Below, above, in the pocket

Women leaning out of their windows rained confetti down like a summer blizzard, a little girl on her father's shoulders had looped a sash of cash over saint's head,  the saint himself then hoisted high on men's shoulders, and white ribbons stretched out on every side like a bride's train, the musicians, wearing black straw hats with red bands, struck up a  rousing tune and the parade moved on--St Anthony's Feast, the finale of the North End's summer saint celebrations.

Later, up in the quiet of Copp's Hill Burying Ground, far above the battling bands in the hugger-mugger streets below, cool grey slate gravestones, gently tipping, with elegantly carved names and dates of Puritan worthies and surmounted by images of winged, grinning skulls--Puritan reflections on mortality.

The almost not-ridiculous visitor to the British island of Sark seeing to convert it to 'a cosmos of healthy and far-reaching love'--Mervyn Peake's satirical novel Mr Pye tucked in my shorts.

Allusions to the big questions, yes, but indirectly and not seriously--at least not today. Down below, the teeming crowds, the ices, sausages and pasta, the T shirt stalls with sassy slogans like 'American born but with Italian parts', the chances to win prizes with darts or hockey sticks, the bands belting out sentimental Italian favorites. Above, tourists moving from stone to stone, or rather display to display, children running to point out, Mommy, Daddy, look at this or that stone, the foot-weary sitting on the ledge of the fence. In the paperback, the over-the-top scene of Mr Pye and his erstwhile hardbitten landlady, he in the garden, she leaning out the upstairs window, improvising hymn verses to each other before breakfast--and more absurdity to follow.

However we encounter you, God-in-love, we have to contend with all the different ways the big questions are dealt with by people who live within a culture. Cultures mediate encounters. Why shouldn't it be so? Everyone respects these questions, so we have festivals, touristy burying grounds, and funny novels, each built around at least a germ of reference to original encounter of some kind.

But encounters are multi-dimensional, layered, their significance unfolding over time with reflection, especially ones with you. As my old film teacher Andrew Silver taught me: all the elements considered together are what the film is about, not just the putative theme of the story summary. Perhaps today a good time was had by all and a 'good' time had by some. Why not?