Easter Morning in Tallahassee
Sunrise reveals a chilly world in Tallahassee, bejeweled by dew and quiet but for the bright notes of birds.
It is Easter Sunday, a day when, I like to imagine, people summon the best of themselves and set aside the worst. Love over hate, and all that. If prayer and gratitude can permeate the collective unconscious of the universe, perhaps today, of all days, we may sense some wisp of the divine in the world and believe, in spite of everything, that there is hope for us.
I don’t care what another man’s faith is or is not. If any people anywhere are trying for any reason to find a way to love others as they love themselves, to lift up rather than destroy, I wish them success.
Easter is a less frenetic and exhausting, more gentle celebration as big holidays go. It feels right to slow down today and appreciate for a change. Many of us look to family traditions for comfort and assurance. In a world that accommodates both good and evil, we can perhaps most easily find good in the simplest of things.
My favorite time of day is the solitude of pre-dawn. In these sacred moments when eternity lingers in dim corners of the house, a shy, tender spirit of renewal presents itself if one is open to receive its company. Then I come closer to seeing the world as it is and not as my mind will judge it by the glare of midday or, worse, the gloom of midnight.
On this special morning I pulled from a cabinet a pristine relic of the 1970s – a Tupperware deviled egg server belonging to my wife, Lisa. In the nostalgia of this piece I felt the life and middle-age aspirations of Lisa’s mother, Bobbie, a highly intelligent, respected and loving woman who possessed an open mind that was well ahead of her time. I was lucky to meet her; she had fought cancer for 10 years and was giving it as much hell as it gave her. Eventually, she lost her battle. She never surrendered.
Bobbie believed, as folks did back then, in investing in things made to last. This egg dish, a plastic example of mid-century American domesticity and optimism, remains perfect some 50 years since it was purchased at a party.
Today’s eggs cooked in the boiling water of an old Saladmaster pan, part of a set of fancy stainless steel cookware given to 20-something Lisa by Bobbie long before I showed up. They have aged, but still hold plenty of life. They can take the heat.
Softly, kindly, a quiet grace descends now upon the forest-city of Tallahassee. Memories, old lessons and gratitude return, made of stuff that endures.
Guy D. Johnson is a writer and marketing communications professional. Previously an animation studio owner, daily newspaper editor, reporter and photographer, volunteer fireman, railroad bridge gang helper, FM radio station underling and cave guide. He has lived on farmland trusted to the sun and rain; atop a wooded hill; beside great rivers; upon an arid, high plateau; and at the subtropical coast of the Gulf of Mexico. For 20 years, he worked and wrote in New Orleans.
Thanks for the memories
This is perfectly evocative of Easters growing up. We had that same Tupperware.