Mary Daurio

My grandchild, Kieran, sent a picture today of my curb showing where the flowers have overgrown the words that adorn the edge beneath. I enjoy flowers and live a relatively simple life amid its varying complications that I cannot sidestep. That is my fate and the fate of many. Rare the soul that gets out easy, but while we’re here ticking time, we choose our path and live within that frame.

I’m a wanna-be writer. And in my best daydreams, like Emily Dickinson, achieve recognition posthumously. Let someone else deal with the need for a social media presence and the hoopla of promoting a book.

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve been widely read, curb to curb. And not so widely in a couple of small magazines. Trust me, no unreliable narrator I. My most famous words were few, scribed out in craft paint on my verge when it was bare of blossoms, so passers-by could easily read during the extended COVID season.

COVID hit the world hard, blooming big in 2020 when we were isolated from loved ones.

In those early days of seclusion, I planted wild strawberries and snow-on-the-mountain along my wayside. The roses my son had obtained for me at a bargain began their first blush of bloom. With my paintbrush in various hues, I wrote PEACE, JOY, LOVE, HOPE, and LISTEN TO THE BIRDSONG in large block letters. Painted flowers separated the words along the cement road’s shoulder — my Opus.

I figured the paint was a cheap indoor acrylic and would wash off with the first rain. So hardly anyone would be the wiser of an old lady’s frivolity. Not so. Those words went on to be read by nearly everyone who travelled along our street to the busy walking path. One thing we could still do while maintaining distance was to take a stroll.

From a hidden spot on my deck, I could hear parents stop at my creative endeavour and say to their children, “Now look closely and read the words. Sound them out. You can do it.”

Others would amble along and give a one-word critique of “Lovely.” Some were more effusive, and I’d hear, “Oh, my, how wonderful,” or “That makes me feel better.”

Often from my retreat, my dog peeking out her perch high above the garden, I played my flute. No bragging rights there; my repertoire contains simple songs like ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’

One day someone hollered over the music, “Thank you.”

So while I will not go down in history as an author of renown, well, probably not. I’ll give you odds on it.

For that brief moment when the world was spinning out of our control, those eight little words I painted, because my grandboys couldn’t be with me to help, anchored people to a spot at my curb. That arrangement of bright block letters was indeed my Magnum Opus, and I can only hope that they placed a promising peace in the hearts of my readers. Fame and fortune may be unobtainable, but all can play at love.