Sunday
A Heartbreakingly Wonderful Day
Sunday felt like fall. Not in the bad way, when fall feels like it’s holding the door open for winter, but the good way, with blue skies and low humidity that make you feel like crunching into an apple. This, in fact, I did, the perfect Macoun, brought to me direct from the orchard by my cousin Nancy.
Cool stuff happened on Sunday. Someone in the neighborhood was throwing out a minimalist mid-century loveseat, and Sam and his friend Josh went to get it in Josh’s pickup truck. I cleaned it up, walked Charlie twice, and answered emails. Then, my sister Suzanne, artist and apple-bearer Nancy, and I went to an art exhibit at the Yale Art Gallery, where Suzanne works. The show featured art by women. It was an explosion of expression, so many mediums, running the gamut from reflective to defiant. Then, later in the afternoon, Sam and I went to visit his sister Amy.
Amy is moving to the Boston area to be near her daughter Ariel. It’s time. I am happy for her. But I also realize how deeply I am going to miss her. As much as those 4 am phone calls have been a thorn in my side, I think about Amy the resourceful and independent, the potter-turned-framer-turned-baker and constant presence in my life, the lover of books and movies and all things cultural, the nexus of family gatherings. Amy the unsinkable, Amy the mother who buried her son, the woman whose husband walked out on her and yet, she persisted. Amy who has always learned by going where to go.
Sitting out with her on a bench in the afternoon sun, watching the rays touch her face, those high Slavic cheekbones, so exotic yet so familiar, griping cheerfully about the lame happy hour her assisted living place throws; I have been missing her for years at this point, but can’t believe she won’t be circling back in seconds like these, when she is so wholly present. It’s like she never left, which explains what I’m feeling, now that she is leaving.