Day Four

Back from a whirlwind visit to southern New England, I'm scrambling to get ready for the week and keep my writing promises. I need to hit a word count of 3,332 words on my novel project, and I've got about 500 to go. That's double the usual amount, because I took yesterday off for the service. I'm alternating between pulling tomato plants (I waited until it got so cold that my fingers get freezing after about one) and writing and chopping vegetables for dinner and sending emails that need to go out by tomorrow morning. And it's dark. Which doesn't help.

A quick word about funerals. In case anyone had forgotten, a memorial service has this bittersweet habit of pulling people (back) together. We squeezed ourselves into the narrow pews of the congregational church to remember my mother's mother as Connecticut's taste of Noel flung maple leaves against the tall windows. My brother and I, in the same moment, looked up into the balcony to see our two aunts from my dad's side, whom we haven't seen in 7 years since they entered into a rift of unknown origin with our dad and his brothers, file into the front pew. There were, by day's end, all manner of possible explanations for their appearance from various interested parties, but I decided to believe that they came because family's family and that eventually, even the water from the worst of storms can find its way under the proverbial bridge.