Happy Easter!

Today has already been lovely. It's a beautiful day, and I walked down to St. Paul's for the Easter service. I sat next to an older man who had a very nice voice. Tonight I am having dinner with some folks for a friend's birthday, and I have a few hours to read and rest my leg. In honor of one of my favorite holidays, let's look back at some of my treasured Easter memories:

--One of my most significant Easters was Easter 2003, when I was studying abroad in Rome. During my time studying abroad I developed a bit of an obsession with the pope, and I followed the pope very closely during the Easter week. On Good Friday I went to the Colosseum for the stations of the cross, and on Easter morning I went to St. Peter's to hear the Urbi et Orbi. The pope was fairly healthy that week, in good voice, and on Sunday, when they wheeled him around St. Peter's in the popemobile, that was probably the closest I got to the pope the whole time I was there. Saturday night was special as well, as I took a brief respite in my fake Catholicism to go to an Easter vigil at the English-speaking Episcopal church in Rome. The people there were so nice, and they were doing baptisms, and it really made me feel like church membership made me a part of something larger and infinitely connected in this world.

But after Easter services I walked around Rome, pretty lonely, because my only real good friend in Rome was Jewish and out of town. I got pretty homesick that day and ate a big salami sandwich. I went back to the apartment and took a nap, and woke up when my family called to tell me Happy Easter, which actually only made me more lonely and sad. Perhaps you will see how important Easter is to me when I tell you that my parents only called me a few times when I was in Rome (expensive), and one of those very few times was on Easter. I am not even sure if we talked on my birthday.

--There are plenty of other church-going memories, but I won't recount them all. It seemed that growing up, we'd always go to a different service depending on what time we wanted to go to church. Once we went to the 5 am vigil, and then went to IHOP for chocolate chip pancakes; once when I was little we went to the 10 am service that lasted forever, and my mom let me read a book as long as I kept it low. But church is just really meaningful for me on Easter, and it's wonderful because two of the best hymns get to come out ("Hail thee, festival day" and "Jesus Christ is risen today")

--Once, my college roommate and I went to North Carolina to spend Easter with my family. However, we did so much partying on Friday night that we were extremely hungover for the drive and events of Saturday. My mom wanted to make us all these cocktails, and we had to put up a brave face and put them down. It was hard. We watched Sex and the City and Mom had an Easter basket for both of us Sunday morning.

--One of the only home videos in my house in North Carolina is labeled "Easter 1989," which captures a dramatic Easter egg hunt between my brother George and I (my other brother was just a baby at that point). We are meant to be finding eggs that lead us to a grand prize, which was a little four-wheeler that my grandmother got for us (no way would my mother have gotten it for us). It takes George a little while to realize this, and he gets a lot of eggs, wheras I'm pretty sure I went straight for the four-wheeler to claim it as my own. The rest of the tape is just us riding around in different combinations. It is kind of a boring tape, not as good as its companion piece, Christmas 1987.

--Another memorable Easter egg hunt took place when we were all a little older; I was probably in high school. We were going to have an egg hunt; the eggs were going to be plastic and filled with slips of paper. Some of the paper had monetary amounts written on them, and some had chores written on them. We weren't allowed to open the eggs until we had regrouped as a family, and then we had to open the eggs and accept whatever was written there. There was going to be one grand prize. I remember that some of the eggs were hidden in pretty inappropriate places for young people, such as in the tailpipe of the car, or nestled in the chainsaw. But obviously, the hunt didn't end all that well...I think chores outnumbered money by about 2 to 1, and the money was always along the lines of a quarter or so. George opened an egg and said, "whoa, fifty dollars...the grand prize!" But my dad intervened and said it was only meant to be five dollars. Apparently the decimal point had been written too large. Suffice it to say, there was disappointment all around and we never had another egg hunt again.

--As a child it was always thrilling to see what the Easter bunny brought, usually a small toy and a wealth of candy. One Easter, before we were supposed to be awake, I snuck out of my room to peak at my basket through the slits of the staircase. What I could see was a Moondreamers doll. Let me tell you, it was a long wait before I could go down and look at it. It was Bucky Buckaroo. I don't know why I remember that gift so distinctly, but I do. But I hate Easter grass. Hate it.

--Lastly, I'd like to give a big shout-out to CANDY. Easter candy is some of the best candy, with Cadbury eggs being the best. I don't really like Peeps, but I have fond memories of throwing them over the railing of my apartment senior year of college. However, I will say that I am not a very big jelly bean fan, and I wish there wasn't such an emphasis on jelly beans at Easter time.