. Spinning .

Good to be with family this holiday weekend, though down to four of us Thanksgiving Day.  But calls throughout the day from my nieces, nephew since their mom and dad were here to share the meal.  I stumbled on the grace and couldn’t finish, though the grateful thanks were in our hearts as well as pain. 

And friends, like Neha, here and even better, there; amid the curry, flatbread and a mint chutney that was to die for.  Friends I haven’t seen in maybe weeks or sometimes months, but one I hadn’t seen in four years or so.  Allie of the passionate articulated caring for the world, an even stronger knowledge-mellowed voice that will lead ways.

Holidays are simply food and friendship.  The good and pure and simple things in life that we can share.

Family tradition dictates that we change our wardrobes like the curtains into summer/winter segments marking half-years of our lives.

I put away the teeshirts, shorts and lightweight jackets into plastic bags and store them in a closet deep down in the bowels of the house.  And up to daylight bring the long sleeved jerseys, sweaters, slacks and fuzziness of hats and gloves and other things that bear the winter well. 

The scent of wool that wafts out like a spirit from the bags brings times and places of six months ago.  I was here and wearing this, and this I wore when he was here and this one’s marked by indiscretion with a stubbornness that even  spray detergents won’t erase.

The memories cling and layer in the cedared drawer, waiting to explore again, collect and make some more until the fabric of their lives and mine are weary worn in threads of gold. Side by side in straightened piles, they whisper all my secrets when the doors and drawers are shut and they are left alone in darkness to gossip through my life and so I’m loathe to trust their loyalty in Salvation Army bins.

How often does it happen that next-day Thanksgiving turkey leftovers can be served to someone who has not had turkey the day before?

So it was with exceptional joy that I was able to offer a place at our dinner table to my dear friend, Neha, back home for a brief break from Seton Hill in PA.  Not the greatest home visit for her–she hadn’t even unpacked her bags or taken them from her car by last night.  Busy, family stuff, driving the long journey home and back to school take a space of time that makes it seem so very much shorter than  it is.  Some of us will visit her tonight as she has so graciously offered to entertain us.  And, she must also, as some of us, squeeze in some time for study and projects for school as well. 

But Neha is an amazing young woman wise beyond her years, extremely talented, creative and intelligent.  Somehow, she’ll get it all done before hopping back into her car and taking off again.

But then, she was born with wanderlust, and the stops in between her journeys, of the miles or the mind, are just the plot points of her story, and the paths she takes are left marked by golden footprints as she walks.

Hope that most of you have eaten your way through a Thanksgiving turkey, and are planning on roast beef for Christmas dinner.  Because I’m going to tell you a sad little tale that’s almost akin to the Great Veal Revelation.

I’ve been to a turkey farm here in town several years ago.  I was actually seeking wing feathers to split for arrow fletching, since for some reason there was a shortage of ready-mades.  Now I know why.  Thanksgiving turkeys are not the pretty wild things we have running around our yard.  They are white (with the brown tinge of dust), have no glorious wing feathers worth plucking for fletching, and just about drag the stubs of their wings about in the dirt trailing toilet paper (something like peacocks in Texas). 

I’m sure that’s not the reason why there’s both white and dark meat on turkey.

Oh yes, and if you dig deep enough, you can find more good things out of "near tragedy":  Even with a shameful 51 on a stats test, I have a 90 average so far (but there’s the black cloud of two more tests coming up), and with my computers giving me grief, Dell is busy building me a laptop.

Just spent fifteen minutes forcefeeding a turkey.  It’s not unlike doing the same with a one-year-old human baby:  You either do the airplane, race car, or bumblebee (this last one’s not the best idea to teach a kid) to get it in, or, alternatively, approach when it’s not looking, and shove.  Watch carefully, and as it comes back out, be fast with the spoon to catch it off the chin and with one clean gesture, stick it back in the mouth and wipe the spoon off the nose.  Only with a turkey, the body parts aren’t quite the same.  But hey, it works.

Sometimes the hardest part of Thanksgiving is finding reason to be thankful.  Job loss, financial worries, illness and death take their toll on the best of us and can make us wary and bitter.  We’ve had a rough year here, but there are some things in particular that were couldabeen tragedies that turned out well:  our niece’s full recovery prognosis from a brain tumor; Jim’s miraculous unscathed exit from an overturned new car, Gus’ fast and easy recovery from a quadruple bypass, Nancy’s quick recovery from a dangerous but overlooked abscess on her spine.  And, I suppose, two people who have found rest and peace from pain and loneliness.

So while I’m glad this year is over, we have much to be thankful for.  Just as in the learning of literature and the arts, it’s a matter of perception.  And what is life, but a story and an art.

A happy and blessed Thanksgiving to you all.