Day # 330: Happy Thanksgiving

# 330

One of my Thanksgiving duties

is to make the centerpiece.

As with so many traditions,

I don't remember how

it started.

I always scrounge my materials 

from inside and outside

my parents' house

while the turkey transforms

in the oven.

This year,

I went for cornucopia meets terrarium.

I found a dusty, over-sized glass vase 

in the kitchen,

wiped it out with an old dishrag. 

I filled the bottom with oranges, 

a red apple,

and golden pears.

In the yard, I picked 

bunches of berries,

yellow-green maple leaves,

and the few heads of marigolds 

still hanging on after the frosts.

I placed them methodically

in the vase,

arranging and rearranging

til I felt like each specimen 

found its home 

in this little world.

It was a statement of things

I'm grateful for-

the simple,

the natural,

the beautiful.

For so often,

the best things in life

are waiting 

quietly and patiently

beside us

all the time

     c GRACE

It is Thanksgiving Day.  I just spoke to my brother, Paul, to tell him I was not coming to Thanksgiving.  I don't feel well this morning and I want to be able to actually spend some time with the family instead of rushing in and out and being in the car with arthritis and not feeling well.  I know it disappointed him.  I know that the family has shrunk and is spread out again and we don't come back home on the holidays like we used to when Mom was alive.  But Paul and Molly continue to host a really beautiful and tasty dinner and we get to focus on the fact that we do have each other.  We do have each other; we have multiple generous, smart and kind siblings.  We are lucky.  I am sorry I am not going to Connecticut to do this one annual act; take stock in having family.  But for the first time in 62 years I am feeling as though I need to take stock alone.  I need to truly acknowledge the things I have to be grateful for, me, Lindy.  So that is what I am doing today.

My life has not always been easy, but it has always been interesting and abundant.  My being is abundant.  There have been times when I have not been grateful for the physicality of this but I know now that my abundance is not only reflected by how large I am but by how large my capacity to be present is.

I am grateful for music and the abundance of it in my life.  Music dominated in the first 21 years, but even after that it is amazing to look back and see how much music fills my life.

I am grateful for the abundance of friends.  Friends who have come and gone and who have touched me in so many ways.

In my mind's eye sits one of my favorite photographs.  I do not own a copy of it, but I see it often.  It is of 2 close old friends who I went to college with, their family; brother, mom and dad, and each of their then partners.  One of the partners is my very good friend, Annie; the other I still hear from time to time.  And last, but never least is Tristan, who was four at the time, in my charge, but had gone off with these college friends to visit their parents for the weekend.  The eight of them sit in the living room all with big smiles on their faces, obviously all happy to be together.

 That picture was probably taken in 1975 or 76.  It is a photo of bright, alive people.  Today, 40 years later, their father passed away.  It never occurred to me anyone in that picture could be old enough to die.  They all are framed in this very alive image for me.  They all have passionate lives and do interesting things, even Tristan who at 44 is a Vermont state representative, a warrior for the good.  But their Dad lived a good long life and 40 Thanksgivings have gone by since that photo was taken.  40 births, and 40 deaths and life changes, job changes and the reconvening of priorities.  Time passing is so hard to take in, especially when sorrow is tied to it.  Take care you all, Godspeed. 

Thanksgiving 2010

                                                                                                        11/26/2010

I am grateful for words that sometimes spill out of me like rainfall from a hurricane and other times take such huge effort to softly slip from my tongue,

I am grateful for the thousands of images that adorn my home; the images I have taken and that others have painted, drawn, photographed, printed.  Images made by 1 year olds, 5 year olds, and 35 years olds.  There are tons of beautiful pictures in my home.  I love them.

I am grateful for water, the sea, Puffers, Green River, DAR, and the hundreds of other spots I can meditate next to and swim in.