58. The Blessed Shiver
“I may be inordinately fond of my earliest impressions, but then I have reasons to be grateful to them.”
“I may be inordinately fond of my earliest impressions, but then I have reasons to be grateful to them. They led the way to a veritable Eden of visual and tactile sensations. One night, during a trip abroad, in the fall of 1903, I recall kneeling on my (flattish) pillow at the window of a sleeping car (probably on the long-extinct Mediterranean Train de Luxe, the one whose six cars had the lower part of their body painted in umber and the panels in cream) and seeing with an inexplicable pang, a handful of fabulous lights that beckoned to me from a distant hillside, and then slipped into a pocket of black velvet: diamonds that I later gave away to my characters to alleviate the burden of my wealth. I had probably managed to undo and push up the tight tooled blind at the head of my berth, and my heels were cold, but I still kept kneeling and peering. Nothing is sweeter or stranger than to ponder those first thrills.”
- Vladimir Nabokov
Prompt:
Write about the earliest moment that you remember in overwhelming detail—from a journey, at home, or among people you loved (or hated). Write about it as Nabokov set out to do in his work: “to transform [it] into something that can be turned over to the reader in printed characters to have him cope with the blessed shiver.”
Em Melise Maven Huggins Loveen
Location: Trinidad and Tobago
About: My Spiritual Time in Seer's Grande Riviere Seminary Monastery
Age: 55
Sharmila Rao
Location: Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
About: An aspiring writer seeking the companionship of words
Age: 53
Reflections on my mother.
MADONNA SMILES.
She kneeled on the wooden pew, her eyes tightly closed. A ray of fading evening sunshine glowed on her pale pink lips. They quivered gently like the wings of a wounded butterfly.
I sat restlessly by her side watching the endless rhythm of those lips mouthing many an unanswered plea.
Every Wednesday evening, Mother and I spent an hour at the Basilica of the Lady of the Mount, near the seaside in Bandra.
Built nearly over a hundred years old in the beautiful semi-Gothic style, the shrine sees an endless stream of devotees from all religions, who know it more easily as Mount Mary Church.
It is close to where we lived. After tea time we would walk together hand-in-hand down a short winding road at the end of which was a flight of two hundred steps carved onto one side of an undulating hillock.
It was a long trudge up the steps. Mum would gently lift her saree to her ankles while she climbed. It helped her to avoid tripping and also prevented the lower folds of her saree from getting dirty.
Once a week she would access the part of her life she had long kept under lock and key only to be opened in need. Rarely ever for herself. From her collection of sarees carefully folded in an old suitcase, she would pick out a pretty silk one meant only for her sacred visit to the Church. I thought she looked so charming whenever she dressed up.
As a child, I enjoyed a good run, so this was always the fun part. I would race up the pockmarked dark stone steps, my legs swallowing two or three at a time until I reached the head of the serpentine queue.
There I would wait panting in excitement at the magnificent view from atop.
On one side in the distant horizon my eyes picked out the cars in slow motion like ants, crawling over the old bridge on the creek, it's waters still and murky; on the other side, the breathtaking blue waters of the Arabian Sea; and then back to Mother as she lugged her cross steadily and slowly climbing each step. Impatient, I would run back to her laughing as we reached the Church.
A silent dusk was setting in with a palette of red and orange hues. Intermittently a cool melancholic breeze caressed our faces as we sat to pray. Though Mother closed her eyes most of the time, her furrowed brow always made me uneasy. I wished she would smile more often.
After awhile I would creep away from her and walk around the aisles looking at the endless ornate ceiling from which hung exquisitely patterned pink and golden glass chandeliers like roses delicately suspended on long metal stems.
A few ladies would look up from their prayer and I'd shyly slip behind the tall round pillars surrounding the Church.
On the walls were colorful life-size murals highlighting the life of Mary and of the Stations of the Cross depicting Christ's last journey before he was crucified. I would start from one end of the Church slowly reading the explanation. As I went along in participation of the Biblical event my little heart was always filled with a sense of awe and sadness by the time I reached the end.
I turned towards Mother. She seemed to have finished saying her prayers. Her eyes were open. I thought she was looking for me. Instead, she had fixed her earnest gaze on the serene, dull grey-white marble statue of Mother Mary adorned in shining lacy golden robes. A new calm and peace shone on her tired face.
I could smell a rich and sultry fragrance of tuberose. I Iooked at Our Lady's face, her eyes full of compassion. And then, I looked at Mother.
In the incandescence of a hundred glowing candles, l saw her beautiful smile.
