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Passing into History

Passing into History

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I didn’t set an alarm to watch Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral at 6 a.m. Eastern time. But when I woke up anyway, I quickly tuned in. 

What pomp and grandeur, what an outpouring of love and respect! “It’s been a solemn day, but not a gloomy one,” said the BBC commentator.  

As I write, the queen has left London for the last time and is on her way by hearse to Windsor Castle, where she will be laid to rest in the family crypt. Thousands of citizens have lined the way, throwing roses in her path.

“To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” Today, the queen passes into history. 

Moon Over Wolf Trap

Moon Over Wolf Trap

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A last gasp of summer, an outdoor concert at Wolf Trap, where cellist Yo-Yo Ma and clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera played together like … beans and rice, which they explained briefly before they played are their nicknames for each other. These names also showed up as titles for movements in the piece they performed, which D’Rivera composed. 

At Wolf Trap it’s never just about the music but the experience: picnicking on the lawn, waiting for the performance and the darkness. 

Last night a pale waxing moon appeared just as the hall was filling up, and as the players tuned (so different to see the National Symphony in its shirtsleeves), the moon rose and brightened. By the time we left, sated with the music and the evening, it was high in the sky, lighting us home.

R.I.P., Queen Elizabeth

R.I.P., Queen Elizabeth

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I’m late posting today, which means I can use this space to express my condolences to the British people upon the loss their monarch. Queen Elizabeth reigned for 70 years. As recently as Tuesday she was photographed at Balmoral Castle in a sweater and kilt, smiling as she greeted Liz Truss, the 15th prime minister of her tenure as queen. 

I’ve spent some time looking at that photograph today, wondering what sort of pain and discomfort she may have been hiding, may often have been hiding, as she went about her duties. There are the sensible shoes, there the ever-present handbag, a detail I always found noteworthy and today find especially touching. 

My impression of Queen Elizabeth has been formed not only by history books and newspapers, but also by the Netflix series “The Crown,” which has emphasized the Queen’s dedication to duty. And surely she maintained that dedication to the end. 

Newscasters have been exclaiming that immediately after the flag was lowered at Buckingham Palace a rainbow appeared in the sky. I checked for images, thinking it seemed too hokey to be true, but yes, it really happened. 

(Photo: Leon Neal, Getty Images, New York Times)

Beating the Wrap

Beating the Wrap

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As I wrap presents for my grandson’s special day, I recall that a few weeks ago, at the birthday of another grandson, my daughter confided that my present was the only one not in a gift bag, the only one, that is wrapped in paper.

Am I the only one who still does this, who cuts, creases and tapes the paper, who unspools and measures the ribbon, then curls it with scissors? 

There are a few of us out there who honor the old ways, who wrap rather than insert, who tie rather than stuff. But not many. 

The Nature of Labor

The Nature of Labor

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On this first Monday in September I’m thinking of a day long ago when I had a deadline to meet at the same time as the neighbors next door were having a screened-in porch added to the back of their house. While I’m sure there was prep work, in memory it seems as if the thing went up in a day, a week at the very least. 

While the hammers pounded, the nail guns added their one-two punch. There was shouting, laughter, the dull thud of two-by-fours being laid in place. Every so often I would lift my head from the keyboard to monitor the progress.

By dinnertime the porch was framed: an outside room, a place that hadn’t existed that morning. I glanced at my screen, at the words I’d cobbled together during the same nine or ten hours. 

Surely we  had all been building something that day, the workmen and I. Surely we had all been laboring. But at the end of the day they had something tangible to show for it … and, unless I printed a draft, I did not. Writing is a strange occupation. But I can’t imagine another one. 

Instead of a Card

Instead of a Card

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We met when we were just out of college working at our first “grownup” jobs in Chicago. We’d joined our church choir, which was planning a concert of Handel’s Messiah later that year, and Cathy and I bonded over long rehearsals in the ornate sanctuary of St. Clement’s. 

It was the springtime of our lives, and the possibilities seemed limitless. Would we stay in Chicago?  Would we marry and have children? Would we stay in touch?  No, yes and absolutely. We never missed Christmas or a birthday. Until this year. 

When May 31 arrived and there was no card from Cathy, I was worried. I learned a few weeks later that she passed away in April from the breast cancer she’d been fighting for several years. 

Cathy was loving and cheerful to the end: a devoted wife, mother, daughter, colleague and friend who is missed and mourned by all who knew her. Today, August 31, is Cathy’s birthday. I can’t send her a card — but I can write her this post. Happy Birthday, Cathy! I will never forget you!

In Kentucky, Rain and Tears

In Kentucky, Rain and Tears

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When I was strolling on the beach recently a fellow walker greeted me with “Go, Hoosiers!” I almost cheered him on. There are plenty of Hoosiers in my family and I went to college in Indiana for two years. Then I realized what he was up to. I’d almost forgotten that I was wearing my Kentucky T-shirt that day. He was asserting dominance. 

There’s been no forgetting my home state these last few days. As more tragic reports flow from the flooding in Whitesburg and Hazard and other Appalachian towns, it’s hard not to think about the dire straits in which my fellow Kentuckians find themselves. 

These people had so little to begin with. They live on steep mountain roads with creeks in their backyards. The rains that triggered floods and mudslides are supposed to happen once or twice in a thousand years. People weren’t expecting creeks to become raging torrents that lifted up refrigerators and cars and, worst of all, swept away children and parents and brothers and sisters. 

More rain fell last night in Kentucky … and more tears, too. 

(On dryer ground: a photo taken last year in central Kentucky.)

Bewilderment

Bewilderment

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A late post today since I was preoccupied earlier with errands and a birthday. It’s my middle daughter, Claire’s, special day. When I began this blog, she had just started college. Now she’s a working mother preparing to have her second child. 

While I try to make gratitude the chief emotion of each day, other feelings creep in. Today it’s bewilderment, an all-too-common response. 

How can Claire be a young mother already? How can any of my daughters be grown women with families and jobs and adult responsibilities? 

Time passes. It’s the oldest story of all — and the hardest to believe. 

The Deep

The Deep

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The sounds of a party filled the place: laughter, conversation, the clink of glasses. But step away from the main room and it was another world. 

Sharks patrol their waters with ruthless intensity. Rainbow fish flit to and fro, a blue starfish pulsing in their tank. Porcupine fish bristle. And stingrays glide through the water like so many fluttering handkerchiefs. 

At the entrance, schools of sea creatures swim to the left of us, to the right of us, and above us, too. It was a dramatic entry into another world, a world of the deep.

Thoughts on the Fourth

Thoughts on the Fourth

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On one of my first trips abroad, the passengers in the airplane burst into applause when we landed back in the U.S. It wasn’t a difficult landing or an especially long flight. But it was a less jaded age, and I, novice flyer, started clapping, too.

I had more mixed feelings re-entering the U.S. a week ago. While we were away there were more mass shootings, several disturbing Supreme Court rulings (one of which produced equally disturbing vandalism at my Catholic church last week), and explosive testimony about the actions of our former president. 

I love my country, but three weeks away from it was refreshing. I read no newspapers, watched no televised news. I took a break from our Weltschmerz, an Old World term that has become a surprisingly apt way to describe our not-so-new problems. 

Tyranny, inequality and intolerance have always been with us. Many came here in hopes of escaping them. But they are part of the human conditions, and they have followed us here. 

In my optimistic moments I still think the grand experiment that is the United States of America can weather these difficult, polarizing times. But it will take our efforts and our prayers and our sacrifice to do so. I hope we are up to the task.