A Call to Be Beautiful

August – Ordinary Time

“Non bere il vino,” the usher joked as he handed my husband the cut-glass vessels of wine and water. I received the plate of unconsecrated hosts and together, my husband and I walked down the aisle to the altar where we offered these humble gifts to the priest. We attend the Italian Mass at Holy Rosary Church in Washington, D.C, so the admonition in Italian to “not drink the wine” seemed quite appropriate!

Not often, but just now and then, my husband and I have been tapped on the shoulder and asked to participate in the Presentation of the Gifts at Mass. When this happens, I feel honored. It’s like we have been given a glimpse into what it must have been like to have been with Jesus at the Last Supper. As Catholics, we experience those final moments each week in the Holy Eucharist. To participate in this awesome celebration is truly, like a dear friend noted after Mass, a “God moment.”

Sometimes I feel like the only tether on my own cobbled path through this incredibly complicated world is my faith. It seems that my grasp on those woven fibers is tested by the hateful ways I see projected on the screens I obsessively turn to from when I start scrolling in the morning until I shut off the television before going to bed. Breaking habits – even choosing to pray in the morning before turning to the news – brings with it a certain calm, but in the quiet, I become distracted by questions and doubts that arise when I juxtapose what I have been born to believe with what all around me defines reality.

Reflection, contemplation, and prayer…it’s hard work. The constructs of my religion are too often battered by frailty, stubbornness, and ego. It’s difficult to ponder anything when all I hear is the noise of humans being…human. Maybe we don’t try hard enough; maybe we try too hard.

I recently read a quotation from Thomas Merton, “It seems to me that I have a greater peace and am closer to God when I am not ‘trying to be a contemplative,’ or trying to be anything special, but simply orienting my life fully and completely towards what seems to be required of a man like me at a time like this.” (Thanks to Terry Hershey’s Sabbath Moment for including this in one of his recent newsletters: https://www.terryhershey.com/sabbath-moment/)

Being asked to carry the gifts at Mass somehow makes me feel closer to God. Something else happened recently that also resonated. As Christians, we seek opportunities to pray for each other. We say it all the time: “I’ll pray for you.” We hear it all the time: “Please pray for me.” I think we might take this gesture for granted. I worry that I have forgotten someone who asked me to pray for them and try to summarize my daily prayers with something like: “Please hold in your loving arms all those who have asked for my prayers.” Not perfect…but still trying!

So, I cannot even begin to express how touched and surprised my husband and I were when a friend texted us a copy of a card and intention for a Mass to be said in our name at Our Lady of the Rosary church in San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood. I am used to doing this for others and am not aware of ever being on the receiving end of this gracious gesture – especially at a church we love to attend when visiting Southern California.

Nearly 2,700 miles from San Diego, my husband’s job in the wild west of the east coast in Washington, D.C. has come with unfathomable challenges that have affected not only our lives but those of our family and friends. To say the least, we are sustained and bolstered by the prayers of our community. That prayer intention from the sister of a dear friend meant so much to us.

Back to church. After Mass at Holy Rosary in D.C., we usually walk downstairs to Casa Italiana, the church hall. There, we order espresso or cappuccino and then sit for a half an hour or so to talk with friends we have made over the past five years. Children run between their parents’ legs and around the tables as young and old converse in both Italian and English. This past weekend, one of the matriarchs of the parish came over to wish us good morning. We greeted each other with a kiss on each cheek, and then I introduced her to friends visiting from out of town.

“Anna was the first person,” I explained, “to say hello to us when we began coming to Holy Rosary. We felt welcome from the very beginning.”

“You are beautiful,” she said, squeezing me into a hug and then sweeping her arms to encompass those at our table. “We are a family here, a community.”

Moments like these fill the cracks of doubt that reach into the shadowed corners of my soul where the core of my faith continues to require tender nurturing. This core, though strong, feels battered lately by a woke world that is really quite asleep, by a hurricane force political climate whose winds change every news cycle, and by a sometimes consumer-driven catechism in conflict with spiritual resilience, curiosity, and tolerance.

God moments may seem small, but for me, they are manifested in the invitation to walk to the altar, a surprise prayer intention, the bittersweet sip of espresso after Mass, and in the potential of what happens when strangers accept the opportunity to become family. “You are beautiful,” she said, conveying a most important message across the wrinkled landscape of our faces – a message not of beauty but a call to be beautiful.

Walking, Ducks & Finding Good in D.C.

June – Ordinary Time

My family jokes that if I were dropped from a helicopter into any situation in the world, I would find “good” wherever I landed. As someone who strives to greet life from a place of unwavering faith in God and a mostly optimistic worldview, I must admit that age has tempered me somewhat. Giving in to the undertow of the “dark side” drags at me more often than I would like to admit – especially during the past five years of living right in the thick of our nation’s capital city.

Still…

Over the past several weeks, we have welcomed visitors and have accompanied them on various D.C. excursions to include a tour of the U.S. Capitol, long walks from the Smithsonian metro station to the World War II Memorial, along the length of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and up the stairs to marvel at the massive sculpture of our 16^th President. From there, we have made our way around to the Vietnam Memorial, and then to the wonder-filled Smithsonian museums.

I never tire of exploring. As long as I can move, I will never say never when it comes to walking. Just give me a decent pair of tennis shoes, and I am ready for anything!

Observing Washington D.C. through another’s eyes also helps me to shift my perspective from what I see in the news every day toward a fresh appreciation of what it took to build this country from days stemming back to the Revolutionary War. Each time I walk past monuments and memorials, I observe people from all over the world who actually want to see America. I hear them expressing their wonder in a symphony of languages as the stare at this city’s impressive architecture. I feel proud knowing that many of the buildings were touched by artists and tradesmen from Italy where my family originally immigrated. Crowds endure long lines to marvel at the original documents – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. I love peering through tempered glass at the historic parchment to discover editing marks, creative signatures, poetic form…all spelling out the human effort it took to draft a new country.

Tourists never tire of taking photos in front of the White House – now massively barricaded and fenced, but still visible. They wander in awe past a kaleidoscope of cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin as they experience the Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King memorials. On a recent visit, one of our cousins remarked that he had “never been so moved in his whole life” than when he walked along the path of the Vietnam War Memorial. His tears and ours, I believe, not only express emotion for the more than 58,000 service men and women who died during that nearly 20-year period, but also for the future of our country, riddled today with complex dissension that spans from within our borders out into the universe.

Knowing my passion for walking, my son (an avid runner!) recently gave me the book, Walking, by Erling Kagge. The author’s adventures far exceed my own; he is known to be the first person to have completed on foot the Three Pole Challenge – the North Pole, South Pole, and summit of Mount Everest. However, this book is not about those experiences, but rather about what happens when one steps back to step forward – one step at a time. Walking facilitates this literally and figuratively.

“Everything,” Kagge writes, “moves more slowly when I walk, the world seems softer and for a short while, I am not doing….” He describes how walking helps us become acquainted with our surroundings. This takes time, he says, but “it’s like building a friendship.” We can stop when we want, move where we want. We can experience the thrill of observing people and places…and along the way, find a path that leads to an “inner voyage of discovery.”

Walking through this complicated world compels me to slow down and to keep my hands free. While I walk, I am not tempted to scroll through phone messages or call someone to talk. (Although sometimes I do pull my phone out to take a photo!) Most importantly, my vision clears and even if I am beginning to feel like the helicopter dropped me some place I would rather not be, I continue to be joyfully startled at what I discover on my path.

On our most recent visit, I strolled along the Reflecting Pool and was absolutely delighted by a mother duck and her ducklings nestled on the sidewalk. I am used to seeing the ducks in the water, but in this case, they seemed to simply be enjoying the warmth of the concrete beneath them – relatively oblivious of the tourists walking by. There was something almost magical in zooming for a moment or two into the world of that tiny, feathered family. Something I may never have noticed if I hadn’t slowed myself down became an integral part of the painting of that day, the scene brushed further into focus by the human families streaming by on foot, pushing baby strollers, gliding on scooters…

Back to the helicopter. A couple of weeks ago, our son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren were visiting D.C. and on that particular walk, we actually did see a helicopter; it was Marine One and it landed right on the lawn of the White House. Not that I would ever be on that plane with the President, but the thought did cross my mind that I had in essence been dropped in D.C. five years ago when my husband’s work took us here. Despite what is projected over the airways, we have met wonderful colleagues and friends who are doing amazing work in service to their country. It has been quite an adventure. What I continue to make of this experience is mine to interpret…let me just say, it would not be the same without the ducks!

Lessons of Us

(my gift to a former student)

May – Ordinary Time

I was recently blessed to spend a day with one of my former students, Samantha, during her visit to Washington, D.C. for her graduation from Catholic University of America. She is the first graduate from Catholic University’s Tucson, Arizona campus where students can earn a bachelor’s degree in business management through coursework and internships closer to their homes in the Southwest. As we discussed her future, Samantha began to express emotions that tumbled between joyful relief that she completed the program to wary nervousness about next steps. She admitted to suffering from “imposter syndrome.”

I totally understand.

The knowledge that you have the credentials to take those next steps doesn’t necessarily come with all the tools you need. With time and experience, the obtuse worry over not fitting in may go dormant, but it never really goes away as we strive to become our best selves.

I just turned the page of another year on the odyssey through my sixth decade. Despite the words of encouragement I shared with Samantha about mustering her confidence and believing in herself, I also battle the reality that even a whisper of constructive criticism or a fumble with technology during one of the training sessions I do in my consulting work…honestly, even a bad hair day or waking up with the realization that things don’t always turn out the way I planned…all of this can send me scurrying down a rabbit hole where I let myself hide in the darkness of feeling “not good enough.”

When “not good enough” settles in, I am unable to engage in activities that normally ground me like writing, exploring a new route on my frequent walks, reaching out to friends, and accepting that my hair will never look the way I want it to on a humid day! I lose sight of the rich history of my past accomplishments. But then, the sun comes up again and a glimmer of light penetrates the cozy hole where I have burrowed. I see a foothold – one I fully attribute to God. My faith most often does not present itself in obvious holy moments, but more through a life’s worth of practice and discipline. I know that even if I go through the motions, eventually the exercise of my religion will pay off (and it always does thanks to the Holy Spirit who I know lives as that gift within me that I often do not recognize until I fully surrender my stubbornness!).

Writing is what I love to do, but during vulnerable moments, I struggle to find words – not because I don’t have enough of them roaming around my mind, but I worry that IF someone reads them, they just won’t be “good enough.” Months may go by, and then my body somehow lets me know when I physically need to write. So here I am. I began a new journal the other day; however, there are still no words in it – just a Mother’s Day prayer I pasted in from our church bulletin (in Italian), and a pressed buttercup I found on a path near the Potomac River the other day.

I persevere. I start small. I make pasta. I just mixed together a batch of cavatelli for dinner. The process is pleasantly slow and the ingredients simple. Semolina, salt, and water. Each piece of pasta is formed one at a time – yet out of simplicity comes dinner!

I knit. The repetition is therapeutic and, once again, the ingredients are simple (yarn and needles) and from this process, stitch by stitch, comes a hat, a sweater, a baby blanket!

I write – one letter at a time on the canvas of my keyboard.

With this “practice” of both faith and patient accomplishment of meaningful tasks, I muster the courage to tackle bigger things. Dare I ponder the plans I had, revise them, and turn them again into goals I aspire to reach?

The lessons of me are really lessons of us. None of us are imposters – we are who we are and somehow end up where we are supposed to be. This lesson – while I am no longer in a school classroom – is one I gift to Samantha as she embarks on her next steps. I can’t wait to hear how her story unfolds!

Family Reunion

August/September – Ordinary Time

The three of us were sniffling and sneezing through the newest wave of Covid that is trying to tarnish the final rays of this summer. Two of us had tested positive; one of us refused to test thinking that if she didn’t it wasn’t happening! On Day 3 of our isolation, while playing a board game and reaching into each other’s contagious spaces across the dining room table, my mother, my aunt, and I realized that despite this unexpected consequence of the previous weekend’s family reunion, we truly were experiencing a positive resulting from…well, positives.

Months ago, my mother had decided she was going to her family reunion. This would take place in a small town about a half hour from our native Utica, New York, at the camp the family has owned for more than 100 years. In attendance would be the eldest remaining cousins – offspring of the 13 children of my mother’s grandparents. Several months ago, I decided I would surprise my mom and simply appear at my aunt’s house in Utica the day before the reunion so I could be with her at what may be her last opportunity to attend these once in a decade gatherings.

I landed in Syracuse, secured a ride to Utica, and then nestled myself into a hanging chair on the porch of my aunt’s house. With a few quiet agreed upon instructions to my first cousin (who I had never met prior), my mom and aunt moved from the backyard where they had been sipping tea spiked with raspberry brandy to the cooler shade of the side porch. When my mom sat down, I turned my chair.

Everyone has read novels about families that have been separated over the years not only by distance but by the dramatic events that change the path of their lives forever. That is how I have always looked at the stories my mom has shared with my sisters and me. We grew up knowing that my mother’s mother (my grandmother) had died during the birth of her second child (my aunt). My mom was only six years old. This devastated my grandfather. Because he needed to care for my mother while also carrying on responsibilities in the family’s Italian bakery, the decision was made that the new baby would be raised by an aunt and uncle who the family agreed would be able to best provide for her. As a result, my mom and aunt saw each other often but knew each other more as cousins than sisters. All the while, their lives circled and intertwined with those of their many relatives. My sisters and I have seen pictures and heard tales of mom and her cousins at the camp – sleeping on cots in the big upstairs dormer, eating Aunt Josephine’s pies, playing Monopoly on the porch, and catching fireflies. Six of the eldest were at the reunion, and I will forever remember them sitting next to each other on the couch, my mom clutching the hands of her cousins. Although their bodies bear the marks of nearly 90 years, I am sure they saw themselves as kids, piling out of the family’s bakery truck and spilling into the yard of their summer camp.

A note about the reunion: There were more than 100 relatives in attendance. The camp has been lovingly restored and easily accommodated all of us in expanded inside and outside spaces. I cherish the exclamations from Mom and her cousins as they watched a video compilation of their summer escapades. And the food…Utica is known for its “chicken riggies” and spicy “greens.” I also filled my plate with sausage and peppers, a meatball, and of course, a huge slice of Italian bread!

When I was three years old, my parents moved from Utica to Maryland and began forging the adventures that would define our own little family. Over the years, we moved from Maryland to Delaware to Wisconsin and finally, to Arizona. During our summer vacations, my sisters and I would often spend time in Utica, but mostly with my father’s side of the family. I crave the taste of Italian bread soaked in olive oil and the juices of the fresh-from-the garden tomato and basil salads my grandmother made. I nurture pots of African violets in honor of those flowers that always bloomed on the windowsill of grandma’s kitchen. We grew to appreciate the Italian culture that marks the boundaries of East Utica. Occasionally, we would visit my mom’s family, but I never met her father and many of the cousins until much later in my adult life. And for sure, until this trip, I had never known my aunt’s four children – my first cousins.

About 20 years ago, my aunt visited Mom in Arizona. They still talk about the mixed emotions that had and continue to have about discovering the tiny thread of sisterhood that has tenuously bound them together without them even knowing. Not only do they look alike, but they also share many of the same mannerisms and characteristics. The recent reunion was a chance to bridge that distance one more time.

We approached our first couple of days of Covid with resignation. We drank a lot of tea (some spiked with that raspberry brandy) and I read an entire book. In between, we prayed, we dozed, and we talked. Through the fog of my clogged ears and stuffed nose, I began to see the blessings. We had never spent this much time together. Ever.

Forty-eight hours later, we woke feeling exponentially better. Mom and I would be leaving the next day and we needed to “do” something. So, we “did” everything! This included entering my aunt’s art studio (she is a very accomplished painter) and getting creative! We had so much fun splattering acrylic paints on gelli plates, imbedding textural components and rolling our prints onto fabric. (A gelli printing tutorial from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAAc-5Yphu8).

While making art, one of my aunt’s grandchildren (my newly discovered second cousin) spent hours with us sharing his own amazing creative gift of videography. Seated in the sanctuary of my aunt’s magical gardens, he interviewed my aunt and my mom about their lives. I felt something begin to shift in me. I knew then that my decision to attend the reunion all boiled down to these last hours of my trip. By the time my cousin had completed his gentle questioning, we were all crying, including him. The impact those years had on my mom and her sister is profound. Their story is only one brush stroke on the ever-evolving painting of our family. The result is rich, messy, and as beautiful as the abstract art we created that afternoon. It is also steeped in our Italian culture, which in all its diverse manifestations, has etched itself deep in our souls from the moments my great-grandparents came to America in the late 1800s.

The tears we shed that afternoon not only reflect the heartaches that both my mom and aunt experienced in their separation, but also the joy of having re-discovered each other at this time in their lives. My cousin finally snapped the lens cap in place over his camera just as the sun’s waning light cast peaceful shadows over all of us. We looked at each other and decided that even though we felt better, we had no energy left to cook dinner. There is a great restaurant down the street. Did someone say “chicken riggies?”

Heavenly Highlights

December – Advent

I was just about to click “purchase” when I saw the bold face message above my order advising that I had already bought this book eight years earlier in August 2014. Perplexed, I reached for my Kindle and searched my library. 2014? I had to call my mother.

“Mom,” I spluttered into the phone, “that book, the one we are supposed to read before we go on our trip to the Holy Land… I already own it. Apparently, I have also read it. I have absolutely no recollection of ever buying it, yet alone reading it. I was the Principal at St. Augustine then. Were we doing a book study? I honestly can’t remember.”

“It’s a long book,” she laughed. “You might want to get started now – again.”

My mother and I are going to Israel at the end of January. In anticipation, our Bishop, who is leading the pilgrimage from the Diocese of Tucson, suggested we read Jesus: A Pilgrimage, by Father James Martin.

I am not sure whether I feel awe or intense anxiety when something resurfaces that I have buried in a file folder deep in the back of my mind. Have I finally reached an age when I forget more than I remember? Or is this yet another reminder of my humble place in a universe that was created way out of my existential control?

So, I begin reading (re-reading). Within pages, I am startled by various highlights and notes I must have made during my first experience with this book. I tend to be compulsive about annotating text. This helps me interact with what I read, and often inspires me to deeper learning. Even in digital works, I continue to annotate while also believing I will probably never go back and see my notes. Normally I do not. Until now.

One of the first highlights I bump into comes in the second chapter in which Father Martin writes about Mary and her “yes” to a future she cannot begin to comprehend. He says, “God begins a conversation with Mary, as God does with us, breaking into our lives in unexpected ways…. And we think, why am I feeling these feelings…? This is God beginning a conversation.” I like that thought. (I highlight it again.) Maybe God is picking up the threads of a conversation He began with me eight years ago when I downloaded this book for the first time.

Mary embraced God’s request without understanding why she was chosen to do so. I had also highlighted the next sentence or so in the same chapter that mentioned teaching: “We accept a position as a teacher and our lives are changed by our students. More simply, we say yes to God and are completely transformed.” Okay, that makes sense; I had most certainly been reading the book from the perspective of an educator. And I have undoubtedly been transformed by my students in so many ways.

As I continue to read, I latch on to not only Father Martin’s spiritual and theological reflections, but also his observations as a tourist to the places he visited that are also on the agenda for our upcoming pilgrimage. I enjoy his very human response to the congested traffic, the hotels and convents where he stayed, the crowded buses, and lack of signage along the roads. I have a need to know this as I contemplate which shoes to pack, the winter weather in Jerusalem, and how many dollars to convert to shekels.

Next, I encounter this: “God meets us where we are…. In other words, God comes to us in ways that we can understand and appreciate, even if only partially or incompletely.” I wonder what compelled me to underline this before. Today, I read this phrase through the lens of eight years of hindsight. I never would have thought then that I would be where I am today as I travel back and forth between home in Tucson and my husband’s workplace in Washington, D.C. I am mostly retired. I am a grandmother. I knit hats. In addition, I recognize my tiny position in a vast global world that God sees in its entirety – a place where we have all been so weathered and affected by the pandemic, tumultuous politics, and moral issues that test our faith in so many complicated (perhaps Biblical) ways.

According to my Kindle, I am 20% into my current journey through this book. I downloaded a hard copy of my previous notes just in case I am inspired to jot down a few other thoughts along the way. While I don’t re-read books very often (there are too many others to read first), I am blessed with time to prepare for this pilgrimage, especially during Advent when all of us are called to look anew at what we have experienced before and to look ahead at what is to come through the transcendent life of Jesus.

This leads me to one more quotation from Father Martin’s book: “There is one person in a variety of times, the past informing the present. God is at work at all times.” I think about this while swiping my finger across the bottom of my Kindle to turn the page. I sense the Holy Spirit reading alongside me, nudging me to discover and welcome more “heavenly highlights” along the way.

Note: Quotes highlighted are from Jesus: A Pilgrimage by Father James Martin (Kindle edition, published March 2014)

The Road to Oracle

November – Ordinary Time

Less than an hour from our home in Tucson, Arizona where we have lived for more than twenty years, we took a right turn. I glanced over at my son who was driving. It was 6 a.m., and we were on our way to the Town of Oracle where he was set to time the Oracle Run, a 5/10K race that was marking its 40^th year on this “sky island” perched at about 4,500 feet at the base of the Catalina Mountains. I am not a runner, but after years of being a track mom, I continue to volunteer to assist when needed. I was also looking forward to seeing our daughter-in-law and grandbabies when they would meet us an hour or so later.

“Why have I never been on this road?”

My sister, also in the car and preparing to run the 10K, sipped her Starbucks coffee and noted that I should prepare myself to step back in time and simply enjoy the morning. She first ran here a couple of years ago and came from Phoenix the night before to participate in this iconic race in this equally iconic town.

I have lived in nine states and two countries and have traveled through several more on various adventures. But just then, as has happened a few times in my life, I was physically steered away from a road I have driven many times and onto another that significantly jostled my perception of where I have always lived, worked, shopped, and eaten. How could I be so oblivious to potential experiences hidden “just around the corner” from my established routines?

“Walk around and explore Mom,” my son advised while he was setting up his timing equipment. “Everything begins and ends in the museum over there,” he said, pointing to the weathered ranch-style building with a huge wrap-around porch adjacent from where we parked. I knew he meant that the race’s base camp had been set up at the entrance of the museum, but as I discovered, there were lots of beginnings and endings to explore up the wooden steps and through the front door.

The museum is operated by the Oracle Historical Society and is housed in what used to be the Acadia Ranch, built in 1882 by Edwin and Lillian Dodge. It not only served as a boarding house and guest ranch, but also as a tuberculosis sanatorium. According to information posted on the museum’s website: “It was at the turn of the last century that Oracle gained international fame as an ideal cure for those suffering from ‘consumption,’ the name given to tuberculosis and other lung afflictions at a time before penicillin. After an article was published in the leading medical journal, many came to Oracle in the belief the fresh air would restore them to good health.” (There is a wealth of information about the museum, history, and culture of Oracle to be found on the museum’s website: https://www.oraclehistoricalsociety.org).

Each room of the inn opened my eyes to not just time gone by, but time eternal. The first room was dedicated to a mixed display honoring the tradition of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Photos of family members were interspersed on tables laden with colorful representations of papier maché food, painted skulls, sheet draped ghosts, and lanky skeletons. Perched against a wall was an unrelated sign outlining Mine Rules dating back to the early 1900s from the nearby San Manuel copper mine.

The adjoining rooms led to a kitchen, dining hall, sitting area, and guest quarters, complete with a metal framed bed and assorted medical instruments for those in treatment for their lung ailments. I couldn’t resist lifting the heavy kettle from the kitchen stove and trying to put myself in place of those who came before me. The best part of this museum is the ability to touch and feel the history – hardly anything is locked under glass, including shards of pottery that date even further back to when the Hohokam and Apache settled in the area a thousand or so years before the inn was even conceived.

I wandered the grounds surrounding the main building and discovered the ranch’s tack room and icehouse. In the time before the starting gun fired, I found a quiet spot on the porch to sit and enjoy my own cup of coffee. I have always loved those gliders that go back and forth on rusty springs. I filled my lungs with the cool morning air and completely understood the healing energy to be found in this mixed climate of desert and mountain currents. I marveled at a landscape that not only nurtured cacti, but also pine trees.

I didn’t run the race, and I honestly didn’t help my son with any of his timing duties, but I did rack up nearly 5K worth of steps running a “race” with my three-year-old grandson and guiding our one-year-old granddaughter over the bumps in the road she toddled over. I felt totally justified in buying the t-shirt!

Proud of my sister for winning her age group in the 10K and just as proud of my son for timing with no glitches, I thanked them both for inviting me along. “Glad I could help,” I said, acknowledging their eye rolls with a smile.

I felt revitalized not only by Oracle’s healing breezes, but also by the gift of being nudged, via a right turn, toward a new road on my own personal odyssey. There are so many treasures to discover just “around the corner.”

Note: So what is a sky island? A sky island is defined as an isolated mountain range separated from other mountains and surrounding lowlands of a different environment – such as a forest surrounded by desert. There are several examples of these sky islands in southern Arizona and northern Mexico. (Find more information at https://skyislandalliance.org).

I Wait for Rain

October – Ordinary Time

“Each night before we go to sleep, we read a book or two, say prayers, and reluctantly close our eyes to the day. Thank God, the sun comes up in the morning and we can begin again.”

-Welcome to the World Journal, September 1993

Our son had just turned four when I wrote those words at the tail end of my journal entry. How can it be that the sun has traced its pattern across the horizon more than 10,000 times since then? My four-year-old now has a wife and two precious babies. Each night, they nestle themselves on the bed with an assortment of books, say their prayers, and set a clock that shuts it eyes when the lights go off and signals a new day when it is time to “wake up” (at an appropriate hour)!

Thirty years after I tucked my baby into bed, I still say my evening prayers, always beginning the way my parents taught me when they tucked me in: “God bless mommy and daddy, grandma and grandpa and everyone else.” Sometimes, I add, “P.S. Please let it rain.”

I am a woman of the desert. My days usually begin with light creeping under the window shades that I leave partially raised so I don’t miss the dawn. I bask in the dusty pink-orange rays of promising light, whisper a prayer of thanksgiving for a new day, and make my way to the kitchen and espresso pot. I stubbornly admit there are mornings when I gather the covers around me and secretly harbor tempestuous thoughts, ones that defy the predictability of the golden star’s eternal creep through my windows and into my half-closed eyes. Perhaps this is my imperfect attempt to slow down the passage of time, a desire to settle into a soft comfort of cloudy gray – one that blankets me like an old fleece and allows me the freedom of deeper thoughts and memories.

I wait for rain.

I should have been a meteorologist. In addition to being a fan of the Weather Channel, I spend too many minutes scrolling through the MyRadar phone app searching for colorful masses that predict an elusive weather pattern. I watch for a blip on the screen that could potentially snake its way up the Baja Peninsula, across the international border, and over the craggy Sierra Nevadas as highs and lows collide, gathering energy into a cloudy fist whose only outlet will be to burst open and replenish the cells of the dehydrated saguaro and my thirsty soul.

Our family lived in Yuma, Arizona for a few years during our son’s elementary days. Yuma is cradled into the southwestern corner of Arizona and often records some of the hottest temperatures in the nation. We would escape to San Diego when we craved a more moderate climate and a sandy beach adjacent to the Pacific Ocean. When we could not leave, there were afternoons we would drive through the carwash and pretend it was raining for a few minutes as the water pelted the roof of our automobile! Our subsequent move to Tucson included a pool in the backyard where, come rain or shine, the water is always there for us and for the families of mourning doves who stop by for random sips of refreshment in “their” pond.

As I write this, I am in Virginia, miles from my desert home. I spent the morning paging through old journals for a project I am compiling. (That’s where I discovered the letter to my son and the idea for this reflection!) Needing a break from my laptop, I put on my oversized University of Arizona sweatshirt to go for a walk. I glanced out toward the patio of our apartment (our home away from home during this stage of life). It was raining, the remnants of horrible hurricane Ian whipping its tailwinds up the Atlantic seaboard on its way out to sea.

So much for lofty thoughts filled with too many adjectives. I had known it might rain; I just thought it was coming later. God always answers my prayers further prompting me to take advantage of this particular weather pattern! I tied my shoes, grabbed the umbrella, and pointed myself in the direction of the Potomac River. It might be nice to see how the geese were holding up on this unusually cool and wet day.

There weren’t too many people on the trail; however, the ones who were smiled as I passed, secretly sharing their own needs to experience a day without sunshine. Only half-trying to avoid puddles, I simply put one foot in front of the other, not really thinking of anything. That, in and of itself, proved therapeutic.

All morning, I had been pondering the passage of time (and several of the old journal entries I had decided to toss in the trashcan.) Walking, I slowly let those thoughts go. I subconsciously began to focus on my immediate landscape – leaves succumbing to autumn, fat acorns that crunched as I stepped on them, dots of vibrant color in the defiant blooms of summer’s final flowers, a turtle perched on the one rock not submerged by a rising tide. And the ducks and geese – quite impervious as they glided along the shoreline.

I silently conversed with God as I continued, experiencing peace punctuated by a darker thought as I selfishly drank in the aftermath of this hurricane, knowing how others continue to suffer the eye of that storm. I allowed myself to be a conduit of both the light and the dark.

The breeze shifted and the temperature dropped a degree or two as I turned up one of Old Town Alexandria’s cobbled streets and headed home. It was still drizzling and there was not even a tiny sliver of an opening in the dense clouds.

I wait for sunshine.

Home again and at my keyboard, I reconcile myself with the grace of this day – one that I know I will have to reluctantly close my eyes to later this evening. “Thank God, the sun comes up each morning and we can begin again.”