Wishing you and yours a happy Thanksgiving (and a happy Thursday to those who aren’t celebrating today). I hope wherever and however you mark the day that you have enough, that you are safe, and that you feel loved.
A small wave of grief hit me yesterday. It was enough to knock the breath out of me, but not so big as to yank my feet out from under me. But it caught me off guard.
It was a silly thing that did it: a cardinal ornament at the downtown holiday market, where I stopped last night after getting my flu shot. And I thought, I should buy that for Gramma. And there it was: smash!
It’s been more than seven years since my grandmother died. I don’t grieve her on a daily basis the way I did that first year, when I was surprised to discover that you could cry in your sleep, because I woke myself up sobbing one night. Most days, she lives in my memory, content to dispense no-nonsense rejoinders when I kick something while barefoot or roll out a recipe for me when I need a go-to dish and maybe less content that I still play the “even my dead grandmother” game when faced with an onerous task. She is firmly in the past tense now in my life.
Still, I shouldn’t have been wholly surprised by the reaction to the ornament. There were warning signs. I saw a friend on Friday to deliver some lemon squares, and when I told him they weren’t quite right, that they didn’t taste like Gramma used to make, I heard my voice get a little wobbly. But I caught it and we talked about the invisible ingredients that go into recipes that mean you’ll never quite replicate it and that that just has to be good enough sometimes.
I’ve been thinking about grief and the upcoming holidays recently. This will be the first big holiday for Rudi since his mom died, and I know it will be hard. My parents and I will be there, but that fact also will keep the wound raw. He’s got plans to leave us for a few days to head up to the World Cup races in Vermont, and I suspect that break will help. But it’s going to be hard regardless. We’ll all have to take a few extra breaths this year and give each other the time and space and kindness and grace to let our ghosts visit us without having them wash us out to sea.
This morning I was able to procure P!nk tickets, thanks to Ticketmaster finally adding a Paypal option.
It’s remarkably frustrating to enter your credit card number, verify that it’s accurate and that the rest of the personal data matches what’s on your account, click off all the silly boxes, and then to watch as the tickets you’ve tried to buy 3,648 times are again ripped out of your hand because “the card information you have tried to enter is incorrect.” Multiple days, different browsers. None of it mattered. And because it was a presale associated with my credit card company, it’s not like I could just sub in a different card.
But this irritation will fade into the distance and the excitement of seeing P!nk will grow as we get closer to the concert date next August(!).
I wish similar resolutions to all the Taylor Swift fans out there, because I can’t imagine how pissed off they are right now.
I had a surprise visit with a friend tonight, intending only to drop something at his gate. Instead, I ran into him and his dog while they were out on their evening walk, and he asked me in and then I just … hung out. Which was such a nice, relaxing thing to do.
I’m getting better about having people over. The amount of stress the first time we did it late this summer was nearly unbearable, but our messy apartment did not break the friendship. We’ve got friends coming over after we get back from Thanksgiving and then our tree trimming is the following Sunday.
I’m also hoping to start having people over to hang out when Rudi’s away on his coaching weekends this winter for game nights or supper or whatnot. I mean, I’d love to have people come when he’s around, too, but that will require some additional thinking, because he goes to bed really early during ski season.
But to do that, we need to have a less cluttered apartment, which we’ve been working on (undiligently) off and on since summer. Before he left for his coaching trip, Rudi put a dent in the closet. Since he’s been gone, I’ve done some work in the kitchen and have some more to do before I hit the living room. There is progress being made; we just have to keep moving forward — and maybe pick up the pace a bit.
Three beautiful things from my past week:
1. I finally drove our new car. It’s … big.
2. I paused our volleyball game Saturday evening to admire the sunset, which was glowing neon orange through the trees.
3. I made lemon bars (and a friend has agreed to take some so I don’t eat the whole pan).
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?
Rudi has gone to Colorado to run a ski camp for some of his athletes, which means I’m home alone. The only things that were in pen on my dance card are now in the past, which means I need to get a plan to fill my time a bit more productively than I have been lately. Here are ten things I’d be very happy to have crossed off before Rudi returns home Monday morning: