Keep the Coffee Comimg

The sun is bright with a dark blue sky as its backdrop. It is in the high 40’s but feels chillier. Everything is still. Everything is quiet. I have no plans for today. I’ll have my dinner in the early afternoon. It screams tradition, salad, ham, mashed potatoes and green beans, rolls and a chocolate cupcake decorated for Easter.

When I think of Easter, I think of color. After the drab winter, I love the first stirrings of color my garden. The brightest color is always the yellow forsythia. The one in my front garden was a housewarming present over 45 years ago from my brother and his then girlfriend. It has buds. The croci are always the first flowers. Mine, on the side of the front yard, are purple. I think of them as harbingers of spring. My dafs and hyacinths are in bloom. I seem to like purple as all the hyacinths are shades of purple. The dafs are both yellow and white. The garden brings surprises every day.

When I was a kid, I knew what Easter celebrated. The nuns made sure of that. On Good Friday, a day off from school, we had to take turns spending some vigil time, usually about a half hour, in the downstairs of the church during the hours Christ was on the cross. I remember all the statues were covered with purple wraps. It was a time of mourning. Besides the few of us kids forced to be there, only old people were also in the church. They were walking the stations of the cross or sitting in pews praying and saying the rosary. I was far less attentive. It wasn’t easy to sit there. I was a kid who wanted to be anywhere else. That time stretched forever.

We used to leave out carrots for the Easter Bunny. When I was young, I never question a rabbit who carried baskets everywhere and delivered colored eggs. Santa had his reindeer. As far as I knew, the rabbit only had a wheel barrel filled with eggs. I just figured it was magic.

I remember looking through my basket and eating the rabbit’s ears and maybe a jelly bean or two. We had eggs for breakfast. I was too young for the irony. After breakfast, it was time to dress in my new Easter outfit for church. I felt fancy.

Today is a miracle. The sky is breathtakingly blue. The sunlight is so bright I had to squint my eyes even in the kitchen. It isn’t warm, in the mid 40’s, but I went without my jacket while doing errands. The world is feeling spring-like and so am I.

The grape hyacinths have bloomed. One is a light purple while the other is a dark purple. They and the dafs bring color to the front garden. I love these early bursts of spring.

Before Easter, we always colored eggs. My mother used to buy the Paas kits. We’d sit at the kitchen table with glasses filled with different colored water in front of us. We’d use a metal holder to dip the eggs into the glasses. The younger I was the less patient I was so the eggs only got lightly colored. On Easter mornings we’d sometimes have an Easter egg hunt. Afterwards, my mother used to make egg salad so the eggs wouldn’t go to waste.

I never counted down to the Easter Bunny’s visit the way I did for Santa’s. I always sort of knew what to expect from the Easter Bunny. My basket was woven wicker and colorful. Green grass covered the bottom. If I put chocolate I’d tasted back into the basket the grass always stuck to it. The centerpiece of my basket was always the chocolate rabbit. It stood tall. The rabbit was hollow. Around its feet were jelly beans, hard colored eggs with hard white filling, wrapped chocolates and Peeps. The Easter Bunny always added gifts like an Easter coloring book and crayons or a stuffed animal or small toys. My basket was always filled.

I don’t have a chocolate rabbit, but I have Peeps exposed to the air and hardening. I have a few Reese’s peanut butter eggs in the freezer. I think the peanut butter eggs taste better than the peanut butter cups. I have my Easter dinner, the traditional ham, mashed potatoes and green beans. I am ready for Easter.

The rain continues. It rained all night and will rain all day. It is cold now with a wind, but it will get warmer, not that it matters on such an ugly day. I have one errand today.

When I was a kid, I remember going shopping for Easter clothes. We were decked out on the big day with new clothes and new shoes. When I was young, I always wore a fancy dress, a pouffy pastel dress. I had patent leather shoes, usually ones with a strap across the top of my foot. Even my dainty white socks were new. They used to have lace at the top. I was never a lover of hats, but Easter seemed to demand a new hat. Sometimes it had ribbons. It was always decorative and usually white. I’d wear short white gloves to complete my outfit, to complete the transformation from scruff to elegant. I was always so excited to have a new outfit from top to bottom. Other than school shopping, my mother seldom bought us an outfit for just one occasion. ‘

Sometimes we went to Jordan Marsh. I liked the one in Boston. In one part of the store, in a nook, they had a children’s book section. I remember the shelves were tall and wooden, and there were chairs. I’d sometimes hide out there waiting until the choosing was finished. My mother would concentrate on one of us at a time. I was never too choosy and always finished quickly. My sisters took more time. They really loved new dresses. I remember they’d whirl, and their dresses would get even pouffier.

I never questioned why we got new outfits for Easter. I always figured they were a celebration, a welcome to Easter and to spring and a final farewell to winter clothes. Come to find out the tradition of new clothes goes back to Christian medieval times. They were a fresh start, a celebration to symbolize the resurrection.

Our debut was church. Masses were always filled on Easter Sunday. Every kid was dressed to the nines. All the girls were in dresses. The boys wore suits or jackets and pants. They all wore ties. My brother wore a white shirt, a tie and a sort of sport coat and pants.

We stayed in our outfits the whole day. We ate our special Easter dinner, always ham. We ate our chocolate bunnies.