Until October.

Conversation is in the air like music in some restaurants.  I love that.  Tonight I overheard a woman at the table behind ours. “I would say,” she began as though pondering something of great importance. “  I would say , I will love honour and cherish you, until…..October” 

I did

The waitress arrived at our table with a flourish. Fish and chips all crispy and golden for my husband and an amazing platter heaped with salad and a succulent  salmon burger for me.  “Here,” she said, placing four white dinner napkins by my plate. “You’ll probably need these,” she added, with a knowing smile. I did!

Let the stable still astonish

Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.

Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said: “Yes,
Let the God of all the heavens and earth
be born here, in this place.” ?

Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms of our hearts
and says, “Yes, let the God
of Heaven and Earth
be born here —-

in this place.”

By Leslie Leyland Fields

Hearing them

I’m in trouble! A mysterious injury is causing me to limp. Has been causing me to step gingerly. My other foot protested at the extra work and is now on strike. It is hard to limp when both feet are involved.  And this morning an old shoulder injury has asserted itself with a twang.  

If my mother were here, she would have given me some kind and wise advice. Something so simple and practical that I wouldn’t have thought of it myself if I lived to be 100. 

If my dad were here he would have said, “growing old is for the birds!”

If my brother were here he would have made me laugh at myself, my foot, and life in general.   

And if my sister were here, she would have regaled me with her own woeful tales and then added by way of explanation, “old, old, old!”  

I miss those voices but I hear them still. 

Math and mystery

I’ve just come to the realization that the timer on my dryer is exactly like the timer at a hockey game! The minutes remaining are never really the minutes remaining. There is math and mystery about them both.  

Where’s Waldo

Herons are big birds. Their silhouette is somehow gawky and graceful at the same time. They  are usually so easy to spot, poised in place like lawn ornaments gone rogue. But sometimes they are completely missing in action. Camouflage holds sway. Is that a graceful neck bending or a dead tree limb? Legs or reeds? Finding a heron can be like a game of Where’s Waldo. 

Room to breathe

I turned into a parking spot as close to the entry as possible.  Hooray! Let joy be undiminished! Fling wide the door! We are at the pool. 

And that’s when we noticed the very long school bus swing up as close to the entry as possible and fling wide IT’S door. Children poured out in an unending stream. It made me think of those old skits where people are climbing into a car on one side and clambering out the other or like a magician pulling an endless scarf from his sleeve. 

As we entered the pool, so likewise did an astonishing throng.  Extra lifeguards were on duty. They even brought in trainees!

The deep end was elbow to elbow.  The shallow zone, a giant splash and shriek zone. 

Optimistically , three lanes down the center were preserved until like soldiers breaching the castle wall, children gained a lane and another until a lone lane remained. But what a lovely lane it was. One long stretch of empty beckoning water. Chaos to the right and chaos to the left but before and behind was room to glide and turn and float and breathe.