“Connor!” Emily leaned over the rail, her voice hushed but quivering with laughter. “What do you think you’re doing? They’ll kick us out!”
“Not if the bridge troll eats them first!” Connor growled, then coughed as his vocal cords protested. He ducked out from under the boards and hopped up to sit on the warm stone beside the bridge.
Emily propped on the rail, elbows stiff, and tried to glare at him, but he leaned over and planted a kiss on her lips. She laughed softly and fisted the front of his shirt, shaking him slightly. “What if I was the big Billy goat gruff?”
“That would be disappointing,” he said, shifting his weight and grabbing her hand as if to keep himself from falling. “Because this wouldn’t fit a gruff old goat.” He held her hand tightly, running his thumb over her fingers with quieter expression, then with a sudden strangled throat clearing shoved the ring over her knuckle. “It looks pretty good on you, though.” He gave a nervous chuckle and glanced sideways with an almost pleading grin.
Her breath hissed inward and she stared at her hand for an eternal fifteen seconds. Then a blush suffused her cheeks and she touched the tiny sparkle resting on her finger with tender awe. Agreement came in a whisper as her forehead met his, but the quick rise and fall of his shoulders registered full comprehension.
“Come along, we’ll see the bridge later,” a passerby urged her child with a knowing smile. “Those two might be there for a little while. We’ll give them their privacy. “
“Saul, wait!” Lily laughed breathlessly as her bare feet slung sand behind her. “I lost my sandals and the sand is on fire!”
“Not as hot as the boardwalk,” her brother yelped, dancing on his toes from sand to board and back again. “Hurry up, it’s too hot to be out of the water!”
“Well, you’re the one who just had to come all the way down here,” Lily grumbled. “We could have just swum in the pool, you know.”
“Yeah, but who wants to do that when the whole big ocean is waiting?” Saul reached the shade of the dock and jumped to swing from the beams. “Just look at it! Have you ever seen color like that?”
“Yeah, yesterday, when we came for swim.” Lily sniffed and attempted to imitate a flamingo while examining the soles of her feet. “Now that we’re here at the ‘whole big ocean’, are you getting in or not?”
“Come on, Lily, I thought girls were supposed to be romantic.” He dropped to the weathered boards and perched on the railing beside the steps she was about to descend. “It glows on its own, don’t you think? There’s magic in it! Maybe it’ll turn us into denizens of the deep, doomed to ride the waves for all eternity.” He struck a dramatic pose.
Lily rolled her eyes. “Waves aren’t in the deep, idiot.” She shoved him so that his balance on the railing failed and darted down the steps into the brilliant water. “Catch me if you can, you big sea monster!”
Color surrounded her, the brilliant yellows and reds and greens of summer in the garden. The sky glared blue overhead, and she glared back at its near cloudless face. Her hand closed around the nearest white spray, twisting involuntarily, the crushed petals releasing their nauseatingly sweet scent as they fell from her fingers.
She took a shuddering breath, her chest aching as if with vacuum. The fountain nearby was as dry as her eyes; she resented it’s deathly emptiness. Perhaps the red that surrounded it was the remains of the bloody tears of its untimely end, an irrevocable stain on the land. She pressed her fists into her eyes until they ached, silently screaming for a single drop of relief.
A hand touched her shoulder and she flinched. “It’s going to be alright,” someone said, and the hand caressed the black of her sleeve like flame licking at tempered steel. Her arms fell nerveless to her sides and she walked away without a word.
“We are gathered here tonight in the sight of the moon and the trees to join together Nob and Hob in trolly matrimony. Have you both come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?”
“Yes, your stoniness!” “Where else would I be but with my Nobikins?” “I told you, don’t call me that in public!” “Oh, but it’s our wedding, Nobikins!”
“Harumph! Back to the matter at hand… Love is patient, love is kind. It stores up wrongs done to the other to wait for an opportune time for revenge. It reserves the best haunch at the cookfire for the other. It boasts of its deeds of maraudery to prove its constant provision for the other. It never trusts, and never leaves a window open to the dawn.”
“My little Hobby, oh the raids I’ve made to make our conjugal…” “NOB! Not in front of the family! What about the trollikins?!” “They know we’re getting married, for stone’s sake!”
“If we could… Nob, do you take this troll to be your wife? Do you promise to steal for her, tell her she’s ugly, and shelter her from the light all the nights of your life?” “Oh, your stoniness, my word on it!”
“Hob, do you take this troll to be your husband? Do you promise to never season his cookpot, to always muddy his loincloth, and to keep the cave dark for him all the nights of your life?” “Of course I do, my Nobikins! Oh, this is so romantic! Oh dear, I’m going to spoil my mudbath now!”
“If you’ll excuse me, your mudbath will last a moment longer. Trolls and trollikins, I now present to you husband and wife! Nob, you may kiss the bride.” “Now, my Nobikins, don’t tear the veil!”
We have officially started our homeschool summer. No more assignments. No more schedules. No more educational obligations. It’s wonderful and relaxing, and we are having so much fun!
When chores are finished the kids drag out my old violin lesson music and open the organ to pick out the little simple songs on the keyboard. Twinkle Little Star, Happy Birthday, and Frere Jacques ring from the walls in various key mixtures as they practice reading a staff and figure out which notes match which keys. But it isn’t a school day.
Legos and paper cover the floors in several rooms as parades of weapons, fantastic creatures, and marvels of engineering pass my workspace. The geometry of biology and architecture shape paper and form moving lego joints through the process of experiment and failure. Scenes and characters from books and history come alive in inspired creations from the tools of childhood. But it isn’t a school day.
My six year old clamors, “Read this book to me,” and I propose she help me read it instead. She sounds out every word on the first page, four whole lines full of syllables and digraphs and challenges. We high five at each hard word conquered, then I read the rest of the story about a hard working garden spider. One page has a picture of a moth, and she wants to know how moths eat, so we look it up. Two YouTube videos and twenty minutes later, we know not only how but what they eat, and can identify a full dozen different species of moths. But it isn’t a school day.
We record a regular podcast reading famous stories aloud, stories that exist in the public domain but are no longer favorites for entertainment. Today we neared the climax in a gripping tale of aliens, suspense, and danger, a story written in a time and culture long forgotten. They laughed, exclaimed, squealed, and held their breath, completely absorbed in a world they have never experienced. But it isn’t a school day.
The tantalizing smell of sausage and eggs wafts from the kitchen, where my daughter works blissfully alone. Eggs, milk, and cinnamon have been whisked to perfection for soaking soft bread to be browned. Meat had to be thawed and shaped, and the the pan kept to the perfect temperature for even cooking. Ingredients had to be measured and counted to ensure enough food for seven hungry stomachs. A platter fills with golden-brown slices of French toast beside perfect gray circles of sausage. But it isn’t a school day.
My seven year old is exploring the yard. A storm is blowing in, so he watches the cloud movements and waits for the first drops to fall. He scours the treeline for mushrooms and edible wild greens, bringing me handfuls that Daddy will need to identify when he gets home just in case he got it wrong. He picks a handful of bright flowers to put in water, delighted when I tell him their name and musing about what they remind him of. But it isn’t a school day.
Tonight as they drift to sleep we will read a chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring. The poetry of joyful hearts will create music to soothe them to sleep. Pictures of courage, love, and goodness will form the framework of their dreams. The simplicity of the triumph of good over evil will shape their souls to seek good things. But it isn’t a school day.
Tomorrow we will still be on summer break. We will have no assignments, schedules, or obligations. I wonder what we will learn; it’s sure to be exciting.
The hay was in. The last two bales perched like strange giant eggs at the edge of the field nearest the house, securely wrapped in their white rain guards. Not that the sky gave any reason to believe the guards were necessary; the colors of the mountain grasses shone in brilliant contrast under the cloudless late summer sky.
Looks were deceiving, Uri knew. The mountains played fickle games with the winds, churning storms into existence within hours or stubbornly channeling every wisp of cloud away from the valleys between them. Little grew in the rocky soil, but the grasses seemed to have some special charm that left them untouched by drought or flood alike and held their roots firmly attached to the bedrock. This year’s crop was exceptional, and would feed the family’s small stock through the temperamental winter to come.
Tomorrow he and Bjorn from higher up the slope would make their yearly trip to the city to resupply the root cellars and pantries before the first snows at the peaks. He smiled, a somewhat grim twist to the corner of his mouth nonetheless. The haying had been late, and the first storms would come soon. It would be the mud that trapped them first, deep and miring. Not even a sled could cross the gullies then. They would need to be quick to prepare in time.
A gust caught his shirt where he stood in the cropped field staring up the mountain. He closed his eyes and let it whip around him, alert for the subtle daggers of cold mixed with the last of the summer warmth that would signal the wild end of peace for the year. There it was, an eddy from above, just the smallest tickle at his bare neck. He breathed deeply and shoved his hands into his pockets. He’d better call Bjorn before supper; they’d need an early start in the morning.
We like to think that hard only happens in stories, that hard is a thing of the past. But it isn’t. We like to think that the ultimate achievement would be to eradicate hard from our memory. But it wouldn’t.
A young woman breathes deeply through the pain of her muscles contracting. Her skin stretches to its limit as a tiny head presents itself to the world. She collapses in exhaustion, sore and weak, but lifts her arms to receive a screaming, wiggling new life. Her breasts ache with pressure of milk flowing, and she winces at the tug of her baby’s eager tongue. Hard. Necessary. Beautiful.
A toddler struggles to his feet, swaying a little on unaccustomed legs. He reaches for support, but it’s just too far away. Slowly he leans forward and shifts one foot slightly. He falls forward but catches himself with his hands and struggles upright again. Undaunted, he lifts his foot again and manages to move it two inches before he sways and nearly falls again. Encouraged, he tries the other foot. This time he does fall forward, but his daddy’s hand that he reached for from the beginning is there and he has taken his first steps. Hard. Necessary. Beautiful.
A mom of five lies awake long after her family is asleep, her mind churning. One of her children has challenged her will, determined already at five years old to plot her own course regardless of destruction. Another struggles with an alien within that tries to destroy him against his own will. Another blossoms rapidly into womanhood, her gentle innocence challenged by changes she does not yet understand. The mom weeps alone, praying for the wisdom and strength to face another day trying to fulfill all the needs. Hard. Necessary. Beautiful.
A man, his hair prematurely gray, fills the fuel tank of his old truck with grim resignation. He has been near broken so many times he lost count long ago. This latest seems beyond his power, and he prays for resolution. War looms, the meager contents of his wallet stretch thin, and he can’t seem to collect resources quickly enough to ward against what threatens. He didn’t want this; someone far away with more power than is healthy chose their own temporary gain over true good. He counts through a mental budget yet again, trying to balance his family’s needs against ever shrinking ability. Hard. Necessary. Beautiful.
A soldier shivers with pain, tears burning paths in his cheeks. All he wanted to do was respect the country he loves, and make his family proud. He never expected to fight a war, to stare down the barrel of a weapon at living people he was tasked to kill. He never expected to purge himself over mutilated remains beneath rubble, or to have his gut ripped open with shrapnel from a carelessly launched missile. He never expected to be lying in his own blood on foreign soil, wondering if that would be the last thing he ever saw. Hard. Necessary. Anything but beautiful.
Hard makes us who we are. The specific hard we endure makes us individual, whether it’s the hard of providing for a family, the hard of dealing with illness, or the hard of facing pain and death. Hard is meaning and purpose; hard is the reason the human race still exists. Hard is necessary. Usually, hard is beautiful.
It wasn’t beautiful, the corner of Cedar and Walnut. In fact, whatever planner decided to name the streets after trees must of have had some twisted sense of humor. No forest could have less to do with the dirty, dingy gray of metal and concrete.
Despite uninviting appearances, the bench at the corner was always full. Pedestrians couldn’t seem to resist its invitation. Sometimes they paused there with coffee and sandwiches from the warmly lit shop on the other side of the concrete wall. Mostly they just sat and read, chatted with strangers who joined them, or smiled with thoughtful eyes that saw anything but the noisy bustle of city streets.
They called it Le’s Corner in the neighborhood. Most didn’t know why, but the old man who ran the shop spoke the name with moist eyes. He ran trembling fingers over a faded black and white photograph of a tiny girl. Even in the aging exposure her eyes lit up the room, and her smile seemed just for me.
He had made the bench for her when he was just thirteen. She had loved people and spent more time talking with passersby than playing with the toys neatly arranged upstairs. Baba had even said that she kept the shop open because no one could resist stopping to visit with the sunny child and often passed the time sharing a cold snack or the warmth of a hot drink.
Everyone knew her name, and she knew theirs. Visitors would be brought to her corner as if to a temple or a great attraction. No one noticed surroundings when she sat on her bench; light and color seemed to emanate from her and soak into everything.
When she was gone, people came for the memory. They brought their children for quiet chats, who came out of habit and comfort as they became adults. Le’s brother fed them all, and her picture hovered like a shining star over the corner.
It’s the countdown to Christmas. Time to decorate the house, finish all the gifts, watch all the movies, listen to all the music, and cook all the food. At least, that’s the plan.
The Christmas tub was stored on the porch through all weathers this year instead of making it back to storage where it belonged. A snowglobe exploded inside it, mildewing all the stockings and the cardboard box of ornaments. A good long soak in the washer saves the stockings, and most of the ornaments escaped damage, so after a few hours that crisis is averted.
The tree skirt finally bit the dust after twelve years of use, so a new one must be selected and ordered. I would make one, but my make list is already daunting. I suppose if the new one doesn’t make it on time we’ll just hide the lack with presents.
The lights wouldn’t fit in the tub last year, and no one can find them. Anywhere. We have exactly three short strands that I bought as emergency backup at the dollar store a week ago. Last year we had an entire flat. And I have sticker shock from a quick online search for replacements.
Every year we go as a family to pick out a live tree. It’s the most important tradition of our season. OCD has decided it doesn’t want to go this year, the rest of us should just go. We have until Friday to work that hiccup out. After which we still won’t have lights to put on it.
All the things will work themselves out. Adventures will be had in the solving of some of them. Children will go insane with excitement, parents will take many breaks outside in the cold to ensure they don’t lose their holiday joy, cookies and treats will fill the house with good cheer, and Christmas morning will arrive with all its usual magic and fanfare, just like every year before. And we will forget December 1st until it arrives once more to remind us that we are the magic.
They rang out across the water, a symphony of sound in chiming echoes down the brick-lined canal. The bells of Bruges, incongruously peeling out disco music to peal against medieval facades, held me captive. Even the cafe goers across the canal left their sedate mugs and tables to dance with abandon.
Invisible behind those ancient brick buildings, the great Bruges Market bustled with life. I closed my eyes, memories of its timeless sights and aromas flooding my mind in rhythm with the bells. I could almost see colorfully robed guildmembers shouting over the chimes, haggling with the shoppers of yesteryear over the price of bread or the value of a bolt of fine fabric.
For a moment, in Isolda’s shop, I had entered that world. She had looked over her flowers, braids peeking from beneath a knit cap and voluminous dirt-streaked apron swallowing her slender frame, bells chiming a muted soundtrack through medieval walls. She had smiled when I introduced myself as Tristan.
The Word Worker 