and still does

Fog Lifting, I can see Shell Island hazily

What I’m thinking is that the world, earth has shifted on its axis and Pensacola is now the north pole. This is a New England morning I’m having here. Actually it’s a Rhode Island morning, a Newport morning. The surf sound, fog, damp and chill out here on my balcony, white stretching out across the Bay, and you can say what you want, you’re wrong, I’m certain that roaring sound is surf from the Gulf of Mexico, waves crashing ashore. Once the fog clears I should be able to see over Shell Island into the Gulf. Before dawn yesterday a large merchant ship was at anchor offshore, obviously waiting for clearance to enter the harbor, because she passed my balcony a couple hours later, making for the Port.

I’ve been on cruises, cruise ships with a balcony stateroom, and this is the same. This cruise ship is moored pierside at St. Andrews, Florida, where I grew up, left my heart, came back decades later and found it still here. Truth, I can choose, still in the Navy or off on a permanent pleasure cruise.

And with a Narnia breakfast this morning, sardines on toast. That was Tea, though, wasn’t it. Mr. Tumnus inviting Lucy to afternoon tea, tempting her, There’ll be sardines, toast. And cake. Later the fire, his flute, and deep sleep.

Yesterday I saw one of my all time favorite HNES middle school students, who enjoyed our Narnia and Tolkien stories and movies and class discussions about agape’. It would have been ten years ago now, ten or a dozen, a decade and more. I hope they remember High King Peter, the Marshwiggle, Caspian, Gandalf, Bilbo, and even Gollum. I hope they remember what Aslan did for Edmund, the Easter Gospel hidden in modern fantasy fiction. Maybe they remember the boxes of warm donuts. It was all about agape' about love and love alone. I hope they realized how much Father Tom loved them.

And still does.