Day Fourteen

Thirty-One, A Novel

Day One
Day Two  
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight
Day Nine
Day Ten
Day Eleven
Day Twelve
Day Thirteen

Day Fourteen, Sunday

Sunday morning. The town was extra quiet on Sundays. No gardeners blowing their ridiculously noisy blowers and mowers and weed whackers. The streets quiet without the weekday traffic. The families sleeping in. Peace seemed to settle down, like a pond in the early mornings, no ripples, no wind.

 She remembered once, at her uncle’s cabin on the pond, as a teen, going out, early, in the canoe. The water was so still and so clear she could see what was on the bottom, magnified by the water. Besides the dip of her oar, nothing moved. The stillness was like a cold drink on a hot day. Refreshing. The pond was  big, more like a small lake. She paddled slowly across, soaked in the calm.

By the time she got to the other side, the wind came up. Small waves lapped at the edge of the canoe. She turned the canoe around to head across to the cabin. The wind, head on against her, made going very difficult. For every stroke of the paddle, she had to correct against the push of the wind. She  worked hard, made no progress. Struggling against this wind was not going to work. She decided to turn back toward the shore. Along the edge of the pond, the wind wasn’t as strong. She hugged the shore, working her way around, following the shoreline. It was certainly the long way back, but at least she was making progress, out of the force of the wind. Eventually, she made it back to the dock, relieved to step on solid ground.

Her life had been like that. For the most part. Until it all fell apart and every effort just made things worse. Until every stroke of her paddle risked dumping her canoe. Until the wind roared at her door. Until she was forced to take the route she did not want. The long way around to home. Home. What was home, now? She felt like she was still paddling, still searching.

But, today. A new day. This morning, relax and read.  Go to Sunnyside this afternoon. Her three pots of chrysanthemums were beginning to bloom. She wanted to move them to the front porch. Trim back the scraggly petunias and the overgrown alyssum. Pruning. An important part of flower production. Fruitfulness involved pruning. She seemed to be in a pruning part of her life. She had to trust that the blooms, the fruit would come.



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If you are arriving here in the middle (it is almost the middle of October), the daily chapters are posted chronologically on WordsbyMo.blogspot.com.