It was the sound of birds vying for landing space on the feeder just outside the open French doors to our bedroom that first woke me up. They pulled me slowly from another dimension where people and places I’m familiar with had been put into a blender and served up like some odd Dali Gazpacho. Apparently my feeder is too small to warrant an air traffic control bird so the bickering and diving was chaotic. Of course the Blue Jays bomb in whenever they damn well please. But it was nice, I liked it. Looking past my feet I could see the first fiery clouds peeping up over the distant tree line as the sun prepared to take the stage. An older lady paused to let her poodle sniff the bank on the other side of the lake, then walked off upside down in her reflection that waved and stretched out over the water. Carla was sleeping soundly next to me, reassuringly. It all made me feel unusually…celebratory.
We had postponed making a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, waiting until Ruth was to visit the week after. But even though we loved seeing her and did lots of fun stuff, making that dinner wasn’t one of them. So while Carla slept in after an evening of running loose with the dogs late into the night, I cooked. Why not? It’s December 18th, sunny and in the 70’s and I felt thankful. Several hours later, after a very musical kitchen dance, I was done: a stuffed turkey, giblet gravy with what some would say is too much ground pepper, potatoes and butternut squash mashed together, Collard greens picked fresh from the garden, homemade organic applesauce cooked with blueberries, and a hot Pecan pie spiked with melted semi-sweet chocolate morsels that could seriously burn your tongue if you weren’t careful to eat each bite with a cold spoonful of vanilla ice cream.
I knew that Hannah was celebrating her life in South Africa as was Ruth in Venice Beach. They both understand, they get it. Every new day is cause for celebration and gratitude if you choose to look at life that way. Mother Maybelle and her girls used to sing: “Keep on the Sunny Side”, and I do. Every day is Thanksgiving day, even an uneventful Tuesday.
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