Tomorrow, 8:10am, Dubai time, (8:10pm today for me) Emirates flight 229 will take off for Seattle. This Boeing 777 will blast through the troposphere at a ground speed of 585mph, cross over Russia, send ripples of sound over the massive North Sea, pass Oh, so close but high above the North Pole then, with only a few of the fourteen hours remaining to reach their destination, charge from the top of the world through Canadian airspace and into to Seattle, Washington where, after he clears customs (where just after our son and grandson leave SEATAC for Maui, and just before our Australian daughter lands to spend a few days with us), David and I hope to greet and hug Elario before he boards Alaska Airlines flight 3026 for a three hour flight on to Phoenix, Arizona where his mom, Arketa waits. 

It is the voice of Arketa on the phone today that I hope to demonstrate for you. 

1945. I was five years old. I can’t tell you what day of the week it was or whether this event had to do with my father’s awareness that my mother was attracted to another man, or his vow to woo her back from the brink of disaster—which he did, masterfully. I don’t know if the Second War had yet been won, I think it had, and I think it was a warm summer night. I lay in my bed listening to angry voices lifted from the living room, sent across the adjoined dining room, and through the door of my bedroom left open because, dear goodness, don’t close my door and leave me completely to the power of things and thoughts that collect in darkness!

Augustine spent a good deal of his time in the writing of “Confessions” exploring the notion of time. He joked that before God got busy creating heaven and earth, he was “preparing hell for those who would pry into such profound mysteries.” Well, Time was on my mind today.

Glory to God in the highest heaven and Peace On earth,” sang a multitude of the heavenly hosts.  On pitch, off pitch, could it have mattered?  Noisy voices of God-only-knows-who-or-what cluttered the night sky and startled shepherd’s senses as surely as unexpected thunder rolling across Arizona’s sky.  Heavenly hosts are not usually hanging around the night sky.

Six.

Six is the number of my late mother’s crystal wine goblets in my possession. That is, six was the number until this past Tuesday when I pulled them from their safe shelf and put them in a safe place

My California kitchen was warm, my relationship to my husband of twenty years, was not. My dearly loved grandmother, Martha Elizabeth, visiting from Arizona, stood beside me at the sink, helping me peel potatoes and carrots.