Happy Easter!
it’s a good Friday
I don’t do it often enough, but sometimes I get up very early. Very early. Like at a time that no one would ever think of getting up. Today, for example, I got up at 4:30 AM although I had stayed up past my usual bedtime to attend Mass and Adoration last night.
After a cup of coffee and a goodbye to my husband who does get up at such a bizarre time, I was left to the darkness and the dog who was untroubled by the wave of activity that was a little different from the usual morning routine.
Instead of feeling perturbed by the fact that I awoke suddenly and inexplicably, I brewed a pot of coffee (really? Did you think that wasn’t going to be a part of my exceedingly early debut?), chatted a bit about some mundane things until John left for work, and then kind of looked around and shrugged with that “now what?” expression that isn’t quite boredom but is going to get there quick if I don’t come up with a plan.
There’s a certain security and comfort in the house at such an hour. There are sounds that are not heard the rest of the day. The creaking and settling of an aging home, the hum of the air conditioning, the sound, almost, of the home’s pulse – the love and warmth that envelopes us as a family. And then the clock went off on the other side of the house.
I love that clock. If there was a laugh track that accompanied my life, it would be that cuckoo clock we bought in Germany years ago. It cuckoos on the half hour and the hour. It disturbs my family when they visit, but it’s just white noise to us –except, that we become very aware of the crazy things we do or say, especially when we are in the kitchen. Invariably, after making a ridiculous statement, the clock will go off, telling us we are cuckoo. I know the odds are that the clock is going to capture some silly comment since it’s literally cuckooing twice an hour, but it surprises us every time! We all laugh and someone will say, “There’s your punctuation.”
I was just sitting in the silence when the clock went off now, reminding me that I am cuckoo. Yes. Yes, I am. But that’s a good thing. It reminded me that there’s much to be joyful about, and it reminded me that there is a lot of laughter in my life. I never really thought about that, at least not in that way that would make me reflect on it.
Here I am, sitting in the dark, sipping on a cup of cold coffee, and I’m smiling. I should be reading today’s scripture. I haven’t prayed yet. I haven’t even gotten dressed yet, but I’m already joyful.
Today is Good Friday and a solemn day of reflection. The events that we meditate upon, starting with the commemoration of the Passover and Christ’s Passion as it was set in motion so many centuries ago might be cause for a more mournful, or at least a more subdued mood. I’ll certainly have that later today at the Stations of the Cross, but I can’t really contain myself right now in this moment. You see, I know the happy ending. It’s not a spoiler; you know it, too.
The Manicure
from a twitter challenge by @10MinuteWriter to do the unthinkable – 10 minutes of uninterrupted writing:
I didn’t understand the need for the right manicurist until I found her. It’s true – I can possibly be that shallow.
It’s a shocking revelation to me, too, but I suppose I always knew the truth of it. When I was a little girl, living in Pastorita and enjoying a slice of Cuban-adapted Americana by leaving the house in the morning and not returning until lunchtime, I often caught a glimpse of what our mothers were doing while we were out plotting playing.
I never really gave any consideration to what my mother might be doing or need beyond my personal needs – wasn’t she supposed to be clinging to my every need? Of course she was, just as my own children expected it of me.
So to imagine that my mother wanted – no – perhaps, needed a manicure every once in a while was beyond me. Who wanted to be girlie, anyway, when there was a great stickball game going on in the big field behind the houses? But there she was, sitting at the aluminum kitchenette with the plastic seat covers while one of her girlfriends gave her a manicure.
I remember the emerald green of the Palmolive dish soap as she soaked her fingers in the warm sudsy water, the smell of acetone mixing with the heady smell of the nail polish, the laughter, often cut short when we’d run into the kitchen in search of Koolaid, and the pretty red of her nails when they were done.
When I got older and discovered that maybe having pretty nails was a worthy pursuit I followed my mother’s model. When I got together with my girlfriends we did each other’s nails. It was always good enough. After all, within hours they’d be chipped. We may have been old enough to admire the color on our nails, but we probably weren’t mature enough to know how to handle ourselves as young ladies.
I, for one, was pretty likely to find myself caught up in a three-on-three game of basketball or calling dibs on the winner for a ping pong match. My nails were doomed even before the paint had dried.
It didn’t matter. Nail polish is a pretty forgiving commodity. If I chipped the paint, I’d slap another coat on the nail and move on. What in the world was so ceremonial about those afternoons that my mother spent playing manicurist or getting manicures?
I discovered it many years later, after I was grown and had my own family. The ritual of the manicure, at least for me, has less to do with looking good and more to do with getting out of the house and doing something for myself. It’s something that we often forget to do, especially when we are in those years with the little ones running around clinging to us, and expecting us to be an extension of them.
That’s when a little escape, even if it’s just to slap a little paint on the nails, can be a big break – a little vacation for the sake of sanity.
I don’t need that escape anymore – if I find myself needing some time to myself I just ask for it, or close a door. I’m not likely to have my children’s fingers reaching in to me under the door anymore. If one of them did at this point, then they’d deserve having their fingers stuck.
But I still enjoy a manicure. It’s an escape that never loses its allure, even if I go home and chip it right away when I put away the dishes.