Sabbath#25

Morning and the alarm rings off and off for over an hour. Transtromer writes ” Waking up is a parachute from dreams.” Last night, a film of the monastery in the French Alps: the sounds of prayer. The last days of January. Also, the greens cooked down and we savored the broth, sipped the warmth. And then,”The green zone of morning.”  Two nights ago silence woke me. I walked to the window and opened it to hear the sounds outside: stars and wind, night. Practice silence. Practice poems. Braid light with light. Move away from the window. Close the drawbridge. Stand in the courtyard. Enter the space between sleep and wake. Breathe. Breathe. And another breath. Lie down on the floor. A strange bird, the only music. He repeats three notes then removes one. Then nothing. A house in a field hears mostly wind in the bricks.

 

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.