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March 23, 2008
Burying the Past
In the wake of Duke's exit from the Madness yesterday afternoon I really did try to turn the other cheek. I sat on the couch watching other teams play, teams still filled with hope of advancing, players with faces still capable of smiling. I did this for a while and realized that I did not have to suffer the indignity. I turned off the TV and asked Robbi if she wanted to go for a drive. She did. And so we set off.
We drove across the Bay Bridge to Elkridge, an area south of Baltimore, where the Westbrooks live. The Westbrooks were in high dander on account of its being Easter Eve. Jennifer Westbrook had been very busy coloring eggs.
I haven't dyed eggs in a long time. I used to love doing it. I miss those saturated colors and the smell of vinegar.
When she was done admiring the eggs, Jennifer packed them carefully into a basket.
Which she then placed outside for the Easter Bunny to find.
Apparently, the way it works in the Westbrook household is that the family provides the eggs for the Easter Bunny to hide in the yard. The Bunny's reward for all this hard work?
Some really appetizing carrots.
I think there's a good chance that the Easter Bunny might boycott this year. A Bunny has to hold himself to certain standards. Settle for some mealy carrots one year and who knows what lesser compensation might be waiting in that bowl in years to come... I'm just saying.
After the eggs and carrots were placed outside, Matt and I attended to some long overdue business.
When Robbi and I lived in Savannah a few years back, our 40-gallon fish tank sat inside our fireplace, the front edge of the tank resting on the brick lip and the back resting on my Norton Anthology of Poetry. Needless to say, at the end of our two-year stint absorbing leaky fishwater in the most humid city on the face of the earth, the book was fit only for the trash heap. Instead of throwing it away, however, I gifted it to Matt, who is really quite enthusiastic about poetry. I had a sense that he might find it morally difficult to throw away a book of poetry and enjoyed the prospects of watching him struggle with the issue.
I was correct. While Matt wholeheartedly agreed that the Norton's days of being read were squarely past, he found it unseemly to merely chuck it. And so we launched a plan to properly inter the book, when the weather was right and the moon was full.
Last night was warm and the moon hung large above the Westbrook yard. We crept into the garden with a lantern, shovel, and the Norton in tow.
Matt carefully unwrapped the remains, which had been, wisely, double-bagged.
We admired the wrecked tome.
It was still damaged, wrinkled, stained, and fetid. Ready for the grave. Ready for the misery to end.
As Matt dug, we felt the ghost of Byron flitting about. It was at once unnerving and totally rad.
Once the hole was dug, we chose a random page and read a few lines. It seemed appropriate.
We laid the Norton to rest.
And said our teary farewells.
Was there a small part of me that, in sprinkling fresh earth on the Norton's grave, was thinking of the recently departed Blue Devils of 2008, may they rest in peace? Was there a small part of me miserably lamenting the missed three pointers, careless turnovers, defensive miscues, and dispirited scowls on the faces of the players as the cruel, cruel clock measured down the waning moments of a dream?
There was, I think. My mind might have wandered down that cruel road for just a moment.
But just for a moment. After paying our respects, we covered the grave.
And marked it with a broken sculpture of an owl.
Beneath which it will rest.
Until next Easter, when we dig it up to see what the literary worms have been able to accomplish in one year's time.
On the drive home. Robbi realized that she hadn't yet done her illustration of the day. We had successfully completed our new project for the first five days of the week and weren't about to fall one day short of the goal. So she pulled out a bookmark from the Washington College Literature at the Margins Festival and set out to do an upside down, in the dark illustration. Add to this the fact that it was 11:55pm, meaning she had five minutes to complete her work before the day drew to a close.
Here's what she came up with.
We stopped for gas in Centreville. Once in the passenger seat, I penned my response, brief perhaps, but hopefully fitting.
It has been a fine Easter in the barn. We had no carrots to leave in a dish on the stoop, and so we awoke this morning to no eggs and no candy. And still no baby. Ten days remain, according to the math.
Posted by bogenamp at March 23, 2008 11:40 PM