All the Thanksgiving!

I have no childhood memories of Thanksgiving. I assume we must have had Thanksgiving. I know about Green Bean Casserole, yams with marshmallows, and jellied cranberry sauce. I have memories of putting olives on my fingers.

The first Thanksgiving I really remember is from when I was in my 20's. That year it snowed right before Thanksgiving. My roommates and I walked to the store to get the food for the feast. As we walked home, Chris, who was carrying the frozen turkey in a roasting pan, stopped and set the pan on top of a fire hydrant. She said, "Well, it could be worse, it could be raining". Sally, my other roommate and I laughed and I think I said "If it was raining, we could have driven to the store". We all started laughing and Chris said, "This is it, this is as bad as it gets."

Fifteen years ago, Mr R and I started having Thanksgiving at the Blue House. It was a way for friends without family nearby to get together and have Thanksgiving. Some folks from that first Thanksgiving have come every year since. Now I have lots of wonderful Thanksgiving memories.

Last year, I had to cancel Thanksgiving at the Blue House. I spent half of Thanksgiving Day in the Critical Care Unit. In the afternoon, I was moved out of CCU to the Cardiac Telemetry Unit. There was much to be grateful for that day - Mr R, friends, family, the nurses, recovering from surgery.

This year, there will be Thanksgiving at the Blue House again. I want all the Thanksgiving - turkey, cranberry sauce, yams, mashed potatoes, pie. I want friends around the table again.

But first I need to clean the house.

The post it has taken a year to write

If you catch a fragrance of the unseen,
Like that, you will not be able
to be contained.
You will be out in empty sky.
-Rumi

I posted this bit of Rumi on my Facebook page a little over a year ago. It seemed appropriate as we were close to Halloween, a time when, according to some, including me, the veil between the living and the dead grows thin or even disappears and the ancestors come for a visit. At the time I posted it, I didn't know I was going to get very close to the veil twice within the coming year.

Two or three days later, I found out I had a heart murmur. At the time, it was simply an interesting tidbit of information. Within a week, I was scheduled for surgery to repair an ascending aortic aneurysm. For a long time, I chided myself for being overly dramatic in thinking I'd come close to death. Then in May, I learned my cousin died suddenly from a aortic dissection, something that could have happened to me without the surgery. And I realized maybe I wasn't being overly dramatic after all.

Then there was the fall in Portugal. When I went back to look at the place where I fell, I realized that with a slight alteration in the angle or trajectory of the fall there would have been a much different outcome. Again, I realized how close to the veil I'd been. Maybe not close enough to brush it with  my fingertips, but definitely close.

As I briefly recount these two experiences, I'm overwhelmed by gratitude. I don't believe that things happen for a reason or to teach me something, but that doesn't mean I can't or shouldn't learn from the things that happen. What I have learned and what I believe, is that death is my constant companion. I don't find this morbid or frightening. In fact quite the opposite, I find it liberating. Understanding that death is always with me means I don't have to sit around waiting for it to come, it is always here. I don't have to fear that death is lurking out there somewhere. I can get on with living and not worry about death.

I also don't believe that I survived for a reason. I don't think I lived because I have some grand, spectacular purpose or mission or thing to do. I don't think I lived because I am particularly lucky or blessed either, although I feel lucky and blessed. I feel grateful more than anything else, every single day. More than ever, I know the grace and beauty of the world. Mr. R. says I am bolder, more adventurous.

I believe life is messy, beautiful, chaotic, and full of surprises and mystery. It is also full of pattern, rhythm, shape, and order. Every day, life hands me an invitation to be part of all of this.

This morning I had a dream. I was looking at a beautiful sunset. I wanted to take a picture of the sunset, but I couldn't get it framed, there was always something in the way. But when I looked at the sunset with my own eyes and not through the camera, it was so beautiful. I woke up thinking that beauty can't be captured, but it can and it must be experienced.

I don't know how to end this post. I have no brilliant insight or piece of wisdom to impart. I keep reading this over and over to find the end. I've been thinking about it for too long. Perhaps, there is no end, only open sky.