Posted tagged ‘Sunday’

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“I saw old Autumn in the misty morn Stand shadow less like silence, listening To silence.”

November 4, 2012

As fall days go, this one is just about perfect. The sun is sharply bright, the air is clear and it’s chilly, around 45˚ chilly, not quite coat weather yet. When I went to get the papers early this morning, I could smell fall. I could smell the fallen leaves and the crispness of the air. Someone had a fire going. I noticed the yellow maple leaves had fallen on the grass in a pattern drawn from a painter’s palette. I stood and took in my little bit more of my world then grabbed the papers and went inside to a house filled with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. My senses were in overdrive.

Gracie got loose this morning. We had just gotten back from breakfast and were on our way into the house when she pulled her head out of her collar and took off down the street. She did me the courtesy of looking back at me as she ran. I called her and was totally ignored. I took out my phone and called my friends, but no one was home. Then I saw my neighbor moving his car and asked him to call Gracie. She, of course, went right to him, gave him a hug and a bunch of kisses. He held on to a wiggly, happy Gracie until I could put her collar back on. Right now she is sleeping, resting from her exploits.

Sunday has a different feel about it than any other day of the week. Saturday was the day for errands so Sunday is a slow day, a day for taking time. On Sunday mornings, breakfast with my friend is a ritual for us. It is when we catch up with one another. Our breakfast is slow by intent and always has plenty of time for an extra cup of coffee. When I come home, I finish reading the papers. The crossword puzzle is saved for last, and I keep going back to it during the day until I finally give up. A nap is inevitable. Tonight my friends and I will play a few games, eat some appetizers as we play then we’ll watch The Amazing Race together.

I love traditions and rituals. They are connections over time, and they are to be cherished even in such simplicity as a morning breakfast or a game of cards.

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“Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week.”

October 7, 2012

It’s a dreary Sunday, a cloudy day with a chill in the air. I followed Gracie outside this morning and noticed red leaves on my oak tree. It was my foliage moment.

My childhood church had an upstairs and a downstairs. The upstairs was the church proper with a main altar and two side altars. The wooden pews were ornate with curly q’s and decorations on the end panels. There was a choir loft with an organ. Only once or twice do I remember a choir singing: at Christmas. Mostly one woman did the singing at weddings and funerals. The sound of the organ filled the church. Above the main altar and along the side walls were stained glass windows. When I’d get bored, I’d look around and read at the bottom of the windows the names of the families who donated them in memory of another member of the family. The only time I saw the side altar used was really early in the darkness of a Christmas morning when I was around ten. Some people used to sit at the ends of the pews. Anyone else looking to sit down in the same pew had to scrunch by them. When it was time to kneel, lots of people perched on the seat, more sitting than kneeling even though their knees were on the padded kneelers. I understood old people doing that but not young people. It just seemed lazy. In those days ushers passed the baskets which were actually woven and had long handles. All the ushers wore suits.

I preferred going downstairs for mass. There was one altar, plain wooden pews, no organ and regular windows. If there was an upstairs and a downstairs mass at the same time, the downstairs one always ended first. That was its draw. When the nuns brought us to church, they always brought us downstairs so it was a familiar place. In the back were racks filled with pamphlets, and I usually took a few. I figured reading them during the mass was okay. It wasn’t as if I’d brought Little Women. I’d do the stand up, sit down and kneel when I was supposed to, but, being a little kid, my mind was often elsewhere. Sometimes I’d go through the hymnal just to have something else to read. I always listened to the sermon though I sometimes didn’t understand all of it. Kids were not the intended audience. I always had a dime for the collection; my father made sure of that.

When the mass was over, I’d run up the stairs and out as fast as I could. My obligation was over, and the rest of the day was mine, except, of course, for Sunday dinner.

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“When you are at home, your troubles can never defeat you.”

September 20, 2012

The routine of daily life returns far too quickly. Each morning I am closer to my usual time. This morning it was 6:30 when I woke up; two days ago it was 4:30. Last night I lasted until nearly 10:30 before I dragged my tired self upstairs to bed.

Last year I returned to a different Ghana after forty years away. The cities are huge and filled with crowds of people and with cars caught in constant traffic jams, except for Sundays when the roads are clear. That is church day in Ghana.

I could hear the sounds of car horns everywhere. They blow a second after the traffic lights turn green which I find strange in a country where patience, like food and water, is a necessity of life. Ghana is dirty, mostly in the cities. I partially blame the water sachets, small plastic bags of pure water, sold everywhere then tossed to the ground when empty. After a while, though, I didn’t notice. I just saw Ghana: the people, the animals and the wonderful small villages and towns.

Along the roads are deserted houses made of clay. They fall apart easily when not tended. Other houses in various stages of construction are everywhere. They aren’t abandoned but in process. New houses are build over time, when the owners have money. It often takes years to finish a house.

The roads are filled with tro-tros ferrying riders from one stop to another, from one small village to the next. The driver’s helper sits by the sliding door and yells the destination. Each tro-tro is filled with people crammed elbow to elbow. People don’t seem to mind the heat.

Goats are everywhere. They stand on the shoulders of the road to eat the grass beside the road. Babies stand with their mothers. Pregnant goats waddle. At night, the goats sleep on the same shoulders where they spent the day. I never saw a goat which had been hit by a car. Drivers are careful.

Along the road, villages and small towns appear out of nowhere. Speed bumps are the only indicators. They slow drivers down going into and out of each village, even the smallest. In between the villages I saw women carrying bundles of wood, bicyclists riding along the side of the road and children with buckets both filled and empty. Many times I never saw their destinations and wondered where they were going. I guessed there were isolated compounds somewhere off the road. Hawkers are everywhere. If you stop, they come to the windows hoping for a sale. Off their heads come their trays. Some are filled with oranges or bread, groundnuts, water sachets or dried fish. At toll booths, the hawkers sell wares particular to the region. Near the water were shrimp, octopus and snails. The food I wanted was a sweet donut. When I found some , I bought two. They used to be a roadside staple. Now they are rarer. The other food I miss is toasted coconut balls. They were delicious.

The Ghanaians are wonderful, friendly people. When you speak to them in a local language, they smile from ear to ear and often clap. They say, “You have done well.” If you are lost, a Ghanaian will give you directions or even walk you to your destination. A woman got in our car and directed us to where we wanted to go. They will grab your bundles so you don’t have to carry them. I was offered a bench every time I stopped to take a small rest. Ghana is rich in its people.

Ghana is a country of street food. We used to go into town at night for snacks and buy we’d kabobs, plantain chips or fried yams. The women, the aunties, were set up along the sides of the road behind basins filled with oil boiling over charcoal fires. Lit lanterns sat on their tables. I always liked the sight of the dark street dotted with those lanterns. Mostly that hasn’t changed, but now street food is available starting in the afternoons. I bought tasty sausages and kabobs, often with fried onions. I bought kelewele and yams and bread, delicious butter bread, and rolls for my sausages. Many small kiosks now dot the sides of the streets and sell food. They all have painted names on the front and most boast they are the best: the best meat, the best kenkey and the best of just about everything.

Last year Ghana was new again. This year it was familiar. It felt far more like home, the way it had all those years ago.

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Don’t grow up too quickly, lest you forget how much you love the beach.”

July 8, 2012

We’re still in a heat wave of sorts. It’s not as hellish as the south or the mid-west, but it is far too hot for us this time of year. I’m still inside where it’s cool. Later, though, I’ll have to venture out as I still need a few things for tonight.

Saturday night was drive-in movie night. We, of course, always wore our pajamas. I remember when I was around 5 or 6 and I left the car by myself to go the bathroom telling my parents I’d be fine. I found the bathroom but couldn’t find our car afterwards. I went up and down the rows getting more and more panicky. Finally I went to the concession stand. They announced me over the car speakers, and my dad came and rescued me. I was still young enough to feel relieved instead of embarrassed. My dad was an impatient man. The idea of waiting in a long line to exit the drive-in was totally unappealing so he’d get a head start on the traffic. We left before the movie was over. My father guessed at the end time, but I have no idea how close his guesses were. I just know I watched a silent movie as we left the drive-in.

By this time most Sundays, my dad would have packed up the car for the beach. That meant the tartan cooler, the picnic basket, the blanket, towels and shirts for sun protection. We didn’t have any sunscreen back then except for my mother who’d make us cover up before we got too burned. My mother was fastidious about keeping the sand off the blanket. She’d let us sit down as long as our feet were stretched out across the sand. During the day she was known to move everything off the blanket a few times so she could shake the sand off it because that blanket was where my mother perched the whole day except maybe for a walk on the beach in the afternoon with my sisters who wanted to look for shells, and on really hot days when she’d sometimes tip her toes into the ocean, but that was always as far in as she dared. We were the water bugs.

My dad worked a long week and often didn’t make it home for dinner. On summer Saturday mornings, he did errands and household chores like mowing the lawn, but the rest of the weekend he spent with us. Even though I never saw the movies end, I loved going to the drive-in and nothing was better than Sunday at the beach.

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“The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach”

July 1, 2012

The line outside my Sunday breakfast spot was long. I even had to put my name on a list. The air conditioning has been on since early yesterday afternoon. Gracie pants every time she goes outside. Barely a leaf moves, just the few every now and then at the tips of the branches. This is a summer weekend!

I remember weekends at the beach when I was a kid. Nothing tasted better after swimming and playing in the sand than a cold cup of Zarex and a sandwich with a gritty crunch. The Oreos my mother always packed tasted best with an ocean view. We always went shell hunting and came home every time with a pile of them. Our house should have been filled with them, but after a while they disappeared, finally tossed by my mother when she cleaned. After a day in the sun, I don’t think I ever stayed awake on the ride home. I remember going to bed with my head on the pillow and having hot water trickle from my ears, water the result of diving in the ocean, mostly at the sandbar where the water, when the tide was out, was warm enough to enjoy.

I remember an Easter Sunday at the beach in Ghana. I don’t remember which beach, but it had clean water, a place which sold food and few people. We walked a long way on the sand and played ball with a palm tree branch bat and a coconut ball. I got the worst sunburn.

In Togo, the beach sand was so hot your feet could barely stand the walk on it. We always hurried to the small thatched cabanas here and there on the sand. They were usually empty. Very few people went to the beach. The water there was wonderful though I remember one time when I was swimming and a dead pig floated by me. I wasn’t all that grossed out-I had been in Arica over a year and was just about beyond being grossed out by anything. There was a hotel with a restaurant across from the beach, and we often stopped there to eat after an afternoon swimming and lounging under the cabana. We usually ordered bifteck and pomme frites with a coke. The restaurant wasn’t fancy, but I can still see it in my mind’s eye. It was white with a blue trim, had outside tables and a view of the beach.

Beaches fill so many of my memory drawers it is no wonder I live on the Cape.

 

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“Childhood smells of perfume and brownies.”

April 15, 2012

Today is beautiful with no breeze and the brightest sun hanging in the sky. Fern is so relaxed lying in the sun shining through the front door that I had to check to make sure she was breathing. Gracie is outside sitting in the sun. She has a favorite spot on the back side of the yard where she sprawls on the grass. When she comes in to check on me, her fur will feel hot to the touch.

Yesterday I heard dogs barking, including my own, mowers and kids playing but not today. My neighborhood is Sunday quiet as if there was reverence still left for the day.

I have favorite smells. The every day favorite smells give me a sense of comfort and continuity like the smell of coffee brewing first thing in the morning or the smell of the ocean borne this far by the wind or the fog. Other smells transport me to different times and places. Last week I smelled leaves burning and saw a man tending his small fire, rake in hand. I slowed down and lowered my window when I went by him and his leaves. All of a sudden I was a little kid again watching my father tend to his fire burning on the street beside the sidewalk. The smell of wood burning brings me back to Ghana. During the harmattan, when the mornings are chilly, the family compound behind my house had smoke whirling into the air from fires lit to keep everyone warm. The smell of that burning wood was almost sweet as it filled the air. Food in Ghana is still cooked on small, round charcoal burners, and the charcoal is still made from wood. Last summer when I smelled the cooking fires I was transported forty years in time to when I lived in a small white duplex and behind my house was a field with a family compound. I can still see and smell the smoke from that compound as it rises into the air. My mother and the smell of sugar cookies baking are forever linked in my memory.

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“Nothing burns like the cold.”

February 12, 2012

“Marley was dead to begin with.” Okay, that is stolen directly from Dickens, but I did use quotation marks. I wanted a dramatic opening, and that is one of my favorites. Winter is holding sway was all I could come up with as my first line, and it’s a weak one. I wanted drama, I wanted a “Stella!” moment to describe the change in temperature.

It is now is 24° on the Cape and in the teens in Boston. The sunlight has a cold look, a sharpness, to it. The sky is a deep blue but its color lacks any warmth. When the breeze blows, I can feel it fly up my sleeves and down my neck. This is what I remember as being cold.

This is a bundle day, a pull out the afghan day and a nap under the warmth of the down comforter day. I’m going nowhere except upstairs for that nap. Earlier, I went to my usual Sunday breakfast. When the alarm went off, I jumped out of bed to turn it off then I jumped right back under the covers. I wanted to stay in that warm bed, and I know both Gracie and Fern hoped I would. They were warm cozy against me on opposite sides and didn’t move when I tried to get up. Finally I gave them no choice, and the three of us left the warmth of my bed.

The roads were empty this morning. I saw only a few cars, and after breakfast I saw some people walking into church. They were huddled together and bundled. Many of the old ladies wore long coats with fur around the collars. I suspect they also have boots at home in the closet, the kind which slip over shoes with clunky heels and are transparent. The hats they wore this morning were purely decorative.

I don’t have to ask today where winter has gone. I know exactly where it is.

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“Heap on more wood! the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.”

December 19, 2011

Last night dropped to the teens, as low as 14°, but, luckily, I was home warm and cozy wearing slippers and wool socks to complement my usual nighttime winter ensemble. Today feels warm at 39°. If the wind would disappear, it would feel even warmer. It’s strong enough to sway the big feeder and take the birds for a ride. I’d get car sick if I went back and forth that many times.

I never did get to the grocery store with my list but, instead, I went to a smaller store to pick up cat food and paper towels; however, I can procrastinate no longer and will leave for the Stop and Shop as soon as I finish here. I need to do my Christmas baking.

December 23rd was usually when we got out of school for vacation. We went to school the same as usual that morning, but it was never really a usual school day. We were far too excited to learn anything so the nun, knowing she was facing a losing battle, would vary the activities. In the morning we’d color Christmas scenes and make Christmas cards for our parents. In the afternoon we’d have a party.

My Christmas cards were seldom works of art. Most had a tree on the front because trees were easy to draw and decorate. I used a yellow crayon to make garlands because the white crayon was never any good to use. You couldn’t see it. You could feel it but not see it. I made dots of color for the lights but never ventured into ornaments. They would have looked like blobs. My inside messages tended to be on a slant and sometimes I ran out of space and had to loop my words. My mother made a big deal oohing and ahhing when I gave her my card. It was as if I had given her a real masterpiece. I always felt proud.

Christmas Day is a Sunday this year. When I was a kid, I loved it being on a Sunday. It was like cheating a little as it counted twice. It was both a Sunday mass and a Christmas day mass. We often went to the very first mass of the day walking to church in the cold darkness so we could hurry home to play with our new toys. I remember thinking we were the only people in the world awake that early. All the houses were  dark, but, on the way home, the sky was light and the people were awake. We could see tree lights shining when we looked at the windows as we quickly passed by them. We were in a hurry to get home.

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“Some of the most important conversations I’ve ever had occurred at my family’s dinner table.”

November 13, 2011

Today is seasonably chilly with a cold breeze. The leaves on the oak tree have turned brown, and every time the wind blows, a few fall to the ground. Soon enough the oak tree will be bare.

Fewer birds than usual are at the feeders, and the spawns of Satan also seem to be among the missing. I have only seen the red spawn. I don’t know where his gray cousins are.

I have never had huge expectations for Sundays which dates, I think, from when I was little and, by default, Sunday was family day. The morning always started with church, sometimes with my dad, the usher, sometimes just by ourselves, my brother and me. I remember my dad used to give each of us a dime for the collection basket. When the time came, I’d watch him walk to the front of the church carrying his basket. Once there, he’d kneel then stand and pass the basket down each row. The handle of the basket was so long it reached all the way down to the end of the pews in the center aisle. I was always a bit proud when I could add my dime to the basket. It made me feel older some how. My dad would drive us home, but he always stopped for the paper first. Sometimes he’d stop so we could get a donut. I liked jelly donuts back then. My dad liked plain.

When I got home, I’d change out of my Sunday clothes into my play clothes though most Sundays, other than in the summer, I never went outside to play. I’d lie on the rug in the living room and read the comics. I never found the rest of the paper interesting when I was little. The Sunday movie started at noon, and we’d gather around and watch. The only movie I still remember watching was Lassie Come Home. It made me cry.

My mother was always in the kitchen preparing Sunday dinner. During the week we had lunch in the afternoon and then supper at night, but on Sundays we had dinner. I always thought it was called dinner because it was the best meal of the whole week. We sometimes had a roast beef or a roast pork or chicken, always mashed potatoes and a couple of vegetables, out of cans back then. There was never enough room at the table. The kitchen was small. My mother often stood up by the stove near the table to eat. Even years later, when there was room, she’d still stand at the counter and eat. I thought it was strange until I remembered those Sunday dinners and that small kitchen and the table against the wall.

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It is strange, but I have never camped anywhere in Africa where I have not felt, as I left it, that we all have left something of ourselves behind.”

October 9, 2011

The day is simply gorgeous with the bluest of skies and a summer warmth. It has been a different sort of Sunday as I didn’t go out for breakfast, but I did sit outside to drink my coffee. I closed my eyes and let the sun warm me, and I listened to the birds greeting the day and to Gracie wandering through the backyard grasses. Every now and then a car went by, but it only disturbed my reverie for a moment. Around eleven, I dragged myself back inside to call my sister in Colorado, a call I make every Sunday, and now I’m still inside to write Coffee. It will be a quick post. The day is calling me.

Gracie is on the bad list. Last night I heard a rustling sound, the sort a package makes, and looked from here in the den down the hall to the crate on which Gracie’s food and treats are kept but saw nothing. Later I went to give Gracie one of her Happy Hips treats and the package, the newly opened package, was gone. This morning I found the empty package in the yard. That noise I had heard was Gracie stealing the package. She then sneaked outside with it. No question she knew she was doing something wrong.

I have a wedding to go to today at four. Receiving the invitation meant I needed to buy a fall dress to join my summer dress, the dress which came with me to Ghana. I told my sister my new dress is in the pink family and has a jacket with a scalloped edge. I also told her I bought new black shoes. The dress came Wednesday. It is green. The shoes are brown. Now I’m thinking I’ll look like a tree.

I never should have gone to Ghana. Now all I can think about is getting back there for another visit. When I first came home from the Peace Corps, the feeling was even more intense. It took months before I stopped longing for Ghana, but I never stopped thinking about it. I have it all figured out. I need to replenish my savings to the pre-Ghana level then I can start saving for the next trip. I’m guessing two years max before I get back there.

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