Sabbath #24

It’s mid-afternoon. The temperature reads ten degrees. Vermont mid-winter. The last sunlight beacons me to the window. My last day before returning to Virginia where the temperature reads thirty three degrees. I’m eager to return. Yet, I’m savoring the short story in One Story lent by Allison. Before she let me borrow the small volume, she read aloud …I am my own housewife, my own breadwinner. I make lunches and change light bulbs. I kiss bruises and kill copperheads from the backyard creek with a steel hoe. Her friend wrote the story. I promised to return this coveted copy. My single bed, covered with the quilt I only use while here. I covered myself with the soft blanket I brought from home to remind me of home. I read the story and it hit my heart with the lost voice of a mother. Earlier this week I had walked in the dark searching for my own mother’s voice. It’s true. Even if our relationships with our mothers were troubled, we still need their voices. What comes to us in stories? Remembrances. Moments when we recognize what we lived. Beauty in the written word. Comfort in the imagined, the known. Tomorrow I will board the plane, fly home.