I went on a merry dance this morning. A rabbit trail or, if you like, a wild goose chase. I thought that we were in Lectionary Year B, but we’re not. It’s Year A and has been for months. But the slips took me on a nice meander through the story of Esther.
Esther is a slice of classic fairytale. Or folktale, maybe. The heroine wins a beauty contest, becomes queen, and saves her people.Classic, but never a polished and sanitized, all-set-to-be printed-on-pyjamas-for-your-6-year-old kind of story. This is a gritty story that grapples with violence and courage, good and evil. And good comes out emphatically on top. Whenever the story of Esther is read aloud at Jewish Purim gatherings, it’s a great pantomine production with shouts and noisemakers, melodrama and victory. And then there are the cookies. I wrote about making hamentaschen back in 2011 and since then, I’ve made the three-cornered delights on several occasions. For my women’s Bible Study Group. For a Nitekirk volunteers’ meeting. For kids coming home from school on a Thursday afternoon. And then because there was rhubarb at the shop and Deb Perelman recommends rhubarb filling in her lovely cookbook. Looking back at photos (yes, I photograph my cookies. Sometimes even with kids eating them.) I think that the first ones I made had the most integrity. After that, I experimented with different pinching styles and, though some of the successes looked very pretty indeed, there were more failures than successes. You see, often the corners don’t hold. Isn’t that just the way?
Sometimes, that’s just how life feels.
We’ve been seeing a lot of old friends lately, and there’s been lots of catching up. Weddings and suppers and Last week, we had a flying visit from my oldest friend – we met when we were two, I think. He arrived in town late on Sunday night and could only stay the one night. So we stayed up very late. As you do. There was so much to say face to face.
Then this week, my maid of honour came by with hubby and her newest little one, a darling girl just one month younger than our Plum. We did some good baby-chasing together because our two littles got on like a house on fire. I tell you, there’s no friend like the one who lets you eat her Cheerios. It was beautiful to watch because her mom has been that friend to me. Speaking wisdom when I needed it. Sharing brownies when they were the only solution. (We were all eighteen once…) When I was at my wits end with my first baby’s fussing, she gently reminded me how much I had wanted her. That I was, despite the maternal headaches, in just the place I most wanted to be. It’s good to have someone else remember these things about you when you’re too sleep-deprived to think.
As she put it this past week, we are the people who don’t have to clean the house for each other. And, of course, this works figuratively as well as literally. Catching up with old friends can be a time of honest storytelling. With old friends, you don’t need all the explanations and backstories. You can tell hard stories. You can worry together – about life and babies and family and work and the future and everything. You can talk and even decide not to talk. You can trust each other when life doesn’t feel like a fairytale anymore and the corners don’t hold together. That’s a pretty good gift.
I wish I’d made her some hamentaschen while she was here in my house. I wonder if they travel well in the mail.
