Page 1 of The Magic of Ordinary Days

I don’t often think back to that year, the last year of the war—its days, its decisions—not unless I’m out walking the dawn of a quiet winter morning, when new snowfall has stunned into silence the lands around me, when even the ice crystals in the air hold still.

On those mornings of frozen perfection, when most living creatures keep to a warm bed or a deep ground hole, I pull on my heaviest old boots and set out to make first tracks through the topcrust and let the early dawn know I’m still alive and appreciating every last minute of her fine lavender light.

Then I remember.

I’ll begin this tale on the day of my sister’s wedding, almost twenty-four years to the day after I came crying out onto earth’s slippery soil.

“If only you hadn’t always been compared to those sisters of yours,” Aunt Eloise said.

Aunt Pearl added, “You might have been considered quite attractive by yourself.”

My aunts were not cruel, you understand.

They loved to talk, and at every available opportunity they gave away the neatly wrapped presents of their thoughts, confident that no one would refuse them.

And although I sometimes ached to talk back to them, I had been taught well by my parents to respect my elders.

Instead of pursuing marriage, at summer’s end and after completion of only two more classes and the approval of my thesis, I would receive my master’s in history from the University of Denver.

My fascination with history started with the first lesson ever taught to me in grammar school.

As my teacher described the sea passages of Christopher Columbus, I could so easily imagine myself a stowaway girl on one of his ships.

I could see the promise of full sails billowing out above me and feel the sharp tips of saltwater winds.

If I had been there, I would’ve climbed the ship’s mast and looked out to the horizon for new lands myself.

Formal study at the university had always seemed more destiny than choice.

Unfortunately the war had forced postponement of my fall plans to travel overseas as part of an academic expedition.

Because of a world gone astray, my path was strewn with the debris of war, and my journey with archaeologists, anthropologists, and other historians to study the excavation sites of the land of sealed tombs, Egypt, and the ancient city of Horizon-of-the-Aten, would have to wait.

During Bea’s wedding reception, my aunts pointed out to me that now, more than ever, single girls had good odds of husband catching.

From MPs training in Golden, to airmen at Lowry Air Base and Buckley Field, to medical personnel at Fitzsimons, available soldiers filled Denver’s streets, USOs, and bars.

But not just any private would do. Those in our social circle wanted to duplicate Bea’s catch by latching on to at least an officer, perhaps even a doctor like Abby‘s, or a pilot, the loftiest catch in the hierarchy of the uniform.

But I had never run my life in order to meet men or find romance, although I wasn’t immune to those things, either.

I’d always dreamed that someday love would come into my life in some spectacular fashion.

Probably it would happen in another country, on board a ship; most likely it would unfold during one of my future treks to uncover a secret of history.

One side of me knew that these were the dreams of an inexperienced girl, and yes, I was inexperienced with love.

But it didn’t bother me. Every day, it didn’t bother me.

Secretly I hoped to always disagree with my aunts.

That way I’d know I hadn’t succumbed to the limited view of so many of their generation.

But my dear mother—I could see how my aunts’ comments wounded her.

Recently, however, I’d convinced her to stop stepping in on my behalf.

Early on, I had learned my place on the family wall and found it not such an uncomfortable place to hang.

My sisters and I weren’t speechless, motionless tulips or ferns in a pattern of wallpaper.

In the years of our girlhood, we could mingle and socialize during family outings.

Abby, Bea, and I often stood at the front of my father’s church, in the theater lobby, at the country club or museum, and we had become well practiced in the art of pastoral family presentations.

And after years spent before others, at the easy perusal of relatives and friends, I knew exactly what I was.

I was the practice rug.

Among the Navajo, traditional weavers learn their art by first weaving a rough rug.

It is a chance to hone their skills; the rug may contain loose weft, uneven corners, and other flaws.

After this essential practice, however, the weaver may go on to produce masterpieces.

And so it was with my family. I thought of myself as the first, rather average attempt at a daughter; then, after my birth, my parents brought into the world two rare beauties.

I had the most common color of brown hair, a forehead a bit too broad, and a small, lima-bean-shaped birthmark just above my upper lip.

My sisters were masterpieces woven of warm wool, natural blondes with unmarked skin and real smiles, not painted on hard canvas, and they were approachable, so that admirers did not hold themselves back.

So unusually blessed, Abigail and Beatrice neither competed with me, nor did they gloat.

Despite the inevitable comparisons, Mother always pointed out the good qualities I did have. She’d say that my fingers were long and tapered, that I always sat tall in a chair, and that my teeth had come in straight and white like a row of dominoes.

“And you’re as sharp as a tack, you are,” she’d say with a hug. “Someday you’re going to go places.”

As we grew up, my sisters played with dollhouses and dreamed of futures beside successful husbands, whereas I became gripped by the past. The stories and struggles of olden days worked their way from the crepe paper pages of old books and under the seal of my skin.

I was the Shoshone guide Sacajawea leading Lewis and Clark on their expeditions, or I was a pioneer woman leading her clan out west on one of the first wagon trains.

As I grew into a young woman, a need to understand and experience began to drive me.

My whole body became part of the chase; the desire for a fresh find seeped out of my every pore.

It was Mother who understood. She helped me fill in my application for the university and collect references.

She plotted out on the map with me all the places I might want to go.

But although many a learned woman wanted to deny its importance, even Mother admitted that in our society, beauty was still prized above knowledge and wisdom in a woman.

Despite female accomplishments that for the first time held us up in a place where our feet could walk the earth at the same level as our male counterparts, many men most wanted a pretty image hooked on their arms. And yes, although a woman no longer needed a husband, Mother hoped that maybe someday I’d want one, one who could appreciate me, mind and all.

Mother’s honesty was something I had always thought I would have; I relied on it.

Whenever I remember Bea’s wedding day, I always remember the flowers.

Before Bea left for her honeymoon, she gave me a white rose she had singled out and plucked from the bouquet before the bridal toss, and this I waxed and kept on the polished top of my dresser in the months that followed.

And on that day, not only had the church and the country club been filled with lilies, gardenias, and roses, but outside on the city streets and in the parks, the crabapple trees had been blooming, every branch decked with blooms of pink, white, and fuchsia so deep in color it almost came to purple.

That spring, the crabapple blossoms fell to the ground over a period of several weeks, coating the sidewalks and streets with cupped petals so thick the concrete beneath them disappeared.

My mother had always loved the crabapple blossoms, and I liked to believe their abundance that spring was gifted to her.

During the wedding and reception, she held herself up well, with plenty of smiles and gracious small talk in the face of compliments for the wedding.

Once I had heard that every person must complete something of importance before he or she dies, and perhaps witnessing her youngest daughter’s marriage had been just that for Mother.

She smiled and chatted with friends and members of Father’s congregation throughout the long reception, as if it would have been impolite to show any sign of her illness.

Father directed the event and would have tolerated little less than perfection.

Then afterward, Mother slipped away over several weeks, like water in slow-moving streams gradually sinks into the soil. My sisters busy with marriage and my father preoccupied with church duties, I was the one who left school to be with her. I was the one who eased her away.

Perhaps it was Mother’s untimely death, perhaps because the cancer caused her to suffer so, or perhaps another absence between us caused the course of it all to change.

But after her death, even my father lost his typical stern control.

In the first weeks, he all but abandoned our two-story house in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood that Mother had always maintained with pride.

In our house, fingerprints had rarely lasted long on the furniture, and any chipped dishes had been given away.

Father let stacks of mail pile up on the foyer table, and he closed up other rooms to collect dust. He submerged himself in even more work of the church.

And although we kept two radios, one in the kitchen and another in his study, Father would allow no music in the house.

After all, a singer’s voice might sound like hers.

And we couldn’t have flowers around again, although at the time of her death, the gladiolas were up, their tall stalks stabbing the sky and their blooms open, silently screaming.

I’ve often wondered, even to this day, why during painful times some people seem to step away from themselves and make decisions that fall far out of their usual line of character and behavior.

Perhaps a natural reluctance to sit still is central, or perhaps, like the lesser animals, instinct forces us to go on even if grief has left us not up to the task.

But no one could have guessed that the oldest, the strongest, the most independent daughter would be the one most altered by her death.

In the next few months, I put into motion the strange set of circumstances that would later find me losing my plans, the ones I’d mapped out with my mother. In one fleeting moment, I stripped away the petals of my future, let them catch wind, and fly away.