“I’ll try a little bit of that.”
“Are you sure?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, why not.”
“Josh, what are you giving her?” the other ladies asked.
“Welcome to the dark side!”
Actually, Food Lion generic cola isn’t bad, especially when iced and served at a friend’s table. The last time I had it was hanging out with Coach in the nursing home. We listened to Benny Goodman and wondered if the latest round of two week lockdowns would be final. (It wouldn’t be.) The only thing certain at that point was carbonation, the little bubbles a fizzy reminder of what life used to be like, and might be like again–someday.
Now, to the present, hundreds of miles and two years since, the tiny bubbles danced in the glass, perched on the gracious table at the book club lunch. I poured a bit of the Food Lion cola into my neighbor’s glass.
“Hey, not bad!”
Leah Weiss, friend, mentor, and best-selling author, had kindly chosen my work Cities on a Hill for the month’s book club pick.
What an honor. A beautiful spread, impeccable styling…And there was cabbage soup..! I brought a case of knockoff cola as a tip of the hat to the stories in the pages of Cities. (You can’t take me anywhere.)
We sat around, talking about the book, mulling the questions of the pandemic. These things are hard to answer, and thinking hurts. (At least it does for me.) I usually drop the difficult topics into obscurity, brushing them away to move forward. The book won’t let me do that. Well, the examples won’t let me do that. I can’t forget those people, and now, new friends are being introduced to them over a sunny table.
We talked about dying and living and the state of the world and books and writing and…well, thank you, ladies, for your grace, hospitality, and taking the stories seriously.
Oh, how I wish Coach could have been there. (Although he probably would have wished there was something about sports.)
His memory lives on. Although they don’t know his face, or how he’d bug his eyes out above his mask, or the sound of his voice, his deeds echo through time. We’re the keeper of those now. How will we carry them forward?
On the way home, I called an old pal, a dear friend who’s been along for much of the journey. Life goes quick, and he’s been busy with his family, so it’s been a little while.
“Just finished your book.”
“Thanks, man.”
He sounded uncomfortable. Unease is such a cue that there might be something worth talking about lurking nearby.
So we started to discuss. Shockingly, we think differently than we did when we were 17. (Ha.) But the sky didn’t fall, and the dragon we had been avoiding for a long time turned out to be a fence lizard who scuttled away at the shrug of our shoulders. It was good to talk and laugh.
I’m so curious about telling the truth (or at least the effort to try–that’s a weighty mantle to claim). Cities on a Hill isn’t about politics or solutions. It’s a witnessing of people, told as best I can in all the flawed ways of a human.
But who knows where a spark goes once you cast it into the world.
Sometimes speaking something you believe to be true appears to (and possibly does) end disastrously.
Wanna know how I got these scars?
Sometimes–and I appreciate the rarity–it leads to a delightful cabbage soup lunch with talented women and a gladdening conversation with an old friend.
For that, I’m thankful.
Say Fromage!
Treasures from Earth
For a little autumnal gem this weekend, dig a Handel oboe concerto. Catch ya Monday!