Vespers Absent

Drifting. . . the days and nights pass without plan.  I prepare for nothing.  I had a full moon story I forgot to write.  I don't do the image things I wish to do, don't prepare anything for posting in the morning.  I am merely moment to moment, sitting, staring, thinking.  It started with the surgery that I so wanted to prepare me for running.  Then the drug allergy, the constipation, the diverticulitis. . . the worry.  Now I seem incapable of anything but that--the worry.  I don't want to work out, don't care to run.  I am running, alright. . . down.  The batteries are drained.  I could rest, just sit out the entire season.  I was doing so well, it seemed, with new furniture, nights at the movies, drinks with friends.  Last night I forewent going to Vespers at the lovely Medieval-ish chapel.  I ate a diet dinner with my mother (who did not want to go) instead while watching "Naked and Afraid."  Several episodes.  I did buy a microwave, but I have realized that I should have bought the other one, the one with a sensor, and so must take it back and see if I can exchange.  The house repairman is calling, but I am too lazy to be bothered.  It is work hiring him.  Everything seems calamitous.  I am broken. 

That is my waking up at 4:30 and writing in the dark mind speaking.  It was also the in the house alone going to bed mind, too. 

I know I have an amusing story inside me somewhere. 

Wait. . . wait. . . let me change the photo.  I know what I wanted to say. 

Vespers.  Yes.  I began going with my wife when I was married.  Vespers in the chapel at the Country Club College was magnificent and truly Medieval feeling.  I haven't a religious bone in my body, but if I had been born in the Middle Ages, I would have definitely been part of the Church.  It would have been horrible living outside the confines of the only source of wealth and beauty other than royalty.  I would have lived a cloistered life of fat but literate servitude.  It would have been the only avenue to books, art, music.  Sitting in the chapel pews listening to the holy music lit by candlelight, I let go, let myself fall into a meditative spell.  A cowl, I thought.  I would wear a cowl. 

The year my wife left, I was unwilling to let go of old habits.  I cooked dinner every night and still bought cut flowers every week for the table.  And when Vespers came, I was determined to go. 

I'd met a girl.  She was young and beautiful and best of all, she liked me.  I invited her to Vespers. 

The service started at six.  I had talked to her.  She was coming.  She was late.  Then, I thought, she was too late.  I wouldn't wait.  I left the house for the chapel.  I sat in a back pew so that I could see everything, the arches, the paintings, the people.  And when the music began, I weeped in deep shudders of heartbreak and sadness.  It was what I needed perhaps.  It was a moment, a transition, a metamorphosis, emotional, not mental. 

And when I got home, she was waiting for me.  It was the beginning of something most wonderful and terrible.  I became something.  She became something else.  Of course, she had all the advantages.  I have always wanted to tell the story here, but to do so would be to give away too much.  But that is her sitting in a chair in my house that night on the eve of a new millennium.