You From Obligation's Abrasions

Sunday is never quite as luxurious as Saturday, is it?   Sunday serves as a fine buffer for any Saturday you’re in the middle of.  Sunday offers nothing but itself to protect you from obligation’s abrasions.  So you enjoy yourself with a bit more caution.  This can only go on for so long.  I didn’t intend to read “There is Confusion” straight through this morning.  But Jessie Redmond Faussett’s 1924 novel was engaging and as my “read the first hundred pages” goal became the “read it halfway through” goal I made myself comfortable and got to know the Marshall kids and Peter Bye and Maggie Ellersley, as well.

Four times while I was sitting there it started to drizzle.  One or another page got a little wet.  It was just about time to pack it in when it passed.  By the time the drizzle returned the third or fourth time, I fully expected that it would recede.  My wife walked out to say ‘good morning’ on page 279 with one page to go and I explained that I was just about to finish.  Peter Bye was just about to tell the man who turns out to be his Quaker Bye ancestor, that he didn’t need the inheritance.  Peter sheds his “shiftlessness” and Joanna has never been more in love.  With that, it started to rain properly with a downpour.

She is an interesting character, Joanna.  My brain sought a real personage to populate as Joanna.  And my mind was brought back to a first year at Wesleyan where I was in an English class and raised my hand to answer what I thought the poem meant and the young woman professor gave a nod and asked if there were other opinions.  A poised, articulate young lady of African descent proceeded to insightfully unpack the poem, suggesting, convincingly, a trenchant critique, completely at odds with my own.  The teacher beamed and I absorbed the indignity.  Lodged and not forgotten, that’s where my brain rummaged and found a stand in for Joanna Marshal.

I never bought beans that weren’t in a can in China.  Here they come in little bags which I’d always remembered using.  I’d make a bag of black beans yesterday. A bag's enough to feed a dozen people with and there were leftovers which I was sensitive to trying to use up today and not be wasteful.  I asked the girls once I heard them in the kitchen and they confirmed that burritos would be welcomed.  I used up the rest of the black beans rolling them with avocado slices into cheesy tortillas. And then I said I was going to go write.

Sunday, 08/02/20