Sheila's Dribs 'n Drabs

The long-haired lay-about rode into town on his motorbike, engine revving. Hangers-on gathered round, Fishman stinking of salty sea, and Taxman calculating odds. Twins roared and Thomas doubted this was right. Then long-haired lay-about beckoned all to “Come.” “No,” said the old man clinging to memory, listening to different songs.

New (5) New... A new girl’s helping feed the homeless today. Her mother ladles food onto plates while child bounds between tables offering smiles with the water-jug; and strangers smile back. “She’s a princess.” “She’s an angel,” they say, and mother says, “She’s mine.” A gap-toothed, string-haired guest in ragged garb smells of gutters and sinks. “Why d’you do this?” he asks the girl. “Why d’you care?” “You ’mind me of my Granddaddy,” she replies, then picks a jacket up from a box. “Granddad don’t wear this anymore. D’you think it’d fit?” The stranger smiles, hope renewed by a little girl’s gift.

New (4) New... Yes, it was new... Love and friendship are always new. Matt rescued Tom from the gathering of homeless round the fire. Jen rescued Em from the loneliness of despair at losing him. The lost were found and the jacket hung old and forgotten, its promises kept. Grandparents stood at the baptismal font, Matt and Jen with smiles on their faces. God-parents stood beside them, Emily and Tom, renewed and brave. Linda held the tiny babe. Her husband held her hand. And the pastor promised God’s care like a comfortable jacket, old and forgotten, secret and strong, and always new.

New (3) New... Yes, it was new... And it was smart. And the sleeves were the right length. It helped him get a job, then an apartment, an address and a phone number. Till one day, dressed in his new, old jacket, Matt was ready to revisit his past. “I still love you Jen,” he said to his wife at the door. “And I’m clean and sober and I work, and I earn my own keep.” She didn’t trust him. But she let him see Linda again... And he walked proudly beside his daughter at her wedding, in his new, old jacket.

New (2) New... Yes. The coat was new. “You’ll wear your new suit won’t you Tom?” “No. I’m saving it.” “For what?” “Alice’s wedding.” “But she’s only thirteen!” At sixteen, Tom’s god-daughter was beautiful. At nineteen she was sick. At twenty-one she was dead and Tom wore the suit to her funeral. Alice’s father gave Tom a parcel tied with ribbon afterwards; all the letters he’d written to his god-daughter through the years: “She’d want you to have them.” But Tom couldn’t look. He clutched them tight in fists and stuffed his hands into his pockets. Then he threw the suit away.

New (1) New... Yes. It was new... The coat was new, last worn by a stranger who left it in a dumpster. Left it why? He didn't care. Notes on paper scrunched in the pockets might have said, but they were too hard to read. They would feed a fire tonight though and keep him warm... Start the New Year warm. Friends let Matt nearer the flames because he offered fuel. Then one of them insisted on reading the notes, letters to a dying friend. Their hearts were warmed while the coals burned dim and they started the New Year with love.

New Beginnings (5) She’d written the words so long ago, black ink on pages turned gray, her rage bound up in careful curves of cursed calligraphy. Reading them now etched deeper lines into her aching memory, bleeding drips of the past. Cassie had done as she was told again—too pliant, too ready for others to know the way. But now the silver of water, greening of leaf, and rose-bud streaks of dawn across the sky had shown her more. Memories aren’t black and white, and tears aren’t always pain. Tomorrow waits in rainbow sprinklers where children play their games. Tomorrow and today.

New Beginnings (4) Husband and baby were waking to the sound of the alarm. And dawn was a new shoot rising from the seeds of the past. Cassie slid through the door and hurried upstairs, daylight glinting from the notebook she’d carried with her to tomorrow and back. No one knew she’d been gone. On the wall, a picture of her family looked down, good, bad, and in-between. Truth is we’re all of us in-between, Cassie thought, not black and white, but shaded with all that potential to hurt and heal. Then she lifted her wailing infant to the healing of her breast.

New Beginnings (3) Summer’s leaves had grown dry and brown. Cassie brushed them from her face as she walked under trees, through the park, towards the streets and houses and her home. One small bud was spring in the race to season’s end—one touch of vibrant sunlit green—one branch of tomorrow’s promise awakening today. “Tomorrow is now,” Cassie said to herself, rebellion in her heart. “I’ll forgive who I chose. I’ll forget what I will. I’ll write my own rules and color outside the lines.” Her counselor saw right and wrong writ large in black and white, but Cassie chose rainbows.

New Beginnings (2) Pale fingers of pink trembled on the edges of clouds as Cassie walked to the park. The streets were empty canvas waiting for a child to crayon cars. The city sounds were an engine waiting to start. Cassie made her way to the stone-sided bridge, overlooking the graceful arches of sleeping swans. She stood over water, folding paper, bending this way and back, decisions to be made. And then she released the plane to the motionless air. “Tomorrow is another day,” she’d written. And now today’s first sunlight blazed against the airplane’s wing, white on black, as it flew away.