Singing on the Sidelines

This year, Easter Sunday was a like regular day sans agenda. I was not dashing around the kitchen trying to be cordial while panicking over serving utensils.

It was the best.

I worry this admission is materfamilias sacrilege. I mean, what kind of mother doesn’t thrill to the loving chaos of her family circled back to break traditional bread?  

That would be me, at least some of the time. It’s hard to own my relief at a holiday dodged, but there it is.

Yesterday I spent two meander-y hours in a not-too-distant Connecticut town with my son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter, and Sam. First, we ate a late breakfast, then, took to the sidewalk with the baby in her stroller, smiling at everything with all four of her teeth while the rest of us drank in the sun and the gussied-up.

The church let out to a carillon playing my dad’s favorite Easter hymn, “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today.” I sang, just over under my breath, his rich, embarrassing baritone in my head and yes, I cried a little. Everyone and everything was so damn beautiful. I could feel everyone’s consciousness of their own almost unbearable charm. I appreciated the effort they’d taken to represent. I was so glad I was not them.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the performance of holiday traditions, even as it takes me days to recover. I love being surrounded by my extended family, feeding them, fussing over them, plunging into the richness of the history that binds us. But there’s an ease to ritual unfolding when you’re not the one doing the unfolding, but off to the side, blissful, bystanding.