bittersweet

I didn't do anything Easter-related this year, really. I was alternating between mourning and trying to get everything done that needed to. On Good Friday, I came home after work, turned off the lights, and crashed on the couch, waking up to hear chattering in Kirundi in my front yard, and a couple of the guys who rode their bikes over to visit. "Why are you sleeping? It's too early!"

I invite them up and they hang out with me and the roommate, we're peeling oranges at the table, one of them is playing pinball on the computer and calling up random girls on my phone, and the other is playing my guitar. Unlike most people, he actually knew how to play and said he had started learning back in Africa but hadn't had a chance to really play in over two years. Both of them are dealing with a lot more than I've ever had to, and I was glad that we were able to give them a place to chill and just hang out and just be kids.

Saturday morning an old friend of mine from my Kent days came up to visit and we got pizza at Angelo's, caught up, and he got to hang out with the kids. We did an Easter egg hunt for them that they loved, and then I took off my glasses and earrings to play "no autopsy-no foul" basketball in the makeshift court behind the church before heading over to the east side for a birthday party and good times. I know that I need to laugh and be around good people to keep my sanity, and that's what I did.

Saw the family on my mom's side for Easter, went over to Kristy's for hanging out with Kent & Mukhtar and bad TV and goofy ping-pong. Got a phone call from Lindsey later that night and got to catch up with one of my favorite former roommates and hear about the awesomeness of Iowa.

I was feeling really down on Easter morning, thinking about death and resurrection, the E string breaking on my bass, the bass that used to belong to my uncle who killed himself when he was my age. Sometimes it seems like the sting is still there. I left right after music for second service and drove around a bit, ended up at St. Theodosius over in Tremont in the hopes that the building would be open and I could just go in there and contemplate.

It was open, and as they were cleaning it up after Palm Sunday, I was able to just walk around and think and soak in the painted walls, the icons, the stained-glass windows, the incense clouding in the dome. The priest there didn't give me a hard time and invited me to their Easter festivities, which are coming up this week. That small moment of grace really hit me for some reason.



I am thankful this week for so many interruptions and interludes that get me out of myself and the sadness that has been so easy to slip into. I am thankful for friends who've called, and who have let me just cry on their shoulders and haven't tried to say anything like "it'll be okay" or whatever.