Week 1 of 29: Endings and Beginnings

It’s 10:00 a.m. on the first Sunday since I completed my five-and-a-half year tenure at First Parish. I am sitting at a table in the upstairs of a cottage in the East End of Provincetown, looking over to the Monument to the Pilgrims, which I can see only because it’s winter and there are no leaves on the two or three elegant trees between it and me. The sun shines bright, and will be beaming through the ceiling windows soon.

I’m jumping up every few minutes to stir the enormous pot of spaghetti sauce that Tony is making so that as we are writing over the next three weeks, we won’t be so distracted by always having to go out to eat. My eyes watered and stung as he cut up the onions this morning. He’s gone to the gym now and to rent a bicycle.

We went grocery shopping shortly after we arrived yesterday afternoon, which was also bright hand chilly. After unpacking and putting the groceries away, we went to Napi’s, a local eatery that specializes in seafood dishes from the town’s Portuguese legacy. I could hardly stay awake I was so weary from the travel. The drive wasn’t a hard one, but so much of what’s happened over the past couple of weeks has been in preparation for this time – purging and paring down to the essentials – has been physically and emotionally demanding.

I’m so grateful for the friends I have who have supported me along the way: Those who helped me break down and vacate my apartment by the end of January, those that have welcomed me into their homes and at their tables, those who have given gifts and other tokens of appreciation, and written cards and notes and made calls, and done the many other things that have brought me to this present moment. Wrapping my mind around the blessedness of this time seems futile, so instead I will just be mindful of it.

I’m glad for this blog as an opportunity to bring mindfulness to this break. The historic bell that sits at the back of the sanctuary at First Parish reads, “Come to the house of prayer/Mark the flight of time.” Mark the flight of time. Time is so fleeting that it is unmarkable, like trying to tie water in a knot or keep the sun from setting. But maybe through little attempts at writing or painting or singing, through some act of creation, we can make an imprint. In time, all our creations and creating may be turned to ashes, dust, ether. Most of it probably will. I hope that even after memory fades, there will be something of the love of life in what we’ve done that remains and will be passed forward.

This past week was my farewell to the Boston area for the time being. I will pass through briefly to reorganize at the end of the sojourn in P’town, then head down South through New York, Philadelphia, DC and other stops, on my way to Gulfport. Last week, I took my car to the shop so it would be ready for the road, paid my last gas and electric bills, said my goodbyes, shed my tears. This week, I continue trying to stitch a cohesive narrative together from the fragments I’ve been collecting over the past 20 years.

At the end of the service last Sunday, I stepped through a beautiful saffron gate, patterned after Cristo’s Gates in Central Park three years ago. Just before that, the First Parish Jazz Ensemble offered it’s beautiful rendition of the song “Bridges,” written by Sergio Mendes and Kevyn Lettau. One of the verses I’ve been returning to over the past several days is

There’s a bridge to tomorrow
There’s a bridge to the past
There’s a bridge made of sorrow
That I pray will not last
There’s a bridge made of colors
In the sky high above
And I know that there must be
Bridges made out of love

I intend that this six-month break be a bridge made out of love, and that I constitute myself and the novel I’m completing to be the same.

Meanwhile, it’s time to stir the sauce again …

(c) 2008 by Carlton Elliott Smith. All rights reserved.