Ash Wednesday

At 6:30, it was still light. After what seems like weeks of smudgy grey, the sky was creamy as the inside of a shell, striated with faint pinks. An airplane silently left a perfect contrail, white like a child's chalkmark. Elspeth had been out of sorts all day but now she was quiet and nestled close to me, her hand unfurled on my arm. The snow outside had all but melted completely. The brittle edges of winter had given way to a quiet softness.


I had meant to mull over Ash Wednesday; I had meant to walk into and explore the phrase Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. That phrase and the accompanying smear of ashes has haunted me for years. I first truly encountered its power while teaching at a Jesuit high school. At mass that day I watched students filing past me, shadowed with a cross of ashes, their mortality. They didn't know it. They chatted and whispered behind their hands as they filed back to their seats. But judgement, inevitable death, yelled from their foreheads. The smooth young flesh that covered their cheekbones would one day fall away, and they would return to dust.

Later my first born child was marked with ashes. She too will die someday, as will I and my husband and my second daughter. So will my parents, and my siblings and all my friends. We have been formed out of earth-dust. We walk in young bodies and laugh with quick mouths. We burble with life like rivers. Sometimes when all is most happy, in the silence that follows a burst of laughter, in the quiet when somebody I love leaves, there is an echo, a shadow that never goes away: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Reading the prayer book today I was glad to remember that you, God, who are everlasting, "hates nothing you have made." And indeed as I sat in the rocking chair, holding Elspeth in my arms, a pervading sense of peace filled my hair, my mouth, every particle of my flesh, with warmth. I felt, as I often did as a child, that the evening had been created for me especially.

As an adult I see rationally that believing that an evening, or a storm, or an early morning, has been created specifically for one person is crazy. Thinking of it critically, I feel embarrassed, as when I wave warmly and energetically at someone only to find they were not waving at me but someone behind me. But I can't shake the feeling. And is it so odd to believe in something ludicrous?

Is it not ludicrous that we, who are somehow and mysteriously infinite should also decay into a world that was born and will also die?

I don't know how it all works. I know Ash Wednesday makes me sad, and that is right enough. I know too that time and flesh, body and spirit are much more than we can begin to imagine. Listen to the mysteries in this last breath of Ash Wednesday: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace.

Thank God for mystery; for the ashes of cooled fires and the infinite sky. I thank God for the curve of my husband's shoulder, the foreheads of my children, the grasp of my friend's fingers. For wet grass, the cries of birds and the glimmer of water. For voices. Thank you.

Note

Note: Below, find the first book review for this blog, submitted by me (Kim) this morning. If you're not interested in the book reviews, simply skip over them to my personal posts below.

BOOK REVIEW: The Twelve Little Cakes by Dominika Dery

The Twelve Little Cakes
Dominika Dery
published 2004 by Riverhead Books

Charming Memoir, Fast Read

The Twelve Little Cakes is a charming memoir about little six year old Dominika's childhood in 1970s communist Czechoslovakia. The story's conflicts stem from the status of Dominkika's parents as poilitical dissidents: Father Jarda is always being fired from jobs by the Secret Police; Mother Janna's parents have disowned their family; little Dominika suffers the close scrutiny of her community.

I found the landscape and historical setting of the memoir fascinating, especially since Dery is only two years older than I. Dery's courageous family is sketched insightfully--her father Jarda is an especially lovable lunatic who at one point skis down a mountain with a St. Benard on his back.

Dery captures a child's perspective well in the precocious character of Dominika. The writing is light and often humorous even when the subject is dark; Jarda and Janna do not hide hard facts from their daughter.

Chapter Seven, "The Little Indian," about the quarantine ward at Bulovka Hospital, and Nine, "The Little Yolk Wreath," about Dominika's early religious experiences, are especially captivating.

Spend a few pleasant evenings with a tumbler of home-brewed gin and Dery's book. The writing itself is not particularly fine or tightly strung, but that suits the book's tone. This is Dery's first book in English, and it is worth reading.

--Reviewed by Kim Cockroft

BOOKS, REVIEW EM AND SHARE EM

HELP!

Friends: BOOKS! Some of them put me to sleep [Anthony Trollope's 'Barchester Towers']; some of them are easy and delightful [D. Dery's 'the Twelve Little Cakes'], and some I never finish even though they are fantastic [Salman Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children'--I do plan on finishing].

I am always on the look-out for a great book to read, and I know my friends are, too. I wish you all would jot off a couple lines on books you're reading. If you only have a couple lines to write, that's fantastic--the reviews do not need to be in-depth or professional. My father, for instance, reads books like most people eat popcorn, on long overseas flights. My sister reads books while she does just about everything except showering, and my friend Jeff always has a good tidbit to share with me, such as the jack ass and Robert Louis Stevenson, which is now on my list.

I just want to know what books you're reading, and whether I should read them, too.

If you've just read a book you'd like to review, e-mail it to me and I'll post it on this page. To access the book reviews, click on the BOOK REVIEWS label on the list of TOPICS at right. Then others will be able to share your book knowledge and recommendations.

If you want to include links to other reviews, please do so, and I'll post those as well.

Here's to books!