Thanksgiving Thoughts

  

Thanksgiving week!

How will you spend your Thanksgiving this year?

We'll be loading the car for Indianapolis tomorrow to spend Thanksgiving with husband's side of the family.

I anticipate that Starbucks red cups will be a part of the road trip, as well as those sweet-lingering car conversations that make up for shorter strands of communication that get folded into full days, along with all those piled loads of laundry and extra cups of flour.

I love the ambiance that the holidays invite, and I RSVP "accepts with pleasure" every time.
The ambiance invite really is so hospitable, and I like to come early, stay late, and eat all the food, so to speak.
Or literally.

Sara Bareilles, Alli Rogers, and the Civil Wars on Pandora.
Rainy days on cue for baking and packing.

Kitchen creations of pumpkin and cream cheese combinations, and the family recipes for cinnamon rolls and derby pie.

I have to admit, I've enjoyed some solitary hours at home preparing for the holiday with my hands, but even more so having the quiet to prepare within me.

For me, that has been to let my eyes brim with tears over the heights of joy inside of me,

and to let my eyes brim with tears over the places of sadness that are inside me just as honestly.

While I've done sink after sink of dishes, I've been thinking about how thanksgiving or Thanksgiving isn't about suppressing the pain or sadness that trace all of our lives in particular paths and patterns.

It's about being able to sit with our unanswered questions, aches and pains, and hopes deferred, and say,
yes, those things are there.... but what else is there? 

Oh, what else is there!
Oh, oh, oh!