MS. BASS NAILED IT

A busy day today.  The kind of day that is filled with errands that take me away from the house.  A sunny and cold day, but at least I was comforted by the brightness when my toes and fingers were complaining.

A trip to the mechanic.  Less expensive than I thought so I was pleased that there were dollars left and thought the treat of breakfast a fair and reasonable end to the errand.  My favorite little breakfast spot with the chocolaty coffee and the smokey bacon closed a couple of months ago.  She said she got an offer she couldn't refuse.  A young mother with two toddlers, so I'm glad for her that she has more time for them but I miss my coffee and bacon.  I finally settled on the new French bakery.  Lovely things.  Buttery, rummy and sweet things and the coffee is good.  And there she was, the young mother who didn't refuse, being waited on, sipping coffee someone else had made.  I said hello and told her I missed her place.  For all my years of going there I really don't know her except to say hi and thank you and talk about the usual things that people talk about when they really don't know each other but are regularly sharing this exchange of food and dollars.
She asked for my name and phone number.  Said she is opening a new little place.  Emphasis on "little".  Coffee and just a few things - really no food, she said.  But would I be interested in showing some of my paintings?  She knows I paint, but she has no idea what I paint.  So the kindness and the implication of faith was sweet and kind and I am thrilled and nervous at the same time.....but I gave her my number.

Home then to find that the furnace would not come on no matter what magic I tried to work.  A trip to the hardware store and filters and new drain screens for the sinks and tub while I'm at it and then a stop at the Poetry Post. (remember, from a long ago time when I showed you the poetry post?)  I love that thing.  Someday I want a poetry post, but for now I am charmed to pull the car over and get out to read -

If You Knew

What if you knew you’d be the last
to touch someone?
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them,
giving back the ragged stubs,
you might take care to touch that palm,
brush your fingertips
along the life line’s crease.
When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
too slowly through the airport, when
the car in front of me doesn’t signal,
when the clerk at the pharmacy
won’t say Thank you, I don’t remember
they’re going to die.
A friend told me she’d been with her aunt.
They’d just had lunch and the waiter,
a young gay man with plum black eyes,
joked as he served the coffee, kissed
her aunt’s powdered cheek when they left.
Then they walked half a block and her aunt
dropped dead on the sidewalk.
How close does the dragon’s spume
have to come? How wide does the crack
in heaven have to split?
What would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?

by Ellen Bass

Lovely.  I try to live that sentiment.  See each moment as the last and act accordingly.  But I fail A LOT!  a lot.   Still, it's there in my heart, at the core and Ms. Bass nailed it.



Thinking of you, Liv