A Thankful Moment
It’s Thanksgiving Day here in the USA. I sit in our tiny garden spilling over with flowers and watch the hummingbirds hovering on their jewelled wings of speed. Muted voices from a neighbour’s kitchen murmur. Memories of all of our Thanksgivings, from the very first Manhattan Thursday, where we almost froze with fun, to today’s sunny ease, open up their arms and beckon.
I’ve loved this time of year ever since we entered the scene of our American dream stage left. It seems that everyone takes a collective breath and relaxes, momentarily liberated from the strain of commercialism. You can taste the silence and contentment percolating in the air; can’t beat it really. From here, it’s just a hop, skip and a jump to Christmas and the festive season will be truly upon us with all of its glitz, colour and child-like glee. But for now it’s quiet; space pervades.
We’ve been busy beyond busy in recent months. At times, I’ve felt like a ragged doll, racing around in the jaws of time’s ravening beast. But, just like that, the beast has calmed and we look around at a serene horizon. Moments within moments, time within time and I’m reminded yet again of the need for a still point in a turning world.
Out and about later on, my daughter and I hike up the jolly Baldwin Hills. Echoes of poems, recited on school days, sprinkle their confetti upon the air. We’ve spent so many moments these past few years, walking the streets of Culver City lost in the music of Keats, Shakespeare, Yeats, Byron, Shelley and now, most wonderfully, Mr Eliot himself. Whenever I step foot outside the house, I’m already hearing some line or other appear, as if by magic, from the air. The spirits are strong indeed.
The hound snuggles beside me on the sofa later, burrowing his nose further and further into the cushions, searching somewhere somehow, for more comfort and more security. Perhaps, if he digs deep enough, he’ll find Narnia. As afternoon wanders into evening, I sit beside his solid bulk and wish for many more Thanksgivings with this canine child of ours. He has been with us for over eleven years now. As Dylan sings, with the echoes of Keats all around, ‘May you stay forever young.’
Wishing all of my American readers a very Happy Thanksgiving!!
