Crux

Easter was never Happy for me. A long stretch of way too much church followed by all church all the time until Easter afternoon, with the sop of a basket with chocolate and candy. Uncomfortable, light, pastel clothes, in a season still cold and muddy, and long drives to visit family who ignored me until they would demand I answer some question out of the blue. Then I'd be berated all the way home for being "rude" or "sulking" for not paying attention.

People at work on Friday wishing everyone "Happy Easter" strikes me as contrary. I mostly replied, "Good Passover" if I replied at all.

The word “crisis” means, in medical terms, the crossroads a patient reaches, the point at which she will either take the road to recovery or to death. The word “emergency” comes from “emergence” or “emerge”, as if you were ejected from the familiar and urgently need to reorient. The word “catastrophe” comes from a root meaning a sudden overturning.

-Rebecca Solnit

England Street names.

If you ever despair of new housing developments with trite and trendy names or streets with ridiculously bucolic and inaccurate title, nothing is new.

In 1853, London had twenty-five Albert and twenty-five Victoria Streets, thirty-seven King and twenty-seven Queen Streets, twenty-two Princess, seventeen Dukes, thirty-four Yorks, and twenty-three Gloucesters—and that was without counting the similarly named Places, Roads, Squares, Courts, Alleys or Mews.”

“Do all builders name streets after their wives, or in compliment to their sons and daughters?” the Spectator magazine asked its readers wearily in 1869, a few years later. “And are there 35 builders with wives named Mary, and 13 with daughters named Mary Ann spelt so? There are 7 places, roads, and streets called Emily, 4 Emma, 7 Ellen, 10 Eliza, 58 Elizabeth—23 of them being called Elizabeth Place,—13 Jane, 53 Ann and so on and on.” Add to that “64 Charles Streets, 37 Edward Streets, 47 James Streets, besides 27 James Places, 24 Frederick Places, and 36 Henry Streets.” Other streets were named “for nearly every fruit, and for every flower we have been able to think of in five minutes.” But the “climax of imbecility” was New Street—fifty-two of them in all.

Our history is one of violence, even when at play.


It was supposed to rain last night, and there was a trace, not enough to really soak the garden. At least it didn't snow. I will cover the scarlet flax seeds tonight and tomorrow night, as the temperatures drop below freezing.

We gathered virtually, with intermittent voices all echoing, but it was grand to hear their voices and laughter. Texting is good, but it doesn't fill the need for friends all talking together.

We've been watching Capitaine Marleau. Just so good.


Looking through labels, I carp about easter every bloody year.

Zoetrope

Bitter winds, spring snow,
Full moon over struggling soil,
Dawn's cycle leaves marks.




There has always been something about Easter week, even after I stopped trying to believe the liturgy. A sense of threat in the hope, death in life. Growing up in Michigan, it never much felt like warm new life, often cold, wet, and with memorable winds.

I sang in the choir, starting when I was about ten, in large part to distance myself from my father. Also to give myself something to cling to as attendance was mandatory for this weekly event that became increasingly irritating and toxic. Singing helped. I would not have made it through a near decade of masses and the special hell of holy weeks, if I hadn't been able to sing and sit with the choir.

Once there, the Easter vigil service, long as it was, often outside for the lighting of the new fire, which delighted. The endless hymn (Praise we Christ's Immortal Body*) was a melodious old chanting tune, sung once a year, filled every corner until I hummed entire. Connected me back to some ancestral worship of eternal mysteries. The words blurred, meaning erased, only the hum remained.

June remained far away, then. And even June could be wet and chill then, there. Easter often a promise with a long lead time, full of gritty mud and cold feet. Never much liked spring.

Here, it's different. Especially since My Garden. I cheer on every sprout and cotyledon, every drop of rain, love the softness of mud and composting rot. Finally, I can see the cyclic turn of seasons, as they wheel faster for me, even as I grow patience. Reminding myself that May will come, flowers will bloom, fruits will ripen, birds and damsel flies will arrive. And I will invite them all in close.

I never quite believed in resurrection. I am certain of recycling.

Eventually, it all recycles.







*If we'd sung it quite this slowly, our director Mrs. Lancendorfer would have wrung our necks, figuratively. She liked a bit of zip even in the lento. And I really wish we could have sung it in Latin (Pange Lingua), much easier to just listen to the music without tripping over the meaning.

Consolations

I find it odd to be wished a Happy Easter, and not because I don't observe it. I grew up in a Catholic family, going to Catholic schools, and Holy Week was a grim time at the end of the solemnity of Lent. Death and grief, torture and injustice, with just a whiff of redeeming hope right at the very end.

While I certainly had a white or pastel hat and dress, new only if last year's dress no longer fit, there was no sense of festivity. It was a purely religious observance, not at all a social holiday. Sometimes a grandmother or aunt&uncle would appear for dinner on that Sunday, but it wasn't a tradition, just a family meal. Or we might take a lily plant out to the grandmothers in Windsor and La Salle in the afternoon, but never stayed long. Food was an afterthought, ham only because it was convenient.

The sole consolation for the extended time spent in church on hard pews or kneeling benches, was my* basket with chocolate and candies. It was welcome, certainly, if not quite adequate consolation. Especially once in Catholic schools, where I spent an hour in daily mass throughout Lent. There really is nothing like mass surrounded by a bunch of pre-teens. Not in terms of noise or misery, teachers prevented that, only a generalized, albeit specific, sort of distastefulness. A wooden purgatory, with snot. Spending that time in church with my mother, painful in a different way. Part of why I joined the choir, gave me a purpose, and I sat far from my parents. The music for Lent and Easter helped greatly, as well as the candles. I still have a soft spot for a space lit entirely with candles.

Easter for an agnostic adult? Perhaps in a year with a solid winter, a marker for hope of relief. In a warm, dry winter, a blip of distant annoyance, and an opportunity to add a half-price sheep (stuffed) to the household. And to deal with a spouse's own dogmatic issues with family, poor soul. ADD and a dull, mandatory churchgoing do not mesh well. I try to be supportive, without urging toward my own, rather extreme - if justified, estrangement from kith, if not kin.

I wandered over, and got a chocolate bunny, solid, as consolation. Well, I have always called him my Solid Chocolate Bunny, a beneficence for previous suffering, and the same goodness all the way through.

Moby is asleep at my feet, D strokes his back, and the cat's ears... relax even more. "OH, I'm in good hands" his ears seem to say. Yes, well.


Smells faintly of fake chocolate scent.




The years creep by, and we abide.



*One year, my basket was retrieved from the attic, only to find it had been used as a nest for mice. My mother threw it out, over my objections. I though it could be cleaned, she thought not. The new one was not as nice, not at all.

Oh, the green fake 'grass', and the chocolate covered malted milk balls. I could have dealt with the mouse poop pellets...

Hollow

Thinking about all the time spent in church as a child. Mandatory worship of a mandatory god. Sunday meant mass, no excuses - save illness enough to keep me flat in bed. Catholic school, at least one day a week with my class. And Holy Week meant nine days in a row at church every single day. Singing with the choir for the Easter Vigil service fulfilled my obligation for Easter Sunday, became my favorite service of the year. Ancient songs, incense, candles, lighting the new fire, ritual and costume, got around my distaste at being forced to pretend, and fed some part of me.

I liked being in the choir, singing helped me not hear the words so much. Got to sit up in the loft, away from my parents, out from under their constant scrutiny. I lectored for the same reasons, a bit of margin, a layer of insulation.

Holy Saturday, a day of grey grief, cut adrift from the chains. A moment of respite in the year, when I admitted my drawing away, despite the dire warnings against rejecting the love of gods, turning my back upon salvation. Like the much vaunted, but hollow-chocolate-egg-love of family, I never felt any god loved me. What was I being saved for? And I wonder at those who only live good lives in hope of heaven or fear of hell, and not simply to live one's own and only life as well as possible. Kindness for it's own sake, rather than bribing a god. Oh,I took the shiny wrapped candy, all that was on offer. Even kept a vague affection for the showier foil, the old tunes, a momentary tug even now.

I don't believe there is a god. I don't believe there isn't a god. Belief is such an alien concept to me. The whole argument misses the point, and tires. My mother simply assumed she could dress me in it, and there it would stay, instead of my tossing it aside with as much force as she flung her hated hat to the back dash of the car after mass.

But perhaps it is like being tone deaf, those of us who love music simply cannot conceive how some will never hear the tune.

Our friend scrub jay is back. Lingering on the porch where I put out the peanuts last year. Tapping an expectant beak, as if to demand service. So, I put some out, waited a bare minute... and he just picked one up. Yeah, it's all about proof, sometimes in the form of peanuts.





Moby claimed a spot on the bed last night, a rarity over the past year. Eleanor discomfited, but found another place to settle.


All the peanuts are retrieved, now. I have a bagfull, yet.

Dear

Long ago, a church Easter party, and a guess the number of jelly beans game. There was a short run off with some older girls. I was perhaps 5 or 6. And I won, a soft brown bunny, very realistic and soft.

Wound up sitting out on the church steps waiting for mom to pick me up, when the bigger girls came up to me. "You didn't deserve to win, that is ours." And they took it. I was distraught, but what could I have done?

"You shouldn't have been sitting out there!" my mother says. Brothers think I should have held on to it tighter. None of which made me feel any better. Word got around, and I heard I would get my bunny. I figured they'd taken it back from the bullies. Instead one of the elderly men of the church gave me a bright yellow, very fake looking stuffed bunny. I knew enough to express gratitude, and hide my disappointment. But it really wasn't the same, nor the point.

Thinking of this, looking through the Easter stuffed soft toys, lots of sheep and silly ducks, and a few rabbits of more or less real looking colors. And I felt a voice in my head tell me, I had my soft brown gift. She certainly hops like a bunny.




If you watch carefully and creatively, life does give back what it takes away, if you stay open and grateful. Sometimes with decades of interest.

I've been finding myself calling Eleanor various endearments. This is odd, for me. I've never been called them, not much even as a child, never from D. Rarely have I even used "dear" un-ironically, or as an address to begin a letter. Yet I keep catching myself calling Eleanor Sweetie, honey, even cutie-pie. I'm not sure what this means, only that Eleanor doesn't care one way or the other. Probably a benign harbinger of oldladyhood.

Easter

Made origami bunnies this afternoon, waiting for our last case to start. Still weren't the last case, though. A day to mind the gaps. One surgeon done, waiting for another who started late in another room. When we overlap, we save time by removing the turnover time from the equation. When we gap due to changing surgeons, especially this one who is not speedily efficient, the staff waits. And waits. So, I began folding.

Easter has never been a loved holiday. In my home, it meant a week in church. More than a week. Every day of school during Holy Week, we started the day with Mass. By Easter Sunday, I needed the bribe of chocolate just to console me having to wear dressy clothes and sit on hard pews so long. More of a disadvantageous trade off than a treat.

One year, my old Easter basket was brought down from the attic, and my mother discovered it had been useful as a nest for mice. I didn't really see why they couldn't just clean it up and use it anyway. My mother was not about to countenance using a mouse-shit basket for my chocolate. Still, it was a very nice basket.

At some point, when solid chocolate bunnies got hard to find, I asked instead for a chocolate block - which had become a thing. My mother loved putting in the malted milk chocolate eggs, and whatever else struck her fancy. When I was very, very small, my brothers would lead the morning search for the basket, as any hidden eggs belonged to them, but the basket was for the baby-sister. As I got older, I was perfectly content with simply looking out the back porch, knowing it would be there in the cold. And a lot of chocolate would be sequestered in the plastic grass under the chocolate bunny.

I bit off the ears first. Then popped off the eyes. No sense being watched. Or listened at.

I have TJ's chocolate, dark with almonds, in a bar, these days. When perfection is achieved, stop searching.

Just glad of spring.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my house? I love my house. It's my home.

Egg

I was reminded of my first Easter egg hunt. My brother Bill took me, though I am not sure why. He was a kind and attentive brother, gentle with my tears and scrapes. But even he could not read my young mind. As I stood among the pressing throng of other children, I spotted several eggs. When the signal went off, I stood, waiting for all the other children to run off, and I would pick up the egg I had seen. This did not work out well. Nor did I, hanging back and expecting to find what the hoard would not, get any eggs in the end.

Not unlike my first encounter with a slide with a flock of other children already there. I waited patiently for them to finish, and go away, so that I could play. Urged in by family, I pressed in, appalled at the crush, slid down once, and called it more than enough. This was not my idea of fun. Haven't got much competitiveness at all. Grew up more or less alone, and ultimately preferred it that way.

I often quote Jamie Hyneman, "I kinda like it in here. It's private."

I have since come to enjoy mixing in a crowd, but not when we all have the same goal. I float through the masses, with my own agenda, or none at all, invisible among them.

Bucket

"Do you know what I miss about Easter observances, growing up Catholic?"
"No, what do you miss?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all."

I think the chocolate bunny, malted milk egg candies, were all just rewards for enduring Holy Week. And it is grueling, done properly. Every day in church, Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, hard benches, pews, endless services, some at school - since I went to catholic school as well. I felt the words, the dogmatism of the words that choked me. Couldn't shut off my ears. I did not feel good about this, as saints were the epitome of being a good child, and they all loved the mass. At least in their stories. I found mass to be a trial, a misery. It was a lesson in self discipline, patience, and critical listening - worthy skills. I got that out of it not because that was the point, but because I pulled that out of the experience.

My mother put me in pastels, which I detested at the best of times, and the shoes always hurt. The hats were good, though. I've always liked hats. Often, in Detroit, Easter was not warm, and frilly clothes were inadequate for a raw, even snowy, day.

Oddly, or maybe not so much, Holy Saturday, a day of mourning, of death, of defeat, even with it's long service with the litany of the saints, call and response service - not a mass - sit, stand, kneel, sit, repeat, wasn't so bad. I respected the acknowledgment of death. Just as the vigil service, lighting the new fire, candles, ancient hymns (especially after I was in the choir) resonated, even though it all went on way too long. I got it when my childhood religion dealt head on with death and loss, Ash Wednesday, Holy Saturday, though I was not comforted with the idea of resurrection. I preferred the idea of reincarnation, and eventually came to like the idea of Nirvana. Although I now, I'm good with dead is dead, and now is life - better live well.

I never bought the idea of one person, one man, even if he was God's son, having to get tortured and killed, as a way to save souls from hell. What about all those who came before? All the other religions with different ideas about what happens after death? It was all so far fetched, so much had to be taken on a faith I never had. Once I started hearing other myths, it seemed obvious the christian story was one more.

The reward for a life well lived, is a well lived life. To want more is greedy and ungracious.

But, have a chocolate bunny, and eat the ears first.



Why contort oneself to drink out of the bucket? Why not?

Grace

A bit of necessary set up. I married into a Mormon family. D's parents are good folks, although they do have a few peculiarities concerning their faith. I was raised to say grace before every meal, they say a blessing. Or rather, one of them extemporizes a blessing, or dad assigns the blessing to an individual when the extended family is present. The LDS church has no professional clergy, and amateur speechifying is the norm. In my limited experience, painfully so.

Almost 19 years ago, when I first began going to holiday meals with the 'rentsinlaw, I dreaded the possibility of being asked to perform this, but decided I would simply give the catholic grace. Thing is, it never happened. Sometime in the last decade or more, I assumed that was off the table, and forgot my early fallback.

Grace in my original family was a participation ritual, murmured fairly quickly in unison. I heard it, more or less, thusly "blessesolord, antheezigfs, whicheeraboutoreceev, fromeyebuntytokrice, hourlower, AMEN." Rote prayer, but I got that gratitude for food was important, and I love the practice of thankfulness.

Easter Sunday, we sit to eat with D and his parents, a brother and his wife, and D's dad turns to me and says "Will you say the blessing." (Note lack of question mark.) I said "I'd prefer not." He went very quiet, and I turned to him and gently said "I'm sorry, but I'd prefer not." He turned to D, who gave the expected, and expected-sort of blessing, in shortest possible form. I thought then about saying grace, but it was too late. Plus, he'll never ask me that again. And then, I forgot.

Twelve hours later, I woke, and thought, what did I do? And why didn't my gut clench and my adrenaline gush, as it once certainly would have? I serenely performed the right action, how did I do that? Because saying that old prayer, while socially appropriate, would imply that I still believe in that religion, to people who take that sort of thing very seriously. Keeping my views respectfully private is not the same as telling an outright lie. I don't mind that I was, eventually, asked, however strangely out of the blue, but I am dumbfounded that I so instinctively reacted in a way that expressed my integrity.

But then, I do have a reflexive NO when pressed. So much easier to delay with a no, think about it, and turn it to a yes. Much harder the other way. Caught off guard, I will back off, turn away, demand time to think. Typical mark of a writer. I think slow, but I think deep.

Or maybe, I had a moment of Grace.