My mothers has taken up stained glass in the past year or so. This was all well and good until her supplier moved from town to a cheaper place, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay the hell out in the country.
For the past several months she has negotiated the purchase of glass to go into a fireplace screen long distance, the owner of the shop bringing it to town when she made the trip in. The pieces came together first on a folding table in the garage and then on the dining room table.
Then it had to be placed in the frame and fastened there, something akin to welding I understand. This would mean a trip waaaaaaaaaaaaaay the hell out in the country and my sister, for reasons as indecipherable as the rain, volunteered for the job.
She called me on her cell phone from outside the shop: "He said it would be just a few minutes, that was Four Hours Ago!" I rolled my eyes. She had fallen into the Mamma quagmire of good intentions. It did not end there. She called again when she got home to tell me all that drama they had to leave the piece there because the adhesive material was not dry and it would have to be lay down on the ride back and they had gone unprepared, without a blanket to wrap it in. I could feel lightening coming thru the phone.
I volunteered to go the screen. Mamma called up and said she had called and told them we would be there at 6 pm on Thursday, after I got off work at 5. I rolled my eyes. She still thinks I live in a 9-5 world of regularity that is a decade behind me. I asked her to bring me a blank check to the office and the woman's phone number. I would just go up there in the country and get the damn thing and bring it to her first thing in the morning. I learned they opened at 8:30 AM, and that was what time I arrived.
Encountering the "Him" who had told my sister it would take him "only a few minutes" I could hear the devils on my shoulder urging me to tell him I did not have all day to wait on him, his last few brush stokes of faux finish paint being applied to this hall table taking entirely too long, nearly a whole minute. The owner of the shop arrived, full of apologies and no coffee and tallied up the bill: $169.71. I filled in the check as it was gingerly placed in the back seat on a blanket I will never ever be able to get all the clinging hay out of.
It was 5 minutes till nine as I started back down Rt. toward Stuart and on Morning Edition Diana Krall was being interviewed, she was playing a grand piano in the lobby of a hotel in Washington, D.C. and singing with a cold and she said: "I finally came up with a character to sing Joni Mitchell's 'Case of You'" and it was like the road went silent.
Just then mention of it and I was no longer in Virginia, I was no longer driving a Nissan, I was in a Yaris headed for Dead Man's Flats on a summer night with the moon lighting my way. I listened to the end of the story to see if she was going to sing any of it, and when she didn't I opened the console and pulled out a CD Juan had made me and slipped it in.
Soon, I was singing King of the Road, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, Moon River, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, down thru the country, back into my reality, back on to the highway and as I reached my exit the tinee guitar began:
"Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star"
The truck down the road too far tow worry about I pulled out and gained speed.
"constant in the darkness
Wheres that at?
If you want me Ill be in the bar"
Around the curves headed toward my destination, a pencil in the minds hand:
"On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue tv screen light
I drew a map of Canada"
And pulled up to the stop sign:
"OH! CANADA!" I wailed with all my might, like I could keep up with Joni Mitchell.
The fireplace screen was put in front of the prefab fireplace so my niece can see it when she comes this weekend. The reminder/invitation/guilt trip about having lunch with her at the arts council issued and acknowledged, and still needing coffee.
That night, I was happy. And a couple of times since then too. I still feel I could drink a case of that night, of the love of those sweet souls gathered in a dark parking lot by a lake, and still be on my feet, perhaps, even lifted off those feet into some other place.
I keep that CD close by to remind me.
Topic: Thoughts for the day (Read 1199936 times)