Calendar

I went in to the shop on our quaint Monroe Street looking for a calendar. I came home with an egg slicer. It is bargain calendar season, but I found nothing I could bear to have hanging in the kitchen by the stove. Even though I try to keep a healthy distance from time-watching (I rarely am on time, and even less often wear a watch) I glance at the calendar while eating breakfast from the nook, while watching noodles boil, and while at the computer (also in the kitchen). There are penciled-in activities, birthdays, get-aways, and Ryan's hospital-ward schedule.

For about a decade, my calendars have come from a little known art group in Utah called, "Art at a Distance". The name is also a direction: looking at the water color paintings from across the room gives them their distinction. The group is made up of all women, all of whom have some professional relationship with the criminal justice system. They began painting to relieve the obvious tension that goes with such careers. From month to month, year to year, my calendar glances showed me snow-topped mountains where one woman rode her horses, rusty peaks and arches in desert sunlight where another (my aunt Joan) hiked, various Boston Red Sox players at Fenway (long before their victory in 2004), and the yearly pair of shoes, usually heels, propped up against each other as if kicked off after a long day. One woman splashed colors seemingly at random on the canvas, but on second look there was a kind of pattern that drew my attention each time I looked to see how many days until the end of a semester. Even the red barn with a low stone wall that served as the backdrop for our wedding photos made the calendar in 2003.

But this year the calendar never arrived. No doubt these women are busy with their careers (or retirement), caring for family young and old, travel and everything else, and missing a year a forgivable event. It would even seem expected. But I learned that busy-ness wasn't the only reason. Last fall, a friend of the group, an assistant federal public defender, had her life mercilessly taken from her when she was murdered in her own home. She dedicated her life's work to making sure people had representation so that justice might be served. For 18 years she worked with those who had no representation so that their story might be heard in a place where everyone is supposed to be equal. There must be a gaping hole in the lives of those who knew her -- from her dear family and daughter to her co-workers and friends and to those she defended in court. Such injustice is beyond understanding; to even think about it digs into the brokenness of our human condition. Yet this woman lived in a way that refused to allow brokenness to have the last word. And no doubt those who grieve right now will one day live out their lives the same way.

One picture from last year I found kind of eerie the time, but grew more fond of it as the month wore on. It was a woman's feet in a bath from the perspective of the bather. I guess I thought of the scary movies I'd seen as a teenager or the horrific scene I read in The Kite Runner where water in a tub speaks of danger. But the colors were light and airy, even warm, and the toes, from a distance, relaxed. The scene teeters on the edge between floating and sinking, but after enough glances, it became the lightness, the letting go, that stood out. Painting takes some of that letting go.

I will miss the calendar this year. I even thought of photocopying other years to make my own. But something about each painting, each month, needs to be kept together. We'll find something to keep track of our storytimes and swimming lessons. It won't be the dogs or cats or Mom's-magnetic-organizer-extraordinaire that are still left on the shelf, but neither will it be the colors gathered by this small group of women who gave of themselves so that justice might be served.