Resurrection in Ramona
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
We enjoy watching holidays come and go in Ramona. On a weekend such as Easter there was an Easter Bunny (Tooltime Tim in disguise) hiding eggs one moment in the park and a traffic jam in front of a neighbors house the next — as kith and kin came home to visit — a lovely country tradition!
In the city, my far-away daughter called as she was driving home from a late breakfast at Gillwoods — one of our favorite restaurants in the Napa Valley. "I was remembering," she said with nostalgia, "all the Easter fun we've had through the years. And I was telling our friends about it at breakfast.
She recalled the year her Easter basket came in the form of a hot air balloon. I made the balloon out of a red, white, and yellow beach ball, tied ribbons around and hung a little basket underneath full of goodies. In the middle of the night, her father and I crept into her bedroom, attempted to balance over her sleeping 10-year-old form and not awaken her while we hung that wonderful concoction over her bed. It was one of those precious, once-in-a-lifetime kind of memories.
One never really knows when one of those gem-of-a-moments will occur, either. Sometimes we work very hard to create an event or a family gathering and it ends up being a lot of work and a little ho-hum. And then again, something rather unexpected happens, like a crocus pushing through the soil in spring and we recall this — the look, the laughter, a story shared, some silly disaster — over and over again with great relish.
I had one of those flashes on Saturday as I watched friends of all ages in Ramona hunt for the last batch of Easter eggs in the park. Rain was threatening, big time, and everyone was hurrying through the hunt. Little girls in frilly dresses, tiny tots in new rain gear, teenagers and adults with pockets bulging because they had no Easter Baskets — creating a collage of celebration. There were flashes of a yellow slicker, a soggy brown bunny, and a red umbrella through the green of grass and trees. The camera couldn't catch it all — they were too far away — but I vowed to remember this vision of springtime all of my life.
On Sunday we gathered with our aunts and uncle — our mother present for the first time — for our most lavish Easter dinner. The dining room table looked like it came straight out of Martha Stewart Magazine. We sat around the table for hours and listened to familiar stories — all of them I've heard before; but we laughed at the joy of hearing history from our dear ones. We call this "dining with the ancestors" (whom we also are fast becoming)!
After dinner, I walked out into the yard. The sun had come out. The wind had died down. Everything in our world looked freshly scrubbed and newly painted. The grass was bright spring green (yes, there is a color by that very name). The daffodils were cadmium yellow, the tulips alizarin crimson, the pansies cobalt blue. All of nature experiencing the story of resurrection.
Spring has come! We remember grieving last fall at the killing frost. And then we succumbed to the throes of a cold and windy winter, piled on the blankets and weathered the darkest nights, mourned the bleak days and the bleaker times when we wondered what life could be left in the cold dark ground. And then we were warmed by the sun, drenched in spring rain, and new life sprang up everywhere.
I love the Easter story — whether it is told in Biblical terms or acted out in my backyard. Our pear tree with its topsy-turvy bird feeder looks like a photograph right out of Birds and Blooms magazine and we scramble to name all the new birds arriving each morning.
May your hearts experience joy and that same renewed energy as my tulips, the same promise of growth and optimism as Jake's peonies, the same playfulness as the new little filly at Cole's house as we rejoice in yet another day in the country.
