Ramblings from my attic #109
November 23, 2007
Thanksgiving Day
Alone for a moment. Allen & the kids have driven “downtown” to explore the CLOSED signs of Kilmarnock on holiday. Moe has collapsed on the guest house floor, bronze sides still heaving from swimming in the rippling creek and running circles around Lindsay, Milly & I as we walked the first annual Huffman Turkey Trot up and down Ditchley Road.
Northern Neck is such an antidote to our manic lives. I woke this morning to Lindsay snuggling in to bed with Allen and I, but for the first time it was she, not me, who pulled aside the curtains to get the floor to ceiling view of day breaking on the pond and bay within a few yards of where we lay. The motion of her body disturbed the great blue heron feeding before us and into the lavender streaked dawn sky he flew with a sweep of dark wing and hopelessly skinny legs flowing behind. Lindsay gasped in delight.
It is noon now. The unseasonably warm gusts suck the bleached canvas drape into the screen, then repel it while just beyond pond grasses dance, some green, some golden in the sunlight. This is the quiet I crave. An old wind chime flutters and clatters lightly. The wind slaps creek water against the rip-rap and pilings. It feels therapeutic to let what I hear and see wander through me and escape through my fingertips into the computer.
What is in me that needs release? So much has happened since last Thanksgiving, the details of which can be mulched under. What I carry forward is the knowledge that Allen and I can deal with trauma and stress, and survive; that we have a circle of family, friends and co-workers that weather storms with us, as we will with them. I am fifty now, and have learned that making stupendously difficult decisions can lead to unforeseen miracles.
On this day of thanks I marvel anew that my friends are many, my work fulfilling, my family loving, my home a refuge. As often in times of calm as in times of chaos, I think “Why me, Lord?” How did I get so lucky? Life’s rhythm carries sublime joy and wrenching sorrow, with a more frequent cadence of laughter, peace and minor annoyances that float away on a sigh.
