The Umbrella by the Door

The man kept an umbrella by the door. It had a heavy wooden handle and a deep green canopy. It was a constant companion in his excursions.

It was a practice he'd kept since the day his wife died, the day the streets flooded and the rain seemed to run uphill. He'd held it through the burial. When he leaned down to kiss her casket, the umbrella silenced the sharpness of the water hitting wood. He returned from the service and leaned the umbrella by the doorframe. He fixed himself a cup of tea. He sat and thought awhile.

The next day it rained. The umbrella was there. Convenient, he thought. He went out for tea, and when he returned, he leaned it against the doorframe. He fixed himself a pipe. He sat and thought a long while.

It was sunny for a week thereafter. But the sun is so strong, he thought. He grabbed the wooden handle, stepped outside, and became a matte shadow under the deep green canopy.

This continued for some time, through rain and sun and terrible storm. He kept the umbrella by the door. Then one day his daughter visited, and with her his grandson. Lawrence jumped up and down and tugged at his hand. "To the park! To the park!" A flash of blue shorts and white shoes escaped onto the sidewalk. He grabbed his umbrella and interrupted the pinstripe of his pants with a quick stride.

The sun shone at the park. Lawrence put his toy boat in the water by the pond's edge. He was holding his umbrella. The man leaned over and dulled the sparkle of the water near the boat. Lawrence saw the shadow and looked up at him. He laughed and splashed the water with his hands, sending it onto his shoes. The toy boat began to drift away. The man started and dropped the umbrella, dropped to his knees and reached out across the pond. Lawrence laughed and clapped his hands against the man's side.

When all were safely to port his daughter called them to come for lunch. Lawrence was holding the boat, and his shoes were wet. The man scooped him up and turned away from the pond. Lawrence pointed over the man's shoulder with the tip of his boat. "Grandpa, the umbrella." The man glanced back.

"Leave it," he said. "It's too much to carry."


I'm serious about these being misfit entries. Criticism welcome.

"If one affirms the existence of God, then there are philosophical problems, generally." -A. MacIntyre

I'm Starting to Think I Talk too Much

You know what would be really interesting? To take a word count, you v. a friend you talk to, for the whole time you've known them. I wonder how it'd turn out.

Burn baby burn. Blair Manferno.

I Don't Want to Talk About Senior Year so I Will Ramble

Lydia the folk choir violinist has a boyfriend from out of town. He came to our rehearsal today, and the best part about choir practice was watching him so enchanted with her. He's head over heels. She can't see it all the time, because she's busy drawing the bow across her violin and reading the score, but he sat behind her and smiled the whole two hours. His eyes follow her with innocent, amused curiosity. There's something to that kind of awe; whether it fades with time is of no consequence to the initial amazement that God could create, 'at last,' that person.

Funny things I've heard recently:
- Indiana State Fair foods: Hog-on-a-log, Kid's pignick basket
-AQUAPOD. Orbtastic Shape! Charged with fun!
-"This is how I wuoak my duoag, Elmo"... -New York City Sesame Street Kids
-"My friend Marvin went to Turkey"... -Grant Sadjak, 5 yrs.

Blair Mancini and I have postgraduate plans to redeem the tarnished image of Catholic Hollywood.

"I'm praying for you. I hope that hasn't become too simple for us." -Greg Floyd

I Stole A Book

from the church library. Now this is not as bad as it sounds. Maybe. I was in the adoration chapel yesterday and picked up Divine Mercy in my Soul: The Diary of St. Faustina. The girl I went to the convent with was gushing over it, and as soon as I read a couple passages I knew why. St. Faustina was a mystic and Jesus Christ speaks to her so much in her writings that the editors bolded his words to distinguish them from her text. There was a copy of this book in every stall in the adoration chapel...something like 40 stalls. I thought, 'would it be so bad to just...borrow one for awhile?' I flipped open the cover. PROPERTY OF OUR LADY OF MT. CARMEL. DO NOT REMOVE. I closed the cover. I looked up at the Blessed Sacrament. Not in front of Jesus. I left the chapel kinda sad. This book is huge, somewhere around 700 pages, and it'd be so expensive to buy on top of everything else pending for senior year.
The next day I came back for confession and thought I'd see if the book was in the parish library. I searched through the index and saw it--two copies! Number 248....2-4-8...Faust....F-a-u.....it's not here. Neither one of them. I headed toward the door, again, a little sad. Then a bag on the floor in front of the display table caught my eye. Donated books. The book on top of the stack? Divine Mercy in my Soul: The Diary of St. Faustina, and a little wooden image of the Christ of the Divine Mercy peeking out from farther down in the bag. I looked around the dark library; obviously, no one was there. Now....this isn't my normal habitude but I could think of very few situations where it was more obvious that this stuff was meant for me, and I should take it without feeling bad about it.
So I read the first couple sections tonight. It's pretty good....

I beat Charlie at the staring contest. He looked at his garlic bread.
"For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for woe. Plans to give you a future full of hope."

Dimwitted

Thompson Station, TN 37179

I didn't really have anything to say, so I just pressed Ctrl+V (paste) and that's what came up. Interesting, right?

Me Blair Mancini, you Jane.
Bueller?

An Unlikely Rose

The flowershop was dark around the seams. Maria Sylvia Graciela Melendez Echeverria dropped her eyes from the Begonia arrangement and let her lids droop like evening Blue Bells. A bustling day in lower Manhattan had long since heeded to the evening crowd, subdued by a rainy New York night. Rico Pesci had closed his cannoli shop across the street hours ago, but Sylvia had four weddings this weekend and lots of arrangements to touch up. Her only company were a sequence of halfhearted raindrops outside and the slew of fresh flower components that shone at half-hue underneath a single hanging lamp.

The Begonias were for a puertorriquena. They 'were' meaning they were not for her anymore. The woman had called three days before her wedding and canceled the order through hiccuping sobs. A good arrangement wasted, really, thought Sylvia as she pushed leaves into the floral foam. The stems squeaked in protest. There was no reason she shouldn't have offered the same boquet to the couple that placed an order the next day. She would have had to throw it all away. In all her years as a florist, she'd never wasted an arrangement. Sylvia smiled. Although she'd sold many half price to lovestruck young men, or apologetic boyfriends who stumbled in off the curb at closing time.

A man gave her roses once, when she was younger. His name was Spencer. Sylvia's father had allowed him to pass the summer painting the landscape at their small farm on the outskirts of Queretaro. He wore a hat during the day, and stood out white and pasty amidst Sylvia's brothers, but at night the sun rose in his eyes and his cheeks gleamed. Sylvia brought he and her father beer while they sat on the porch and watched the landscape grow dark around the seams. Spencer said he loved her. He brought her roses. One of the roses had a ring tied around it with a white ribbon. Spencer said 'si?' and Sylvia said 'yes', and they both pricked their fingers trying to get the ring untied. They had laughed. Papi let Spencer drive the car into town to find a suit. Mama put the roses in water and brought her wedding dress down from the attic. She was pinning the hem around Sylvia's feet. "Now Maria Sylvia," she muttered through pins, "You must always keep fresh flowers in your home. Take them from the field or from the garden. It will remind Spencer of his one true rose, and he will love you and care for you forever." Sylvia smiled, rather bloomingly, her head and shoulders rising from the collar of the white gown.

Spencer did not return from town that night. The next evening a different car returned to their farm. Papi listened to the police officer with concern and waved him on. Mama, tearful, told Sylvia the news. A white and pasty man who could not speak Spanish was shot outside a tailor's shop when he would not give up his car. Sylvia felt sick. She put her hands on the table to steady herself. The sun was casting its orange evening light across the wood. It caught on her ring and flickered through the clear water of the rose vase and across the red petals, deepening in hue as they folded over one another, fresh in the center, mysterious, and spreading out in their bloom until they became part of the craggy flower's circumference, exposed and superficial. She did not hang the roses to dry. She did not want to save them.

The flowershop was dark around the seams. Sylvia rose from the table. It was a beautiful arrangement. She grabbed her raincoat and reached to switch off the light.

Blair Mancini sings backup on Lauryn Hill's 'Doo-wop/That Thing'
I wish I were an architect.

Nuns in a Van

I spent the past two days down at the Motherhouse of the Dominican sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville. Six of their sisters were making their final profession of vows and Fr. Richard invited me and another girl to come and see what the community was like. These nuns have popped up multiple times in my life, and have been instruments in my spiritual development due to nothing less than their quiet presence. A sister giving the vocation talk at Destination Jesus. Three Dominicans pacing across South Quad during the summer at Notre Dame. A sister in front of the Eucharist, eyes closed, her hand pressed against her lips. Four sisters filing into the adoration chapel at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. They have been a sign of God's presence to me, a kind of hope in heavenly devotion and the living of virtue. The Nashville bishop said the same thing today at the profession, when in his homily he lauded the sisters for being a living example of the virtuous life among God's people. They were consecrated to the community today in the Nashville Cathedral, with family and the community watching. All the sisters caravaned from the motherhouse in Winstars and four-doors. We followed one seven-passenger car; they waved to us from an open window, habits flying. Nuns. Nuns in a van.

At the cathedral I watched six Dominicans place their hands in those of Mother Rose Marie and promise to live the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience for 'All my life', I watched them put their scapulars over the heads and lie prostrate in a sign of death to the world and rebirth in Christ, and I watched the some 200 already professed sisters come give them the sign of peace after they'd signed their profession. I was so glad to finally know where nuns come from. This is not a question of the direction of my own vocation--that comes in time, with God--but it was a remembrance of an important group of women in my life. I admire them and hope that soon there are many more women like them, unafraid to pursue a great love affair with Christ.

Sister Mary Elizabeth girds her habit to play soccer.

(I found this quote after I wrote the above, no joke.) A religious vocation is not so much a giving up of everything as it is a love affair with Him who promises overwhelming fullness and joy. -Sister Anne Catherine

A Tribute to Aunt Helen

My Great Aunt Helen died this week at 98, peacefully, clutching her rosary beads. ("Janie," she tells my Grandma, "I don't want to live to be a hundred"). She was the oldest daughter of the Edwards family, a driven woman with a master's degree in library science, a husband nicknamed Heiny, and a dog named Hans. She always tried to push Ruth off the piano when they played duets. She drank half a glass of beer every day at 5:00 and talked about Mary Higgins Clark books with me. I remember her as strong and no-nonsense, a sisterly contrast to my demure Aunt Ruth. But Helen was feisty and fun, and unfettered. She let me sit on her lap, once, when I was too big to do so. Her pride was too big to admit this. "Honey," she said, after several minutes. "Don't feel like you have to sit here all day." She died with her rosary in her hand. My grandma says she's up there bossing everybody around.

Blair Mancini sings Robert Goulet songs in his sleep.

And he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. 21:4