Wrinkled Bible

I had to take my work laptop home last night, because my workload and the train schedule didn't coordinate well yesterday. On the train this morning, I snagged a table and started writing a Bread, because my turn is coming again soon.

I keep a small Bible in my purse (about 6 x 3 inches), and when I pulled it out to check some details in Genesis, the first several pages were wrinkled and lightly stuck together from having been wet at one point.

Washington DC. The White House.

In 2004, when my friends and I were in DC for vacation, we went to the White House Visitor Center and then walked across the street to look through the wrought-iron fence and get pictures of the White House. And it started to rain. And the rain became a torrent in a heartbeat. It soaked through my purse, and my checkbook, and part of my Bible.

Those pages in Genesis hold fond memories for me of that afternoon. My friends' granddaughter, in a yellow rain-slicker, twirling with her arms outstretched in the downpour. My friend's husband, just a day or two before he died, sitting on a low retaining wall and holding two umbrellas over our bags that he was guarding. The neoprene sandals I happened to wear that day that kept me as the only one in our group without squishy shoes for the rest of the day.

I read a book one time, Leonard Sweet's Soul Salsa, in which the author recommended eliminating needless items from our lives. The only things we should keep, he says, are those that tell a story.

I guess I'll be keeping this copy of the Bible.