When setting the table, I recite this rhyme for each place setting:
The fork is bereft on the left,
The cup, knife and spoon on the right,
The plate's in the middle,
The napkin (for spittle)
Beside the fork is polite.
[Credit is due to my mother, whom I love, who helped me compose this as a child. Incidentally, setting the table helps children learn the difference between the two sparkly colors- gold and silver.]
We washed them, so it wasn’t the insecticide. It is just this: our stomachs can’t hold that many sweet and cool, soft, California ripe, juicy, red strawberries.
Oh little mouse, What are you doing?
I, for one, was just sampling the available produce. Lemons and lettuce are ready enough, I suppose, but why not strawberries when they are so easy to come by! They sell them here by the double flat; twelve of those little baskets- the flimsy, green baskets I horded as a girl to make dolly-shopping carts and handy treasure keeps.
And they just sat there, plump, on the counter, their seductive smell asking us not to let them go to rot in this record mid-May heat.
So we ate them. All. And now, red-sticky-fingered, we are sitting in a miniature garden of flimsy baskets and strawberry caps. My grin is painted juicy red and you’ve a sticky smudge across your chin—sure signs of strawberry poisoning.
The bit of riding you never forget is the concept of the thing. Pedal, pedal, pedal. That's about it.
Unfortunately, after a eight-year hiatus, it is the 656 muscles of this human body that forgot how to ride a bike.
They remember now, and I rather think they shan’t forget in a hurry.
This week I rode about 46 miles all told. Not a bad warm up for an amateur. Of course, if you know much about biking, you realize this is about the equivalent of running 6.5 miles.
But don't worry, I'm just getting started.
{a little background music, courtesy Yves Montand}
“How’re you doin’?”
Spencer first pointed out to me that, in honesty, this question can have many answers—many conflicting and contradictory answers.
In fact, I can think of a hundred honest answers on a day like today.
Out the window is __(weather condition)__—so indicative of my mood. The ___(mood)___ sunlight is unexpected, _(conj.)_ so is every day’s hum-drum, so I guess the fault is my expectation’s.
I’ve been ___(gerund)___ a lot on that. On _(personal pronoun)_ expectations. When do ___(adj.)___ dreams of ___(noun)___ begin to warp reality? __(verb)__ they? Sometimes I ___(verb)___ that I ___(verb)___ too much in my ___(adj.)___ reality. _(interjection)_, Balance, I ___(adv.)___ forget how ___(adj.)___ you are.
The birds are ___(gerund)___. No time for ___(gerund phrase)___.
It's time to ___(action verb)___.
They are only the entr'acte
to a gust of
fresh wind with a new taste
and wide views of
something the landscape artists
just refaced.
Step inside and leave behind
the old,
paint-peeling,
lifeless
set. It folds into my window view
that clouds obscure.
Closed For Renovations.
Wait for it
unfolding, newmade:
the cloud-curtain rises on
fresh paint and adventure.
Complementary bag of peanuts?
—maybe Jack's Magic Beans.
I sat with friends on the lawn behind the Maeser. The conversation had evolved from the Economics of Gift Giving to the True Love of God, and no one seemed to notice the paper cup. It had escaped from someone’s snack garbage and encouraged by the gusty wind was making a break for the free world.
I considered stopping it. I would clamber to my feet, and hunching to avert attention, scramble around the circle to intercept the runaway. Bending down (ungracefully of course, for it is difficult to stoop and collect garbage with any measure of finesse) I reach as it stalls then follow as it tumbles on—a sequence repeated across the grass in an unaccompanied and increasingly complicated Charleston Swing: two-step-jog bend reach ‘n’ miss again, follow the lead of the little paper cup.
I didn’t move. Instead I watched it stumble-trip alone across the lawn and out of my peripheral vision. I heard it scuttled across the sidewalk and onto the asphalt; the clatter like a herd of crabs—a pod of paper cups—skittering for the ledge and stairs and then trees.
It went and I sat and listened to them talk of God’s Love—saturated with His Goodness. He never requires only gives and gives and gives. He is never depleted for giving selflessly, infinitely. We can never return, let alone pay in full. Even if we tried; we are too human. But still God never stops reaching.
When I can't tell someone’s left hand from their right, I simply set them at the piano—
mentally, of course.
The melody is to their right
and the low, droning bit to their left.
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