If Not for the Worry

If not for the worry, I would be happy.

On Monday I went to pray and hike and worry on that glorious trail to the waterfall, the place where I’ve gone to pray in despair and in not knowing and in breaking the ice with Jesus. The trail was bombarded in several places with fallen trees from the storm last week, and the crick was still unusually high. The first part of my pilgrimage was more like a parkour course–  over the trunk of the fallen beech, through the sucking mud, in and out of the wild cherry branches, over that spot where the roots of a fallen tree pulled away the whole trail and left a ditch.

The second half was like being in a basilica: the sloping walls of the ravine and the roof of the grotto were covered with three different colors of trillium. There were large pink and white blossoms, as well as those rarer, smaller deep red blossoms that don’t even seem real. I don’t know if red trilliums are really so rare, or if they just blossom later than the other varieties. They look like something a monk would sketch in the corners of an illuminated Bible: three glossy green leaves for the Persons of the Blessed Trinity, three pointed petals for the nails of the crucifixion, deep red for the Passion of Christ.

The flowers gave that stretch of my hike the effect of walking down the nave of a Gothic cathedral, with tall stained glass windows on either side.

If not for the worry, it would have felt like walking in Heaven.

Of course I ended up up past my ankles in a swollen crick, just feeling the water flow by. Of course I found that natural font where the waterfall eroded a bowl in the rock, and made the Sign of the Cross. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen!

When I got back to the car, I peeled off the sodden sneakers, slipped on my driving shoes, and started back to Steubenville blaring the radio.

Next week it will be seven months since I bought Sacre Bleu, the ugly blue Nissan that Jimmy the Mechanic helped me pick. It’s had its crotchets. There’s a check engine light on the dashboard from a funny wire to a sensor. But it’s never stranded me or spent the night in front of Jimmy’s house on cement blocks. It’s the first car I’ve ever had that has gone seven months without breaking down. I feel safe when I drive.

If only I didn’t have that niggling fear: the fear that I was living at the end of an era, and the next era might be a much more painful one.

On the way back, I turned out of my way to stop at a new garden center. I got seed potatoes, pansies and violas. If you’re ever trying to establish a garden in Northern Appalachia, the first rule is not to get your seedlings at Walmart or Rural King. You’ve got to find a crowded little hardware store, or a plant nursery with an Italian surname. Ianetti’s Garden Center had the least expensive pansies and violas I’ve seen, plus a pound of seed potatoes for only a dollar. I remembered how much the children love digging potatoes.

The plastic flats of pansies sat on the seat next to me all the way back to Steubenville: they, too, were colorful as stained glass or the illumination of a Bible. Purple for the Passion of Christ, and also for His kingship. White for the robe of the angel who rolled away the stone. Gold for the crowns of the martyrs. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen! 

I got out of Ianetti’s driveway and onto the country road, without my usual panic that I’d get in a crash. I’m getting awfully good at backing up without fear now.

If only I didn’t keep feeling that everything was about to go wrong.

They say the shortages of household goods and clothing will begin by the end of this month, and I hope they’re wrong.

They say this Christmas will be a bleak one, and I hope it’s not.

I’m told we are on the cusp of a recession far worse than the one that ruined Millennials in 2008. That we’re in a standoff like the Cold War, only America is fawning on Russia, and we’re the baddies this time. That we’re ruled by a Mad King, and it’s only a matter of time before the whole rotten structure that used to be the United States collapses.

I’ve gotten pretty good at swallowing that lump in my throat.

Back at home, I cut up the seed potatoes. I set them on the table to dry up a bit, their long roots looking like octopus tentacles.

I got out the mixing bowls and mixed up two dozen blackberry muffins, enough to satisfy Michael and Adrienne and also anybody else who came by– and none too soon, because the next thing I knew, Jimmy’s boy and the Artful Dodger were here. They ate up their share of the muffins while they were still hot from the oven.

We went around back, where the Artful Dodger picked clover for Lady McFluff the guinea pig. The cat watched us cautiously from the overgrown yard of the haunted house. People keep throwing trash into the Haunted House’s yard, and Jimmy’s boy is an inveterate trash picker. He likes to find odds and ends to turn into weapons for the fort he’s building. Today, he found a beat up old nonstick frying pan, which he gleefully smashed against my patio bricks until the sides folded in like a taco shell.

I  pulled up the crabgrass, and planted more sweet corn.

The first of the pumpkin and watermelon seedlings had come up.

Birds were singing in the lilac bush.

Everything felt all right, outside. Inside, I was being torn apart.

I don’t want to live in interesting times.

I just want an ordinary life.

I want to tend my garden, and bake treats for Michael and Adrienne and the neighborhood children, and play with the cat and the guinea pig, and volunteer at the church outreach with elementary school children. I want to go on hikes and go to the garden center and try to be at peace with Jesus. I finally started being happy, for the first time in my entire life, when I turned forty, and now at forty and a half I’m told the world is coming to an end.

Why do I have to live in interesting times?

The Artful Dodger found the broccoli seedlings just then; he mentioned they’re his favorite vegetable.

Jimmy’s boy made a face and said that he hated broccoli, but he liked cucumbers. He was looking forward to eating cucumbers from my garden again this year.

I cringed, because I’d forgotten to buy cucumbers. Ianetti’s had at least a hundred tiny seedlings with two waxy leaves each, but I’d bought flowers. I had to find a way to fit cucumbers into the garden beds.

I can’t explain what happened then, but my mind cleared, and the fear left me.

The reason I had to live in interesting times, is that there were children here with me, living in interesting times. Adrienne will be seventeen in 2028. Jimmy’s boy will be eleven. The Artful Dodger will be fourteen. The children down at the church outreach will be in the sixth grade. Somebody’s got to grow cucumbers for them to pick out of the garden. Somebody’s got to show them how to grow a victory garden of their own. Somebody’s got to read to them at the church outreach, and teach them about their history. Somebody’s got to hike through the trilliums and pray and worry and visit the garden center and write this all down, so there’ll be a primary source about what it was like to live through it, whether it was easy or hard.

I hope it’s easy, but if it’s hard, they’ll need me all the more.

Just then, I wasn’t worried.

I was happy again. Just happy.