Waiting in a halo of light

My friend Julie sent a Quaker blessing my way: "I am holding you in the light." I've been quite intentional about that blessing all weekend long.

This morning my son and I have a holiday together, what with President's Day. We both woke early to read in the morning light. He's reading Will Weaver's Billy Baggs series and "Striking Out" for the third time; I'm pecking away at "Walden." I drink chai: Assam Satrupa, with a few dollops of sweetened condensed milk stirred with Tea Source chai spice (www.teasource.com). It's a little like drinking pumpkin pie. My son drinks Swiss Miss hot chocolate with dollops of half and half and extra Hershey's syrup.



To my delight, this morning's passages of Thoreau, read such:

"I used to wonder at the halo of light around my shadow, and would fain fancy myself one of the elect. Benvenuto Cellini tells us in his memoirs . . . that a resplendent light appeared over the shadow of his head at morning and evening and it was particularly conspicuous when the grass was moist with dew. . . . This was probably the same phenomenon to which I have referred, which is especially observed in the morning, but also at other times, and even by moonlight."

You may recall that I dislike greatly being sick--and also waiting. (I would link you here but for some reason my Mac at home won't take my commands. See my January post, "And then she knew it was okay to let go.") I dislike greatly the transition from health to illness and back again. It is purgatory for me. So here I am, waiting for a phone call and lab results. I am thinking lately of Minnesota writer Jon Hassler, finally following that undeniable impulse to write. He waited until he was in his forties, too, before he began to take his writing practice seriously. A Bush Fellowship gave him the freedom to move from the grind of his earlier teaching practice, and then to publish many short stories in prominent magazines and be invited to teach at his beloved St. John's. I met him again last year at a movie premiere and there it was--a grace of light upon those who bent to greet him and about his frail self.

So we went about the weekend with as much grace as we could muster. Baking many things. Taking walks together in the dim afternoon light of Sunday. Purchasing small bits--a cookie at PJ Murphy's bakery for the son, a red pak of wood-tippers to smoke on the porch at dusk (for the husband), a package of rapid-rise yeast for the no-knead bread I am finally trying out, the one Mark Bittman of the Times displayed a few months ago and that has all my bread-baking friends a-flutter.

I had so many pictures to share with you and was pleased to find even a beautiful Nordic display of lights that called out a Happy Chinese New Year to all, but then I become grace-less again for just a second this morning, just an ill-timed second as I stepped back to shoot a picture of the lucious Nigella-inspired apple and plum tart I was crafting. My hands did one of THOSE things and I flipped the camera--like a drunken groomsman out on a deck with orders to shoot the lovely couple--and now I can't get the effing thing to turn back on. Grace, grace, light, light, don't fail me now. I promise to extract those pretty photos for you soon. Now I just need to compose myself a bit.