The Quiet of a Sunday Morning

The chapel at St. Fatty's was very hushed. Even the rustling of my down coat seemed loud.

And then the heat cameon and the boiler started rumbling and the pipes clanked.

And the guy in the front row snored loud enough to wake himself up.

This morning, I especially feel for the people sleeping in the chapel. It is horribly, bitterly cold. The wind is like a knife. To think that they have only the meager warmth of the chapel and literally no place to lay their head makes me very, very grateful for Ma Maisonette.

I wanted to go up to the front row and tell the snorer that he should just lie down and sleep. I watched his head nod forward, his chin to his chest. Then he snored and woke himself up. For about thirty seconds, he was able to sit upright.

The parish's homeless woman was there in one of the middle rows. She was still bundled up and was wearing a warm knitted cap on her bowed head.

The Chinese woman was not there and I hoped that she had gone over to the parish's shelter. You wouldn't think there would be so many people needing a shelter in suburbia, but there are. I've been told they almost always have a full house.

Mornings like this make me wonder if there are people a mile from my house who are sleeping rough. Not too long ago, an encampment of the homeless was chased out of the Pleasantville woods.

I came home to find all the cats snugly asleep on the new beds I bought yesterday, on the bed, curled up on the blanket on the couch. Lucky kitties. Lucky me.

I'm very tempted to crawl back into bed. And grateful to know that I have the shelter of Ma Maisonette.