Happy Bunny Trails to You

David never knows when Easter Sunday is coming, he says, until three or four people ask him on Friday what he’s doing for Easter. Of course we’re doing nothing in particular for Easter, since we never do. He likes to report the grumpy answers he thinks up, usually Easter-inappropriate activities. I’m the only one who ever hears them.

It’s not that we don’t like Easter. It just doesn’t mean anything to us. The kids are grown up, so we don’t do Easter baskets. We try to keep candy and refined sugar-somethings out of the house, so we don’t gnosh that way. It’s not springtime here, so there’s no celebration of that aspect. We no longer consider ourselves Catholics; arguably, we never did. And, for whatever reason, this is usually a busy time of year for us, so we almost always have Easter Sunday as a breather day — to catch up on at-home stuff.

Now, if we lived somewhere with a decent Easter brunch, I’d probably do that. I love a champagne brunch. But what I love best is the afterwards, the lazy buzz on a Sunday afternoon of bubbly in my veins and enough food in my body to last the day. Like this bit from Wallace Stevens:

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

There’s something to be said for the “just after.” Many of the people who ask what we’re doing for Easter are hitting the road to visit family. And they look pressured. It’s a difficult holiday, being confined to Sunday and working folks needing to be back at it Monday morning.

My friend, Julianne, just posted that it’s “an oddly gray sky in Laramie this morning. The grackles are puffing their chests and making that funny sqwak sound in the cottonwoods.”

What am I doing for Easter? I’m listening to our black birds. And to the moment just after.

One Reply to “Happy Bunny Trails to You”

  1. There has evolved a lovely tradition amongst Jewish people. It’s called “Christmas Mitzvah”, and it entails doing volunteer service at hospitals and retirement homes and the like on Christmas Day, hopefully allowing some nice Christian person who would otherwise have to work to enjoy the day with their loved ones/family/Facebook friends. Other Jews like to take advantage of the day to go skiing or to the movies or to a nice Chinese restaurant, all temporarily free from the madding crowds.

    Well, our gal Becca, Galaxy Guide Extraordinaire, tipped us off to another such opportunity. The Denver Museum of Nature and Science is open for “business” on Easter, and the opportunities to see new and popular exhibits are wide open. So off we trot to see the new Expedition Health and, sure enough, the place was full of nice Jewish families seeking respite where they could look at anything not matzah-related for a couple of hours. It made for an especially amusing outing.

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