration of flavor. Breathing deep into my belly created a deeper sense of comfort. And the laughter and voices I heard were that of my loved ones, sitting around the table with me.

We sat there at the table, laughing and joking and reveling in the joy of each other’s presence. I smiled, dipped my bread into the oil, and we shared salt and bread on a lovely summer evening.


Dedicated to the roots of my tree, those of this world and those who have gone on to the next. May love find you, whichever world you grace with your presence.

Lake Of Souls, Morning

The shrine is there, visible through open spaces between the trees, splendidly refulgent in shades of emerald, azure or silver depending on the mood of its cousins the sky and sun. The quicksilver surface is occasionally distorted by the splashing of waterfowl and fish, sensual ripples in a watery sheet.

The shrine is there, diffracted through the a million pinhole cameras created by the canopy of leaves and branches. A living shroud, perhaps, a green curtain concealing the mysteries within. The mysteries can be had, by those willing and patient enough to lift the edges of the shroud. Only in this way can one step through to the inner sanctum.

It was not always this way. Before, the lake was just a hole in the ground filled with water.

That was years ago and a persona away. Time has passed and the perceptions, the investments of feelings are different. The focus has changed. It used to be the lake was a pleasant novelty. A green loop to walk around, counting dogs and squirrels and marveling at the geese. Every so often a bike ride was in order, a welcome diversion on a comfortable spring weekend. At this lake, a pair of swans once lived, but the duet faded as one voice succumbed to the ravages of time and the other ceased singing, perhaps due to a broken heart.

The water was just water, green, wet, dotted with feathers, leaves and lily pads. Sometimes, in winter it acquired a crust of ice. Tempting to skaters, which are not allowed, and providing entertainment to onlookers watching ducks flop and skid on the slick surface. This ice was never majestic in an arctic sense, and never gave the impression that it covered anything more than a shallow lake, home to fish and frogs.

And later, souls.

The transformation was slow and subtle, from utilitarian feature of the landscape to a holy vessel akin to those containing the finger bones of saints or the teeth of prophets. It took years to happen, almost unnoticed on many hours of walks and quiet contemplation. The transformation may never have taken hold, too, if not for the beautiful and terrible pressures of time and life bearing down on the walker.

Awe inspiring joy and unspeakable tragedy. The psychic equivalent of plate tectonics acting on the soul and molding it into forms previously unknown and unseen. The walker talked to himself on his many trips around the lake. The lake began to listen to the prayers, the angry screeds, the quiet questions and simple joys discovered in the interior of the mind. There was transference of energy, and the lake stirred from a long, cold slumber.

And one day, the lake spoke back.

The walker realized this, one day in early summer. It was unusually cool and cloudy as he ambled down the path in the green stillness. The lake was there as always, waiting. Passing an opening in the trees and undergrowth, he could not escape the feeling that someone was waiting for him, watching, and whispering to him. There a path draped down a hill, leading into the trees. In the background, glints of silver and grey, almost as voices.

They were there, all of them, and had been for quite some time. Son, daughter, grandmother, family long passed and still of this earth: In his thoughts, in his words, his actions. All this walking and thinking and talking. It was no longer with him exclusively. It was with the lake.

The water now precious, bearing souls. They were with him, now and evermore. The walker climbed the hill, spreading his arms wide to embrace the water.

You are here, he said to the wind, come to me…I am home.

Language of Loving the Language

“Even at this early stage of their development, the Irish were intoxicated by the power of words.”
-from How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Thomas Cahill

Aha. That explains why I feel so dizzy and lightheaded so much of the time. I am not native born Irish, just of Irish ancestry, but…words. Words. Words. I love them. I cannot get enough of them. It pains me that there are far more words that I don’t know, than ones that I do. And that there are many that I do not know how to pronounce properly, but would love to use. And lots that I do know how to pronounce, but have yet to work into daily conversation.

Like saltire. Heehee. Not much call for that in most of the meetings I attend.

Words. I read the dictionary, just for fun. Sometimes, I’ll go to look up a particular word but get so distracted by all the other lovely ones I see that I forget what it was I went to look up in the first place. Occasionally my daughter and I will sit down on the floor or the couch and leaf through the dictionary together. She is usually looking for the “animal” pictures (I have a dictionary that has small illustrations for some words, usually animals) but now and again I’ll pick out a word and tell her what it is and what it means. Someday, I’m going to scrape together enough cash to buy a full set of the Oxford English Dictionary. Just because I want it.

Words and language fascinate me. I think about them all the time. Or should I say, cogitate? Or perhaps ruminate? Ponder? Meditate?

See? I told you! I cannot think of one word without thinking of others like it or riffing on a particular word for minutes, hours, days. Once, after an all-nighter back in college, I had the word lachrymose looping in my head for hours until I finally went and looked it up. That it meant “given to tears or weeping” or something like that only befuddled me. It was only because I had seen the word in a book I glanced at in the library that I even knew it existed.

But I’ve been that way since I was a kid. Who was it that said the dictionary is like a poem about everything?

“What are words for, when no one listens anymore…what are words for when no one listens, it’s no use talkin’ at all…”
-from What Are Words For, by Missing Persons

Even if no one was listening, I would still be fascinated by words, by language. Precise and fuzzy, slippery and ironclad, words and language strung together like pearls for the mind. I like reading them, deciphering them, learning them. I love writing them.

Which brings me to the true subject for today: writing and writing paper and writing utensils. I know that hardly anyone actually writes anymore, with pen or pencil and paper. I thoroughly understand the value and utility of computerized word processing. Ironically enough, it was the computer that rekindled my love of writing. The ability to cut and paste, to edit, to make writing so plastic takes away some of the drudgery associated with actually putting words to paper (or pixels to screen).

In doing so, though, it helped me see how much I enjoyed the physical act of writing. And it really took fire when I started keeping journals back in 2003, upon the birth (and subsequent brief lives) of my twins. The act of putting pen on paper soothed me, slowed down my racing mind and made it possible for me to rein in my thoughts. Putting the brakes on a runaway train, so to speak.

There is something hypnotic and meditative about filling a blank sheet of paper with words. The best times, when I get a good idea, or need to spill the contents of my fevered brain, are when I can take my notebook or a fresh sheet of toothy writing paper and just write, write, write in the light of a lamp on the table or the nightstand. Just write. In silence, when the ideas are particularly strong or numerous. Just me, the pen and the paper. That little scratchy noise as the pen drags over the paper? One of my favorite sounds in the world. I especially like it when I can get into a groove, the words flowing, pen skritching over the page…and I hit the Zone. Time flies and I get lost in the act of writing and the sheer beauty of creation…

This was all triggered by a sudden impulse of mine, to get a fountain pen to replace the one I used to have, years ago. I had inherited an honest-to-jayzus stainless steel fountain pen from my maternal grandmother. I loved it. I wrote with it. I sketched with it.

And I lost it. Over twenty years gone, now.

It is quiet now, Wee Lass having gone to bed hours ago. I found myself this warm summer evening, sitting at the table with my laptop in the light of a banker’s lamp. It has a green shade, glowing with an emerald refulgence (heehee) and giving me great comfort as I stir the gumbo pot of words swirling around in my head. On the computer screen is the website for a manufacturer of fine writing papers. I am staring open-mouthed, agape at the myriad possibilities of paper, of envelopes…and pens.

There it is, right in front of me: a fountain pen, blue with a stainless steel nib. I want it. I don’t know that I can resist it. I see that pen, and I hear my daughter telling me a story, while my grandmother takes my hand in hers, and together we fill the page.

With words, and love.

Meteors

November 30, 2003

It was my maternal grandmother, G-maw Baker that introduced me to stargazing when I was a little boy. She was an amateur astronomer, and had a telescope at her house that I loved to play with whenever I would visit. G-maw and I would bundle up and head outside to look for double stars, clusters, nebulae and do some moon gazing. When she got somewhat older and less able to stand out in the cold (winter being better for stargazing in the Northern hemisphere) it fell to me to find the stars or whatever we wanted to see, while she waited inside to stay warm. It was a task I came to enjoy. “G-maw, come see!” I would say, and she would amble outside for us to take turns peeking through the lens. It was such a joy.

While not involving a telescope, meteor showers were particularly exciting for her. I can still recall her saying to me that the “Leonids” or the “Taurids” were coming up soon, we needed to be ready for them. She would always watch for the weather reports, hoping for clear skies, the better to see the trails. I often looked forward to these events because it gave me a reason to stay up past midnight to get the full shower effect. G-maw had explained to me that was because the Earth’s rotation was then at the best angle for the meteors to hit the atmosphere. Funny, though, I can’t remember actually being able to stay awake that long. When I was little, even lying on the cold, hard ground was not enough to keep me awake. I also remember being afraid of getting hit by a meteor while outside. G-maw would just laugh and tell me to remember that most meteors burned up before they hit the ground, so I would be okay.

As I got older my interest in sky watching and meteor showers began to wane. In my teen years the joint viewing sessions with G-maw became less frequent. It was typical adolescent behavior, me finding it more important to hang out with friends (and get into trouble) than to spend time with an old lady who just happened to be family. I am not proud of myself, I can tell you.

G-maw was a stubborn woman, but also wiser than I knew. She had seen a lot in her relatively long life. I am sure she knew in her heart that little boys grow up, and teenage egos have a tendency to lose interest in the older folks. Little boys think they know more than they really do. At that time, I thought my grandmother was okay with my teenage callowness. Being as young, stupid and arrogant as that implies I just let it pass. She may have, on the surface, been okay with my disinterest. Subconsciously, it was always there, that little bit of sadness on both of our parts. I could tell because G-maw would offer to take me out for pizza, just the two of us for dinner, and I could never say no. There was always a twinge in my heart that I could not explain.

I will never forget one of our last pizza dinners together, shortly after I had turned of legal age to drink alcohol. We went to a local Pizza Hut and I decided to be daring and order a glass of beer. Pretty heady stuff, to be all worldly and drinking in front of my grandmother! I was a bit nervous, wondering if she was going to say anything. The waitress brought the glass, set it on the table in front of me, and G-maw just laughed. She had a twinkle in her eyes and asked me if she could have some of the beer! “I’ve been known to have a beer now and then” was all she said. I felt so much more comfortable with her after that incident.

I had no way of knowing at the time that G-maw would become very ill, and would pass away from cancer within the next two years. I suppose that if I had, I would have ordered a few more glasses, so we could raise a toast to a wonderful person possessed of a life well lived.

Something else I was not fully aware of then, was just how much she loved me. It was because of that love that she wanted to spend time with me. My grandfather had passed away shortly after I was born, about two decades before. Many of her extended family were far away, and it was me and my brother and my parents that she had close. If I had not been so self-absorbed, if had taken the scales from my eyes, I would have dropped the teenage attitudes of self-importance and truly understood the value of her presence. I would have been much more willing to spend time with her.

As I said, G-maw was a wise woman. She knew there was no getting blood from turnips, and she did not press me to be more considerate. I still regret being so selfish and not willing to give more of my time. It never ceases to amaze me that G-maw loved me in spite of myself.

There is one meteor shower in particular that stands out in my memory. G-maw and I, along with my mother and brother, were out in my front yard looking up at the sky. We had been out there for quite some time with very little activity, and everyone was getting restless. A few dim meteor tracks and stiff necks were all we had to show for our efforts and we were just about to pack it in when a most amazing thing happened. We all gasped. Low to the horizon, where we least expected it, there was what appeared to be a fireball hurtling across the sky. It was very bright, and to my eyes it appeared to have a greenish tinge. It was moving very fast and had a trail that seemed like it was miles long. Suddenly, it began to shoot off what looked like sparks and BOOM, it exploded into fragments radiating outward. The fragments glowed and rapidly faded from view.

We were stunned. I had never seen anything like it, and have not ever since then. G-maw said it was a ‘bolide’, a meteor that ignites in the atmosphere and more or less explodes. It was a little unsettling, but very beautiful. I was and am so grateful that my grandmother was there and cared enough to show me such an amazing example of natural beauty.

Natural beauty was very much on my mind on this November day, as we went out to the cemetery to visit with Connor and Emma. It was cold and breezy, with partly cloudy skies. The wind chimes were in full song. The bronze grave markers were very clean from all the rain we had the previous week. There was very little dirt and leaves to be swept off, just a small amount of mud which I brushed away. Standing there in the cold, I started sobbing while gazing at the names on the plaques. The thought kept looping through my head that we had given Connor and Emma such beautiful names, names that we had spoken far too little. I was thinking of the arc they both made through our lives.

When they were in the NICU, even with all the medical equipment and tape and tubes, my daughter and son possessed an unearthly beauty. It was beauty that would draw you in, helpless to take one’s eyes away from. I looked up into the sky to try and clear my eyes, and it was then that my grandmother and the meteors came back to me. So it was with my darling Emma and Connor. Heavenly objects of rare beauty, they burst into light across our sky, so fast and so bright that I still carry the afterimages burned into my retinas.

G-maw had shown me something rare and exquisitely beautiful. She had shown me things that were here and gone almost before you knew it. The lesson she had taught me was that you just have to be patient and watch; they will come to you. The sadness I felt struck so deep today, because I realized that I never had the chance to return G-maw’s favor, and show her beautiful and precious meteors of my own.

I like to think that G-maw knows, just the same.

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SPECIAL NOTE: Tomorrow I will be posting a special collaborative effort with Michelle at Confessions of a Desperate Housewife. We found it exciting, and we hope you will, too! So please set a reminder to check in here and there. Thanks!

In The Cathedral On Thanksgiving Day

Alone in the cathedral this November day
Or so I thought, as I prayed away fears
Cool morning air and the fallen leaves
Your voices bringing me to tears

You were there in the sunlit leaves
Unseen, perhaps, but not unfelt
I ask who is there? Who is it that grieves?
Geese answered me, my heart to melt


Thankful in the cathedral, that I am not alone
On the heron’s blue wings, I see
A spirit land among us, sunlight shone
Bright on my icy skin, and our souls in three

Might it be ghosts? Or unrequited love?
Details not of my concern
For in that moment brief

It was all of you I could discern

For now, this is enough.

(In memoriam of G-maw, E. and C.: Thanksgivings that were and will never be)