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02.12.02 - 12:41 p.m. i will start with something other than what i want. Something strange happened at Mass on saturday. The opening hymn was ending and we were late like usual...five of us and the baby in her seat filing into the back row and looking conspicuous. The taking off of jackets, the rearranging of keys, several loving glances at jolie who chuckles now, spontaneously, in the middle of dinner or in a dry spell on the highway. Hands in laps and the men stretching their legs and taking up too much room. A glance at the alter and behind it was not Father Paul but someone else entirely. A kid actually, well, maybe my age, and beautiful...an unbelievably handsome, goateed priest. This had never happened, ever. 22 years of being catholic and a slew of priests coming and going, blessing and handing out eucharist. Ushering me into the world at birth with a Christian name and then again in the 8th grade with another one, stretching my name like a reservation in the church bulletin. I glanced at my brothers who were conducting a half hidden game of arm wrestling behind the hymnal and jolies seat, they hadnt noticed of course. I kept my eyes focused on my lap and suddenly i was in the 7th grade again. Immediately impure thoughts seethed in around me and elbowed my brothers out of the way to settle into the spaces around my elbows and neck. He laughed three deep notes in the middle of his homily that warmed me and i smiled and conducted Thunderbird scenes on my head. Imagined a blondish curly head boy at his side calling him daddy, maybe carrying a football, or the New Testament, or anything. This is wrong a little me reminded myself as i linked hands with a dad and a brother for the Our Father. Wow. He was a beauty, and just like that, years of respect for priests and prayers for commitment to the priesthood, out the window.
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