(After finding Hopkins’s “Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us,” I think easter should be a verb as a rule and a noun as an exception.)
The vigil is three hours and there are three separate occasions where we all light our brought-from-home candles. The last is for a near-midnight procession through the town, led by a brass band followed by a priest under a canopy carrying the monstrance and another carrying the just-kissed crucifix, lipstick wiped away. In the town square, we knelt and the traffic waited and felt left out, I presume.
I sang from the hymnals exuberantly in Slovak, and I’m pretty sure I meant it all, though
without knowing a bit what I said (except God=Boh). (It’s easier than it seems it should be, to mean without comprehending.) Anyhow, my pronunciation is much improved.
The Easter Monday tradition is for boys to throw water and whip with willow branches the girls. “To freshen them and keep them flexible and young.” The girls, oddly (to my American thinking), reward them with eggs, a ribbon from their hair, chocolate, and eventually alcohol.
On this Monday, I biked with a friend to a village outside Bratislava (where they have a distinctive pattern of painting that adorns their china, church, and some buildings—the picture is a sample). We were pushing our bikes when we ran into a group of boys (in their twenties) who decided to bestow their generous attentions upon us. We escaped on our bikes amid a flurry of whips.
We came across Slovaks in their traditional dress, who were very pleased to teach me all about their heritage. The mayor was there and was excited to hear that I was from Pennsylvania. (“I have a cousin in Philadelphia! Where are you from?” I’m sorry Cogan Station, but I always say “Just outside of Philadelphia.” It makes everyone so much happier to be able to recognize a place—you can see the pleasure on their faces. And it’s basically true, at least relative to where I am right now.)
No comments:
Post a Comment