Rainy Reflections

We are at the train station in Oxford, and it’s hard to imagine a gloomier setting or a gloomier day. No one looks like they’re embarking on a fun journey; it’s just weary looking folks all bundled up in overcoats and scarves waiting on the platform and watching the board for arrivals and departures. There is an intermittent announcement saying that if we see something that “doesn’t look right” we should report it. Frankly, nothing looks quite right, but that’s just me. We are going to Worcester, a town to the north, to meet up with our Welsh friends, Nick and Hilary. Rain and heavy winds are predicted.

It’s about a two-hour train ride to Worcester, and our friends are at the station, dear and familiar. The weather has gotten worse, and we decide to just go sit in a pub. Nick talks about his community of farmers in Wales. “You work together, you tell stories, and that’s rural life,” he says. Hilary and I inevitably reflect on getting older: the fragility, the gratitude, the continual adjustments, the surprise of it all. 

Outside, the grass is very green, muddy puddles are forming, and rain lashes against the windows, but we’re in a cozy booth, and we order tea and Sunday roast. We talk about kids and grandkids, and places we love. We met Nick and Hilary more than a decade ago in a queue at LAX, and we discovered so many parallels in our lives we deemed them our mirror friends. It was an unlikely beginning to a friendship, but the bond has held. 

Yesterday I walked through a graveyard in a village near Oxford and entered a 12th century church, a lovely, welcoming oasis of peace.  I noticed a sign inviting visitors to make prayer requests. Imagine that? You write your prayer request on a little white card, leave it in a basket, and some diligent, earnest stranger will pray the prayer. Maybe it’s silly, but I picked up a pencil and wrote one. It felt good to put what I was feeling into words, and I figured, you never know, can’t hurt, why not? And here’s the card I left in the basket:

Then I walked among the gravestones. Many date back centuries, and I can’t always read the inscriptions, but I love the lettering. Some are covered with lichen and moss. Some lean into each other, some are broken and eroded by weather and time. But I can sense that these were real people, interred here with love, and I can imagine tears shed in this place and memories held dear. There are clusters of tiny snowdrops growing around some of the stones, poignant and persistent nods to life. I find the churchyard oddly comforting. It speaks of time on a deeper scale, and of the brevity and mystery of each life. Love endures.

As you can see from my prayer request,  I’ve been worried and dismayed. But I’m thinking about these questions posed by writer and critic Gabriel Valdez: Why do we diminish ourselves in doubt and self-built isolation, forget our accomplishments, and underestimate the power in good work and small deeds, one by one? He reminds us that we are facing someone we have already defeated once. “Your job is to do something small but measurable every day that ensures you are not the one being moved off your norms, that ensures you are connecting to community around you,” he writes. I intend to try. We’ll be heading home to California soon. 

We have met our grandchildren. We have walked in beauty. I’ve been typing this on the train ride back to Oxford, and we’re approaching the station now. It’s dark and rain is falling, but I am carrying my light.