The immediate unexpected presented a patience demand, wait God commands, interim, right now not to be, in the meantime not to intervene,
Imperative, essential, spiritual imposition: self-will, self-control, self-discipline,
Franciscan Father David Mary morning away, afternoon busy, no public Memorial Day mass, restrained empty church movement hushing, kneeling anew to child Mary grasping parental hands, Anna and Joachim tendering, sanctuary remembering St Joseph standing to the right,
All is remembered, a different time, a rearranged space,
Private mass for the friars and sisters, no invitation precipitates, resentments and points of view festering,
A town once for exploring, now offering the astonishing, seemingly impossible, memories accost,
Really, did it all truly happen?
Was the precocious foreigner walking these distant disheveled millennial streets, many one-way, vulnerably me?
“What happened?” awakening within a fog, a hospital bed, nurses, authoritative sounds,
Two nurses speak as one,
“The police brought you in, found blacked out in an alley”.
“You nearly caused a young lady a heart attack. Her boyfriend, driving, did not see you, yet she did, lying dead to the world, passed out in the alley”.
“She screamed in hysterics, sure her boyfriend was going to kill you”.
“Where is my scapula and cross?”
“We cut them from your body. They hang upon the cabinet”.
“They are all I have. I am so sick and tired of all this”.
The taller, stronger nurse, walks away, muttering loud enough to be heard, “You don’t even have them, around your neck they mean nothing. I am Catholic. You shame them. You were in here before. Your antics are absurd”.
Experience and happenings piling upon consciousness running upon fear, hiding impossible in this body of tears, accidents and incidents, toils and terrors, my son and family distant, far away, hiding in shame,
A reprieve from dour memories, early mass at the Cathedral, Immaculate Conception, a moment of hurting, darkness ensuing, tears flowing, love accurately caressed, necessary consequence preclusion, the void appears, my core always sheer despair and dismay,
Saigon, a duplicate name, another favorite Vietnamese restaurant, a waitress cuddling a baby, an owner the same, a different time, a different place,
Waiting, unexpectedly anticipating the reacquainting Brothers Minor, barefoot and older, trusting in God, changing while praising the Changeless, Poor Clares of another city now cloistered,
First a temporary place to stay overnight, a bed-n-breakfast, former intellectual acquaintances not home, away visiting France, another intellectual always arises, ready and talking, willing and proposing, a splendid bed to be rent, a library to be spent, posing a mini-electric grand piano stands to be captured,
Books upon books upon books upon books:
Georg Wilhelm Hegel endlessly lecturing on logic and political philosophy, Martin Luther, Sartre a many, Nietzsche even more, Kierkegaard a bore, Machiavel the ‘intellectual’ princes promenading, Heidegger, Thomas Hobbes, Kant, Freud, Jung, BF Skinner, the names never end,
Boyhood ambitions, fantasies, delusions, put to rest, cessation, wanna-be everything amidst the rejection of love, quietude, repudiation, the conclusion of desiring, living lost within worldly ambitions, a faltering brick wall dead end, upended, cast off the mast of misunderstanding,  imprisoning, resorting to a divinely downplayed supernatural finish, prayer usurping thought and written words, I am utterly exhausted,
………….
No more. Enough.
Father forgive me.