My Wednesdays

I never know what to do with Wednesdays.

At 8:00, I go to church. The priest sometimes stops the liturgy to urge us to look overhead and watch the light show: dust motes floating in the sunbeams from the stained glass windows. Today, because it’s Fourth of July week, the guitarist during communion plays “This Land is Your Land.” The lyrics include this verse:
In the squares of the city – In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office – I see my people
And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
If this land’s still made for you and me.

As the congregants move from the chapel to breakfast in the fellowship hall, they pass the table where I sit in the hallway, making art. Except today we are sharpening pencils, because the church has a bucket of colored pencils and not a one of them has a point that will write. I think it’s not much of a morning of art but then after I de-camp to the fellowship hall, a guy I’ve met who moved to Memphis from New Orleans sits with me and makes a cross. As he works, we talk about the shootings on Bourbon Street. He says, “These days, someone my age . . . and race, that’s what there is for you. That’s why I left. I can do other things. I have other talents.” He folds the chip bag in such a way that a rising sun graces the top of the cross.

I don’t understand people who praise me as creative. I don’t understand our hierarchy of judgment. I don’t see how you can come to any conclusion but that those of us who reside inside “privileged society” live in a world that is pure illusion.

I don’t know what to do with Wednesdays.