Bookstores, Covid and Lent

The Covid lockdown seems to have happened without warning. There was no plan in place to ride out this forced closing of our lives. In the early Spring of last year, we found our groceries in the driveway delivered by Kroger, our Mass on a bench in the woods and our family's faces on Zoom calls. 

What is this? How will we get through this ? 

  And here I give a deep teary bow to independent bookstores. After a few weeks, we had to go somewhere. I rang our favorite bookstore in the small Georgia town of Zebulon called "A Novel Experience". Yes, by golly, they were kind of open: "Tell me what you want and we'll give it to you." So, on a spring morning, we drove the beloved country lanes, past cows and houses set back from the road,  acres of grass and trees to a bank parking lot. I called and asked the owner, Chris, for any Nikki French and a new book or two.  She found a few and we drove around to the back of the store. She handed us a brown bag out the back door with a gracious smile and thanked us for our business. What about that exchange that sticks with me and bring tears? On the way home I read the first line of one of the books and couldn't stop laughing; "Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle , the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down." From: "Little Fires Everywhere". I  was laughing from the sheer joy of holding a new book in my hand and at having seen and smiled at a dear person who has kept that bookstore open in the midst of all that we have endured.

  And because of this: 

 In Lent, we give up something we enjoy and and that does not include vegetables we don't. I have written of this before. Of the monks who lived on the Skelligs, rock islands off the coast of Ireland. Their love of God drove them to a place of constant prayer and their sensory stimulation was so limited that they savored everything. A sunrise would be a cause of great joy. I think Lent can teach us to savor. Like I did that first line of a new book. 

  In March, we will head off to Winder to the Corner Bookstore. I am looking forward to it as if we were travelling to Paris. What new friend will I make, what treasure will come to hand that will expand my universe ? And on Easter morning, I will have a cup of decafe cappuccino with Creme brulee coffeemate and it will taste like nirvana as it warms my throat because I haven't had any for weeks. What will we savor that we have been deprived of when our lives get back to normal? Lord, thank you for this lesson. Help me to savor each moment of my life as the great gift it is. Amen.

Ash Wednesday

 

For the first Ash Wednesday in my 7 decades, we didn't get ashes on our foreheads, just sprinkled in our hair because of Covid. But the memories of two different Lenten experiences flooded back. 

 I can see us now, two fourteen year old girls getting up an hour early in the dark, bitter cold of February to walk the 6 blocks to Church for Mass in Lent. We met on a corner under a streetlamp and wore school uniforms which meant skirts and frozen blue legs. Yet we did it that Winter. We, who are still friends after 67 years. We did it every day for three weeks which strikes me as remarkable. What small pile of glittering grace did we accumulate from those efforts ?

The second is a story of my Mom whose life was saved by Lent. One time, when she was in her 40s, she gave up Phillip Morris cigarettes for the 40 days 'til Easter. I don't recall her being edgy or out of sorts but she lit up quickly on Easter morning. Then, when a relative developed serious COPD and she saw him struggle to breathe, she put down the "coffin nails' ( that's what they called them.) for good. And I believe she knew she would succeed because she did once before. My Mom lived to be 83 years old..

Ash Wednesday is the day that we are reminded once again that all is temporary, we are here for a short sprint and one day we will leave. 

There are two small plots out at the Conyers monastery green cemetery that have our names on them. Three tall trees shade the spot that is on a small slope in the woods. In the ground will be two small boxes of ashes just like the ones sprinkled today. Between now and the time that the boxes are covered with dirt is a number of days that is unknown. Ash Wednesday reminds me that what I do , how I love, between this moment and that, matters. For eternity.