Thursday, November 26, 2009
A West Coast Thanksgiving:2009
I sit in a moment in time right now that is 3 hours ahead of everything I have ever associated with this special day ...it is only 5:35 here in San Francisco, and that's in the A.M....whereas I would be fixing a fresh pot of coffee and warming up some delicious muffins at home in VIrginia right now, propping up my many bed pillows to get ready to consume the above while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, snuggled next to husband and puppies, I am instead, sitting, perched on the soft comfortable bed in Paul and Stephen's guest room before the sun lightens the San Francisco sky, and I am writing of Thanksgiving Days present and past, while Peter and the pups are probably all snuggled down getting ready to watch the Parade without me! This makes me only slightly sad, since I do love and miss them, but am also incredibly happy to be here , in this amazing CIty with two people I do love so, celebrating a time - a few days - of sheer freedom from the humdrum of my daily existence. Here I have one of the precious things that my normal life lacks: OCEAN - and I cannot tell you all what the sheer walking beside the glorious waters of the Bay and Ocean here have done for my soul. So, I am only slightly sad to be not snuggled down with hubby and pups on this Macy's Morning.
In my mind, I am snuggled with Peter, Sally and Cyrano.....and of course, even saying the word "Sally" in my mind, brings back many memories of my Momma Sally, with whom I spent so many of these particular mornings watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. (I wonder how many people are either writing or saying those 4 words this morning: " Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade"??
Odd that one annual event - a parade of people, marching bands, twirlers, clowns, huge floats filled with hot air, - should so define a life......has so defined the life of a nation - a common memory running through all our lives - childhoods defined by all eyes focused on TV screens, tiny or enormous, depending on the decade , at the same morning times, waiting and watching for Santa to arrive to announce that our time for celebration has arrived.
Our time for joy, our time for allowing for peace and goodwill.....a spiritual state determined , permitted, announced, by the arrival of enormous plastic and rubber floating popular icons, and lines of horn-blasting, colorfully uniformed youngsters, brass buttons glinting in the 5th Avenue morning sun, parents bursting with pride as they watch their exhausted high schoolers walk the famous street , all hard-worked fund raising bake sales having handsomely paid off !! Macy's Parade has made all sorts of memories in all sorts of ways. And here we are at another one....me on the West Coast, most everyone else in my life on the Other.
THis lovely Pacific Heights apartment smells of all the fine cooking that has been going on over the past few days, and the day promises to be another in a line of wonderful days here.
Of course I am thankful for all of that.
I am grateful that my sense of the largeness of the world has been restored. My memories revived of a world of possibilities that tend to recede into the background when I am focused on the usual tasks at hand. I am grateful for so much that awaits me, here and back East, as my tired, well-lived life enters another year defined by a Parade: but I will eternally be that little girl, waiting for Momma and brother RIchard and Daddy to come and sit and watch the Parade with me, and I know that no matter how many years fill my life to its completion, if a Parade is heard in the distance, I will always be waiting to watch it, be fascinated by its shiny things, and possibly, be willing to follow it. After all, why stand still, when the music is playing?
And that , in a nutshell, is why I am on the West Coast right now instead of at home: there are horns blasting and , and shiny buttons gleaming, somewhere in the distance, and they are taking the Beach Road route.
Have a perfect, blessed Thanksgiving TIme, everyone. I send love to all.
In my mind, I am snuggled with Peter, Sally and Cyrano.....and of course, even saying the word "Sally" in my mind, brings back many memories of my Momma Sally, with whom I spent so many of these particular mornings watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. (I wonder how many people are either writing or saying those 4 words this morning: " Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade"??
Odd that one annual event - a parade of people, marching bands, twirlers, clowns, huge floats filled with hot air, - should so define a life......has so defined the life of a nation - a common memory running through all our lives - childhoods defined by all eyes focused on TV screens, tiny or enormous, depending on the decade , at the same morning times, waiting and watching for Santa to arrive to announce that our time for celebration has arrived.
Our time for joy, our time for allowing for peace and goodwill.....a spiritual state determined , permitted, announced, by the arrival of enormous plastic and rubber floating popular icons, and lines of horn-blasting, colorfully uniformed youngsters, brass buttons glinting in the 5th Avenue morning sun, parents bursting with pride as they watch their exhausted high schoolers walk the famous street , all hard-worked fund raising bake sales having handsomely paid off !! Macy's Parade has made all sorts of memories in all sorts of ways. And here we are at another one....me on the West Coast, most everyone else in my life on the Other.
THis lovely Pacific Heights apartment smells of all the fine cooking that has been going on over the past few days, and the day promises to be another in a line of wonderful days here.
Of course I am thankful for all of that.
I am grateful that my sense of the largeness of the world has been restored. My memories revived of a world of possibilities that tend to recede into the background when I am focused on the usual tasks at hand. I am grateful for so much that awaits me, here and back East, as my tired, well-lived life enters another year defined by a Parade: but I will eternally be that little girl, waiting for Momma and brother RIchard and Daddy to come and sit and watch the Parade with me, and I know that no matter how many years fill my life to its completion, if a Parade is heard in the distance, I will always be waiting to watch it, be fascinated by its shiny things, and possibly, be willing to follow it. After all, why stand still, when the music is playing?
And that , in a nutshell, is why I am on the West Coast right now instead of at home: there are horns blasting and , and shiny buttons gleaming, somewhere in the distance, and they are taking the Beach Road route.
Have a perfect, blessed Thanksgiving TIme, everyone. I send love to all.
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