Saturday's Child

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child must work for a living,
But the child that's born on the Sabbath day,
Is fair and wise and good and gay.

(Monday's Child, Nursery Rhyme,
     Author Unknown)


    I remember the first time I heard this nursery rhyme in elementary school. I was almost fearful to find out the day of my birth, as if it might explain everything. My parents had just divorced and Wednesday's child seemed my destiny. Of course I'm a creature of mind as much as heart and want to know the worse while hoping for the best. This is how I have handled everything from my beginnings through my heart attack and after. I can't remember if I counted back the years to find the day of my birth or found some chart during one of my journeys of exploration in the local public library. It doesn't matter, I suppose, each method telling you something rather essential about me, even the fact that I waited so long to figure it, tells you the fear that rules and the courage that fights to overcome it. I am not an impulsive woman although at times it might seem so to those that know me. There are months, sometimes years behind every decision. It's a bit like that Anais Nin quote: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." That's how it is with me, the fearful seed, the fierce blossoming.

I am Saturday's child; I work hard for a living.  As much as I would love to be fair of face, full of grace,  loving and giving, I'm the dutiful one that finds comfort and joy in daily routine, in duty, in putting in time, doing the work, and a job well done.  There are times I forget myself, though.  When I moved to the boat and decided to make my home here, I worried that I wouldn't be able to navigate the decks, to keep my feet when we were underway.  And, beyond a rather spectacular slip as the boat heeled in the Bahamas, spilling me and my hot coffee, I've done pretty well.  I'm no ballerina, but

So I suppose I could be forgiven then, if I almost believed myself, after months onboard with nary a fall, with this newly discovered grace, as Tuesday's child.  From floating docks to finger piers, I disembarked and came onboard as if I had been living on a boat for all my life.  Even as we prepared for Isaac, downgraded from hurricane to tropical storm, rain and wind and days of squall, I never fell, I never stumbled.  This day would be like any other day, every other day.  Only it wasn't.  The tide was a little high; my hands were full, but no different from any other return from work.  I was carrying a box that was a little heavy, a bit over-sized, but again not so different from any other day.  I suspect I was over-confident, feeling a bit like the world was truly my oyster.  So when I lost my footing, there was a moment of disbelief, as if the fairytale was discovered to be just that, a fairytale, a story, and not the truth of me at all.

I hit the stairs with breast and thigh, the dock with knees and hands.  I dropped the box into the water, my birthday gift, and remembering how quickly things sink and damned if I was going to lose it, I lunged despite the shock and pain and grabbed the box before it sank beneath the water's surface.  Mad and hurt, sorrowful at the loss of my illusion of dexterity and grace, I kept thinking to myself, "Saturday's Child," "Saturday's Child," beating myself up with what I am, no Sleeping Beauty, no Snow White, no Cinderella.  I'm the plucky sidekick, the faithful servant, the hard working handmaiden.  I get the servant, the butler, the companion, the faithful friend, but not the prince, never the prince.

Bryan is out on a deck in a moment, helping me up, taking the box, performing the delicate dance of soothing me while letting me seem strong, my burgeoning opening to dependance countered by my fear-based insistence on independence.  I want to be coddled and cuddled but I'm so damn afraid to depend on someone, to trust in 'til death do us part.  They may stay, but does the love burn as fiercely that last year as it did the first, not to mention all those years between.  Just because I haven't known that does it mean it doesn't exist?  The first leap to this new life was huge, but there are a hundred leaps after and hundreds, thousands more after that.  Some of these seemingly small leaps are far greater than I ever thought they would be, could be.

A few hours later, sitting watching T.V. with Bryan, dinner done, the weekend stretching before us, we laugh about something, I don't remember what, some bit of wonderful silliness.  Laughing is so much a part of us, even when I'm battered and bruised, worse for wear.  And I look at him and it hits me, my own blindness, that yes I'm Saturday's child, but I'm Tuesday's child too, at least in this man's eyes.  I'm fair of face and loving and giving, all the good things promised in this nursery rhyme, and so much more.  Sure, I'm the plucky sidekick, but I am the princess too, for the first time in 54 years, and it's partly because of this man I moved across the country for, but it's partly because of me as well.  It's a strange, wondrous thing to find yourself truly happy, the day in and day out kind, maybe even the happily ever after kind.

When I come to those places in my life that seem to defy words, I turn to poems.  Jane Kenyon's poem, Happiness came to mind as I pondered this new state of being of mine, happiness.


There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.