#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Charlie in the Brook
The approach of a man’s life out of the past is history, and the approach of time out of the future is mystery. Their meeting is the present, and it is consciousness, the only time life is alive. The endless wonder of this meeting is what causes the mind, in its inward liberty of a frozen morning, to turn back and question and remember. The world is full of places. Why is it that I am here?
—Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House
Thanksgiving Eve morning. A chill in the air. A chill in the day. Clouds all gray above. A strange day, anticipating such a changed day tomorrow. Not hosting. Not attending somewhere else. Part of the way into the woods I am with my older daughter, talking away, but then we separate; she’s going back sooner. (And later she tells me Charlie followed her, then had a major fit of anxious disruption when he realized I had gone a different way–tore the poor boys heart in two, apparently.) Alone, I walk in the woods and think about all the disruption in the land for so many. I feel at peace, but also disrupted. There is ice, thin and crackable on the edges of the brook. I spend a long, relaxing time wandering in the wetlands, keeping my feet dry on humps of grass, bending into the brook to look for shapes in the ice. I am so grateful to be spending the day tomorrow with my husband and daughter. The youngest is still here today, her cheerful, busy voice in the house. I am pleased to get a chapbook submission sent off three or four times, of my hybrid Post Cards from the Gulf series. I feel as if I’ve been trying to get to this for some time. Done! And I spend quite a lot of time in the kitchen, baking cookies, Ranger cookies, my aunt’s recipe, for my daughter, special request. And dinner. . . a large meal, and my daughter’s boyfriend with us too and we have bright conversation, lively, and once again my husband gives me many compliments for cooking a great dinner. It’s so lovely to feel appreciated. The Ranger cookies are a massive hit. I order two more books online, biographies of women artists. I finished the O’Keeffe biography last night. It was one of the saddest endings of a life of a great artist that I’ve read. A new book arrived today, a novel I’m about to start. I call my dear friend in Florida to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving, and we have a lovely chat. I am also grateful, so much, for you, dear reader. Tonight I am giving thanks to you, for listening, for being here with me, for being part of #mydailywalk. Your presence matters to me every day, all year long. But this is a day of saying so. Thank you. I hope your Thanksgiving brings you a special surprise, a special delight, a special moment.