Cue the Band

I was walking with my friend talking about life and death, as usual. Suddenly there was a burst of tiny white birds, flying at a diagonal, receding and coming forward, like a celebratory mirage, gone in an instant. Now you see them, now you don’t.

Snowy plovers, said my friend. Blessing, said I.

The sky and sea were layered shades of blue and white, gray and silver. If I could paint, that’s what I’d want to paint: the layers, and those clouds of angel wings.

Thoughts of angels and painting transported me into childhood, and a random memory returned to me, a mother-memory, straight from that realm. My mother was crying, and I was scared. “You aren’t really crying,” I said to her, to reassure myself. That made her terribly angry, on top of the tears. Yes, she was really crying, and no upstart little daughter was going to deny her reality. How little I understood.

Fast forward sixty-five years. The week brought many fine surprises: a handwritten letter in the mailbox, a refreshing rush of rain, my Covid-19 booster shot. It’s a veritable banquet, and I’m so glad to have a seat at the table, even alongside doom and sadness.

A friend from high school with whom I have recently reconnected summarized it beautifully:

It is incredible, but I guess shouldn't be surprising that we, foolish, greedy, selfish and impatient creatures, will not get a grip on what we've done (and continue to do) to the rest of the world. We'd rather go down with the ship it seems. Cue the band.

Now cantaloupe slices of morning sunlight are highlighting the hilltops and I am experiencing a caffeinated infusion of robustness. My mother really cried, but she also rode the trolley in flower print dresses and was swept off her feet by the handsome man she married, and an operatic epic ensued, its reverberations still resounding in my heart, along with a billion other stories that contribute to the music of the spheres. And maybe I’ll see snowy plovers today.