A few months ago.... oops I mean yesterday.... we woke up and headed into the routine. I suppose the word routine has become overkill, since we started getting three weeks to a gallon, and pajamas have become day wear.
John and I were hosting Palm Sunday online church, him being the technical director and truth talker, while I played guitar. Then part way into the service Benjamin came unglued. There were not enough doors in the house to keep the ruckus from bleeding into the microphone, though his siblings and I did our collective best. John carried on.
It was pretty high on the Richter scale, even for Ben. I thought back to when we lived in California, and earthquakes were an ever present threat. We never lost our home to the rumbling though power was interrupted for what felt like long periods. Now I can't quite remember.
For the record, Benjamin was weepy as the turmoil loosened its grip.
"I'm sorry! I didn't want to yell!"
Probably if the ground could speak it would have given similar apologies to those whose houses cracked open in the Northridge quake on January 17, 1994. I recall the date because it was my daughter's sixth birthday and we couldn't bake the cake.
From the respite of a single day, I am moved by Benjamin's tears. He does not often cry, being more inclined to anger. He was as much a victim of the surge as we were. Maybe more.
The world is experiencing a sort of shake up. Things that were stable a long time have become less so. What I do still have from that day in California is not the dessert, or even pictures of the party which happened anyway, but the stories about compassion. Friends took bags of clothes to the newly homeless, stranded in the parks.
Benjamin broke open, in a way that was painful for him. I have a sense that tears are not a sign that he failed. Surely being thrashed around inside was unpleasant. Yet I have made more of an effort to touch him. To remind him that I love him. To enjoy his enjoyment of Pippi Longstocking, who is the current favorite.
And in the time warp we are living in I have an inkling that one morning I will flash back to the spring of 2020, finding that only the stories of kindness have endured.
