Before "the Plunge"
Saturday, December 11, 2004
It was a cold Saturday morning – gray, slightly rained, and pumping with Turkish techno from the little apartment on Vanderbilt Blvd. Collette could just see the whole apartment complex bouncing to the rhythms of the Middle East pounding through her speakers.
She could see Lucia dancing to it. The girl who wore her powder pink Australian uggs for the first time, was laughed at, asked how much they cost, and whipped around to the offender with:
“They cost more than your entire life!”
And she kept walking. Lucia was the kind of person who could jive to anything and find something exciting everywhere. Life just wouldn’t be the same without the laughs of St. Lucia Combs.
Collete had two fried eggs over The Last Winter and made arrangements over the phone with Mom for attending “Journey to Bethlehem” that evening. They would take all the kids and Francis’ neighbor friend, Buddy, except for Carrie-Bri who would again be at work. It was a near-annual event, and always a heap of fun with Romans on horseback yelling at you to stamp your identification papers – always with a Biblical name. Collete recalled being Mary and Rachel two years. There were wisemen with frankincense in the woods and lambs with the shepherds on the hills, angels singing in the trees, and a market with bread and cheese and fish for sampling. This all soon ended with the birth of baby Jesus in the stable. Afterward, they were escorted to the fellowship hall of the church nearby for hot chocolate and Christmas cookies.
A strange sort of “sad” seemed to be in the air that day, still. Collette never had liked the idea of change and watching people move on to different times of their lives. And yet, at the same time, she knew that it was necessary and would not quite like it if they didn’t move on.
But before her thoughts could become too sad, she knew there would be Christmas shopping with Mom and Linnea within the hour and pizza for dinner. That always brightened things.
Collette thought back to that warm August day exactly one week before their wedding. OLeif had been working but Collette attended the church picnic with her family and Izzy and Curly who had tagged along. There they all were, enjoying barbecue, potato salad, and ice cold sodas, while she bladed about the park on the bluffs by the river. There she had to take a breath from time to time as the sun grew warmer over the salt-white chalky banks of the marshy lake below where Joe sped around on the many bike trails.
She had thought much on the coming week as she sat there, overlooking the sun and clouds as they alternately lit and shadowed the dark green forests beyond. A cool breeze rustled her long hair as she pondered what was coming. No, it never scared her, not even a bit of nervousness bothered her. And yet, she was compelled to take several spells to think on it from time to time that day. The quiet of the vineyard hills calmed her soul a bit as the sun passed over that day.