After I left the cemetery, I headed for Surdyks in downtown Minneapolis where I picked up wine for the weekend along with some great cheese. The wine I did myself while I engaged the assistance of Molly the cheese supervisor to help me pick the six different kinds of cheese. It turns out the wine was fully consumed by the time I headed for Duluth but there was several selections of cheese left to give to Reenie and Tom when I saw them.
When I arrived at St Johns (click here) there was a small group of Farmers on the lawn standing near the landmark belfry in front of the church (click here). I parked the car and joined them only to find out everyone had just arrived too. Talk about your perfect timing! After a while, we checked in at the Abbey Guesthouse (click here), ate dinner in the guest house cafeteria and then adjourned to a beautiful patio overlooking the lake (Lake Sag as it is known). The wine started to flow and a little while later the cheese made an appearance. It was a really good feeling just being with the group. After a bit, one of the Monks appeared and informed us that
1) 9:30 or so was known as "Mosquito Hour" so either apply the DEET or head inside.
2) Once inside, a boisterous group such as ours were more than welcome to use the library with the door closed. It must be that soundproofing works both ways, eh?
3) When on the upper or lower floor where the rooms are located, we must maintain silence for the other guests--who are pretty much there to contemplate and pray as they are taking advantage of the retreat center--would not appreciate our levity, liquor or loquaciousness!
It is a good thing the library was soundproof, they missed our group singing Rocky Racoon, the Beatles song.
We moved into the library prior to mosquito hour and did sing, passed around the quilt squares--at least the ones that were complete and then found ourselves using my iPad to search the on-line archives to search the student newspapers for stories about the Farmers. (For the techies in the group, retreat center guest house does not have wifi, but the campus has great ATT 3G coverage so my iPad and iPhone were both very happy.) This image was published in 1966 in the St. Benedict Student newspaper and Mary was the model. We found a number of articles published about the Farm. Even tonight, I found more articles about the Farm we did not locate last Friday.
The bottom line for Friday is that once I had "drained" my emotions for the time being at Mary's grave, I did not encounter any strong reactions for the rest of the day. I was a bit concerned, because the last time we joined the Farmers at St Johns, Mary and I had pre-ordered wine and cheese from Sturdyks and I was afraid I'd have a strong reaction tracing those same foot steps without her. Fortunately, I did not.
I did have the rental car pickup feeling but not as strong as in April for the Remembrance and Burial. For those who don't remember, here is the link to that entry about Mary and rental cars at the St. Paul Minneapolis airport. And, they gave me a brand new Ford Escape for the weekend. I put almost 500 miles on the car and it is rather a nice road car. This link should give you a google map of my journey.
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