Tales of Thanksgiving 2020

 The Tale of Thanksgiving 2020

While many of us mourned having fewer places at the table while we safely celebrated, we need to remember that for over 250,000 families those empty spaces will never be filled again...

We found new ways to celebrate and discovered that all Thanksgiving really needs to be about is gratitude, for health, for family & friends.....

We learned that slowing down and being present in the moment, is really a blessing in the hectic times of a usual holiday season....

We gave gratitude for all those front line workers out there working today for us, and we will never forget their sacrifice...

We remain thankful.....Thanksgiving 2020

Sixty Two Years & Sixty Five Days

 Sixty two years and sixty five days, that is what my Mom had. I passed that measure of time this last week. I had planned to be at the ocean, I had planned to be at the place she loved, sitting by the sea at the Cape that always brought her home and honoring her there in some small way.

I just couldn't travel this week and most of the last few days were dark and dismal or maybe they just seemed that way. 

I wonder what she would think of this strange time in our world, in our country. The pandemic would not of been an easy time for her, full of worry, as much it is mine. The politics would have us being deep in conversations every day, her passion for politics equally mine, because I learned to care about it at her knee. 

Each day I try to live up to what I promised on the anniversary of her birth this past September, to take each day she never had and try to live it to the fullest. Some days I just feel I've failed. Yet I remember.

I remember that I try to be the kind of friend my Mom was, to each person that I call friend.

I remember that I love and cherish my family the way she did hers.

I remember that I try and never stop learning, and I love and treasure books, just as she did.

I remember to try and live in the moment, in maybe a way she never did and never could.

I pray that in all these ways that I honor her, and remember her and cherish her, just as she always cherished me.

Sixty two years, sixty five days and counting.....

Beautiful September Morning - 9/11/20

 It was such a beautiful September morning today, with that hint of fall in the air.

Reminded me so much of that morning nineteen years ago, equally sunny and beautiful.

We all probably remember where we were that morning.

I was living in temporary housing, just weeks into our move back to Massachusetts. The younger boys were 2 and 4 and just dropped off at their first day of daycare, and I was off to a library interview.

Arriving at the interview, I was brought into a small room and then surprisingly no one came in, for over ten minutes. When the director finally came in, she was distraught and said she couldn't do the interview. 

Wandering slightly bewildered out to my car, I saw people in the parking lot listening to the radio in their cars, with this look on their faces that I have rarely seen. It looked like they had seen horror, and as I went into to my car and turned my radio on, that sense of seeing and hearing horror just kept unfolding.

I distinctly remember that before and that after. Of not quite believing what you were hearing and then seeing on the images on the television. Not knowing what it meant, or if we would be at war.

Could not stop thinking about that morning today, all the lives lost. Then I looked out the window as I driving and and saw people wearing masks. It still jars me, maybe because I have spent so much time at home these last six month, seeing and remembering that we are fighting a different enemy today.

Yet, despite the horror of what happened on that September morning, nineteen years ago, while it changed us, it did not defeat us or define us. I chose to believe that will be the case this year.

We will remember the lives lost, we will rise above the politics that divide us, and we will come out the other side, maybe battered but somehow better. We owe it, to all those who put their lives on the line, whether entering burning buildings on 9/11 or caring for the sick and fallen in this pandemic. To be better to each other and for our nation, is the best way to honor them.

In Gratitude Once Again -8/13/20

The clock has struck twelve and I am officially one year older.

I have been thinking of the ways my birthday will be different this year.

I am a planner, with each birthday neatly wrapped in a bow, filled with things so I wouldn't be thinking.

Thinking of how I miss my mom, thinking of how I wish we were celebrating her birthday a few weeks after mine and the special things we do together.

So I plan a getaway, or I fill my days with things I love, things I will never do this year, going to a movie, eating at my favorite restaurant, seeing dear friends from afar, visiting the ocean.

Every year, especially my youngest son, always conspires with the rest of the family to do something that makes me smile, decorating a small holiday tree with my favorite ornaments or planting flowers in the front garden or taking me for facials at the spa. It may be quieter this year.

Yet, this year as every year, I am truly blessed. 

I am grateful to be here with my family, in my house, when others may not have either.

I am grateful I have been able to still find meaning in my days, whether it is with work or writing.

I am grateful for old friends and new ones in the making and their conversations that sustain me.

I am grateful for my dogs that bring such love and joy to our family

I am grateful for a daughter that calls me mother, and her daughters that will know me as nonna.

It is not lost on me either, that I am now the year my mother was when she left this world for whatever lies next and she never knew a day in this year without fear. 

So I will be grateful for each day that I am granted with breath and life and love. For her, I will take each day, as best as I can, and hold it and treasure it with gratitude.

Stepping Back In

Today I began to explore writing the chapter proposal on workplace bullying that an editor approached me about doing and which I shared with such excitement a week ago.

Today I stand no less determined to do it and honored to still play a role in awareness on this topic, yet stepping back into the world of it again comes with so many emotions.

I also wondered if you are ever truly free of the pain and heartache and loss that workplace bullying causes to you and those you love seeing you experience it.

I am afraid that the answer is no. So I will forgive myself for being hesitate to jump into these waters again but I will.

Again and again, I will. Even if I have to swim upstream, against the current I will. Even if I fear going under, and even if I need to cling to a branch now and then just to stay afloat.

Because workplace bullying and speaking out against it matters, those that experience it matter and I matter. I will not be silent, I will not stay still, I will keeping swimming against the tide for as long as I am able.

Peace Like a River

I remember writing an essay over thirty years ago, in the weeks that followed David losing a job in which one of the last lines were "that peace is elusive now". Was thinking of those words and how well they fit the last three months. So much loss in people's lives, and frustration and sadness that went along with this pandemic and so much unknown still. Yes, Peace is elusive fits it well. Today though peace flowed like a river, like that hymn many of us know so well. Peace in laughter and meals together with Tim, Ben and Dave. Peace in a walk at the state park with our sweet pups Mia and Bailey relishing every moment, every smell, every tree and blade of grass. Peace in watching Ben watering the little garden he's starting in the back yard, and understanding all the gifts he has. Peace in the pride I feel in all my sons and the good men that they are. Peace in reading the most wonderful book, This Tender Land, and finishing the pages Just before the e-book would disappear and realizing while the pages were gone, the feeling that I had read something magic would linger for the longest time. Peace like a river, Peace like a river, Peace like a river in my soul.

Quarantine Questions Part Two

We all have things we miss big and small. Right now I am pondering the thought that I won't be able to travel to Arizona to help support Zeena when the new baby comes. That I won't be there to hold her in my arms when she's barely an hour old, like I did with her sister Hayley. I am also quietly furious that virus numbers in Arizona are trending upward, that Zeena shares that more than half the people she sees outside don't even wear a mask. I am angry and frustrated and just want to somehow protect her and this new baby. Why and when did we become so cavalier about how we are a community and that we have a responsibility to each other. It is such a challenging and surreal time. I am actually looking at Disney masks to buy for Hayley when she turns two, because Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse are her favorites now. When did it get to be so normal, to think about buying masks for a toddler's birthday present? Maybe I am too tired and it's too late to wrap my head around it all now. There's just so much we miss, big and small and priceless.

Quarantine Questions

Quarantine Questions...You spend your whole life when you have Aspergers trying to get this connection thing right, it takes you maybe fifty years but you really feel you are getting the hang of it. You feel connected to your book group, your neighbors, some new friends here, and all of a sudden we're unconnected. So you try and be the one that calls, your good at calling, but as the time gets longer, it feels like a rope fraying. It gets easy to get complacent because that has helped you navigate these tricky waters in the past. You value old friends, where words unspoken are all that is needed. Where laughs come easy because your don't have to worry about saying the wrong thing.

Funny though, those new threads keep beckoning...and you don't want to forget how to knit them together.

Liberate

Have had the privilege of spending a good part of today listening to the One World Together at Home, international concerts to raise awareness and support our front line workers. Listening to performers all over the world united in support was a wonderful thing. Interesting contrast to seeing posts and hearing in the news about protests in the US these past days, about needing to "liberate" our country. What we need to liberate from though, is divisive politics, a commander in chief who formulates hate instead of unity, and other forces that want to drive us apart when our greatest strength right now is how we can support our medical workers and keep ourselves and families safe by listening to the guidance of our scientific community. It truly is one world in all this, and the sooner we learn this the better.

Voyage

So I realized that it has been a month since I have left the house, except for walking the doggies around the neighborhood. It's even been a couple of weeks since I took a short car ride to a local farm for a contactless purchase. My last trip out, a month ago, was to get another x-ray to check on my pneumonia. Am I the only one that feels like I fell down the rabbit hole, and Alice or the White Rabbit is going to make an appearance any time now. No pun intended. I have been trying to think of this experience in Star Trek terms and being on some long journey across the stars. I have my husband and sons and we are charting this trip through the unknown. It's long, and scary and sometimes boring and often terrifying but it's this journey were on. Though it feels were traveling alone, there's an Armada traveling along with us. That is what matters the most, we're in this together, Friends.

Easter Morning

Easter Sunday morning will dawn in a few hours from now and I send wishes to those that celebrate. It may not be the day you had planned or the way you usually celebrate, but Easter will arrive. For me, that has always been the reason to celebrate. In darkness, and just when 2,000 years ago, followers of Jesus felt at their lowest, morning arrived. Just as in this time of darkness, doubt and fear, morning will arrive. I wish all of you that comfort and calm. Thinking of you and all you love on this day.

Today

I do not like solitary walks in the woods or yoga on a mountain top, what I do love is concerts, plays, bowling alleys, movie theaters, arcades, mini-golf and I not only was thinking today how much I miss them but also when and if I will ever feel the same about going to them again. Right now we are in crisis mode and health and safety are first and foremost and our hearts are with those struggling with the virus and those who have lost ones they love. I think it is okay though to also contemplate all the little things we took for granted and feel sadness for them as well. It's what I am feeling now and it feels selfish but I think I will be patient and kind with myself and says it's okay to feel what I am feeling in this moment.

Reality

4/2/20 - I was just in the shower, stifling a sob or a scream or I don't know which and I don't know what brought me to that point. Maybe it was hearing the latest statistics from Gov. Cuomo this afternoon. Maybe it was watching the movie 1917 this evening and thinking of each one of those wounded then, and those sick and ailing now. I am Tired. We all are Tired. I'm sure I am not the only one who wants to scream to the heavens, Stop. In a way I feel that all of us will be wounded by this pandemic, one way or another and that this is the price we pay for being human. Then again though, it is also our strength, we care deeply for one another, we are one community. Each of our pain is the others, but then each of our strength is each others as well.