Relations (WC)

  

(July 13, 2022, feast day of Our Lady of Chartres (Chartres labyrinth is above), Our Lady the Mystical Rose, the It Is Truly Meet (Axion Estin) Icon of the Mother of God, Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel, and feast day of Saint Clelia Barbieri, and Saint Mildred of Thanet. Image from here.)

Relations

relate (v.): directly from Latin relatus, used as past participle of referre "bring back, bear back" –etymoline.com

Chatting with a friend on a hike (this from younger self)

we continue with stop in Starbucks, steamed milk and muffin. 

Laughing in a zoom class (this from older self), commute to

the kitchen, hot tea, sourdough bread with pumpkin spread.

“It’s not the same hiking without you”, says Joseph. He’s still

out there, 80 years old, hiking Mary’s Peak. Totes home herbs,

stones spotted. Ambles in, sits himself down to tell the tale,

and maybe we’ll call Mom to join in now, talk a few 

times a week anyhow. Always ending with a blessing,

 “May the Angels surround and protect you”,

and seeing that this blessing is forever, 

and that it is deep and 

true, sending 

it on now

to you…

*From prompt: Freewrite about how relarionships (partners, friends, community etc) have changed as gotten older; from Daisy Barett Nash's Writers At Play, July 13, 2022.