Yesterday I sat in my comfy chair, with my computer on my lap, and wrote for five or six hours straight. Sun streamed in through our big bay window, looking just that much brighter for being rare, until of course the clouds came in with a dashing of hail and wind and rain. Sun, rain, sun, rain. Monkey-showers and more tiny, instantly melting hail.
Christien and I walked through the park in the late afternoon (late afternoon here is 3:30, the sun is going down by 4) -- through the marshy grass, and mouldering leaves. Bare oaks and cedars. I'm not sure if I've written yet about the oak trees here ... I will, and will use pictures too, at some point. They are amazing--enormous, knotty, twisted, slicked with moss--mostly bare now. The silhouette of an oak at the top of a darkening hillside is enough to send me deep into an English novel moment ... some kind of half-real, half-literary experience where the slanting light through branches and the half-remembered words of Austen or Hardy or Elliot or Bronte ripple through my body like water over pebbles (words along the spine).
We made lentil loaf, mashed potatoes, gravy, brussels sprouts, apple cake (and you all know already about the tangy pickled beets alternative to cranberries ... ah well, it was red). A luxury of food! We drank cider and watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving show (albeit not as good as Halloween or Xmas).
And then we were able to see our families (actually in real-time) via computer! What a world we live in. What a way to stretch out the day perfectly--to be able to travel at the speed of light (almost) all the way across the Atlantic, across the continent, into those living rooms that are so loved and missed. Not as good as being there, but amazing all the same.
For all the trials and frustration, the worry (and I am a worrier) and stress, confusion--how amazing to be here now, to have the chance to spend 6 hours writing my new novel, to be able to eat mashed potatoes and gravy, to talk to family. And when I think of the state of the world, the lives of hunger, poverty and distress--there are no words for how amazed and grateful I am to be here. And of course it is only because our family have loved us and supported us in all our half-brained, willful, oddball, artsy schemes.
So, although not a stir was made here in the UK over such an American holiday ... I feel as though this Thanksgiving was one of my most significant--because for all its loneliness, it has helped me to remember just how much I have to be thankful for. So ... thank you.
I remember your first Thanksgiving away from home, your first at Naropa in Boulder, CO. You called home as all of us were gathering at the table for dinner. We had a large crowd that year (unlike this year) and as soon as I heard your voice on the other end of the line, I immediately choked up and couldn't speak. I practically threw the phone at my brother Kev and told him to talk to you until I could get my swirling emotions under some kind of control. After a few minutes I was better, and as the years have passed, I've gotten more adept at dealing with the many hellos and goodbyes that come with having such a bright and independent daughter. And I have never stopped being thankful for the daughter who continually expands my understanding of life and the world, stretches my imagination and tweeks my heartstrings with every hello and goodbye.
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