my eyes are heavy tonight. i drove back from home just after dinner, unpacked, watched some tv, and programmed my coffee maker for another monday morning. it doesn't feel like easter. years past, i've had a week off for this holiday - this year, not one day off. and usually, holidays are times when everyone comes home, when i see sweeny and peter and rob sloan and...well, i saw nobody. rob's too far away to get home, pete's... somewhere, sweeny's married. i actually wondered if i might see him, since i've heard he and his wife have moved back home, but no sign of either of them this weekend. the warmer weather has brought some old memories floating up to the surface, and one of my recent favorites is of sweeny. it was my senior year of high school, an indian-summer night in an oddly warm november. i still hadn't put away my flip-flops that year. i was just discovering the beauty that is coffee, and sweeny had called and said he was on his way over with a cappuccino from the minit market down the street. i pulled on a long sleeved t-shirt and sat on my driveway and waited for him to pull up in his ridiculous yellow 80s camero. we sat there on the black top in the middle of my driveway till after midnight, watching the moon and november stars, talking about God and greg and other secrets i won't write. it was a perfect night. several times since, when the sky is clear and the air is just warm enough, i think of that night and almost wish myself back there for an hour or two. anything seemed possible and i was unafraid.. i was sure that my life would be magical. what a very good thing to be sure of. when i remember that night, i am sure of it all over again.

i wonder if everyone has memories like that, ones they can take out every now and then, finger like a smooth gold coin. i have dozens, many from those first few years when i began trying to figure things out, when i found my first deep friendship, when i fell in love for the very first time. they are the whispers of new promises, now old promises, about the story of my life, about what mysteries were locked in my own heart, waiting for me to learn their names. i'll spend the rest of my life chasing those whispers, and maybe that's why certain memories have such power for me. i'm still trying to figure myself out, and i often forget how to live that comfortably with mystery, especially when I AM the mystery.

my eyes are heavy, and i'm giving in. thanks, Jesus, for the sacrifice of your life so many years ago, so that i can be alive in ways i never could have known without you. thank you for the mystery you put into all of us. help us to chase it bravely.