Yes

I may still be drunk, I don't know.
No, I don't think I am. But I'm still pretty glorified.
Yesterday was one of the longest and best days of my life. I played with those boys for hours. Gibson has learned to climb stairs. He can't even walk and he just started crawling last week and already, he's mastering the stairs. He wanted to get up there to where his brother was. And his brother was up there throwing his clothes over the bannisters and finding two old suitcases which he insisted I bring down so we could pretend going on a trip. Which, of course, I did and we went to Marco's Pizza which is Owen's go-to pretend place and then Owen set up a pizza kitchen on the bed with the suitcases and he made me a cabbage and pepperoni pizza.

And then the naked pizza chef told me that a witch had come and stolen his machine and broken everything so there would be no more pizzas.

That was one tiny part of what we did yesterday before anything else even got started. There was all the usual other stuff too like goat-feeding and chicken wrangling and pretend camping and snack-eating and, and, and....

And then Hank and May and Anna got here and they took over the kids for awhile and I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off forgetting from one room to the next what I was doing, fretting and freaking and tidying and sweeping and then Mr. Moon got home with beer and ice and oysters and rum and then Lis got here, thank GOD, and took over the food thing and then people started coming and I took a shower and I was still freaking and Liz And Katie got here with VELVEETA AND ROTELLE TOMATO DIP in a crock pot and I pretty much stopped freaking. 

So many people were here. 

And Lily and Jason brought the boys back (yes, they left at one point) and then my ex- and his wife brought over their grands and then Billy and Shayla brought over Waylon and there was a pack of ferral children running around and occasionally an adult would say, "I wonder if the children are okay?" and they always were and oh yes, Buster peed on my foot for no apparent reason and the kitchen looked like this.

I would tell you the backstory on those people but it would take a novel but Lizzie there, I've known her for about twenty years I guess and Tom on the left- oh, thirty-eight years? and Bill next to him- second person I met in Tallahassee and that was almost thirty-nine years ago now and that guy on the end- well, I went to high school with him and married him at one point had two kids with him so that's the short story.

And a lot of my Opera House loves came and my brother, Chuck, and my neighbors and friends-through-my-kids and Mr. Moon shucked oysters and roasted some and the food kept coming and the people kept coming and if I'd roasted an entire deer it would have all gotten eaten and we had to put some of the food in the dining room and then someone, NOT ME, got folks to open up their instrument cases and suddenly there was music outside by the fire and let me tell you something- that thing that happens- it's the most spiritual experience of my year and I sat by Hank and I whispered, "There's the direct line of why you're here," and it was and Bill played his song Paco's Garden about when our friend Paco died and Hank was at the funeral when he was a little kid and he remembers it and the part about when Floyd almost fell in the hole, we all laugh at and folks said, "Yeah, yeah, I remember that," and David played Somewhere Over The Rainbow and there were two violins and guitars and Lizzie sang like an angel and the fire sparked up and Gibson wanted to dance and he danced in our arms and and the wild children ran around the house and up and down and through all the rooms and there was kissing and hugging and the oysters were sweet and salty and the Rotelle dip was spicy and there were candles burning everywhere and twinkle lights and the sacred music and the sacred ritual of the rum shots and saying Whoop-Ai-Ay! for Lynn, and I want to keep it in my heart and mind forever. 

So happy Thanksgiving and I'm not cooking a turkey and we're just drinking coffee and the sun is pouring in and the house is pretty much tidy and the magnolia branches I threaded through the bannisters will be green and glossy until Christmas and people are waking up and getting up and I guess I'll make some breakfast and we'll be going over to Lily's in awhile and I feel cleansed and purified and I feel grateful and I'm glad and I can't wait to see my grandsons again because listen- there are never enough kisses and there is never too much joy and sometimes, now and then, these moments happen when it's all just fucking right and you can see it backwards and forwards, the reasons and the rightness and there. That. This.

Good morning. 

Love...Ms. Moon