It is early, and the air is frigid as I push back our heavy comforter, shivering as I slip from bed. I pluck my warmest socks from our bottom left drawer, memory serving me well in the dark.
I have awakened with the words swirling fast and furious, so I text remembrances to myself, as I brush my teeth minty, squinting at the brightness of bulbs.
Soon I am dressed–a soft, threadbare hoodie and sweatpants, beloved and tattered and dotted with speckles that pay tribute to the colors of our home–Village Square, Owl Gray, Honest Blue, Butternut. I descend the cold hardwood stairs and whisper good morning to our trio of pets who blink at me and stretch; yawning.
We travel as a pack outside, and the bright ball of yellow moon, a beauty which hung low and heavy and mournful in the pitch of sky only days ago, has now melted and waned and whitened, perched high and faint; a fading crescent.
I miss the robust harvest moon in the way I miss our children: wishing for swaths of time together that once seemed full and endless. My heart tiptoes around loss, as I grow familiar with separation, phantom pains of amputation slowly morphing toward contentment, hard-won.
The stars blink and twinkle, steady and hushed, and I am small against the inky backdrop; fragile as I regard the constellations. Three nights ago I reveled in the canopy of dark as a shooting star lept and danced and dropped earthward. I stand undone, pondering the greatness of God, who with mere thought and command, flung these wonders to dot the sky.
Our dogs give me a nudge, noses cold on my hand, and I scratch their heads while Josephine Bean, Joey, meows, rubbing her head against my shins. My breath puffs cold as my hand circles the doorknob. Longing to stay in this quiet beautiful, I glance up one more time, freeze-framing the wonder of it all, such ancient loveliness no painter can match.
Inside, I measure and pour three bowls of dry pet food and finally reach for coffee grounds. I notice Joey limping, and I hazily recall her previous tussle with a neighbor’s cat.
With animals tended and coffee brewing, I waltz into the canopy of Monday’s headspace, aglow with delicious possibility.
Mondays are my favorite. A peaceful, solitary stretch to write and write and write some more. It is the only day in which I am not expected to appear anywhere. It is life-giving, and I shield Writing Mondays like a guard at Buckingham Palace, protecting his Sovereign.
Yes, Mondays are for slipping away, carrying only thoughts and keyboard. A few minutes of slow stretching gives way to a long morning walk as the sun lifts in the eastern sky, pastel portraits of oranges and pale pinks. These walks are cushioned by prayer, podcasts, and the sizzle of song. Thoughts emerge that could break any writer wide open, but the Author of memories and words keeps me.
Life is one long story, I decide as I walk. Days stacked upon days, and the trajectory is like a shooting star careening toward eternity. The truths within our stories will become either a duck and run or a pressing in, a steadfast journey of perseverance.
As I walk I carve and slice with the sharpest of blades, wielding my knife invisible, abandoning unnecessary words on the chopping block. Everything promising ends up in a thick notebook, material that might not see the light of day for years.
A family of deer lurches ten paces before me, gracefully emerging from the woods, across the path, and over the golf course where they pause and stare. They are handsome, a broad-chested male with thick antlers, his gentle, wide-eyed mate, and their four offspring sporting wet and shiny noses. A hawk soars overhead and the deer leap and prance from the meadow into the nearby thicket.
The sky has now begun to awaken, and I slip off my headphones in favor of birdsong.
Two squirrels chase up the old maple and down again, racing for the larger pine. A chipmunk scurries toward the edge of the wood, as a flutter of leaves floats earthward, rocking back and forth in the wind, little boats in no particular hurry, landing peacefully to their death. The burnt reds, yellows, and oranges will soon fade brown, and I think: from dust we came and dust we return.
***
I return home, sip coffee, and lose myself in the pages of 1 Thessalonians before settling in at my desk.
The previous three Writing Mondays have gone quite poorly with interruptions aplenty. I thus grew dull of thought, sluggish, and overwhelmed by initial streams of thought mercilessly crushed by too many social engagements paired with the whiplash of trials unfolding beyond the walls of our home.
It is time for the tide to change, and my soul swells as the words flow on this Monday morning. I am praying for the richness of today’s work to match the magnificent harvest moon: satiating and delicious; a feast.
The table is now graciously set to write, and I aim to honor my goal of completing two pieces while beginning a third. My heart is cartwheeling, as I think: our girl is coming home, our girl is coming home, our girl is coming home. I have missed our daughter something fierce this semester, and am longing for the holiday break. This spurs my excitement at the prospect of getting ahead in my work.
How I am pining for our morning coffee rituals and unhurried conversations in our pajamas. Time spent swinging wide the hutch doors and digging around for our cookie cutters, mixing and rolling and smoothing the sugar dough like we do come November and December. And our beloved movies–we will watch them all, oh yes, we will.
I am writing away when I receive a phone call that I cannot ignore. There is another issue to tend to, and one hour later all concentration has begun to wilt and perish. I wander into the kitchen in defeat, heating the kettle for oolong, mentally fighting to return to the ashy embers and beg a flame, when Joey limps through the kitchen on three paws.
My eyes widen–her back leg has swelled to ghastly proportions. I watch in horror as she presses herself thin, flattening and escaping beneath our sofa.
It is then I realize that she has retreated to die.
Frantic, I whisk her to the vet– sans makeup, in my paint-splattered sweats with thick socks and worn-out Crocs that I slip on to save time. My hair is yanked through my favorite ballcap–all of this my normal attire for my beloved (and typically invisible) Writing Mondays.
Except today I am not hidden.
It is not until I blow into the emergency clinic that I consider my appearance.
There are swarms of people in the waiting area, and I am now deeply worried about Joey, who is our college daughter’s beloved pet. Wildly embarrassed by my appearance, I attempt to quietly speak above the din to the receptionist, with the cat carrier perched countertop. Did I mention that my husband and I could not figure out how to properly attach the door? And that electrical tape now holds the steel piece in place?
This? The stuff of nightmares, I tell you.
Name? The receptionist snaps her gum, manicured fingers clicking the keyboard as she types.
Kristin.
She looks at the crate. And what is wrong with Miss Kristin?
No, I am Kristin.
She sighs. What is the cat’s name, Ma’am?
Joey.
Joanie? What is wrong with Joanie?
I lean closer, inwardly perishing as people stare.
No. Joey. Josephine Bean.
Cute. She laughs too loudly and blows a snapping bubble.
Why, I am thinking, did I not pause before I left the house and swish mascara on my lashes, or spritz perfume on my wrists, or at least lace up my good sneakers?
But I know the answer. Our smidgen of a cat was suffering and I was racing against the clock.
After ten minutes, they whisk our lethargic, swelling feline to the back and I slip into a seat in the back row, praise be, hiding while mentally refiguring my workweek as the hourglass sands drizzle.
I think back to this morning, now a lifetime ago: the waning moon, the stars, the chill of autumn, the deer, and the brilliant sky that glowed as the dark awakened to light. My warmed heart now feels squashed, my plans squelched, roadkill for the fourth Monday in a row.
Suddenly, a high-pitched screech erupts, and a woman anxiously teases her sweatshirt drawstring as her cat wails. The animal slinks dull and feverish in its carry case, at death’s door, poor thing, and the round, middle-aged woman is brushing her tears away. Her husband wraps his thick arm around her shoulder, and in that moment they become their own universe.
It is oddly lovely, as full and true as the harvest moon.
It’s okay darlin’ he comforts, and I hear his smoker’s voice, uninhibited. The entire, overfilled waiting room must also hear it as we are stuffed together in this sad space.
As I observe this couple it is not too hard to imagine them sharing an ashtray at their Formica kitchen table. Smoke swirls as they trade newspaper comics, munching Sarah Lee coffee cake straight from the tin, a dull kitchen knife smeared with frosting as they slice ample pieces, washing down the pastries with endless cups of tepid Maxwell House.
We’ll do whatever it takes because we love her, right darlin’? he comforts, pulling her close. Neither husband nor wife would be considered even remotely attractive by the world’s harsh measuring stick, but I think: Who cares? This is living. This is lovely.
He shuffles her even closer, his movements rough, but not unkind, smooching the top of her head.
But the money? she whispers looking up at his face in grief and in trust.
It is undeniable: he is her sun, and she is orbiting.
Husband waves a hand over his protruding belly. It don’t matter, darlin’. And he smiles. I’ll work it out.
The vet assistant appears, taking the sick creature back for examination. The large husband wraps his bride in his arms as she weeps, and I turn away at such beauty.
***
I have been watching this movie unfold, and it seems that so has the middle-aged lady seated in front of me, next to her own husband. She tucks her salon-cut hair behind her ear and I see a sparkling diamond, a crown jewel. Her starched collar is upturned, crisp; timeless. Her man is dressed to the nines, cologne swirling expensive, his elbows resting on his knees as he works the phone with two hands.
Their pet must already be in the back because the only thing between them now is space. And plenty of it.
After a moment she turns: Do you think Everett will be okay? she whispers.
He shrugs. He better be, for what we are about to pay.
She glares, fingers toying her diamond.
But I love him, Peter.
Don’t I know it! He rolls his eyes and his phone pulses and he stands. I’ll take this outside.
And he is gone.
Her profile is one of high breeding, classy, but seasoned with sadness. Her doe eyes fill as she studies the couple two rows over. The pudgy couple who have no diamonds to sparkle.
The longing on this woman’s face haunts me–and I turn away at such sorrow.
***
In my haste to save Joey, I forgot to bring paper and pen, so I tap my terribly neglected notes app and string words together as I consider the stealth of pain, the brokenness swirling around me, the brokenness within me, and what this means in the light of eternity as we sweep through impossibly jagged shards.
I remember the moon. While the luminescent sphere in the night sky waxes and wanes, this satellite itself is unchanging. Our frail perspective, our dim eyes, and our feeble earthly positions fool us into believing otherwise.
How much more so, God? Unchanging, steadfast, and perfect. Master of all.
He is Lord over sweet marriages with Hey darlin, and difficult marriages with painful spaces. He is to be trusted when the children are small and the dinner table is full and loud and filled with laughter. He is to be trusted when the table is small and the presence of absence is weighty.
God is unchanging in our bouts of sickness and mounting bills and in flashes of soaring health and stuffed bank accounts. He is the Author of every Writing Monday that crumbles and perishes, and the Author of every Harvest Monday that sparkles as the words light up the page.
He is my Treasure, my Hope, my All.
And through it all, I–mere dust and bone– am made to fall before him in worship and in trust. He knows what he is doing, and that is my peace.
God is Lord of the faint, waning moon and Lord of the magnificent, buttery harvest sphere.
A sight that makes any poet ache and burn.
***
After an hour, the vet called me back to say that Joey got into a scrape with either a copperhead or another cat. Her fever soared as the infection raged. They flushed her tiny frame with antibiotics and armed me with pain meds for days. She will recover.
My girl is coming home, my girl is coming home, and you are alive, I warble the entire way home, to Miss Josephine Bean.
***
Last week I could almost reach out and touch the harvest moon, but then it paled, fading dim.
God is near.
The LORD reigns; he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed; he has put on strength as his belt. Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved. Your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.
Psalm 93:1-2
The Palest Ink 