September 1: Feast day of Saint Giles, abbot.
Miracles: Cured heart failure of an aged neighbor and inflated Jeremy’s bicycle tire with my heart.
Today is the feast of Saint Giles, who for years knelt in the mud near the gaping mouth of the Rhône River with no bed, not even a tar roof to shield his head (for the roof also shelters one from God’s love). Such luxuries — a bed, this roof — constantly attack me, however. My parents close their ears if I speak of tearing away a part of their home so I can better see the sky and God. So I removed my bedroom window screens. I kept the windows broadly open through the summer, letting torrents of mosquitoes enter, and rain. I took off the window dressings too, so at least Saint Giles and I can share a lack of blinds, no cover for the window or my heart. Every morning the sun smacks me awake, and then I kneel on the wood floor as my parents rustle about. My father turns the kitchen faucet on and off and puts apples in his briefcase. My mother curses her nylons. Her light tap on my door: “Leave the house today, OK? And no faux crucifixions.” I hear her stumble, as always, on her right ankle, the weak one, after the screen door bounces shut. Women, she believes, must wear stiletto heels or risk becoming too holy.
