easter_sunday raze i think i might be the only person i know who always liked the hollow chocolate bunnies better than the ones that were solid all the way through. it wasn't the extra air i had access to. it wasn't even the taste. it was the idea that i could fill the empty space with anything i wanted and feel it tunnel through me. this morning, a group of people well past their prime gathered in a carpeted room. some of them sat on couches. a few let their bodies fall into plush recliners. they played instruments they had no business holding in their hands. they were the worst brass band in the world. but the music they made a mess of gave them so much joy. they knew they were awful. they didn't care. they were family, and all those flubbed notes and fractured harmonies were the scars that stitched them back together when the casual cruelty of their friends and lovers tore them open. it was just a dream. but it was beautiful. it really was. 240331 ... ovenbird It was my job to make the butter lamb. This is a Ukrainian Easter tradition. The lamb represented Jesus as the lamb of God and was the centerpiece of the baskets of food we took to be blessed at the church on Good Friday. It was then eaten on Easter Sunday with paska and pierogies and beets. Most people bought butter lambs made with a mould. These had a tendency to actually look like lambs. Not our family. I made mine from a one pound lump of butter which I used the heat of my hands to melt just enough to force into the shape of a lamb. My memory suggests that they all looked deranged. They had peppercorns for eyes. And at dinner it felt wrong to sink your knife into the lamb’s poorly shaped face. But I found joy in the process of making something so unlikely and sharing it with people I loved. And maybe that’s what’s left of Easter for me. Most of the religious traditions have fallen away but the day still holds this sense of mystery. As if small miracles are possible. Life is slippery and melts away faster than I’d like. I’m fighting every day to force it into meaning. I try to coax it into a gentle innocence that might allow me to believe in hope and resurrection. Roll the stone away from my heart, and let me rise. 260405 what's it to you? who go blather from