It was a nice Easter

NYC painter Ronnie DeNota paints his wife Lucy, and calls it:
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"

It was a nice Easter
Monday April 17 2006
(a very slight story, but after I took it out, I put it back)

It was a nice Easter because of the glorious beauty of the day. The week which preceded it had been awful weather. It was only second week of April but heat had soared under a hazy cloud cover. So it was worst of both. The hazy cloud cover robbed us of our beauty, steamed up the heat, so all there was was hot awfulness. 4 days of hot awfulness is no big deal, except when you live on the desert, and know a very long hot summer awaits you, you think “O no! Has it already begun! Is this it!”

On the 4th day of it, we were driving around midtown traffic and there was huge sign high up above a car wash at a major intersection saying in huge letters “THE HEAT IS BACK.” It is because it was what we all feared that the sign was disturbing.

And then 2 days before Easter, in the evening, the miracle began. Cool air blew and blew and blew and blew. And day before Easter the day was absolutely lovely and Easter was the most gloriously beautiful day there ever was.

Then there was the strange phenomenon of sleeping. This too began week before Easter. Each time I closed my eyes for even an instant, before I even knew it, I was in the deepest sleep imaginable. It wasn’t like any other sleep, it was so deep, and waking up from it, was traveling huge distance.

This culminated the evening before Easter. At 7 PM I went in to lie down and watch tv, planning to get up an hour later for dinner. But the deep sleep happened and when I woke up it was early morning, I had slept thru dinner. Who falls asleep at 7 PM and sleeps thru dinner? The sleep was so strange, out of the ordinary, that I thought “this is like the sandman.”

So I woke up yesterday morning, Easter morning, from that round-the-clock sleep, and also to the most gloriously beautiful day ever. And of course Easter is such a subtle holiday, not the heavy sledgehammer of Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is like a subtle flavoring to the day. You can remember it, or forget about it. And when you did remember it, it just flavored it, didn’t overpower it. It makes you realize all holidays should be this way. Just a subtle sweetening of the day. Like having a bouquet of flowers on your desk, a little loveliness and little sweet perfume, but harmonious with everything else.

We went to the pool. There was zero traffic. It made driving a joy that there were no cars on the road. And pool was semi deserted too, which was nice. I swam and dreamed along in my lane, until I started to get bored and then I looked up and there was Sue. I had really finished swimming but to be in that light and in that air, who wanted to go inside.

And Sue had just bought herself the most beautiful ring in the world at Mac’s Indian Jewelry. I had seen it flashing under water, and was about to comment on it, when the conversation took a turn and I forgot about it.

And then Sue said “see my new ring!” Some great artist did it. It had jet, it had coral, it had turquoise, and it had pink shell. 4 stones, 4 colors, pure beauty, and huge. Whoever created it had indulged a passion for beauty. And there it was on Sue’s finger. That ring was made for Sue.

She said “John and I had Easter buffet here, and then we went home, and I read your story on email, and then we decided to come back to swim, it is such a glorious day.” Sue said “I am having such a nice day.”

Even tho Sue and John are retired, Sue won’t retire. She had accepted a full-time teaching position at a Native American school, and for some reason it is an around-the-clock job. Every day all day and on weekends and holidays too, Sue works and works and works for them. Today was really her only real day off since job began in mid August of last year.

“This is how to live” Sue said, as she wriggled her toes in the water.

She said "we are now selling the house and moving back to Ann Arbor, Michigan." “We love Tucson” Sue said "but we want to be with our granddaughter. If we make money from selling this house and buying condo in Ann Arbor, we will use the money for lessons for the little girl.”

“But she is 4 years old, isn’t that too young for lessons?"

“Not in Ann Arbor” she said, “they begin school and lessons at 2, she will have ballet lessons and swim lessons.”

Then Lily arrived for her swim, she was wearing navy blue bathing suit in old fashioned style, she looked like '40s movie star in it. And after her swim we sat in the jacuzzi together, and talked about our astrology sign, she is born day after me. Because I had watched Lily express herself when she was stoned on pot as we sat on the grass in front of Alice’s art studio, when she was expressing herself to Roy. The argument was senseless to me but Lily’s expression of her point was like a dance. She didn’t express argumentably. She said “this is how I see it,” and it was like a beautiful modern dance on the stage. It all involved opening up her arms wide, and turning face of passion upwards. Sincere passion expressed in flowing arm movements, with neck arched to the heavens. So even tho I got her point in our conversation right away, I let her go thru the whole dance as she expressed it fully, because I knew it was about the dance, not the point. Lily likes to embrace the universe as she espouses. It is quite lovely. It made the time go by enchantingly as I waited for Billy to finish his swim.

Then Bill and I set off for Sunflower market.

Because we are now drinking tea in the mornings I was looking forward to the free teeny cup of coffee you can have at Sunflower. But they moved the coffee grinding machines to where the coffee urns are, so it was very crowded there. When I finally got in, I opened up 3 tiny little half-and-halfs to put in the tiny cup. And to be a good girl I immediately tried to put them in the trash, and of course one spilled milk all over the counter top, on the floor, and nearly on the girl’s shoe. So I took napkins and wiped everything. There were so many behind me waiting, and around me. And after I finally finished doing all that I turned the spigot on the coffee urn and there was no more coffee left. I burst out laughing. “After all that” I announced to no one in particular “there is no coffee left.” So someone said “try the decaf coffee.” I said “but I don’t like decaf coffee, I wanted this one, English Caramel coffee, it sounded delicious.” But the decaf urn had coffee in it so I did that one and it was delicious anyway. I was so worried about spilling it on my white dress as I marketed. I was careful not to do that but it did slosh all over the floor as I wheeled my cart.