Goddess and I spent most of last night on the beloved back deck. We had a fire going in the outside whatever it’s called, music from Pandora radio and the sound of waves crashing in the distance. We stared at Fran’s thousand shades of …black. Darkness blanketed her greens.
The moon was full and the temperature pleasant. Every once in a while I would look over my shoulders through the double sliding glass doors at a football game that I didn’t really care about, but the inside of the house looked warm and inviting with every room a different pastel color; summer time on the inside.
The I-phone was in there somewhere and the land line was off of the hook which is something that I’ve done for years. At Union Mission it was a life where needs were forever intruding so I stopped taking the phone with me on walks with Goddess and many times I would just grab the land line and put it in a drawer. Some habits die hard.
It was just me and Goddess and she was pretty content on her bed staring at the fire. My feet were propped on the rail and I praised God that laundry requirements were kept to a minimum in late November. I was pretty content too.
It is good to be home after being away for the better part of the past six weeks.
I left the sliding glass doors open when I went to bed so that I could listen to the waves. As I was waking this morning, at that moment when you open your eyes and then close them again, sigh and roll over, I wondered what had happened. Someone had lifted my bed and transported it inside of St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church in Louisville, Kentucky. Either that or I had died and gone to Catholic heaven.
Everything reeked of incense.
With my eyes closed, my mind raced back to Father Vernon Robertson who was the then 60 year old Priest of St. Martin Catholic Church. When I was a 25 year old Professional Christian we became fast and dear friends. I would do the readings for noon day Mass and he would deliver homilies for Wednesday night services at Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel. We were often in trouble together.
I was in Atlanta when he died, likely being yelled at for something by Baptist Corporate Headquarters but I remember sitting on the side of the bed at the Hyatt Regency and crying when Janice called to tell me.
So incense filled my lungs and Vernon filled my brain and I rose and stumbled to see who had broken into my house to light the incense.
I saw the open sliding glass kitchen doors and the smoldering store bought pressed paper log. Goddess followed me and while I laughed, she stretched wondering what was funny.
Today everything has been different. Everyone arrived at the Breakfast Club out of order. Goddess wanted to take me on a tour of the island rather than let me run. The temperature is summer time pleasant and I’ll get around to putting on …something.
Now I sit on the Beloved Back Deck again beside the smoldering log with Goddess asleep in the dirt below me. Fran has risen from the dead again today and the brilliant sun dances through her thousand shades of green. I notice that the leaves are changing colors. All is quiet in the world.
I sit and feel as though I am in church.
