Tag: Staunton

A queen’s bed

Some years back when James and I had purchased our lakeside dream home, we decided to splurge on a new bedroom set.

When he met me, I was still using the dresser my parents had bought for me when I was in high school, and then we used his late parent’s set. It was one of those blonde wood sets, and not really my taste. Our new set was very ornate: think Italian Renaissance/bordello. I liked to think even the very picky Borgias would have approved! And since it took a few years to pay off, I was not going to part with it easily once I moved.

Fast forward to my new life here in Virginia where I have a much smaller house. When the movers delivered my bedroom set from the storage unit, it quickly became apparent my king-sized bed, with the lush leather padded headboard, would not fit up the narrow stairs of my foursquare, never mind in my tiny new bedroom.

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So I found myself shopping for a queen mattress set. I settled on a simple bed frame – not ornate but that was OK in my new world order where “bordello” or anything even remotely sexy in connotation would never be the order of the day. I managed to get the other bedroom pieces crammed into my room and into the guest room. Sometimes, the fecund lushness of the pieces seem to mock my solitary existence, but screw it.

As I was laying in bed this morning, I was thinking about how I went from a king to a queen – thanks to my husband’s untimely death (is there a timely one?). No longer do I roll over to see my husband, already awake and smiling at me (not sure if that was due to fondness…my snoring or both).

So this morning as I am want to do, I shed a few tears thinking about where my life has brought me since he died. My rational mind nibbles at me like a rat: “You are a lucky girl!” Lucky to have a nice home in a wonderful new town. Lucky to have family nearby. Lucky to be starting a new job next week, after almost a year of unemployment.

But my emotions (I see these as a soft, fuzzy hamster) keep me pining for that king bed and the life it once represented as a married woman. A person who used to wake up with the self-satisfied assurance that she would not be alone. Never alone.

 

A revival meeting

The oldest church in Staunton may arguably be one of the most awe-inspiring in the city.

I’m talking about Trinity Episcopal Church, which sits gracefully on the edge of the downtown area offering a respite from the bustle (as if there were any) from the shops and restaurants anchoring my Virginia hometown.

I’d been meaning to tour the inner sanctum of the church for any months, mainly to see the famous Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass windows from the inside out. They serve as a perfect compliment to the Gothic Revival styled edifice that is chock full of town history and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Visiting around service hours is tricky though – you have to stop by during a handful of afternoon hours during the week to find the chapel open. On the day we stopped, the discreet sign outside the door directed us to check into the rectory to gain entrance if the doors were locked (which we did).

Once in the rectory, which to me had that smell peculiar only to churches – dusty hymnals – we were kindly greeted by the music director. Although busy prepping for the impending Christmas performances, she happily led us back to the chapel, chatting companionably about her work and the impending holiday concerts.

Once you enter the chapel you can’t help but be hushed by its beauty, which includes a gorgeous vaulted ceiling, wooden struts spanning their lofty curves towards the sky like the ribs of some sort of celestial whale. Gothic Revival architecture dates back to the 1700’s, made popular in England and carried over to the United States. It’s a fanciful, romantic architectural style that had lost its popularity as time went on.

The original church (there have been three on this West Beverly Street site) was built in 1746 and originally named Augusta Parish. The grounds also boast the city’s first cemetery. Eventually, they ran out of space and Thornrose Cemetery became the place to be (well, in the hereafter). According to the church website, there are at least 17 soldiers from the American  Revolutionary War buried on the grounds.

 In May 1781, the Virginia General Assembly fled Monticello ahead of advancing British troops, and landed in Staunton, where they set up the assembly in Augusta Parish Church, from June 7 to June 23 of that same year.
Wikepedia

The Episcopal Church has always been the epicenter of the city. Local gentry went there to pray and it served as a community hub. During the Civil War, students and professors congregated at the current church (built in 1855) forming a school of sorts.

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But back to those gorgeous windows. Of the 13 opalescent-style windows, 12 are Tiffany. Visitors will note the varying styles right away. Some have geometric shapes, some host depictions of saints and others bucolic, pastoral scenes (my personal favorite). Over the years, donor families have born the brunt of the cost for these exquisite pieces of art glass.

Having been raised Southern Baptist, I’ve always been impressed by religions which honor their beliefs with gorgeous, earthly houses of worship. That was never the way of my youth. Services I attended in the 1960’s and ’70’s were held in austere, functional buildings. The fire and brimstone that rained upon my young soul from the pulpit always left me feeling unworthy and not quite knowing why.

As a non-religious but spiritual adult, perhaps that’s why I feel drawn to unnatural wonders such as Trinity Episcopal Church. I can admire its obvious beauty and historical importance without any religious strictures or emotional baggage attached. It can just be.

 

 

 

This post may cause a sleigh-full of side effects

It’s a fact of life that Death haunts us most around the holidays.

The loss of loved ones swirl around our everyday thoughts, landing indiscriminately at odd, inopportune times. There are few people in my circle of friends and family who do not struggle to some degree with the holidays, to push past grief  phantoms wearing chains that even Marley’s ghost would envy.

While watching TV recently, I found myself feeling jealous of a couple in one of those pharmaceutical commercials. You know the type I mean – happy, good looking people in some exotic vacation location who had struggled and overcome some chronic condition like scaly skin. Jesus – what’s wrong with me? I know this misplaced envy is not just about the actors skipping hand in hand across my television screen. It galls me that they can take a pill to improve their unhappy condition.

After my husband died a few years ago, I went on a mild antidepressant. I think they are helpful for many people. For me, though, they led to incredibly vivid dreams so realistic and involved I was left exhausted in the morning, and fearful of the next night’s sleep.  I weaned off of them, and went back to my simpler, albeit still very vivid dreams.

I made a decision last year to try and break my Groundhog Day cycle of unhappiness through more drastic means, and so moved to another part of the country this past summer. I knew intellectually I could not outrun grief. But I will say the change of scenery has helped me. (Visit: https://stantonwithau.travel.blog/).  I am trying to make new friends and connections, while still pining for old friends left behind in New England. Nothing is perfect.

But during the holidays, my resolve to keep at my daily mantra to count my blessings and find joy in my new town wear thin. The specter of Death still comes a’knockin’, having received my forwarding address.

“I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!” Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!” A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

And so this holiday season I watch with milder pangs as couples stroll down the beautiful main street of my Currier and Ives Virginia town – making plans, buying gifts, snuggling close to ward off the cold. I don’t wish to “drive a stake of holly through their hearts” to paraphrase Scrooge in the Dickens classic. I know moving forward does not mean forgetting. We just juggle the past with the present, and struggle to find that livable balance.

Life is made of ever so many partings welded together. Charles Dickens