Member-only story
Carnival
[This was written several years ago now, after my father’s death, and will hopefully be part of a larger work about the death of a father and the way that faith changes.]
The nearness of death tightens our hold on life. We squeeze it, grasping and gasping toward breath, toward movement, for loud noises instead of silence. We know silence will come. But for today, we make merry. We wear gaudy masks! We make noise because we can! This is life! Mardi Gras! Fat Tuesday!
The day before the time of Lent, we begin in celebration. We start with laughter and merrymaking and then we turn in the matter of a few hours from what may be a night of feasting and drunkenness to the slow, anguished plodding of the next morning. We move from a reminder of the gusto of life to a reminder of our shared mortality in the ashes, to the way in which none of us is permanent in this world. The masks of the night before are removed. And with that removal, we relinquish the way that the mask may have obscured our viewing of the world, through small eye-holes versus a fuller, stranger vision.
Carnival is a moment of pause, taking careful note of the pleasure of a meal, of a drink, of touch, of the comfort of a bed. And then we are reminded of death, inevitable death. From dust we came, to dust we shall return.
