dual personalities

although as my dual personality can corroborate, I’ve never been able to resist an Easter basket for long. Back in the day I tended to finish my basket in a day or two. You can see in this picture

Easter 1964

that I probably had a stomach ache from too much chocolate. By contrast, my sister took weeks to finish her candy and sometimes never did (especially if the dog got it first). That’s why she grew up to look like this:

Katie circa 1974

and, well, why I didn’t. Despite the sweet tooth, as a child I took Easter very seriously. It was my favorite holiday in part because of the movie, “King of Kings,” which I thought was awesome. It was a big shock when in college I discovered how bad it really is, but when I saw the movie for the first time, I was smitten — it was the music that really got to me. I was so afraid I would forget the main theme that I hummed it constantly for days until I was sure I wouldn’t forget. It worked. I know it by heart the way I know old phone numbers or the poems I had to memorize for school. And if the movie itself didn’t stand the test of time, the music still moves. I had trouble finding exactly the right bit, but you’ll get the idea.

I leave you with a beautiful passage from Frederick Buechner, to whose brilliant insights my dual personality introduced my many years ago.

There is a fragrance in the air, a certain passage of a song, an old photograph falling out from the pages of a book, the sound of somebody’s voice in the hall that makes your heart leap and fills your eyes with tears. Who can say when or how it will be that something easters up out of the dimness to remind us of a time before we were born and after we will die?
― Frederick Buechner

Happy Easter!!