Presence, Security

Thanksgiving French Fries

November 25, 2023

Somehow I ended up alone on Thanksgiving.

That wasn’t the plan, but things fell apart early in the week: Covid showed up at my niece’s house, and then my nephew wasn’t feeling so great, either. It seemed wise to postpone our family celebration until everyone was certain they were healthy.

It’s been a long time since I had Thanksgiving with that part of my family. This wasn’t anybody’s fault; it’s just how things had worked out. Some holidays, after my folks had both passed away, my husband and I wanted to get away with our kids. One year I had the brilliant idea that it would be fun to drive to the Bay Area to visit Muir Woods. Surely it wouldn’t be busy on Thanksgiving Day! All the Bay Area folks would be in their houses cooking turkeys! Except the drive there was painful, with traffic backed up in areas where it normally doesn’t back up, because apparently other folks had the same not so brilliant idea. Once we finally arrived, an hour later than we should have, there was nowhere to park. Nowhere even within walking distance! So we drove up and down past the entrance to Muir Woods for half an hour and then finally gave up and went to the beach. By the time we headed home, every restaurant was closed, except for the Black Bear Diner in Auburn, which is where we finally ended up having our Thanksgiving dinner. I think I had a hamburger.

So I was looking forward to the day, to sitting down with family that I don’t see very often, because we are all so busy. I was looking forward to enjoying food like the food I remembered from decades of Thanksgiving dinners growing up, dishes that my Mom used to make. She always bought a smoked turkey. We’d have stuffing out of the box, because we loved it and never understood why it had to be more complicated than that, and a vegetable dish made with artichoke hearts, green beans, and tarragon, the secret ingredient.

My Mom died five years ago this month. I miss her. I hoped that being with extended family this Thanksgiving would bring her close again.

The rest of my family is not around right now, either. My son stayed in Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving. His Dad made the very long drive down there to keep him company. We tried to figure out a way to bring my son home, but (of course) airfare is pricey for this weekend, and it’s a relatively short one, especially when he will be home in mid-December for three weeks. I’m grateful that his Dad was able to be with him. I stayed home partly because I have a wonderful group of quilters arriving Saturday. They will keep me busy doing massages all weekend. My daughter was treated to a pizza feast with her sea turtle cohorts in Costa Rica.

So what did I do on this first Thanksgiving without either of my children or other family? I went for a 5k run, a fundraiser for the local food pantry. I met my good friend and her children there. After the run, her kids went off to spend Thanksgiving with their Dad, so the two of us went to McDonald’s for iced tea and French fries. We thanked the McDonald’s workers heartily for working; the cashier said it wasn’t so bad, that they were only open until 2:30 pm, but then she had to head home to cook.

I came home and walked out to the garden. I picked the last of the green tomatoes and unhooked my sprinkler timers and covered up the outside faucets with insulation to hopefully keep the pipes from freezing when the cold descends. That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon, though. Temperatures are set to be above freezing for the next weeks. I brought in firewood and stacked it by the woodstove. I took a bath. One of my online book groups will be talking about Ann Patchett’s the Dutch House in January. I downloaded it with my Hoopla library app and listened to more than an hour. Tom Hanks is the reader. It is excellent. Also sad. Sort of appropriate for a Thanksgiving Day that was lovely but which didn’t turn out exactly like I had hoped.

Here is another lovely thing. I bet that if you have read this far, you are my friend or are somebody who would have invited me to share a Thanksgiving meal with you. Thank you for that.

This year, my Thanksgiving meal ended up being French fries and iced tea at McDonald’s with a good friend. But it’s OK, because friends are family, too. I guess I wasn’t alone after all. And then the time I had by myself at home later? Time in the garden and time with a good book in front of the fire? It was fine, and good, and sweet. It helped me remember that there’s much to be thankful for, on Thanksgiving Day and all my ordinary days, too.

Presence, Security

Darkness as an Invitation

November 11, 2023

Also? Time Changes Are Dumb.

A beautiful Costa Rican sunset. Photograph by my daughter, who is off working with sea turtles. Her photos make me happy. Also, she did not have a dumb time change!

I am not a fan of this time change, the one that set the clocks back an hour last Sunday.

It’s nearly dark by 5:00 pm here now (when it was 6:00 pm last week!). This darkness continues to descend earlier and earlier, day by day, for more than a month. I don’t know exactly when sunset comes earliest in December, but it’s around 4:40 pm here. Really! But then? Magically, mystically, wonderfully: the light slowly, slowly returns.

I need to remember these days that the light always comes back. Because I am now in this empty nest period, which should not have been a surprise. I’ve known it was coming for decades, that someday my kids would move along. But still! One day they were here. The next they were gone. My son has been away at college for more than a month, my daughter at her internship for two weeks. Some days, I wake up and wonder what all the fuss about the empty nest was, why everyone was warning me about it. Because it’s not all the way terrible. I haven’t minded not having to wake up with my son to make sure he gets breakfast and to school on time. I like not having to buy so many groceries. If my first work appointments are at 10:00 am, it’s nice not to have to leave the house until 9:00. These moments of “Hey! This empty nest is not so bad!” are generally in the mornings.

But then it’s evening, and it’s dark by late afternoon, and it’s just me and the cat and the dog and the spider that is still living above my kitchen sink in the house. I could work on my book. I should work on my book. I want to work on my book! But instead I somehow get sucked into watching twenty minutes of Instagram reels. Good for me, though, that it was only twenty minutes. Could have been longer. Maybe I’m glad that my phone was about to run out of battery.

For the first time in decades, I am living alone. Thankfully, I have a good job. I have friends. I have a home that I love. I have a wonderful community through Mercy Center. I have a book I’m trying to finish and then self-publish. It’s not like I’m alone. It’s not like I don’t have plenty to do. So what is this strange sadness that arrives after the sun sets, a kind of depression that makes me want to scroll endlessly through Instagram? So many spiritual teachers and mystics promise that God comes to us in silence. If I have any sense at all, I would purposefully dive deeper into the darkness.  My house is pretty quiet these days. Seems like a perfect time to see what the dark holds. Because I suspect that this darkness could actually be some sort of invitation.