Pieces of June

Some of you will remember June 2012 as the month of the U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the Affordable Care Act or the Arizona immigration law.  Others will remember it for oppressive heat or the Colorado fires. Many of us in the Washington, DC, area will recall it as the time we learned a new word–derecho. One of those straight-line storms hit the area the night of June 29 and blew out power, phone, Internet, and other modern conveniences for days on end.

I’ll remember this June for other reasons.

• It was a month of cards and the joy and sadness that accompany them: three weddings, appropriately, one first marriage, one second, and one third. The brides all looked glowing, the grooms loving. A dozen or so birthday cards mailed, and the special memory of a Sunday afternoon tea with four other friends celebrating June birthdays (including a sister “magic” Junie–we were born in 1956, and turned fifty-six). Five sympathy cards for friends who lost mothers, husbands, and a mentor. It was a time to remember that all this, good and bad, happy and sad, truly is temporary.
• It was the month I had to relearn that talk and promises are cheap and don’t mean as much to some others as they do to me, and to let that go.
• It was the month I felt I finally deserved the title of author. I’d already co-authored a book, When They Came Home: Ways to Welcome Returning Catholics, but June brought to closure negotiations for one solo book and the promise of a contract for another. I spent most of my time at the St. Davids Christian Writers’ Conference writing, rather than teaching or socializing, for the first time in my eight years there.
• It was the month that I spent an hour in intense conversation with a stranger seated next to me on a flight, a reminder of how great it feels when you have a total mind-meld, even fleeting, with someone.

On Facebook, I’ve been posting a song of summer each day (minus the no-Internet derecho days). But today, I’m thinking of a different season’s song: Dave Loggins’ “Pieces of April,” as recorded by Three Dog Night. While I didn’t find romantic love in June, I did find peace and joy and satisfaction… and perhaps sad acceptance and resolve. And those things, I will keep in a memory bouquet.