PAINTING: Wheat Field in Rain by Vincent van Gogh Vincent van Gogh Gallery
This Sabbath was meant to be kept, the rain insisted last night as I sat in a pizzeria waiting for my dinner to arrive. It had been a pleasant day. After morning Mass, I ate a leisurely breakfast at Paneras and read a friends essays written while he attended a writing workshop. They were good, ranging from a deepening relationship with his tattoo artist son who needed help translating get out of my face into Latin for a client to Gods maddening habit of going quiet.
I changed tables at the invitation of a friend who had come in for a quick lunch and finished my iced tea with her and her companion. Returning home, I wrote a blog entry and began cleaning my office, something I had wanted to do for weeks. On Friday I will have a visit from the Catholic Times editor and photographer. The paper is planning an article on local bloggers, and my workspace is not ready for public display.
Molly called from Minnesota. We talked about being a new mom (Her daughter is eleven months old) and marveled at how women have managed to raise children, cook dinners, and keep a house sort of clean for generations.
Its a marvel, my busy friend said.
Yes, and one women get little credit for doing, I added, knowing that many people see a paycheck as the only bona fide proof of work that appreciably contributes to sustaining a household.
After the call I changed clothes to attend a farewell party for a young woman from work soon to embark on the adventure of attending law school in California. I was looking forward to sharing pizza and conversation about topics other than bra sizes and clearance prices.
Thunder and lightening threatened, but I slid an umbrella into my purse and drove off. First stop: the grocery to cash a check. I had driven only three blocks up the street when rain began pelting down as it had earlier in the day: in heavy sheets blown sideways. I crawled to the grocery, sat in my car for a few minutes and decided to make a dash for it hoping the storm would exhaust itself while I was inside.
Despite partially opening the umbrella in the car, I was soaked the moment I stepped out. My sandaled feet landed in a puddle deep enough for small fish, and rain drenched my pant legs from the knee down.
I sprinted thirty feet to the door only to find the store lights flickering off and on. A woman, hesitant to walk through the automatic door that stopped halfway between closed and open, looked at me with big eyes that asked, Should I do it?
Just be quick, I advised, not wanting to be caught in its path if the door sprung to life again in the closing rather than opening mode.
Inside, a manager was hurrying from cashier to cashier. Does the belt run? Any power to the registers? No. None. The store closed, its entrance lined with people reporting their situation on cell phones. I ran to the car, khaki pants sticking to my legs and brown leather on my sandals a wet black.
Driving out of the parking lot, I barely missed hitting a woman who suddenly emerged from a curtain of water. A huge puddle gathered where the parking lot met the street. I drove through it since the small voice from the past reminding me not to drive a car through such deep water had nothing to say about what to do instead.
The road had turned into a river flowing between cement banks. Cars hugged the center lanes but sprouted watery wings when they couldnt avoid deeper places. I drove ten blocks to the pizzeria, sloshed inside, peeled off my jacket, and ordered a small pizza and soda.
And there I was on a Sabbath evening with nothing special to do and no place to go but home.
© 2010 Mary van Balen
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