St. Comgall's Bangor Parish Church - where Reed will be playing a shepherd for this Sunday's nativity service.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Bangor
When I was in graduate school, and prone to spending my weekends too much with Walt and too little with my studies, a sense of desperate unhappiness used to steal over me as Sunday evening approached, until by 9 pm I was quite sad. I mention that now because I haven’t noticed that feeling for a very long time – at least not since I started working for myself, and Sunday stopped being the bittersweet day that marked the beginning of another stressful week. Nowadays Sunday evenings are rather delicious, in fact, since in the U.S. there is usually a Masterpiece Theatre on PBS, and here in the U.K., any number of choices like Miss Marple or one of those real estate shows I now love, like Relocation Relocation. Earlier this weekend we even got a dose of Mr. Bean and Blackadder, although a little of that goes a long way. They’re best rationed out, one every few weeks or so, instead of a whole bunch of them in a row as the comedy channel seems to do.
Hard to believe that a week ago Walt and I were completely flat out all day Monday from some kind of flu bug. Reed fetched us water whenever we needed it all day long, and fixed himself his own snacks and lunch, since I was not up to the task. I was able to eat again on Tuesday, and by later in the week was feeling quite normal again. I was glad it didn’t hit me badly until after I’d gotten home from the Advent candlelight service at church on Sunday night – shiveringly lovely, singing by candlelight some carols I knew – O come O come Emmanuel – and several that I didn’t. The choir had obviously rehearsed very long and hard as some of their pieces were quite difficult, one even based on a Gregorian chant. The flu got me later in the evening, and even though I was somewhat awake in the middle of the night when it turned out Walt was coming down with it, I wasn’t aware that the thunk I heard in the downstairs bathroom was Walt passing out!
After a week of recovery I was ready to get out and about so even though Saturday dawned with the worst weather yet – pouring rain and blowing hard – Reed and I braved the weather and took the train to Holywood to go to the Rudolf Steiner school’s annual Advent crafts festival. We called a taxi from a gas station very near the station and arrived at the school just in time for the opening carol singing and candle lighting. The rest of the day was spent making our way between the various buildings, dodging other hordes of children and their parents, trying to keep out of the puddles inbetween, waiting in line for food, and choosing a select few crafts for Reed to do. The first was dipping beeswax candles by hand. Reed loves doing that so much I might have to get him the equipment to do it at home eventually – maybe he could sell them, since he loves setting up a little market stand too. Later I helped him make a wreath out of fresh cut evergreen boughs, something else he was thrilled to create. He chose some little sprays with pink berries on them for the finishing touches – but we don’t know what shrub they were from and neither did the person who was in charge. He also enjoyed the petting zoo, where he handled a friendly snake and a tortoise, and stroked a hamster or guinea pig for a long while, while I waited outside under my umbrella. We headed home, content, later in the afternoon and once again arrived home just as darkness was falling, candles and wreath intact.
Yesterday Reed came out of Sunday School with two notes, one about the dress rehearsal this Saturday for the children’s nativity program, and another that requested “Please make me into a shepherd for our nativity service.” I’ve got to figure out what he can wear, aside from the tea towel on his head. Maybe I’ll buy an old sheet at one of the charity shops and quickly sew him a kind of long tunic. I’m not too great at this kind of thing yet but I think I can manage that at least. I wonder if Reed realizes the significance of being a shepherd in the nativity play, since he has actual experience shepherding goats and sheep in the Auvergne hills. If I was a more theatrical-oriented person I might observe that he could really bring a depth of understanding to his shepherd performance by drawing on that... but I'm not, thank goodness.
