Thanksgiving

Notice anything strange about that egg?
Yes. It is sort of pointed at both ends. One of my chickens, and I do not know which one, is laying these giant suppository-shaped eggs. When I got the first one, I thought that it was an early attempt at egg-laying, a learning experience, which sometimes happens when the hen first begins to lay. But no, I have gotten several in the past few days so I suppose this is just the shape of egg this hen lays.

Interesting. But hardly earth-shaking.

And that's my life today, only without the interesting part.

Okay. There is one thing going on which is a bit out of the ordinary. I am going to take part in a small production at the Opera House on December 4th and 5th which is not quite like anything I've ever done or quite like anything the Opera House has ever done, as far as I know.
There is a writer who lives in Jefferson County who teaches at FSU who has won a Pulitzer Pulitzer Prize for one of his books. Robert Olen Butler is his name. And he also has a theater background and he does readings at the Opera House every year for charity.
Jan, the director of the Opera House, fell especially in love with one of his books, specifically one of the characters. The book is Mr. Spaceman and it's about yes, a spaceman, an alien, who hovers over the earth, bringing people up to his space ship to interview them. They tell him their stories. And Jan wanted to bring this to the stage in the form of narration and she talked to Mr. Butler about it and he liked the idea and so...here we go.

There are only two female characters who will be telling their stories in this production and I am reading one of those parts. This all just came about in the last few weeks and we have only had one read through and it was not complete because not everyone was there and Mr. Butler wasn't there and he's doing the narration- the Spaceman part.

But. In a week and a half, I am going to get up on stage and read six pages of the story of a woman named Viola Stackhouse and yes, I am nervous as hell. So add that to the whole holiday madness and perhaps you can see why I feel completely frozen in time, not unlike one of the Spaceman's humans, and here I sit, telling you my story while the world whirls on without me and I have only bought a part of my Thanksgiving Day needs and I have not cleaned and there are two turkeys as hard as bowling balls theoretically thawing in the refrigerator in the garage.
Let me just say that turkeys WILL NOT EVER, IN THIS LIFETIME, THAW IN A REFRIGERATOR and so I need to go get them out and find counter space somewhere so that on Thursday morning after the party while everyone else is still in bed, I will not frantically be trying to run hot water up a turkey's ass or down its gullet in order to free the giblets in their bloody white paper bag.

My foot hurts, I am overwhelmed to the point of paralysis, I wonder why when I call my mother to talk to her about Thanksgiving she says, "Am I invited?" when she has attended Thanksgiving at my house for approximately twenty-something years, I wish I could quit dreaming about trying to kill my stepfather, and I know why those rooms in my dream remain dream-rooms, waiting for me to enter them.

And yet, I know that in some ways, I have entered them many times. And for that I am grateful. Thankful.

I am thankful that I do not hate Thanksgiving the way I hate Christmas. I am thankful that I have such a beautiful house to clean and welcome friends and family to. I am thankful that there will be music ringing within it tomorrow night. Music played by people I have known and loved with all my heart and soul for over thirty years. I am grateful that it will be chilly and that people will go outside by the fire and eat oysters and drink beer and laugh.

I am grateful that we are so rich in so many ways that I don't even know how many people will be here tomorrow night or on Thursday, either one, but that there will be enough for all, no matter the numbers.

I am thankful that the Opera House lets me come sit on its stage and I am thankful that I have something inside of me that despite my fear, allows me (forces me?) to go onstage and open my mouth and let words come out and in this case, words that are literature and beautifully written.

I am grateful, I am thankful, of course- what a cliche!- that I have this family. We are all so different, so disparate, and yet so close. We love and accept each other as we are in all our shining ways, our faults, our needs, our gifts, our strengths, our weaknesses. We know that together we are something.
And we are beautiful.
I swear we are.

And I am so very thankful that we will all be together for the next few days, here in this house, and that the people we love the most, who are, if not blood-born kin, then love-born kin, will be here too.

And of course, there is this:


Owen. The fine, fat boy who has showered us all with such glitter and glue that we will never, ever be able to separate. None of us because he has knit our hearts together even tighter with stiches of finest silken love.

Look- you can think that all eggs are egg-shaped and are either white or brown. You can think that you know all the rooms in your house. You can think you can't do this or you don't have the courage to do that. You may think that there is no magic left on this blue and green planet. You may think that the turkeys will never thaw.

But you might be wrong.

You might look around and see there is magic everywhere if you let yourself see with your heart.

I'm talking to myself here. You realize that, right?
Because I don't think I'm shaped exactly right, not in any way. I feel my imperfections too much sometimes, I don't see them as what makes me special, what brings me my magic.

But if I let myself, I know I am wrong.
And for this, for ALL of this, I am so thankful.

And for you, too. Don't forget how thankful I am for you. I am so thankful because we, too, have become a sort of family here, sending words off to find their heart-targets on this planet. We may not sit down to eat together, but we sit down together, to pray, to laugh, to sing, to cry. We get nourishment from each other. We do.

So go on now, thaw your turkey. Make magic. Be in wonder. Open your mouth, let words out. Open your heart, let love out. Remember to be thankful for yourself and what it is you offer which no one else can.

I am.

Amen.