40 hours

It's Sunday afternoon, 1 PM, and I'm sitting on a school bus in the parking lot at St. Patrick's, on my way to do what the priest at Mass this morning called a "crazy Catholic thing." Rosaries and scapulars and the Blessed Sacrament. Me and 100 old ladies and a bunch of Knights of Columbus.

Yesterday was the first truly fall-like day this year. It was sunny and very breezy and cool enough for an outdoor fire. We had friends and family over, and we sat around the fire pit all day long. I had awakened that morning feeling so depressed that I didn't want to get out of bed. But I had to. We had plans and I had to do what felt impossible, which was to stand upright and put one foot in front of the other, and smile and greet and welcome people. It turned out better than I expected.

So now I'm standing in a field on Norbeck Road with a rosary wrapped around my wrist and my phone in my hand, writing about the traffic whizzing by and the overcast, almost-leaden sky and the almost-damp, almost-chilly breeze that made me decide to put on a jacket before I left the house. In a few minutes, the priests will arrive, and the old ladies and the handful of young people and the Knights of Columbus and I will walk a mile or so back up Norbeck to St Patrick's, praying and singing and making something of a spectacle of ourselves. Catholics. We are a mysterious crew.

*****
My jacket and my sneakers and my handbag are all a similar color. Burgundy is probably the best word to describe it, or maybe maroon. That's what my mother always calls this color. I think that wine is the best word. Wine, like the wine-dark sea. My son is a freshman in college, and I remember two phrases from my freshman year in college: Wine-dark sea, and bare, ruined choirs. My literature professor tried his hardest to make us see the beauty in those words. And I do see it now, more than 30 years later, so his time wasn't wasted.

*****
It’s Monday now, I had to stop writing when the procession got underway. We shuffled rather than walked up Norbeck Road, singing and praying, Repetitive prayer is soothing and meditative. I don’t often forget myself, but I did forget myself for a few minutes as a drop of rain or two fell and the procession inched up the road, led by a lights-flashing silent police car. The trees have just begun to turn; and I pondered bare, ruined choirs as I listened to the chanting. The choir was the huddled and barely moving crowd of humanity making its way to the waiting church, and it didn’t feel bare or ruined at all. A wine-dark sea of maroon jackets and wine-colored jackets and burgundy sweaters and dark red raincoats made its way into the church for an hour of quiet prayer for the world. And then we went home.