Dona nobis pacem (or, Postcards from Spring, Part I)

Our circle is wide, deep and diverse, and though it consists of friends rather than colorful lines on paper, it could be quite nicely described by one of those spirograph drawings you did as a kid: some circles perfectly repeated, others endearingly imperfect. The circle exerts its gravitational pull across generations, social connections, religion and history. It's made rich by the sensibilities of us all, some deeply religious, some seriously intellectual, all creative in an astonishing range of ways, and every member with his or her own spiritual awareness. My guess - unsubstantiated, for this is the kind of thing I never ask people - is that we have among us the Buddhist and Christian, pagan and atheist, and deeply ambivalent. We ranged in age this year from newborn to celebration of 70th birthdays and beyond. Some of us hold degrees that might genuinely surprise others among us. Others demonstrate their individual educations in their art forms, whether hand-built instruments, songwriting and performance, garden-grown or lovingly prepared food or art forms like ribbon flowers, rescued from a near-forgotten age. We write. We sing. We play instruments. We raise children, and grandchildren. We love, whether as young lovers who promise us babies and eternity or as dearly bonded, life-bonded couples, perhaps more softly but with no less passion. We fight, we forgive, we re-connect. And on the eve of Spring this year, we gathered to celebrate.

On a long dock stretching to reach the edge of a shallowing lake, our precious circle of friends perched Saturday evening and waited for the rising of the moon. I needn't explain here about the exceptional moonrise. It was a once-in-a-century occasion and you know that already. I stood near my dear old person, sometimes holding a camera, and watched with the others as the golden light of sunset bathed our backs and the deepening evening touched our faces. In the quiet before the moonrise I heard a small song rise, voices of my sisters raised in this sweet round: "Dona nobis pacem". Christian, Catholic, Methodist, Pagan and Buddhist, whatever...what does it matter, really? The song was lovely and the sentiment transcendent.

Dona nobis pacem.
And with that, the round of the moon appeared on the horizon over the lake, the pearl white color deepened to auburn for a moment and lightened as it rose above the trees. Dona nobis pacem. Grant us peace.




Author's note: My unsparing editor tells me, kindly, that much of this is sentimental bilge, though he concedes his definition of "sentimenal bilge" is rather more strict than my own, for which reason he's corrected some typos and given me a pass (dona nobis pacem, anybody?). I promise I'll try to rein in the sentimentality in the rest of the Postcards from Spring series.


Photos(c)Rodney Christensen 2011

Counting by candelight

It's probably fair to say that most of your friends will not celebrate their wedding anniversaries with a trip to an exhibit of invertebrate fossils. (Yes, we are still celebrating.) An even smaller subset are likely to have made this trip without considering that the museum housing that exhibit is located in the middle of the University of Florida campus, in Gainesville, on a home game Saturday afternoon. This is SEC FOOTBALL, baby. What were we thinking? I know. I know. But this photo was its own reward. And then the ride home, from Gainesville to St. Augustine, happens to pass by the front door (practically) of Gatorbone Studios.

We could probably have gone home. There were lazy dogs, waiting for their supper. There was certainly laundry to do and things to clean, the beach to walk or any number of favorite places for eating out. Hell, there was even the Gator game on TV. But we went to Gatorbone Studios (having called ahead, of course) and positively basked in the Golden Hour of beloved friends. There were martinis. There was wisdom and laughter, music to remember for a lifetime and a hanky or two might have come in handy. There was a lovely dinner, a dessert of mangoes and fresh raspberry sauce over vanilla ice cream. And there was a LOT of talk about gratitude. We talked about some other much-loved friends and their wisdom, about the beauty of the elders and youngsters of the tribe and the bewilderment of we who are in between. After all, Lon said, "Isn't that what the tribe is for?"

It surely is. And, though Rod has laughed and said anniversaries are like birthdays for me (meaning they generally last a week or so, at least; you will have noted I said we were still celebrating) there surely was no better way to mark the occasion, to count the precious years, for us. I do promise to move along to a new topic, but for tonight: Thank you, dear and treasured friends.

Best friends and homecomings

My heart's sister is coming home soon, from darkest Africa and her dear love. Here we are together at Gatorbone, having slipped onto a wide porch that would soon be a stage filled with music. Here we are paused for a moment together, before we ever guessed that she would go so far from home and be so long away.

There is a passage in T.H. White's "The Once and Future King" wherein a kindly badger tells the very young and not-yet-king Arthur about a treatise he's written, explaining why Man has become superior over the other species of the earth. It's about how the animals choose their gifts, how these gifts are granted by God, and most importantly, how the gifts influence the development of their recipients. It's whimsical and funny and if you haven't read it I won't spoil it for you. But my point is that I do believe each of us arrives at the door of life with certain gifts, the influence of which shapes and changes us.

My gift, I think, is friendship. I am blessed beyond measure by friendships that have changed me, and by which I have been incalculably changed. Some friends are already known to you at Eat Here. You know Lis and Judy by their music, and Ms. Moon by her blog. You know Lorie by her recipes, and O'Hare by her dramatic exit. And I hope you will know Lauren and Susan and Mary and Tina and so many others and if you do, you're likely to catch my references to all of them as my "best" friend, for each of them is a sister of my heart.

Come home, sister. Hurry. Hurry.