When I was small, specifically five-years old, I remember going through the small field in back of our house on Grace Street in Whitehall PA, all the way back to the rock YMCA building. There was, as part of that property, a small orchard of dwarf apple trees, their low hanging arms freshly covered with thick pale apple blossoms. Their fragrance was intoxicating. I found myself drawn there by the scent, and once arrived, enfolded by the texture and the color, the way sunlight dappled through the flowery tentacles. I inhaled the whole aesthetic. What child would not crave such a warm Springtime embrace? I inhaled until I almost hyperventilated. Perhaps it was this fragrant overdose that sent me to a sort of put-of-body experience, the climax of which found me grabbing my own arm with the opposing hand and in a spark of simultaneous revelation call out; “I’m ALIVE!”
It was so profound that I can revisit it in a complete whole-body memory experience even now, six decades later. I think I may have slipped the bonds of Heaven with a tiny cell of my premortal life still glowing. Perhaps a teeny tiny particle of memory slid into my earthly baggage to keep the wonder of this human existence glowing inside.
Yesterday I spent a little quiet time, pre-Sunday afternoon nap, pondering the fact that I am right now having my human experience. I feel a melancholy sadness at the way I got sucked into being so critical of how I’ve worn my flesh, or how it has responded to my spirit’s perceived needs and allowed myself to dwell in largeness all my adult life. I’ve felt a ridiculous desire to make apologies for something that should offend no one. I know that now. But sadly, I have existed in this flesh with a goodly measure of shame rather than delight. Seriously! What a tragedy. I should have been floating on the lake all these years in a swimsuit rather than covering up.
This is all water under my bridges. I am here today, still alive, still generally well and of a relatively sound mind. I have had 65 years on this earth, all of them in this body, and I want to acknowledge before God and all who will hear that I am grateful for every inch of flesh, every cell, each deepening wrinkle and sagging sack of skin. Even pain is a reminder that I am right now, at this very moment, living the dream of each pre-mortal spirit.
My Sarah Love, born on my 22nd birthday.
Every March 5th I say a special prayer of thanks for the woman who nurtured me from conception until the day she died. I celebrate the wonderous magic that both my mother and I gave birth to daughters on the fifth of March and the nineteenth of November. Don’t you think there is something super-mortal about that?
And now, to top off all that magic, I am also acquiring the looks of my mom. We didn’t look that much alike all my life, but now that she’s gone, I’m starting to morph into the image her. Lucky me!
Me. Painted by my friend Tom Plummer. 
Mom. Red is best!
We Parrish’s tend to be large folk. Inside and out. I’ll take that inheritance.
God, Himself, is full of largess.
