Month: November 2020

The truth is that I have never once cooked a Thanksgiving meal. I suppose you might say that I have been very spoiled over the years. My mother and mother-in-law accepted that duty for countless years and when they became too tired to continue my brother announced that he wanted to be the official Thanksgiving host. For all of my life I have simply dressed up and shown up at someone else’s home for the big feast. I usually make a couple of pumpkin pies and a side dish but I really have no idea how to make a juicy turkey or how to prepare the fabulous dressing that my brother creates. For that reason I panicked when my brother announced in October that he would not be cooking for a crowd this year due to Covid-19. I was on my own for the first time in my life.

My daughters and their families will be coming to my home. If the weather is nice we will set up tables in my backyard so that each household is able to eat together. The rest of the time we we be fully masked up and distanced for conversation and maybe a game or two. If the weather is inclement we will eat inside at separate tables based on households as well. One group will be in the kitchen, another will be in the dining room and Mike and I will be at a small table upstairs. Hopefully this will be enough caution to keep us all safe and not create a super spreader event. 

That gets me to the problem of cooking food, something that terrified me so that I have ordered a family feast from Central Market that I will pick up on Wednesday afternoon. It includes enough turkey for sixteen people, cranberry relish, mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, green beans and rolls. I feel comfortable adding more side dishes like carrot salad, cranberry bacon brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, squash casserole and corn. I cook vegetables quite well and of course I’ll bake my pumpkin pies and maybe even attempt to reproduce my mother’s pecan pies. Those are in my comfort zone, but turkey and dressing, not so much. 

My nephew Ryan has suggested that we have a Zoom conference sometime during the day. That will be nice but I doubt that it will be as crazy fun as our Thanksgiving after parties usually are. They get rather riotous and filled with laughter. In fact those moments are some of the ones for which I am the most thankful. Family has always been more important to me than anything else. 

This year we are not only going to be separated due to the virus but we all know that we have had some big differences in our political thinking during this presidential election year. Some among us take things way more seriously than others and I suspect that feelings have been hurt along the way. I’m just grateful that we live in a country where it is acceptable to have a wide spectrum of views. At the end of the day I’m glad my guy won but I’ve lost enough times to know that one way or another I would have been okay anyway. I do not believe that we were going to be on the edge of Armageddon regardless of who had won. Our Founding Fathers set up a really smart system that seems hardy enough to weather even the worst political storms.

I am very thankful that my family has mostly stayed safe from the ill effects of the pandemic. The medical community has served us well and just as I believed would be the case it will ultimately be dedicated scientists, not politicians, who find a vaccine and lead us out of the dangers of the virus. It may still be awhile before that comes to fruition but I am hopeful that by next Thanksgiving we will be enjoying a mega feast and celebration with our big extended family at my brother’s home once again.

We have suffered as a nation and a world in the past many months but there is a beam of light calling us to the future. We are very fortunate in spite our our sacrifices and for this I am enormously grateful. I will be thinking of those who have lost much this year. Some have had to say goodbye to loved ones, others have watched their home and their property being destroyed by wind, rain, fire. This will be a very difficult holiday season for far too many. Hopefully they will have begun to heal when Thanksgiving 2021 rolls around next year.

If this year has taught me anything it is to never take anything for granted. None of us might have guessed what horrors we would witness when we lifted our glasses in gratitude only a year ago. Somehow in spite of it all we are still here, still able to express our thankfulness.  

I celebrated my birthday this week. I turned 72, a number that boggles my mind and makes me wonder where the time has gone. It is a cliche but it is also true that I feel as though I am still quite young, perhaps no more than 32. In my mind I still have dewy wrinkle free skin, silky brown hair, and enough energy to tackle a mountain climb. In reality I no longer fool anyone with my age. I am an older lady, albeit one who is not yet ready to settle for a final journey. I still have enough zest to make the most of the hours in each of my days. I can still work for hours laboring even though I know that I will ache after my efforts. I intend to make the most of my journey on this planet for as long as I am able, but these days I do so with a kind of patience and slowing of pace that has eluded me for most of my life. 

I now have the gift of time and it is a glorious thing. I was already enjoying the perks of retirement but my type A personality pushed me to fill my days with as much meaningful activity as possible. I was mostly on the go, measuring the worth of each rotation of the sun by the number of my accomplishments. I judged the success of another year of life on how full my calendar had been. All of that changed with the coming of the pandemic and with it so too did my attitude. 

Had the seventy first year of my life gone as planned I would have traveled to Scotland, heard Elton John in concert, celebrated my nephew’s wedding, enjoyed gatherings with friends and family, visited loved ones who are sick, delighted in my Sunday mornings at church. In other words busily filled every hour of every day. I would have no doubt been quite content for that is my nature, but my now more isolated life has brought me a new outlook that is magnificent. My calendar shows a series of blank time slots that belong only to me. I am free to take my mind wherever I wish it to be, to consider thoughts and ideas and to immerse myself in simplicity. 

My home is my Walden and like Thoreau I have learned how to embrace the beauty of simplicity. I hear and see birds that I did not know lived together with me. I gaze at my cup of tea and feel its warmth on my hands. I am filled with it’s aroma. I do not have to gulp it down because I have an appointment to which I must drive. I am able to linger and enjoy the filling of my senses, to think on things. It is as though scales have been lifted from my eyes, wax pulled from my ears. 

I read. I pray. I study. I write. I learn. None of it is forced. It is all pleasurable. I have time to take the threads of existence and find their connections, the places where they are woven together. I see what is important and what is not. I appreciate even the tiniest moments, the drawing of each breath, something of particular importance in times of Covid-19 and George Floyd. 

My age has given me the ability to live in this quiet way. It has allowed me to savor my isolation in a manner that would not have been possible in my younger days when I had children to nurture, responsibilities to fulfill. Being seventy two has its perks even as it signals that I am walking towards conclusion rather than a beginning, and yet I feel as though I am indeed starting over again with a new perspective about my role in this world and how I should choose to live.

When the time comes for “normalcy” again I do not think that I will be the same person that I was only a few months ago. I do not wish to keep myself so busy running around that I lose the ability to quiet my mind enough to see and hear what is most important. I want to continue to feel the joy of contemplation. 

As I approached my seventy second birthday I became free of the superficialities of society. I walk in my bare feet most of the time now. I feel the grass on my lawn, the smoothness of the wood inside my house. I no longer fret over my hair which has grown long and natural. I have had no manicures or pedicures and yet my hands and feet seem healthier looking than they have in many years. My face is unadorned by make up, revealing the lines and dark circles that are my natural state. Amazingly I am more content with my appearance than ever. It is of less and less consequence each day. I have a glow of confidence that is most surely coming from within. 

I have heard the cries of the suffering and understood their needs in ways that once baffled me. I have found the ability to open my mind to ideas that were once perplexing. It has been a journey more exciting than all of the unfulfilled plans that I had made before I knew that everything would change so dramatically. It has made being seventy two feel like one of the most wonderful times of my life. 

I do not know where the coming days and weeks and months will lead me and the rest of the world but I do know that I have learned how to be content with little more than the sound of the wind or the cooing of a dove. I have simplified, simplified, simplified and it has been glorious.

At the end of my junior year of high school I decided to run for Student Body Secretary. I doubted that I had much of a shot at winning because I was running against two of the most popular girls on campus. Nonetheless, I threw myself into the campaign process with the same abandon that I applied to everything I did. I made posters to hang all over the school, polished the speech that I would have to make to the entire student gathering, and created materials to hand to the students to let them know I was a contestant. It was a fun process that pulled me out of my shyness and taught me that taking risks was a good exercise.

One morning I was standing at the school entrance greeting students as they arrived and asking them to consider voting for me. I was a nervous wreck at first but I got better and better with each person who politely returned my smile even if they had no intention of voting for me. The tardy bell had rung and I was picking up my campaign materials when a straggler suddenly strode through the door. I grinned, held out my hand and gave him one of my flyers. His response was to stare at me with disdain, tear my offering into tiny pieces and toss them on the floor like confetti. Then he turned to me and said, “Nobody is going to vote for you. Nobody likes you. Save yourself the embarrassment.” 

I was stunned by his anger but I remained calm, saying nothing in response. Once he had left I quietly picked up the pieces of paper on the floor wondering what might make someone feel the need to be so hurtful. I knew that what he had said was not true, but I was a bit shaken nonetheless. My confidence definitely took a silent hit that returned on the day I had to deliver my speech. I remember having to grip the podium where I stood because my legs became rubbery as I looked out on the sea of faces that I was addressing. I don’t know if my voice was as shaky as it seemed to be in my own ears but I somehow managed to say my piece and hurry back to my seat relatively unscathed. 

I did not win the election but I had never really thought that I would. I was mostly proud of myself for pushing past my fears and trying something that was outside of my comfort zone. I was also quite happy that I had been able to mostly ignore the student who had been so despicable to me. Nonetheless, I thought of him often even after I had graduated from high school, not because he had somehow wormed his way into my psyche but because I worried about him. It seemed to me that someone with such a dark heart might have a difficult time forming loving relationships in life. I wondered what kind of abuse had made him feel the need to be so vile. I had always felt so much love in my life and it seemed to me that someone like him might have been lacking in the kind of affection that had helped me to grow into a happy person.

I eventually learned that my fellow student had died rather young, apparently in a car accident. I did not really know him, nor had I followed his progress after graduation but somehow I felt a profound sadness for him. I realized that he had needed to be a cruel bully to feel superior to me and it occurred to me that someone had taught him to be that way. 

Our children do indeed learn from what they see us do and hear us say. My husband has always encouraged my independent spirit. He has not felt challenged by my quest for knowledge and learning. I have a competitive spirit that he supports. Somehow he is so very different from the young man who wanted to terrorize me. I know that it is because my husband’s family dynamic was grounded in love and respect that he saw every single day as a child. 

My mother-in-law was indeed one of the most brilliant individuals that I have ever met. She was a woman of unwavering strength. My father-in-law was and still is the consummate gentleman. He cherished and cultivated my mother-in-law’s intellect and free spirit. My husband saw these things and so it became second nature to him to value both women and men without self righteous judgement. His parents were kind to him and to each other and so he is kind to everyone. 

If children witness abuse in the form of words or fists they often begin to emulate such behaviors themselves. Some manage to escape and change, but far too many continue the ugly cycle of bullying. From one generation to the next it becomes an acceptable way of life and may even be viewed as a sign of strength. They push their way through life with intimidation and fear. They may even seem to be successful and happy but that is rarely the truth.

Teach your children how to be kind. It begins with how everyone is treated inside your home. How you behave is more important than what you say. If you not only accept, overlook and admire someone who is vile in the treatment of others, you send the message to your children that the pathway to success is found in power, rather than in respect. Be careful that you are not robbing your children of the gift of confidence that comes from healthy relationships. Teach your children well.