Up in the hills above Wilbur Hot Springs one late December, it was verifiable—I was in two places at once.
“Along the ridge top, after a hard climb, I walked
to where the rainstorm began, stood for awhile
with one foot on either side, straddling
the boundary of weather, proving, that in fact
you can be in two places at the same time.”
Though it’s early morning yet, and I’m sitting alone in our living room in front of the fire, where I’d be no matter the direction in which this day would take us, I know I’ll be in more than one place at at time all day long.
Often, as I think I’ve mentioned, at least a dozen times, no matter where I am, I’m also at Jacks Peak. The forest has taken up residence inside me. After I’ve gotten the turkey securely in the oven, but before the cranberry sauce has been placed in my mother’s crystal bowl and before folding the napkins, I’ll be out in the forest, for sure.
Today, there’s another place where I will also be, with great longing: the home of Michael’s parents, the place where we won’t be, the place we’ve celebrated Thanksgiving each year, either on the actual day or a couple of days later, every year since Michael and I fell in love. But not this time. Michael’s father is too ill for a house full of guests. The forest lives inside me and, lately, today, most greatly, sadness has taken up house, too.
Lucky us, my dear friend, Roxane, her husband, Manny and their two daughters, Margo and Ella, and our neighbor, Tammy will sit down in our sunroom with us.
But if Michael and I look out into some vague middle distance, we’ll be remembering last year and the year before that, and so on and on, standing, not the boundary of weather, but the boundary of time and place.
Yesterday, Margo and Ella came over to write a Thanksgiving Poem-Prayer for our meal, which Ella titled, “Ready for the Sparkling Ground: The Margo, Ella, Patrice Thank You Poem.”
The final two stanzas go like this:
"Thank you for my weaving and roses
and daisies and dandelions,
a horse and a house and a tree,
stars and sunlight.
Thank you for everything
and all of us together."
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Remembering, 27 Thanksgivings with Allen. Gratitude for the company of my son and grandson. But just not quite the same without him ,even this second year. In Oaxaca , Amado shared "We are all on the same road. " Why am I comforted by this?
ReplyDeleteWe giggled and caught up over spicy legumes and simple white rice with slices of lamb carved off of shanks we cooked to rare perfection on the barbecue grill thingie she said she didn't mind dragging out from under the sink; no turkey for us, and her a sorta-kinda vergetarian who gave up all that truck for a real meal, she said, with a friend she'd been expecting for weeks. Dessert was overindulgence in a Safeway ring cake with enough ingredients listed on the package to serve as a prologue to a novel. We talked about our men, and I told her I needed to get out more often, apparently, having not suffered, like she, through having my name and workplace/home address plastered all over social media by a nut job intent on letting the world know what a great catch he actually hadn't hooked. I told her about the guy up in Mendo that came boiling out of his cabin a (few yards away from mine) a little too quickly one night and tipped himself out of his wheelchair into a soft patch of wild strawberry plants, and how we both laughed together at what red wine and whiskey'll do to YOU if you're not smart enough to keep track of what you're doing with THEM. "Just tell me what to do, man," I'd said at the time, then went on to bitch about how pissed I was at myself for not having picked up AA batteries for my radio when I'd been in town earlier in the day. The reception was crackling and fading, indicating I'd soon be SOL for local news and tunes. I braced the back of his chair and he got his own self sorted out. He wheeled himself over to his van for something or other, and then rolled over to the steps of my porch, held something out his in hand and said, "Here. These should last you the rest of your natural life." It was a 42-pack of AA batteries. "Thanks, man," I'd said with a grin. He wheeled himself back to the cabin he was sharing with his mother and I went back to listening to Mendo's KOZT out on my porch, smoking cigarettes, and sipping, first out of a bottle of Beam, and then a bottle of water to keep from getting too screwed up to watch the stars wheeling overhead. My Turkey Day dinner mate said it sounded like I got out quite enough, thank you very much, and we giggled some more about some other nonsense we'd both been through recently. Outside, it was still clear as a bell, but the wind was starting to pick up. Earlier in the day, the ocean had been a blue ceramic plate, but weather was on the way with rain predicted for Saturday. My friend had committed to dog sitting up in the Santa Cruz Mountains for the rest of the weekend, but before she left, she made sure the right people knew that I was there and that I could stay in the hot tub as long as I wanted that night (it's under her window and sometimes people are noisey; not me). The next day was a mug wump. It sat on the fence between clarity and threatening skies with its mug on one side and its wump on the other.
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful and contemplative meditation on Thanksgiving. It spoke to me on many levels. Glad that in the midst of trials you found beams of resplendent light.
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