I’m sitting here watching the sun rise. I’m fortunate to have (and enjoy) the opportunity. I was out on the trail early, just at daybreak. It’s a frosty cold Autumn morning, here. There’s no rush to return home, and I know these early hours are good ones for giving my Traveling Partner a bit of time to get some sleep. We each have our different difficulties with sleep, and getting out of the house for a morning walk is one great way for me to show how much I care.
… And I enjoy the walk, the sunrise, and the quiet time alone, for myself…
Enough light to see the trail.
This morning I get back to the car too early to consider heading home, and haven’t yet gotten a “good morning” message from my partner, so I take time to meditate, and to sketch the gnarled old oak on the slope in front of my parked car. I’m bundled up for winter weather, but as the minutes pass, I become restless and ready to move on with the day. There’s a tree to decorate in the living room and I am filled with festive joy.
… It’s still pretty early. Saturday. I consider heading toward home and perhaps stopping along the way, maybe a bit of shopping?
I smile knowing my partner is getting the rest he needs.
Migrating flocks pass by overhead.
I listen to the sounds of migrating flocks of birds passing by. It’s a new day. It’s time to begin again.
I’m grateful for the terrible cup of coffee in my hand as I walk this morning. I switch hands with it, warming each in turn, walking and watching the sun rise. There’s mist in the low lands along the marsh, but it looks like blue skies above, so perhaps a sunny day ahead?
I stop and set down my coffee to take an occasional picture.
I walk and watch the dawn become day. The air is crisp, clean, and cold. Frost edges the shrubs and dry grasses. The gravel of the path crunches under my footsteps. Lovely morning for a walk along the edge of the marsh, in spite of the cold.
The path beyond me beckons.
I walk with my thoughts. My heart is filled with love and gratitude. What a pleasant holiday my Traveling Partner and I shared! The meal was excellent. The day was merry, and we delighted in each other’s company all day long. We each exchanged holiday well-wishes with friends and loved ones over the course of the day. We had everything we needed and more, and it wasn’t necessary to go out into the world or run any errands. We enjoyed the day at home.
It’s a new day now. I’m enjoying this quiet time on the trail on a chilly Autumn morning. I wonder if my partner went back to bed for a bit more sleep? I smile and finish this dreadful cup of coffee before it goes cold, and drop the cup into a trash can on my way back to the car. It’s already time to begin again.
First things first, there are no pilgrims or indigenous peoples in this particular tale. No genocide, not as any sort of direct cause or horrific result, either. This one is about gratitude and celebration, often of the most mundane details of life, and definitely about enduring and surpassing adversity, hard times, and struggle. Now.
Thanksgiving morning 2023
Gratitude is an important and healthy practice, and helps build emotional resilience and perspective. Our very human tendency towards ritual brings us together as families, tribes, and communities. Our likely most ancient and commonplace way to celebrate just about anything is through the communion of a shared meal. Wrap all of those elements together and the result is Thanksgiving. That’s the heart and soul of it, and it is worthy and beautiful.
Do we have historical baggage? Oh hell yes. The trauma, injustices, and ugliness of empire and of capitalism and patriarchy are too numerous to count or address in one tiny blog post written by one nearly unknown author. My point, personally, though is that Thanksgiving transcends all of that, if we simply stop trying to force it into some narrowly defined self-serving bullshit nationalist narrative intended to excuse a legacy of violence and othering, and allow ourselves a moment of honest gratitude for what we have and humble appreciation for what we have overcome.
I’m saying keep it real. Genuine. Authentic. Uncouple this beautiful holiday from the nonsensical marketing of the classic (and wrong-headed) good-guy narrative that is largely a lie wholly fabricated by people who probably knew better. Definitely address the original sins of our nation’s founding, it’s needful, but stop trying to use Thanksgiving as some kind of fucking excuse for, or cover-up of, legitimate horrors!
Cook. Feast. Celebrate. Give thanks. It’s been difficult this year and other years past. Share and give thanks – it could have been so much worse, and for so many it very much is worse, right now. Don’t waste time talking about the “first Thanksgiving” – talk about the last one (meaning the most recent) and all that has since transpired. Talk about making the world a better place with what you’ve learned since then.
… And after the feasting and the giving of thanks, put away the leftovers and do the dishes. Then begin again.
I’m awake, though I don’t mean to be. It’s quite late and the house is quiet. My Traveling Partner sleeps. The only sounds I hear are the 3D printers “singing” their happy songs in another room. The sound of the printers printing is a sound I find joyful, and it does not disturb me.
He gave me the moon and the stars.
I look around me in the dim twilight of this room, softly illuminated by various paintings and objects that glow in the dark. I feel very loved; my partner made many of these things for me. They calm me when I wake, alarmed, during the night.
I sit quietly in the dark, smiling. I won’t be awake long. I think happy thoughts of the day feeling wrapped in love.
Love everywhere.
It was a lovely day. I smile recalling the new spice racks my Traveling Partner made and installed for me. I think about love. I think about his eyes and his smile and his rude jokes. I think about his strong arms around me and the way he loves me.
The quiet persists and I am ready to sleep. Tomorrow is soon enough to begin again.
This morning I woke just ahead of my alarm. I’m okay with that, the timing was right. I woke drenched in anxiety and doubt, though, which isn’t common these days and it’s really thrown me off this morning. The very excellent commute into the office? Mostly characterized by intense anxiety and fearfulness in spite of being both quite routine, and also a smooth and easy commute with little traffic. It makes no sense. I woke with acid reflux, too; maybe the emotions follow the physical malady? Maybe they cause it. I don’t know. I know that I feel… tense. Alert for the next thing to go wrong (though there hasn’t been a first thing, so far today or even this week).
…Fuck anxiety…
Work is good…so… it doesn’t seem likely that it’s “a work thing”. I’ve got a good thing going with my Traveling Partner, and things seem to be good with him… so… unlikely to be anything to do with him, or with “us”. This feeling is more a loose sense of persistent dread that isn’t attached to anything particular, but lingers in the background filling my guts with churning and knots, amplifying my pain, and spiking every thought with doubt and worry. It’s an unpleasant and uncomfortable state of being, and although I tell myself it will pass (and feel certain that is true), it’s where I find myself this morning and I must say I don’t much care for it at all.
…This sensation is sometimes the result of forgetting something incredibly important that I can’t put my finger on, but on this, too, I come up empty handed when I scrounge around in my consciousness and my notes for something it could be…
“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic 2011
I sip my almost-cold coffee thoughtfully. I take a deep breath, exhale, and will my shoulders to relax, feeling the sensation spread, breath after breath. It helps. I let myself acknowledge that “I’ve got a lot going on”, and then also admit to myself that a similar amount of “stuff” might not feel so weighty under other circumstances. I also consider what it can teach me that the stress feels most closely associated with things I am doing – or want to do – “for me”: a manicure I started and didn’t finish, a book I’m almost through and haven’t finished, the holiday cards for the year, holiday items I may want to 3D print (which requires learning to use the new printer), make more shower fizzies, and something or another that I feel certain I’ve forgotten. When I list them in my head my anxiety goes nuts. It seems like too much. (“For real?” I snarl resentfully at myself, in my head.) It doesn’t seem at all fair that things I enjoy doing, that are in some cases legitimately self-care (and in others just things I very much enjoy) would cause me this kind of anxiety. Or… is it just the willful choice to do things for me that’s setting off my anxiety? That’s a concern I live with. It’s entirely internal, and has its source in that mightiest of anxiety well-springs – trauma and ancient pain.
A small sad voice in my head suggests “there just isn’t enough time for everything”, but this is another illusion. Anxiety is a liar. Yes, there’s finite lifetime, but there are many choices and opportunities, and time enough generally when I choose wisely. I take another breath, and another sip of coffee and watch day breaking beyond the windows of the office. I think about what matters most, and what I want out of the day (and the week, and the upcoming 3-day weekend). I think about paintings yet unpainted… and the passage of time. I notice my anxiety but also try to step back from the visceral feeling and in order to simply observe it.
…Damn, I’m in a lot of pain today…
Could the pain I’m in be enough to trigger this level of anxiety? Sure, it could. Does. Has in the past. I pause to take steps to manage my pain, and set the anxiety aside to re-evaluate later (to check whether or not it has changed after doing something about the pain I’m in). It makes some sense; my sleep was restless and disturbed by uneasy, anxious dreams – and I went to bed in pain, and woke with it at least once. It’s that time of year; the variable weather, the chilly nights, the return of the rain, and the dampness are all qualities that seem to be associated with more than usual pain (for me). So. I try to just let it go. It’s a thing. It’ll pass.
Evening Light 