On Thanksgiving Morning

Yesterday a large, husky-looking raptor perched briefly in the highest branches of a tree, then flew away in a wide-winged flurry, and we are pretty certain it was a golden eagle. A dolphin was swimming very near to shore, and I ran alongside it for a while, and the sunset hues of the sky deepened and everything glowed.  A friend has come to visit, and he and Monte walked along talking, just a couple of old guys, and now I’m eating apple pie for breakfast.

The other night I watched the launch of an asteroid-busting rocket, the very idea of which seemed like science fiction. But sure enough, at the specified time, 10:21 p.m., the sky above the hills to the west lit up, and the rocket appeared and began its ascent steadily upward, veering left in the direction of the sea, disappearing into the clouds. A few minutes later there came the deep, throaty rumble that follows such launches. I stood there until it subsided and I could hear the crickets again, then returned to my bed.

I walk a lot. That’s my salvation, and a few days ago I walked with one of the little neighbor girls, who helped me notice what I might have missed, and told me there’s a space in her head for picturing things, and asked me if I wrote books with my childhood friend Carol when I was little, and I said, no, but we pretended and made up stories and acted them out, and she said, “That’s just like book writing.” Then we walked a little further, and she noticed a tiny newborn calf on the other side of the creek, and the mother cow was eating its placenta, which was tricky to explain, but that’s the way it is around here…all sorts of weirdness and wonder everywhere we turn.

I’ve become adept at taking naps. These are among life’s pleasures and gifts––my favorite ones are naplets, snoozes that are sweet and petite, brief but satisfying little respites. I’m good at baths also. Hot baths have turned out to be the primary way I cultivate my relationship with water. Occasionally a naplet overtakes me in the midst of one, and I wake up surprised to realize I am in the bathtub.

There’s plenty of bad news, of course. Today I’m not listening in. Instead I hear the murmur of voices as Monte and our visiting friend linger at the table talking. There’s the ding of an occasional email or text message, coffee pot gurgling, and one of my favorite John Prine songs is playing––I Remember Everything.  So do I.  

“I laugh and cry for every turn of the world,” wrote William Stafford, in “its terribly cold, innocent spin” but if he knew there was a willow and a wind and a lake blue and free, he could be happy. There are. Not far from here.

It’s our first Thanksgiving since Monte’s mom died, and I’ve been missing her lately, but she made her exit with extraordinary grace, her trees are thriving, and her thankful spirit is in the air. A bobcat has been hanging around the outskirts of the orchard. He is completely indifferent to our comings and goings, having claimed this as his home. There are pomegranates growing like Christmas ornaments in the branches of the tree. In the upstairs room, a toy wooden truck, puppets, and a pile of children’s books from the charity shop await a little boy’s visit in January. We have no plans for this day, which shimmers like a promise.

“You have a breath without pain,” wrote Stafford in another poem. “It is called happiness.” He accepted the gift––with gratitude.

“The Gift

Time wants to show you a different country. It’s the one
that your life conceals, the one waiting outside
when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at
in her crochet design, the one almost found
over at the edge of the music, after the sermon.

It’s the way life is, and you have it, a few years given.
You get killed now and then, violated
in various ways. (And sometimes it’s turn about.)
You get tired of that. Long-suffering, you wait
and pray, and maybe good things come − maybe
the hurt slackens and you hardly feel it any more.
You have a breath without pain. It is called happiness.

It’s a balance, the taking and passing along,
the composting of where you’ve been and how people
and weather treated you. It’s a country where
you already are, bringing where you have been.
Time offers this gift in its millions of ways,
turning the world, moving the air, calling,
every morning, “Here, take it, it’s yours.”


by William Stafford”