Earth Experiences #18: Grateful and Sad

Two different things can be true at once

Sending you all gratitude and light and the brightest of stars today. XO

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Last night, I stood outside waiting for Sissy to poop, and I pointed out the constellations to her. Dogs don’t necessarily know much about stars, but they were so bright and visible that I felt compelled to explain.

“There’s the Big Dipper,” I said. “And Orion’s Belt.” She tilted her head to one side and then the other, as if she understood what I was saying. Maybe she did. Most likely, she did not.

And I burst into tears because I thought about the sky and the heavens and the stars and my beloved mom who left this corporeal world three and a half ridiculously short and excruciatingly long years ago.

Two different things can be true at once.

Why the tears? I thought. Mom and I never looked at the stars together.

But there I was, sobbing in the cool night air, thinking about my mom and how toward the end of her life, she’d have Marsh Supermarket prepare our Thanksgiving meal because with the MS and the neuropathy and the endless days of pain, a Thanksgiving meal was just too much for her to take on herself. But she still wanted to host us, to feed us. And I thought about how the table would always be set perfectly with familiar placemats and cloth napkins that were older than me.

My kids—spread across the country—have begun a tradition of gathering on their own for Thanksgiving now. The four siblings and any local friends who have nowhere to go. Last year, it was with Sam and Mary Claire on the Oregon coast. This year, it’s with George in Boulder. Next year, it’s Gus in Lexington.

It’s a beautiful, sacred thing they’ve begun.

I told them over and over when they were young that I had four of them so they’d always have each other; their own little genetically-connected posse. I’m so happy they’ve created this tradition. And also, it shreds my heart that I’m not with them.

Two different things can be true at once.

Julie and I were not invited to any Thanksgiving gatherings this year. Central Florida isn’t necessarily fond of left-wing lesbians with voices and opinions.

It’s okay. Those people are not our people.

But it’s hard to be without your people during the holidays.

This morning, we have a dear friend who’s bringing us a homemade meal of Cornish hens and a side of Ukranian pedaheh. She loathed the fact that we were planning to go to Cracker Barrel on our last Thanksgiving in Florida, so she wanted to cook for us. Cooking is her love language, and we’re the recipient of that love today. What a special gift.

But Cracker Barrel was my mom’s favorite place. She did most of her Christmas shopping there. Before she moved to the nursing home, her house with filled with big, brown branded bags that held sweaters and kid toys and tchotchkes that she’d later wrap and place lovingly under the tree.

So, Cornish hens and and Cracker Barrel biscuits are on the menu today.

Two different things can be true at once.

And I’ll be grateful—so very grateful—for the life that has brought me here. For every step and misstep and twist and turn that has landed me here, in this very moment. To everything that has made me who I am; the good, the bad, and the in-between. To be able to celebrate my kids gathering in Boulder together—four grown children creating traditions of their own—and to honor the memory of my sweet, sassy, hilarious mom in a chain restaurant gift shop.

I’ll buy some black licorice bites in her honor.

And to look at the constellations in the crisp November sky tonight while I weep with my dogs in the darkness, encouraging them to poop as I point to the Big Dipper and say, “Do you see it? Right there? The big one?” And then I’ll wipe my nose with my sleeve.

And to say to no one in particular and everyone who ever mattered, “Thank you. Thank you for it all.”

The dark and light of memories past. And the promise of what remains and what’s yet to come.

Two different things can be true at once.