The warmest, darkest room in the house...
Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. This is a day that is supposed to be set aside to allow us to step back and give thanks for all the blessings we have. And, they are considerable.
United States' President Abraham Lincoln released a proclamation on a Thanksgiving Day long ago while, as he described it, "a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity" raged:
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God....[and I] fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
Some petitions never go out of style and currency.
So, here we are on a day on which we have celebrated our harvests. My understanding is that Thanksgiving Day for many years in the United States was on 3 October. The day of celebration and remembrance was moved over the years to the Thursday during the third week of November to coincide with the kick-off of the Christmas holiday buying season.
I just cooked some butternut squash and gathered the insides to puree for a soup I shall make. By the time of the tasting, all I will add is light cream and some spices still unknown to me, for I tend to rely on whim and intuition in all things artistic. Cooking will always be an art for me, not a science. A solid core of some food to start, for sure. But, then, spices, liquids, which I add in a mad terpsichorean twirl around the kitchen, while deciding how long to torture the mixture over heat. I never will add salt, but shall I add pepper? I will not know until I am in the middle of the performance. Hah, a performance for one. No one sees this choreography. That's good, too. No practice sessions, just one mad splurge. Not all of these creations are great to the taste. But, never mind. For me, the cooking is the artistic moment, not the tasting. The solitary, feverish part is the moment; the tasting is for others.
A few minutes here at this blog before I put together a couple more items for the Thanksgiving Day meal. Ann, my daughter, and Ted, her boyfriend, will arrive for the meal soon. I need to remember that there is much -- very much -- for which to be thankful. All a person needs is one bright light in a life to make all worthwhile. In the absence of that light, the world would appear bleak and grayscale. There are reasons to die, and there are reasons to live. As encouraged in Deuteronomy 30:19, "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, [that] I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." I have chosen life and will continue to do so as long as the light shines.
So, here in the warmest and darkest room in the house, the one behind my eyelids, I will list many of those things for which I am thankful today:
- For love. "If you have love in your life, you have life." - Bernhard Goetz
- For hope. "Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." - Arundhati Roy
- For friendship. "A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away." - Arab Proverb."
- For moments. “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” - author unknown
- For memories. "We want time to pass, for new things to happen to us, we want to hold on to certain moments, we don't want our lives to end." - John Barton
- For wonderful literature expressed in books and movies. - "Vivid images are like a beautiful melody that speaks to you on an emotional level. It bypasses your logic centers and even your intellect and goes to a different part of the brain." - Steven Bocho
- For my parents, now long gone. "We all believe that our children are the most beautiful children in the world. But the thing is, what no one really talks about is the fact that we all really believe it." - Heather Armstrong
- For my children. "Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home." - Phyllis Diller
- For opportunity. "There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity." - General Douglas MacArthur
- For people who forgive my failings and errors. "The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods." - Elbert Hubbard; "Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heal that has crushed it." - Mark Twain
- For my willingness to take a few intellectual risks in my work. "A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for." - Grace Murray Hopper; "It's better to be a pirate than to join the Navy." - Steve Jobs
- For Homer's Odyssey, which I have read countless times. "The story of Ulysses and Agamemnon and Menelaus, of Jesus, of the Good Knight of Chaucer, lives in every one of us." - James Lee Burke
- For Joyce's Ulysses.
… and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."
- Molly Bloom's soliloquy, which are the closing words of the book; this is the most meaningful passage I have ever read in literature - For Tennyson's Ulysses.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me-
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads- you and I are old;
Old age had yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
