Of The Best Stuff, but Cracked

Today was filled with unexpected blessings. Alone in a strange city, I was dismayed to find that I couldn't get to Meeting as I had planned--the train does not wake up until eleven in the morning on Sundays. I sulked in the lobby over lukewarm vending-machine coffee and a syrupy blueberry muffin, annoyed that I'd turned in my room key too quickly. But dear Mr. Mobtown Blues, whose blog is a favourite, still managed to make conact, and I was treated to a drive around Baltimore . . . it is a lovely city, and I found myself unable to harbour hard feelings against it despite the unpleasantness of my errand. Mobtown and his wife, the lovely Meerkat, took me to brunch in a colourful and funky cafe full of prints and paintings of the Last Supper and skinny hipster waiters with braids and messenger caps. We talked about Meetings and music and starvation over plates heaped with lox and fried dough. I talked a lot, and they listened a lot, and they had a lot to share. Meeting Friends in such a sweet and unexpected way warmed me to the core. I'd gone to bed expecting a few cold days of unrelenting dreariness, but woke up to find friendship and sunshine. It was a beautiful day here too, the sun was warm, and there was a steady, cool, clear wind. I got to listen to a tape of Shape Note Singing for the first time, and in that abbreviated taste of the sacred music I could already hear the space it contained for heartbreak and hope: music into which one may empty an overburdened heart.

After I took my leave of the Mobtown-Meerkats, I strolled through the streets. I scrolled the ipod to Johnny Cash and drank a fresh, bitter, expensive, and exceedingly refreshing gingerale and I walked, smiling at the strange film mundane city life made when watched to the soundtrack of "So Doggone Lonesome". I called up a friend I've known since I was fifteen. We've never been close, but we shared a love of ninjas and Diablo II and fart jokes, and stayed up way too late together with my brothers, playing Risk or Warcraft, back in the day. He and his wife have recently moved to Baltimore and they took me in for the night. I made them Mexican food and scones for dinner, and we laughed at all the stupid internet videos that have been making us laugh since 1997. I was afraid it might be awkward after several years, but I slipped back into old times like an old coat, and it was immensely cheering to be transported back to easier, sillier days. Other friends, and family, called and texted and emailed, weaving a solid net of comfort to hold these long intervening hours. Now everyone is asleep and I am on the couch, pondering what is to come, wishing prayer would arrive a little more easily. But today has been a prayer: a breath of thankgiving to find myself falling into open arms and a sense of awe when I realize the expected shock of hard and rocky ground has not reached me. I am afraid to pray about tomorrow, but emboldened by the blessings of today, I will try to face it with a clear heart and a measure of trust.

As usual I am trolling my poetry for comfort, and Emily Dickinson knows all about tomorrow:

A darting fear -- a pomp -- a tear --
A waking on a morn
To find that what one waked for,
Inhales the different dawn.

~Emily Dickinson