She wasn’t used to seeing coffee in that cup, given her usual fare as a young girl which consisted of linden tea with lemon and honey or chocolate milk. It made her sad that there was a grown-up beverage in it now, especially since she hadn’t managed to figure out how to be a grown-up yet.

“Milk?” Grandmother offered, as if she’d heard her granddaughter’s thoughts.

Claire poured milk in the already full cup and made the coffee spill into the saucer in the process.

“For luck!” Grandmother dipped her forefinger in the saucer and smeared coffee on the young woman’s forehead, another one of the many customs Claire never questioned. One threw salt over one’s shoulder, ate beans on Wednesdays, wished on the first fruits of the year, wrapped up the outdoor activities at sundown. Life had different ways of marking the passing of time in their household - by the songs of the pigeons in the morning, by the height of the sun at noon, by the sounds of the old bell in the church nearby in the late afternoon. Seasons were announced by scents - the fragrance of the tree blossoms, the overheated aroma of the herbs, the sweet heavy scent of the harvest, the damp smell of the rain. The grandfather clock was the only exception in this world that marked its own time, as if it were brought there from outside just to make a point.

“Get out of the doorway!”

The words boomed like thunder in Claire’s ears, now almost thirty years later, with the same intensity and pronouncement they carried the first time she’d heard Grandmother utter them, the first time of many. She smiled vaguely to the memory.

It was vast, this mansion of her grandparents where she had grown up, but Claire didn’t know it at the time; she never questioned what she saw because she’d never known another way of life, she’d never ventured past the end of the formal alley flanked by huge oak trees, hundreds of years old, which led straight to its front doors. For her the mansion and its garden were the world.

Keep your house in order, your garden well tended, your body strong and your mind on praiseworthy thoughts. Never assume anything but trust that you'll have good guidance to find your way through the haze of uncertainty, because, my dear, that love you have in your heart is everything.

Blessings,

Sister Mary-Francis