I Wish I Could Show You
“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.”
On this day of thanks, I want to celebrate that astonishing light. I can feel its warmth and shine all around me. There are many who are struggling but doing so with courage and grace, and there are those whose sorrows and disappointments have given rise to compassion and resolve. There are those creating beauty, planting seeds, clearing paths to new perspectives. There are the ones who were taken too soon whose songs still shimmer, whose unquenched longings have etched my heart into lacy patterns, and whose memories inspire me to be better than I am.
I think a safe, peaceful, stay-at-home Thanksgiving is a very fine idea, and I am feeling quietly grateful. I hung a crystal prism in the kitchen window, and it is splashing rainbows all over the room. I’ve gotten texts and calls from people I love, people from various times and places of my life, and I am so glad for the lights of their being. Last night I dreamed I was in Naples in the rain, and in the morning Monte made orange juice for me and arched an eyebrow at some nonsense I was spouting, and it occurs to me, with the abundant gratitude it warrants, that I am a person who has actually been to Naples and laughed with someone special in the rain there, and who has often been greeted with fresh orange juice upon waking, and whose silliness is affectionately indulged.
Yesterday, Monte took his mother down to the beach, her first visit in a very long while. She walked along the shore, and she got down and touched the sand. She breathed the salt air deeply, remarked on the extent of dunes and sand, and gazed in silence at the ocean. Maybe that’s how we are supposed to experience, notice, and appreciate the world all the time.
Meanwhile, in Oxford, my grandson Felix ate some mashed-up avocado! I see him on the computer screen, and his antics are a daily infusion of delight.
On the national scene, we are about to have a grown-up in the room again.
And there are promising vaccines. (Patience, grasshoppers, patience.)
It hasn’t been an easy year, worse for some than others, but not smooth for any of us. Let’s not judge ourselves too harshly. (I say it to myself as well.) On this oddly quiet day of thanks, let us notice the wonders, walk in gentle beauty, and keep on shining.
“From the apprehensive present, from a future packed
With unknown dangers, monstrous, terrible and new—
Let us turn for comfort to this simple fact:
We have been in trouble before . . . and we came through.”