Part five of the Celebrant turned out to be so long I felt the need to break it up into two pieces for the sake of my blog family. So this week you get two installments instead of just the one. I hope you enjoy! If you have missed any of the previous parts of Nathan’s Story it can be found here: http://wp.me/P39vIx-EQ

The Celebrant: This Was Us Pt. 5

I remember a sign that hung on the wall of our band room in High School. It was by some kid from Winchendon who  made it “big” in the real world. It read  “In the reflection of running waters, a memory exists of the delicately balanced masterpiece that is our world. The Creator has spoken forth His holy portrait and we all are no more nor less than splendid echoes bouncing off the canvas of His pièce de résistance.”

I liked the thought that somehow my life was an echo of God’s voice rolling down through the ages. It did make me wonder though what He might be saying.

When I was in the fourth grade we rented a house on Tannery Hill. The grey Victorian with its scrolled facade rose directly out of the side of a graduated cliff to the right of the Miller’s River. The front yard sloped up sharply to a stone porch that wrapped around the front entrance like a granite moat. We let the apartment on the right side, three floors of dark panelled rooms and lead painted windows. My room was on the second floor at the very back of the building. The lone window   looked out over the shaded back yard and up the hill to where old trolley tracks  cut a path through the thickly gathered forest. I spent hours as a little boy wandering the woods, eating berries and pretending to be someone great and heroic in a world that did not know me yet.

That was the same year I started picking up instruments. In September the band director called interested fourth graders to buy plastic recorders to prepare a concert for Christmas.  I begged my mother to let me join. To be honest It wasn’t really music that attracted me. It was football that repelled me.  I had joined Pop Warner Football the year after Paul but unlike my stronger more coordinated brother I was a disaster on the field.

Paul and Adam were merciless. It wasn’t that they made mention of my countless fumbles, the kicks I missed ending up on my rump, or the fact that the girls on the team could throw and run circles around me. It was that they never mentioned me at all  while weekly accolades of Paul’s exploits dripped like honey from the edges of our dinner conversation.

The night I brought music up the honey froze.

“What about Pop Warner?”  Polly asked for Adam.

” I’ll do both,” I said knowing Adam would never let me quit something I had started.

“But no one in our family has ever been musical.” Mom returned.

The room was quiet for a long time.

Adam finally broke the air so heavy with anticipation, “I think we should let the boy try.”

I jumped up from my seat and ran around the table to hug my father. He tensed at the spontaneous show of affection.

“All right! All right kid! This isn’t a free ride. You practice every night just like football.” He squared me off with an eye brow of steel.

Somehow Adam understood I had discovered another piece of my puzzle.