What She Thought of When She Thought About Going Home

It might have the anniversary of my grandmother's birthday the other day; we are not quite sure what year she born. She spent the last ten years of her life in a nursing home.

When she thought about going home, Philly imagined walking up the back steps to the upstairs apartment with no pain in her knees. She carried a paper bag of groceries from the Start Market and entered a clean, if cluttered, kitchen. If she was tired, she could sit at the kitchen table and have a Kent, sip sweet coffee, soften a hard biscotti in the milk. The windows would be open allowing an autumn breeze to flow through the entire house; it was just the right temperature for making sauce. Not like the sweltering days of August when just turning on the front burner made her sweat.

The wist party at Knights of Columbus Hall would be starting up after the summer break. Philly, Carmela, and Nancy would go to Catholic Daughters meetings, once a month, to plan for the Halloween party, the holiday bazaar, the cape cod retreat. She would dress up as a Spanish dancer this year, long black veil made of lace pinned to her teased blond hair.

At home, she wouldn’t have to share a bedroom with a woman who groaned throughout the night or the one who snored whenever her chin dipped into her caved-in chest. She could move, effortlessly, in and out of the tub, up and down the steps, and look forward to preparing the salted cod for Christmas Eve dinner.

Hungry for a Blessing

Today I hunger for a blessing, a hand on my chest, forgiveness for my small mindedness. I bravely search for beauty in the brokenness, the ache under the ribs, the emptiness that remains. Can I be more like the oak, who gently let's go of everything that is dear to her even as the wind turns to winter and only the thinnest of nectar flows through her veins? She mourns the passing of paper thin leaves bursting with color as I mourn the bruised and fragile skin of my grandmother's shins. What did grandmother bless when she sat in the wheeled chair, a watch on each bent wrist marking a time that no longer existed for her; the wooden spoon to stir the sauce, the oil rising to the top, the stains on apron that would not be washed away?

What Remains

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have. Rilke


I see the leaves changing color. The reds merging into the green, leaf litter on the earth, cool mornings. After the fall and the first frost, after your love leaves you, the cancer ravishes, the storm passes, the sun turns to the moon, what endures? What remains after everything else has passed through your fingers, like sand, as it always does? The sky, the sky, the sky...the sky remains and it is all that you need.

The Inner Sanctuary of Autumn

"And that there is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there's still a sureness in you, where there's a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you. And I think the intention of prayer and spirituality and love is now and again to visit that inner kind of sanctuary." John O'Donoghue

Fall is a time for gathering, winnowing, turning inside and then back out to face a cold wind. It is almost impossible to walk through the beloved woods without getting bonked by a falling acorn, the squirrels are working so hard to build their winter stash. The grasses in the wetlands have stopped growing bent at the waist by the weight of seeds and red winged black birds. I am turning to the East later and later eager for the sun's breech. I gather wool and needles; knit shawls, hats, mittens of every color to welcome snow and dark. The wood is stacked high, the squash piled in the bowls, apples tart and hard just plucked from sister tree. The strength of the turning has entered my body; my bones harden, muscles flex, joints glisten with grease. I crave the poetry of John O'Donoghue, of lichens and cold granite and the trembling beauty of the cold wind. Know me I sing to the jewel weed, the beaver, the stiffening mud.