Claire Chow

Sanctuary

Gina harbored this secret wish to be a nun. When she thought nun, she pictured simple white garments, loaves of coarse brown bread baked on an open hearth, lovingly tended gardens with stone angels, and the calm, purposeful chanting of ancient hymns. The very words: vespers, evensong, compline, stirred within her a deeply visceral sense of the mystical, and it was to this image that she gravitated whenever the reality of everyday life became too burdensome. 

She could try to carve out a piece of her day for contemplation, a moment of stillness amidst the noise and chaos of life. But more often than not, an unhappy child, an unpaid bill, a threatening letter from the gas company, an ominous thunk-clunk-thunk from under the car would rise to the surface and permeate her consciousness, with a constant refrain of “I need” or “You must pay attention to this.”

Right now, the baby was screaming, his tiny red face turning a more and more alarming shade, his fist shaking violently, as if to make the urgent point, “You must have no other priority than me! Your life is not your own.” Gina was trying to transfer a heavy, boiling pot of macaroni to the strainer in the sink, baby Marcus tucked under one arm, when she had an almost unbearable thought: she could simply let go. She could let go of bawling baby, let the pot drop to the floor and clatter, clatter, clatter, spraying waves of hot water and pasta everywhere. The idea was terrifying and thrilling in equal measure, but somehow, she was able to suppress the thought, somehow find a sense of calm and carefully do what it was that needed doing. Get the pot safely to the sink. Hold the baby tightly and protectively.

Many years later, when Marcus was a grown man with a strong back and a kind heart, he would carry an ember of this memory, and when times were rough, it would spark into flame. He would remember being held securely, no matter the chaos around him. Not in any sense a religious man, Marcus could only describe it as a moment of infinite grace.

Claire Chow is a first-generation Chinese-American writer, poet and psychotherapist.  Her poems and short fiction have been published in a variety of journals and she is the author of Leaving Deep Water: the Lives of Asian-American women at the Crossroads of Two Cultures (Dutton, 1998). For Ms. Chow, the quest is ongoing to seek the Divine in all aspects of her work, her writing and her daily life.