Sacrament

At the top of the hill, a chorus of frogs hollows out the dark meat of night. It had been dense and pressing until their song cut a bowl deep from its middle. No one belongs here but those quick beasts, no one except the deer, of course, creeping through the iris and hydrangeas, sampling from early summer’s smorgasbord.

They love it here, the frogs. They love this place for the reasons humans hate it. The swamped earth and diverted rivers return, forever return, to their native channels. Difficult Run has to fight her way through metal culverts and concrete spillways. Incorrigible, she splits carefully crafted barriers and seeps into the low gardens of the neighbors who thought they had her beat. Water striders and minnows frisk along her shallow trickle, happy for anything, happy just for the moving wet.

It isn’t long before the mosquitoes move in. They come with company: tiny biting gnats in clouds, a frantic halo of deer flies, drunken moths. Right behind comes the steady advance of deer ticks clinging to the underside of leaves, waiting for a hungry host to press past so they can slake their own thirst. Cast across the towering firs is a constellation of lightning bugs animating limbs from root to sky.

Oh, the feast! The frogs and toads have every reason to sing. This soft crescent of earth, this horn of plenty, provides for every finicky taste. Even at dusk when bats emerge to carry off more than their share from the streetlamps and porch lights, still, such abundance! It is maddening. It is a bacchanal. Out from greased throats belch voices of gluttony. Satisfied grunts echo off scoured maples still dizzy from the rapid retreat of winter.

The amphibian symphony rains down on the blank brick of gargantuan houses. Blue haze flickers from second-floor bedrooms. At the windows, moths beat their desperate wings and hurl their bodies against screens. As busy and dim as it is, they lust and lust for the light.

                                                                                                       

What did the luna moths and biting flies desire before our arrival? They must have hungered for the moon. That single cool beacon, forever in a state of partial undress, lingered just beyond reach. Did they all throb for her? They take what they can get now that the moon is the smallest light in the sky.

Bellies bursting, the frogs sing on in the low damp of the borderlands. Night skims her ladle across the font and spills gospel through the deaf streets.                                                                                        

How Sweet

I close my eyes at night
Wondering where I would be without you in my life.

The last time June 11th fell on a Saturday, I woke up single and went to bed with a new last name. That's a lot of change in the span of a day.

Last year's anniversary was not so happy an occasion. June 11 was the day I landed in Virginia with the remains of all my worldly possessions crammed into my little Saturn. My kid and my dog were heaped on top of the luggage in the back. We pulled into the driveway of my parents' house where my husband was waiting for me. We had no jobs, no home, no idea what would become of us. The word "divorce" had not yet joined the family, but it was banging on the door.

Now, we are both well employed and our son has two loving homes.

That's a lot of change in the span of  a year.

Today, I am waking up to a wide-open morning at the beginning of a four-day weekend with my kid. I could not imagine on that sweltering Saturday in 2005 the activities comprising this life now. I had not yet met some of the people I cherish most today. One of them will be crawling into my bed with a giant grin and a pile of books a little after sunrise this morning.

In six years, a person can become only a faint reflection of a former self. So can a date. Anniversaries reside in memory, after all. The day itself is just a square on a calendar, coming around year after year, full of new possibility.

One thing I recall about our wedding was the music. The entire assembled mass rose to its feet to sing along while my friend, Robyn, filled the field with the chords of James Taylor's "How Sweet It Is." My uncle had suffered a stroke a few years earlier and had lost all but five words. When the melody began, he opened his mouth and sang right along. The lyrics had planted themselves so deeply in his memory, they bypassed language and moved directly to voice.

The mind has a way of re-configuring itself to take on the world as it is. This adaptive capacity is the key to survival. (A song now and then don't hurt).

The next time June 11th falls on a Saturday, who knows what my name will be? My address, my line of work? I make my plans but keep nimble. It is hard to be angry or even very sad when it is so clear this is just one chapter in a grand adventure. It helps to have a chatty, dancing, 4-foot reminder of the real reason to celebrate this anniversary. No matter how broken I feel, I always manage to find a song.

We are all imperfect creatures, and we are all doing our best. The man I married was as generous in his love as he knew how to be. Whether it's because of Tee or my own dumb luck or that fickle bastard, Fate, all happens to well on this summer day. For that, a little gratitude is in order.

I just want to stop
and thank you baby