musings of a melancholic: thanksgiving

Showing posts with label thanksgiving. Show all posts

Hey Birds,

What have you got cookin' in that thankful cooker of yours? Pour moi:

Creature Comforts: I've been struck by this quite a bit lately. My warm house, my lovely antiques, my wine budget, my car with heated seats, my heavy quilt made my Joel's late grandmother, my nail polish collection, my cozy couch, my large TV, my access to any information I may want to know, my computer and internet access, my jadite mug, my gorgeous books, my proximity and ability to acquire some of the best coffee in the country, my stroller, the lake one mile from my house where Bowie and I walk, the donut shop two blocks away, my large cardigan and shoe collection, my hot baths, my peppercorn candle, our cooking salts collection, my access to quality food, the neighborhood where I can get almost anything I want within 10 miles, my smartphone, my important camera.

Privilege: That I have the luxury of time to reflect upon my life. I do not take this for granted; this has been affecting me profoundly of late. That my birth, race, income bracket - all of these things merge to support my dreams. The advantage is large, and I am eager to share it well with others through self-awareness, charity work, time, money, community service, education, and teaching my daughter the same.

Therapy: For the healing power of speaking into secret, shadowy places. Though nothing may be fixed per say, an immeasurable amount of relief and release results in speaking without a filter to an objective party.

Written Word: The words that compile my inner dialogue behave like caged children clawing to get out of the classroom for recess, scratching at my eyes and hands to be released of this suffocating, limiting mind. That I have the means, the working hands, the brain function, and the talent to express myself - I really am supremely thankful. I believe I would have died young without it.

My Mother-in-Law: Last Monday, a few hours before Joel would be coming home to help, I reached a scary point with Bowie. She was frustrating, demanding, teething, not listening, and otherwise being illogical. I was maxed out on being a Mother. In order to combat this, I had already a self-date in place for Tuesday, attending my writer's group. Joel's mom agreed to watch her, so I was prepared to drive 45min 4x that day, for a total of 3 hours driving. I do this a lot, they watch her so I can keep sane and I am happy to do it. A few minutes after I experienced ultimate frustration with Bowie, I got an email from Jean saying that she wanted to drive up so I didn't have to - just to love on me. This action, though small, changed my entire outlook. I heard the cosmos say through her, "You are not alone."

Sentient Mind and Physical Health: I like my mind, that it is self-aware, that it can look up and ponder its own existence. I appreciate the gift of physical mobility and health.

Quality of relationships: To have met and shared a reciprocal love with people who crave the same depth of relationship as I is very, very rare. To have physical reminders of their love - letters, words, texts, emails, gifts. It's overwhelming - especially when I think of all the humans suffering in loneliness and isolation. If I persist in these feelings, it is of my own doing - not because I am truly alone.

The feeling of Bowie intentionally hugging me: When you give your body, soul, spirit, resources, career, energy, sleep, mental health, time, and patience to a small being that continues to suck it out of you day after day, it can be hard to give yourself the personal rewards necessary for continuing. This was Bowie's first year of life. But as we progress toward toddlerhood and she stops to hug me, wants to cuddle with me, pats me gently in the dark night while I hold her, sighs with utter relaxation and security - this is a feeling like I've never known. It feels good. She is bright, charming, clever, and pensive.

For Phoenix: This peanut kills me. So perfectly sad and bright and smart and independent...for the healing she has brought to her parents.

Happy Thanksgiving, Turkeys.

No, I am not speaking of the ominous villain in Doctor Who (I love you if you get that reference), but I am speaking of the strange periods of silence I've recently endured. Times in life where one desires no company other than a spouse, no conversation other than with beautiful films, and more sleep than most people dream of.

Perhaps this silence is due to my being sick for almost 9 days now. I've left the house only 3 times in that stint, and just when I thought I was getting better, I woke up this morning with what I can only guess is a different cold. How festive.

Despite feeling strange, solitary, and rather disabled, I've been enjoying the energy, the Feng Shui, of being in a house that has been lived in so well. I've cooked several amazing meals, had countless cups of tea, snuggled with Joel any old time I wanted, stewed cider, and baked an apple pie. I suppose I am saying that I am thankful for being ill in that it has demanded sleep and nourishing food and soul-giving solitude. I am thankful for a body.

Let me explain.

The Universe and I have been at odds lately. We've been in discussion about endings. I am fighting this impossible battle between the biological need to survive and the inevitable truth that we all die, and must. The human race will most likely be entirely wiped out in the next million years, with nothing to offer the cosmos or other lifeforms elsewhere (except The Voyager, Joel comforts me). Moreover, I suppose the real struggle is that I cannot control either. I wish I could be obsessed with beginnings, but instead I've been struggling so much with the fact that life ends. Just when bliss introduces herself to me with a jarring handshake, she slips through my fingers because I think of when it will end. I am trying to accept that this issue has been brought to me to examine and chew on, trying to see its essence instead of its shadow, but I have a distrust of the temporary.

Simply stated, I am trying to reconcile death with life, and it seems everyone has some sort of lovely answer for how they have arrived at their own particular version of peace. I suspect that most deal with it by ignoring it, or praying a lot, or distracting themselves with the busyness of life. I bring up this comparison to others because I believe our notions of personal happiness are based largely on how we see others living and what they chose to pour their precious lives into. I am clinically depressed, so it makes sense to me that I would wonder why everyone is so darn happy all the time, expressing how they find certain weather patterns, particular bowls of fruit, or long vacations nothing but entirely rewarding, afraid to express anything negative because of what that might mean, or what others might think. In the end, when we do not take the time to express all parts of life - the good and the bad, and express both with tact and love - I feel we are performing a great disservice to those in our care, who listen to us and glean inspiration from us. If we are only expressing good, those who feel badly about life will feel ashamed that they can't just feel good like so and so does all the time. This is a complete rabbit-trail, I might add. All of this to say that it often feels as though I am the only one thinking about the inevitable end of the Universe, and balancing the desperate desire to stay alive with the intellectual acceptance of death. Of course I'm not.

Back to feeling thankful for the human body I have.

Therefore, in the midst of this very confusing mental dialogue, I find it especially rewarding when I am made newly aware of the awe of the human body, decaying and fleeting though it be.

It costs me much, and I have more caveats than acceptance of the notion, but I again say to the cosmos and to you, I am thankful for this body.

Hope your Thanksgiving was meaningful, at the very least.

Despite Thanksgiving being pretty close to my number one favorite holiday, I have felt recently that even the way one expresses gratitude can be a tad...I don't know, competitive. There are many ways to eloqute the

(--enter noun(s)--) one is "thankful" for, but this year, it feels contrived, forced...obligatory even.

I had a list. It was elaborately planned (seriously unlike 90% of my blog posts) and I was going to really spend some time delving into all my overwhelming blessings. But as time passed and I felt less and less able to remember what those things really WERE, I began to panic. I left the list of things somewhere and couldn't quite remember what they were. Don't get me wrong, I am SWIMMING in seriously amazing (--noun(s)--), but I wanted to be really specific, to the point, profound.

Readers, I lost it.

I lost my profundity.

Furthermore, I realized that even though I had planned this big blog post that would surely bring tears and chills to even the most unaffected critic, I really just wanted to keep these things to myself. I wanted to write pages and pages about them in my journal; I wanted to curl up inside myself and find a private, unshared, unviewed space wherein to express my thanks for really the most simple thing.

And that is this:

That after what has been a hands-down shitty, tragic, and unlucky year, that I was able to feel any gratitude at all. Feeling the authenticity of gratitude is a gift all its own.

And though I am open and willing to share almost anything with anyone, I realized that holding onto a few beautiful gems of gratitude all for myself and the universe...well that, my dears, is nothing short of pure, self-indulgent luxury.