The Ceiling

Right after we arrived, two others came in to the otherwise empty church, a man and his college-aged son. They had come from Norwich. The man I struck up a conversation and we discovered that he was reading the same book Meisha had bought me as a gift, The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane. He was expecting to meet Macfarlane in a few weeks in Cambridge where he lives. As the conversation went on I learned that his father was from Scotland and is mother from Philadelphia. I told him that I was born just outside of Philadelphia. He asked me if I considered myself a Pennsylvanian but, of course, I only lived in PA for 8 of my 63 years. Oh yes, the ceiling in St. Peter and St. Paul’s is quite attractive.