Holy Gift

         "They buried the pope today--the Pope among the People. That's what they called him: Pope Among the People."

    She doesn't respond, doesn't even look up. He has the feeling, again, of being alone in the room, of talking to himself, or, worse, of being a man with nothing to say, nothing of interest or import, nothing that helps.

    She's not doing anything, not that he can see, not even filing her nails--one sign of her obsession or is it depression? He doesn't know. He's stopped trying to figure it out or take responsibility for it . . . and then realizes he had hoped that the funeral for the Holy Father, the Servant of Servants, the Pope, the Pontiff, carried in the pomp, in the quiet, in the peace and the calm of the whole procession (with the inevitable taking heads, of course, but he'd muted the sound.) They just watch the slow procession together, and then it's over.

    "Pope among the People, gone and buried," he says.

    "Like everybody else," she says.

    The sound of her voice is so surprising, so unexpected, that his head shoots up, but, luckily, he stifles his urge to shout, You're talking! Say more!

    Grace slows him and he says, "Yes." One word. Simple and true. Yes. She's seen it all, the voices from the screen muted and, apparently, the voices in her head also silenced. She watched the slow procession of His Holiness to the Basilica in silence.

    "Yes," he says again, and she says it too, her "yes" clear as an echo, a "yes" that raises his hopes, that makes him smile, reach over, brush her hand--nothing too fast, too hard or exuberant, just a touch. He needs a human touch and maybe she does too. It's enough for now.

    And tomorrow? Tomorrow will be fine--the holy gift of a new day.

 

Just an Expression

     Lola was hungry.

    Again.

    Her mother had said, more than once, "You must have a tape worm."

    Those words meant no sense to her--tape worm--a worm that was taped to her stomach so her breakfast went straight to the worm rather than to her always empty stomach? The thought was disgusting. It was so confusing and repulsive that she googled it. "Tapeworms are flat, parasitic worms that can live in the intestines of animals, including humans. They can grow to be over 12 feet long and live for years."

    She stopped reading, slammed her phone down, then picked it up just as quickly, then stopped. What to do? This was an emergency, right? A worm in her body 12 feet long and she barely four and a half feet tall! Yes, it was an emergency. She remembered her mother saying, "Your growth spurt is late," in a tone meant to be reassuring. Lola had forgotten all about it, but the reason was now clear.

    She had a tapeworm. A paralyzing thought. The worm was eating her food, growing longer and longer as she failed to grow at all. She panicked, felt worse, hungrier than ever, and dialed 911, which she knew is what you do in an emergency. She gave her address, stuttered something apparently unintelligible, but did manage to say, close to tears, that, yes,  it was an emergency, an emergency, put down the phone, and stepped outside to wait.

    By the time the ambulance arrived, her stomach was a hard ball of worry. She stood up, just as her mother appeared on the front porch and two men hurried up the sidewalk carrying a stretcher.

~

    What happened next was worse than a 12-foot tapeworm in her gut: two guys with a stretcher shaking their heads and laughing, laughing . . . at her. Her mother red-faced, angry, not laughing. Her mother was explaining and apologizing, glaring at Lola, saying something about just an expression, and then everybody looking at her, the men smiling, her mother tightlipped and waiting, Lola knew, just waiting for the men to take their stretcher and leave.

    When they finally did go, smiling and shaking their heads, her mother began with the predictable, "You have some explaining to do . . . " but then paused, took a breath, and said, "Perhaps I should first explain what 'just an expression' means."

    Just the grace note Lola needed.

The Game

     "Any thoughts about the Great Horned Owl?"

    It was one of those questions, his daily effort . . . or impulse . . . to get a rise out of her, to start the day off with curiosity for the natural world he claimed, but she knew, from long experience, the goal was to emphasize her ignorance, or, perhaps, her inability to care all that much.

    "No," she said this time, and repeated what she always said when he asked her thoughts on the so- called natural world. "We live in a condo."

    "But where is the condo?"

    "In Minneapolis, the city of Minneapolis."

    "And where is Minneapolis?"

    At first she was sucked in to answering the endless and, now predictable, stream of questions that sounded mildly challenging at first blush, then expanded from the challenging to the impossible and, finally, to the ridiculous.

    But she was done with playing the game, his game. Finished.  She had ignored him for three days, but once he was in the grip of his endless persistence, he broke her resolve every time.

    "So, where is Minneapolis, if not in the natural world?"

    "It's a city! Steel and brick buildings,  paved streets."

    "Which aren't natural?"

    "They're manufactured, constructed. Trees are natural! Grass is natural!"

    "Oh, so no trees in Minneapolis?"

    Bait and switch, reverse in midstream, his dependable tactic in the daily game . . . she assumed it was a game . . . they'd been playing too long to stop now

    So there was no way to stop it unless . . . unless she asked the next question, anticipated the barrage of objections that would follow her half-hearted attempt to out-play him with her wit, with her quick repartee, to throw out something more ridiculous, with less connection or relevance to the harmless statement that set the whole thing in motion.

    "Any thoughts about the Great Horned Owl," he said, again, as she knew he would.

    "Yes, of course I do," she said. "They taste best over ice cream, one scoop of vanilla, or chocolate if you have it. One scoop only with finely chopped Owl," she said slowly to  emphasize the validity of her response, and to appreciate his sudden silence, his slow response which gave her time to bag up the compost, drop it in the compost bin, step around him, and drive off into the sunset, a winner at last.

  Boobie Breakfast

"Who names . . . or named . . . the birds?"

"What?"

"I mean, really...Nazca Boobies! I understand the scientific names for categorization, organization, all that stuff that scientists think they need and can agree on, but the common name . .  . Sounds like NASCAR."

"Well," she says, patiently, but with the trace of a smile that hints at her pleasure, or, is the word 'enjoyment,' of his fascination, bordering on indignation, at the daily revelation of a bird species neither of them has ever seen or heard of. The Blue Boobie back in March was memorable, but today's Nazca Boobie is her favorite so far....and only five days before the end of the year--no doubt there is significant significance there. "Well," she says again, "it was probably somebody local to their origin who named it, and the name so perfectly described it, that it caught on."

"But 'boobie!?' Sounds like a joke," he says, then laughs. "It is a joke! Have you seen this bird?"

She is vigorously stirring the oatmeal to keep it from burning, but turns toward him to feign interest in the boobie. "Hmmm," she says, then swivels back to the oatmeal before it is scorched.

"That hardly says it."

"The oatmeal is ready," she announces, but he is now too deep in the history of boobies, muttering something about the origin of the word, then he proclaims, loudly and triumphantly, "The name booby was based on the Spanish slang term bobo, meaning "stupid" because the booby bird had a habit of landing on board sailing ships where they were easily captured and eaten."

Her immediate instinct is to sling a spoonful of hot oatmeal if not the whole pot on the boobie standing next to her, but grace, or a vision of the mess it would create, stops her in time. She dishes up two bowls, hands one to her favorite boobie, and the day begins, again,  without a bobo incident. 

Blowing in the Wind

     The wind was up. 

    Blowing.

    Relentless.

    "Gale force," she said.

    "Worse," he said.

    "How could it be worse than gale force?"

    "Well, easy," he said. "Just look out the window." Which she had been doing for the last ten minutes, watching as the wind spewed up dirt in the bald patch of grass, then picked up that scourge of urban life, the plastic bag, spun it up, up, up, then hurled it towards them, and slammed against the picture window, a giant, a misshapen white eye on the glass. They laughed and backed up.

    "Quit your staring," she said.

     "Careful, Mister," he said. "Remember you are only a bag."

    "Yes," she said, "and not even compostable.

    The bag slid an inch down the window, as if in agreement, then a sudden gust lifted it up, up, then a shift in the wind pasted it against the window again, inches from her face. The implication was clear: Take that--which made her mad at first, genuinely angry until she started to laugh, more than a chuckle, but, thankfully, short of hysteria. The bag trembled on the window pane, but didn't really move. The force of the wind kept it plastered it there, inches from her face.

    "That's the nastiest bag I've ever seen," she said.

    "Hmmm, a bag with personality," he said, instinctively accepting the assignation of conscious behavior to a thin piece of white plastic with three red concentric circles.

    "Well, I wasn't thinking . .. . "

    "It's okay," he said. "The wind will take care of it."

    She took a step back, to show that she was abandoning the top-of-her-head, first-thing-in-the-morning conversation and wondered, with a whiff of compassion that bordered on interest, how he would extricate himself from the pointless morning banter.

    "Blowing in the wind," he crooned. "How many roads must a bag blow down before you can call it a bag."

    "And how many bags must rise up to the roof before they are sent to the trash," she sang.

    "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind."

    "The answer is blowing in the wind." They hit the last note perfectly and laughed together, also perfectly, a gift of their long partnership.