Hmmph

We made our annual pilgrimage to the Fatima Shrine tonight, to see the lights and freeze ourselves from our toenails to our cerebrospinal fluid, waddle around with stunned looks on our slushy faces then defrost with hot chocolate and coffee that's only redeeming quality is it's heat. But it wasn't really cold enough for that, so I did some thinking instead. I thought about Delta Hotel, Monks, Ellie and organized religion.

Delta Hotel's in rough shape. Actually, I'm convinced that Delta Hotel has gone on a Delta Hiatus and some strange robotic decoy has landed to act as his placeholder lest I forget what he looks like. My darling friend OHM came with us and at one point, I was so transfixed by my thoughts that, though I could see her lips and eyebrows moving I could not register her words, just a Peanuts-esque garble of noise which, with my luck, was something really important like tonight's MassMillions numbers or why ketchup is sometimes spelled catsup.

Delta Hotel's melancholy spread like spilled grease. I started feeling sorry for the monks who work so hard to put up what must be a hundred million Christmas lights each year. I looked up to a giant oak tree where a fully illuminated angel was perched, bestowing electric blessings on all who passed under her. I passed the moving (illuminated) moose and reindeer herd. The full color wise men, the archways and garlands and piped in music. I thought about how ironic Christmas is, with it's mixed heritage, and these little monks out there working their gnarled arthritic fingers in the cold, constructing this great big pagan display for all of us who travel to their monastery once a year for the lights. Then I noticed that some of the big, old fashioned, nuke-your-eye-sockets-if-they-short light strands had failed. I wanted to go over there and fix them or at least find a monk and hug him, but they were all busy serving hot beverages, directing traffic in their little outfits and generally being nice and monk-ish. There's these two caves, under the mound with the giant crucifix. The left cave shows Jesus lying dead in Mary's arms, and the right shows the nativity scene. The beginning and the end, two isolated moments in time.

We rounded the bend to my favorite scene, Our Lady of Fatima appearing in gleaming white marble to three genuflecting children, all swathed in delicate garlands and surrounded by votives. Nearby stands the angel of peace, and nearer still one of two candle sheds. This is where I light the candle for my soul-sister's daughter, Ellie, who died at thirteen months, three years ago on Dec 17th. Ya-Ya lit the candle tonight and we prayed for Ellie, but mostly for the people she left behind because December is colder for them than for most of us.

After that, I thought some more about religion, organized and spontaneous. There was a little poem on the wall of the cafeteria. I can't remember it well enough to quote, but the gist was this: My name is I am. To live in the past is painful, my name is not I was. To live in the future is frightening, my name is not I will be. To live in the moment is beautiful, my name is I am. I watched my littlest delight in her own purple boots crunching the snow under her feet, and the melancholy slid away.