Little Moments of Grace (and Purple high tops to boot)

I feel a wonderful fullness this morning.  I believe that every bed in the house and two blow-up beds are in use as I write, and I just love that.  I am full, the house is happily groaning and full of life, an we have had quite the week.  My kid of age and all his friends are so smart; they get a ride to a nearby establishment from which they can walk home or take a taxi at the end of their night, and we don’t have to worry too  much about them.  Beautiful….ah, maturity is a lovely thing.

But I have much to tell.  Firstly, I am still feeling pretty well.  Ms. CA and I seem to be walking straight up hill together, she making me really huff and puff just to get up the stairs in our house and to taste anything on the left side of my mouth, but the eye solution is still brilliant and I am pain and nausea-free and art-ful.  I’ll take them apples so far.

Secondly, my wonderful college room-mate came again to do her thing with the Alumni Board at Laurel and to slip in some time with me.  I had gone of to the Carmelites at 5pm last Tuesday hoping she might get there, as she had gotten a late start from Chicago.  Slip in she did, right at the end as we were all being hugged by the wonderful sisters (again I ask you, hugs or no hugs?  No question in my mind!).

Not only that, she had a surprise for me.  As we got to the car, I really already knew what the surprise was, as she was sporting the loveliest pair of purple converse high tops I’d ever seen.  Not only that, we had been talking about purple high tops since high school when my sister returned from her first semester at Williams, where all things are purple and gold. 

Betsy and I have talked about purple high tops for years as a way to never grow old and die.  We would wear them and sit on park benches as old ladies and laugh and remember our wonderful lives together.  And she handed me a pair.  I almost burst out crying.  Now?!  It can’t be time for these!!!!   Oh no, no no no no no no no no……………..

Ok, I had two choices.  Lean in and love them, recognizing that of course the timing is NOW, or just sit there and feel bad.  No question for me (after a brief spell), they are magnificent and I have not taken them off.  I can celebrate them and all they mean to us every day I am here, and I will.

Just one more story with the high tops, and I’ll go on to our visit with the Richards.  I have been having just a little bit of side effect from the blasted steroids including a little swelling in the ankles.  So the hospice nurse and doc got together and recommended some gentle support hose.  Again, support hose, really??  Yuck.  But here’s the thing.  I am wearing a lovely pair of to-the-knee support hose UNDER the purple high tops.  Just stop me now.

Last week, my father’s only sibling, Richard, and his oldest son, Richard, came from California to visit East Coast relatives and then us.  We call them The Richards, and it is a joy to see them.  Looking at Uncle Richard is like turning around and seeing Dad, healthy and smiling.  They are look-alikes, and it always takes my breath away to see him, as Dad has been gone now for many years now.  One night, all 8 of us (mom, sister, me, both kids, Chip, Richard, and Richard) had dinner at a restaurant nearby, and we stayed for three hours talking and laughing and being together.  What a joy!  But I broke up the party when I almost fell in my soup….I got a little tired.  Embarrassingly enough, I was tired well before my almost 90 year old mother, who would have stayed another three hours, I’m sure of it.  The Richards stayed for three days, and wined and dined my mom and made us all laugh and get out of the house.  The visit was lovely and we hope they will continue to come every summer (ok, that’s my call out, Richards!!).  Love you both!!

One more story.  Yesterday, my dear friend A brought her father over to see me, my mom, and sister.  He was a second father to me when I was probably between 8-15 and a devoted teacher at Dad’s school.  These days, he is quite ill and has lost too much weight, and we were so glad to see him.  What I hadn’t expected was the little touch of grace that happened.  My sister is a teacher, and a good one, that is clear.  She has seen the new wing on my Dad’s old school and had very thoughtful comments about it and how it might feel to teach in it.  Mr R. has also seen it, but what he talked about with my sis was a class by an English teacher that he sat in on when the wing was opened.  As Mr R described, this teacher used a sonnet and a round, Harkness table to do more than just talk about a sonnet.  Both teachers realized that this teacher, in this moment, had shown something special --how to get boy’s heads up, get everyone sharing their own opinions of the sonnet, and teaching them to think for themselves.  Clearly it was a beautiful moment for Mr. R, and he felt very emotional about it as did my sister.  Truly, it was a moment of grace that my friend and I witnessed.  Lucky me.

Finally, I’m working hard to maintain some time of stillness, as it really helps me balance in this really weird world of not knowing, and my family is doing a wonderful job of coming along for the ride as best they can.  Someone was talking the other day about how their life hadn’t ended up exactly as they had planned.   I ask you, do our lives ever end up they way we “plan”?  Is that even what we want?  I can’t imagine that it is.  I’m afraid that would wash out so many possibilities, but I’ll think about that.  For me right now, life is only about being in the possible, and it seems a freeing place of soul-swans and stillness and reading and writing and being.  Right now, we have a little place of “new normalcy” here allowing people to get to their summer jobs, back to work, and still be close to me; it is lovely. 

This is how I want to remember my failures in this life.  See what you think.

Last Night as I was Sleeping (Antonio Machado)

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that a spring was breaking

out in my heart.

I said: Along which secret aqueduct,

Oh water, are you coming to me,

water of a new life

that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that I had a beehive

here inside my heart.

And the golden bees

were making white combs

and sweet honey

from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that a fiery sun was giving

light inside my heart.

It was fiery because I felt

warmth as from a hearth,

and sun because it gave light

and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that it was God I had

here inside my heart.

love the next too:

Enriching the Earth (Wendell Berry)

To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass

to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds

of winter grains and various legumes,

their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.

I have stirred into the ground the offal

and the decay of the growth of past seasons

and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.

All this serves the dark. Against the shadow

of veiled possibility my workdays stand

in a most asking light. I am slowly falling

into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,

not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness

and a delight to the air, and my days

do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service,

for when the will fails so do the hands

and one lives at the expense of life.

After death, willing or not, the body serves,

entering the earth. And so what was heaviest

and most mute is at last raised up into song.