September Afternoon

We walked lazily over wet cobblestone this morning, he and I and our slobbery, magic girl. The hundred-year-old bakery near our house is in a Church of Christ from the 20s. Today, rain had a kaleidoscope effect on the pillars of stained glass and I wondered, is it okay to take The Eucharist on a Wednesday and if so, is it okay if it’s a donut? 

Haggard bodies keep slumping into solid oak pews in this place, praying over buttery breads and hand-cut cookies. Maybe they’re physically unmoored from the flood of big church but they still want the peace of an honest chapel. Maybe they’re not ready for hot breath at their necks telling them to rejoice but they want to give quiet thanks and still have quiet hope. I don’t know. I’m not saying it’s an equal or proper substitution, but also who am I to say that their cold chocolate milk, their fresh apple turnover, is not the body and is not the blood?

For just a flash, I was grateful for jelly-filleds and secret places to eat them. Not in the same obvious way that I’m grateful for my husband who cares for me endlessly or a sturdy roof over our heads or meals. But in the same way I’m grateful that Justin Vernon is alive when I’m alive, and Phoebe, and Sufjan. It’s hard to think of me dying before them ever being born. What if they never sat down at the keys? And what if I never got to hear the bridge and have chills? 

What if Patti Smith would have only rocked and never written? What if Nora Ephron was born into a family of accountants and didn’t believe in humor or love? Of course, then Harry wouldn’t have met Sally and my life would be worse. Don’t you see? 

If all these things weren’t perfectly true, what would I even do on a September afternoon?