mundane magic

I worked long hours over the Memorial Day weekend, the end of a fourteen-day work marathon.  I was tired.  On Saturday I had a long enough break to pedal home for lunch, and I found a letter in my mailbox.  An actual letter.  I almost didn't open it — "I don't know anyone in Kansas." It was from the brother of my friend Kay, letting me know that she had died.

After work that day, I had to scoot to the grocery store before it closed, and as I passed the hospice — well, that was hard.  At the store I reached for a bottle of grape seed oil, and remembered that Kay had given me the last bottle, the one I'd just used up.  The little things, the ordinary, seemed so poignant.

Since then I have been remembering her, wondering what to do with the couscoussier she gave me, the one she had brought home from Paris; "... it isn't one of those 'classic' potbellied ones, but it isn't a cheap one either."  It didn't work well on her new stovetop, and she thought to pass it along to me, which was kind.  Very like her.  And our little community of homeschool peeps has been remembering, too.  One of the women on the message boards sent me a document that she'd filled with Kay's little stories and observations, pasted from all her posts over the years, for a memory book for Kay's son.

In April two years ago, on the anniversary of her other brother's death, Kay wrote:   

It has been two years since my brother died and I remembered a conversation we had, and what mundane magic it is to be siblings:

Me: I'm thinking of a poem about the sea

He: Ummm

Me: By the most famous American poet

He: Frost

Me: The poet Father would call the most famous

He: Longfellow

Me: Yes

He: The Wreck of the Hesperus   

Mundane magic.

It makes me happy that there are people whose siblings remember poetry together.

Last March, before swooping into the city to hear my older son's college choir sing at Carnegie Hall, I visited my own siblings in Connecticut.  My younger fella, my mother and brother and I spent a day driving around Old Saybrook, the town where we'd grown up.  At one point, we pulled into the church parking lot, so I could get out and take pictures.  

"I spent a lotta hours sitting there on that curb, waiting to be picked up after choir practice," I chuckled.

"Oh, honey.  Did your father forget to pick you up?"  

"No.  You did."

"Awwww.  That was bad of me."

Then my brother remembered the time that our father had dropped him off at school on a Saturday.  "Was he still drunk?  Hung over?  What?"  My son, sitting in the back seat with me, sent texts all day, exact quotes, when I wasn't able to take notes.  Quite a little education for him.  

Wreckage, yes, but not Longfellow, by any means, our memories.  Although, there is a magic in memory and stories, even when there is so much brokenness.  And there was laughter.  Grief, yes, but also forgiveness.  And more laughter.

Mundane magic.

This summer I plan to sort through the detritus of our homeschooling years, and, finally deal with all the things in the garage, including that couscoussier.  I will make something, probably not as good as what Kay could whip up, Kay, whose magic extended beyond storytelling and into the kitchen.  Or perhaps started there.  

I have thought every day about Kay's love of food and friends.  Her care and concern for others.  Her son, that indomitable little man who went to school the day he learned his mother had died, because, in his words, if he were to stay home, he would just "lie around, be bored, and think about the old days."  I hate that she will not see him grow up.  

Recovering from the fatigue of that long work spell, thinking of loss, adjusting to our summer schedule, anticipating my own son's return from college — it has been a quietly busy time.  Last week I had a long chat with my older son.  It was delightful to think about the summer, think about the books we each want to read, what we plan to cook together, and all that minutia of everyday family life.  Magic.