Thanksgiving

Giving thanks is often overlooked, trivialized, or is profound and fulfilling. It’s something I  know I don’t do often enough. 

An artist friend and I were knee deep in conversation the other day - and managed to move into memories of early days in our art adventures.  She told of being encouraged by a friend to have a first ever showing of her art. She said that she couldn’t afford to pay to frame the paintings and he subsidized the framing and the show.  It was a huge success and from there, she took bold moves in her art and in her life.

“I thanked him then,” she said, “but I’m only now realizing, he changed the course of my life.”

We celebrated  our Arizona Thanksgiving Day on Thursday. Ten of us - a small band of people away from the relatives we are traditionally taught to feast with. Eight of us had Nova Scotia connections - Nova Scotia lives.  Our neighbors who joined us visited once in Tidnish, so we counted that as a Nova Scotia connection - making it 100 %.

I felt moved to toast - “ When you don’t have family close by, you make a family.  Today, we’re family”.  We shared the traditional foods made by all of us, and decided this family could really cook!

At the end of day, we were all standing together and one friend was patting our old dog, Baxter, and saying some lovely things about him. I added that I thought it was wonderful  that at his age (15) he still loved being with everyone, in the middle of things.

“I know,” she said.  “He came to the bathroom with me.”  

Now that’s family!

Weaving Vines to Vine Parties

Last Spring we planted star jasmine vines in front of six foot trellises to give us something soft to look at, and provide some privacy. Once they were established, we put them on the drip system and our neighbor, who’s a master gardener, did the nurturing while we were gone for the summer.

We returned to find them thriving, their long legs waving in the wind.  This week, I spent an afternoon weaving them gently in and out of the trellis squares, linking the structures together with the perky green leaves.

Like young children, they had their own exuberance and sense of direction. They didn’t always want to go where I intended, so I had to alter my plan and when I finished, the whole thing just flowed with its own joy.

It reminded me of one of our granddaughters who, one winter day,  just came up with the idea that she’d have a Vine Party.  “What’s a Vine Party ?” her mother asked, but never got a standard answer, so she helped decorate their house on Owl Drive and called to invite some of Anya’s friends to come over and join in the fun.

I loved the whole idea and wrote a poem.....

Dedicated to Anya, Who Knows What It Is

It leaped out like a freckled frog

singing soprano for attention.

“We’re having a Vine Party”

Nobody knows what a Vine Party is, 

but the four year old wants it 

and the giddy guests are on their way. 

Be gone you dull grey pigeons, grackles, and geese

This party will be a mystical affair

with ruby-throated la la birds

and irreverent cardinals on the porch bannister

In the Village of the Owl.

Vanish, you of the grouchy days

lying there with a case of the “guilties”.

March with us 

while the lilies sing lost concertos

to hip hop choirs

In the Nest of the Great Horned Bird.

And we, 

dressed in our tutus and neon tuxedos

We’ll pluck Joy from the Vine.

Because we’re four years old 

and we know what it is.

Baxter, Our Old Guy

There’s something about an old dog that brings out the best in people.  

On our walks, I step back and watch as folks interact sweetly with Baxter, our beautiful Australian Shepherd who’s turning 15 in January. 

I see them, I see myself, I see Bud give our best to this loving creature.

According to recent tables calculating dog years into human years based on the dog’s size, Baxter is on the brink of turning ninety-three on January 30th. .... a birth date he shares with Winston Churchill.

He no longer runs to greet us at the door when we return home. He doesn’t jump up to be with us on the couch, or onto my lap, as he did in his younger years. Instead, we come home and wander through the house to find him. He doesn’t hear us and so we wake him from his deep sleep. We lay a blanket on the floor for him, since he doesn’t like the unsteady feeling of walking on his old bed. We move furniture so he doesn’t get stuck in tight places. Our house looks different. 

We are all different.

But, at almost ninety-three, he is up and aware, whenever our young corgi/cairn terrier barks a herding signal, or anytime he sees the leashes come out.  


His walking pace is s-l-o-w.  He stops to investigate plants, recent dog markings, and anything else that catches his imagination. He smiles as he tries to catch up with the young dog.  He shows relief when Bud turns to bring him home after his half mile, and the young Louie and I continue on for a longer walk.

He’s still the same extrovert.  He wants to be with us, a part of the party, a part of life.

He lets us know what he wants, what he needs.

We’ve been through this before.  Our first amazing Australian Shepherd, Fundy, Baxter’s constant companion for nearly twelve years, died two and half years ago at 12 1/2.

My grief and mourning was hard.  Baxter’s grief was deep.

It will happen again.

Till then, we learn from this majestic creature.  I want to be like him when I’m 93.  

I love him dearly and thank him for all he teaches me.

The grief of losing dogs is overwhelming.  

The joy of having them is a hundred times greater.

Arriving In Arizona

It  takes time to truly arrive in another place. .. more than the hours to simply drive or fly there.

The brain, mine anyway, balks at the speed of modern transportation.  It has some wanderings, side trips and rest stops to visit before it calls itself fully arrived.  

Until that  happens, I go through the motions of unpacking, moving in and hanging out the “I’m here” sign.

Ten days after reaching Arizona,  I’m now seeing the cholla, mesquite and saguaro cactus in real time.  


There were eight havelinas slurping around our garbage tonight.  

We removed a six foot snake skin from our back fountain.  The next door neighbor said he saw a bull snake on our wall in August -- about that same size.

The mountains are stark and beautiful, especially in late afternoon when the shadows of the rumpled pillow clouds lay a deep blue on them.

Fruits and vegetables are fresh and fully ripened - and cheap. Their colors match the shades you see in photo set-ups in food magazines.

The sound of Spanish is everywhere. 

It’s warm.

It’s good to be here.

I Just Like the Sound of Meddybemps

Journeying west, the New Brunswick fog met with the Maine fog and we handed our passports to the U.S. border agents and continued on to the  last of our Irving gas stations - the one we always stop at. 

Robotically, we changed the dog i.d. tags to American addresses, got out our reserve of U.S. dollars, tucked away the last of our Canadian money and switched the car's readings from celsius to fahrenheit, kilometers to miles.  

We were physically here in the land of our birth, but it wasn't till somewhere around  Meddybemps, on Route 9, the old Rum Runners Road that my emotions arrived.

  

We had a grand summer in Canada and it's a spiritual home to me, but  

I also love my native U.S.A.

I think I'll just call myself a North American.  It's the perfect fit.

Continuing west, we helped celebrate the 375th anniversary of the First Parish Unitarian Universalist church while visiting brother Bob and sister-in-law Judy in Concord, Mass.  It was Henry David Thoreau’s home church and  Dr. Kevin Radaker ( a Penn State grad ) did a reenactment of a speech Thoreau gave to the congregants in 1860.  He was dressed as Thoreau, with a black wig , beard and astonishing eyebrows, and his material was rich and well-documented.

At the end of his talk, we were told by the current minister that we could ask questions of “Thoreau”, but they must be in the context of 1860 - nothing more modern than that.  The audience knew their history, and the questions and answers were enlightening.

I asked “Thoreau” if he could comment on his writing process.  “He” told me that it was Emerson who taught him to use journals, then reminded me that he (Thoreau) was a great walker and observer. Often, he said, he would wait to get home to write in his journals, but sometimes, he would stop mid-walk and think and write. “You know,” he said, “walking while outwardly observing nature is a part of my writing, but writing is a great inward process and I have walked a thousand miles within my self.”

 “Thoreau” made several references to places he called by name as swamps. At home, my brother got out a map of “Thoreau’s Concord” to show us that when Thoreau went walking  in one of his beloved “swamps”- the one he named that was  between his home and the church - it brought him through Bob and Judy’s back yard.