(Originally Posted Good Friday 2012 when I had no followers…here it is again)
This day seems to be the forgotten holiday of the year. There is no lead-up to Good Friday. No frenzied fanfare of festivity. No elaborate Good Friday meals to plan and prepare. The quiet of the day is probably why I like this holiday the best.
Good Friday truly is a day off from the bustle and hustle of consumer living. No sales. Just time to contemplate the world. I am sitting here this morning with a second cup of coffee, watching the sun peak over the horizon. There is a slight mist on the roofs of the houses as the day slips from springtime chill to springtime warmth.
I have time to think. Let my brain play with words. Roofs. Rooves. I remember learning in school that the plural of roof was rooves. But now we use the american “roofs”. When did that change? The rule was if it is ends in ‘f’ or ‘fe’ then to make the plural you drop the “f” sound and writes “ves”.
dwarf to dwarves
elf to elves
hoof to hooves
knife to knives
leaf to leaves
life to lives
self to selves
wolf to wolves
Of course then there are words that ignore the rule anyway – like the plural of beef is not beeves. And the plural of proof is not prooves.
Ah English the language of rules, and long lists of exceptions to the rules!
See there you go Good Friday is for getting diverted and contemplative. The above was simply pointless stream of consciousness. A raw slice of my brain straight up. I am full of trivia. Or full of something.
My favourite memory of Good Friday is from many many many years ago. I was in my early twenties. I was hanging with some friends driving up to Midland, Ontario to find a very specific restaurant that served Lake Huron whitefish. The driver had heard the food was incredibly fresh and delicious.
Now I don’t remember the restaurant name but I do think it was Henry’s Fish Restaurant. I’ve been back a few times so my memory may be muddled. And the fish is still incredible! And that doesn’t really matter.
This memory isn’t about the destination – it is about the journey. A foggy Good Friday. Dense white cotton fog slowing us down to below the speed-limit. The trees and posts shadowy black markers flashing by us. The road shiny black and slick. With no-one else on the road. Just us – some friends on a journey enjoying being alive.
In the back of the car was a book – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - and it was an wonderful find. At that moment, in that space, that book and the message inside clicked with me. There are concepts in that book that I had no idea could actually exist! My friend – the driver of the car – saw me thumbing through the book and told me to keep the book.
I can see that same book looking at me from my shelves. It is bedraggled and stained and dog-eared. The book has survived the years – my friend did not. The ideas from that book linger – my friend died later that year from leukemia. However, on that Good Friday my friend was still a big-man full of life and filled with zest. By late the autumn of that same year he was an anemic husk gasping for air in a hospital bed. He was much too young to die.
That Good Friday held no hint of the tragedy waiting in our future. We laughed, we talked. We drank beer by the lake. And we discussed philosophy and how we would change the world. By the time we had finished our exploration of Midland – the sun had burned away the morning fog.
On our way back home, we stopped at used bookshops along the way looking for old National Geographic magazines. My friend found some of the ones he was missing from the 1960′s and 1970′s. Happy with the day and our find we journeyed on certain that tomorrow would always be just ahead of us.
Good Friday: A good day to remember how we have arrived at this moment in time.
