Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Thanks, By The Numbers 

There was a seed, grey and small
In the ground of the earth between our hearts.
We'll never know what mystery made it grow
It will just be our history, now...
-- from Thanksgiving, by Deb Talan (click to download)

One week seeding the house with the colors of autumn, filling the glasstopped table with dried leaves and twiglets, hanging boughs from the post and beam. An afternoon constructing the world's largest cornucopia in the bay window. Two days cleaning, with special attention to the shelfdust and windowsmears for once.

Four leaves on the cherrywood table, and we still need to add the camping table to seat the prospective 18 arriving tomorrow, side dishes in hand.

It's our second year hosting Thanksgiving at home, and it's already looking like another successful family afternoon.

I can't really take credit for much of it.

This year's theme is a celebration of the local. We've bought local milk and cider. Today we picked up the bird: farmbought by Darcie's parents, driven halfway here, and handed off from trunk to trunk in the parking lot of the Ingleside Mall. Tomorrow we make stuffing with the challah she made last Friday.

The family -- my parents and hers, sisters and cousins and aunts -- will converge with their own local goodies, making it a true New England feast, unless my sister manages to bring something on the plane from Ohio.

On the way home from the mall, the suddenly unsullen elderchild insists on singing every verse of Twinkle Twinkle to her sister in the backseat darkness; the everpolite wee one brings Mommy, please help me as her first proper sentence. Our children grow in leaps and bounds, become themselves in firework moments. Tomorrow, they'll be the center of the universe, get drunk on attention.

I am thankful, among many, many things, to have a family like this, a home like this, a place like this. Having come from homeless and uncertainty to this bigenough house full of love makes it easy to give thanks, and then some.

But if I have so much to be thankful for, it is no coincidence my wife runs through this evening's entry like an angel. She is a wonder, and at her best when creating the perfect event environment. She is a mother with everything she's got, and she makes it look easy. She is a partner, a friend, a lifemanager. She who plans the party, schedules the turkey, sets the table, cleans the bulk of the house while I am at work, holds us in, holds us together. Giving thanks, like life itself, would be empty without her.

posted by boyhowdy | 10:09 PM |

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