I had just set my bowl of soup in the microwave when a colleague said " a lady is here, asking for you - shall I tell her you're at lunch?" With a sigh, I followed her knowing I couldn't do otherwise.

An Iranian lady who I had loaned a nickel so that she could finish her copying last week was waiting. Last Thursday she had a $5 bill but no more change and I told her she'd get a bucket of change in return if she used that large bill. So she most gratefully took my nickel, promising to pay me back. I waved her off, of course.

So here she was, nickel in hand, pressing it into my hand and covering mine with both of hers. "You are so kind to me always," she said, " but you really saved my day last week."

A nickel.

A bond.

Swirls Cafe was a one-man band Saturday morn. The owner/chef/server/cashier whipped up a fine mess of eggs, fried potatoes, cheese grits and sausage gravy biscuits all the while chatting with  counter customers on whether Civil War bullets were lead or cast iron, the merits of commuting, wine-tasting and of course the weather. True, his server hadn't shown up that morning, yet I had the feeling that whenever life tried to slam a door shut, his foot would always be stuck in the crack.

In the cemetery, I leaned back against the Abram and Mabel headstone, and drank in the blue sky, listening to the song sparrows converse, watching the violets gleam against the new grass. These two people loved and laughed as they built a solid place  for five children to stand. They would have loved this spring day. Dad would have said, "Come on, Mama, we're going for a drive." Work abandoned, they would have driven back-roads splendid with newly plowed fields and yellow willow trees dancing. When their eyes were full, they would return home, braidng the ordinary day with gold.

the beggars are coming to town

Mother Goose sang into our ears and set our heels tapping when we were children.

"Hark, hark the dogs do bark
The beggars are coming to town,
Some in rags, some in tags,
Some in silver gowns"

Delicious nonsense? Yes, but more. In medieval days, minstrels travelled from town to town, dressed in various costumes, but often bearing covert messages of dissent. So the singsong fun for me and my friends in a small Lancaster County hamlet may have one day carried seeds of a revolution!

Last night I read through the whole Classic Mother Goose and was astonished to discover how many literary titles or concepts have sprung from this beloved book. I was also amazed that I could quote approximately 50 % of them word for word after a half-century absence. How can that be? And God bless the soul of Blanche Fisher Wright who so lovingly etched the MG characters, billowing curtains and skirts with 1916 breezes.

the cabin by the creek

My dad bought a cabin by the Conestoga Creek for $300 in 1944. I was six months old. In the years to follow I remember languid days of splashing up the dam, slick with moss, and feeling the rush of water through my toes. And picnics with creamy potato salad and chocolate cake with caramel icing. And sailing down a sliding board, hot to bare legs. And swinging on a long frayed rope. And laughing with aunts, uncles, cousins. And picking bluebells and buttercups. And innocence.