The older I get, and the easier it is to be overwhelmed by so much all at once—the global swing toward authoritarianism, a climate spiraling toward unpredictable, deadly chaos, hatred, violence, bloodshed as prevalent now as perhaps they ever have been in human history…—the more I find solace in giving thanks, stopping to pay deep attention to some of the innumerable things I’m grateful for all around me at any given moment.
I write this on the coldest-yet morning of late fall, temperatures well below freezing as I sit in a favorite winter chair within the warm embrace of my brightly aglow, soapstone wood stove. I am alone here beside it in this big living room I have known now for so long, a just-frothed cappuccino close at hand, Charlie, my Gordon Setter, nestling into his pillows on the big sectional couch where he really shouldn’t be, paws folded, eyes opening when he senses my gaze and gives back that dog-pure look of love. Squares of thin, pale November sunlight fall in through the cold windows.
Across the room, my guitars in their hardshell cases lean tightly into each other and against the wall, my practice chair and stand nearby, a Bach violin partita spread out on the stand, a piece I work through slowly, day after day, occasionally getting a string of measures right and falling deep into the remarkable textures and emotions of the piece.
Next to them, a filled bookcase, too far away to read the titles on the spines, but I know so many of them by their color, thickness, height. A row of black-to-brown Faulkner paperbacks, his ornate, intricate, full-to-the-brim prose, his Yoknapatawpha County and Quentin and Sutpen and Jason and Dewy Dell and Vardaman whose mother “is a fish.” The slightly dog-chewed complete Eliot, nibbled on by another Gordon gone now, that “good dog,” bringing my eyes over to Larry Brown’s Big Bad Love, Larry’s inscription on the inside cover reminding me to “take care of those good dogs,” written several lifetimes ago, me a young professor, he a visiting writer, drinking Makers Mark together late into a Kalamazoo night.
Charlie is deep-sleep breathing now, his crossed front paws moving slightly, running in sleep along a cool, shaded Adirondack trail.
Other shelves are filled with trinkets, Day of the Dead carved-wood, pastel-painted fantastic creatures, small bark paintings, vases, one shelf a whole Mexican kitchen in miniature, comales, jarras, a prensa para tortillas, molcajete, a molinillo to spin between palms, whipping the hot milk and spiced chocolate into fine, hot froth…so many mementos from so many trips to that good place.
In the direct center of the fireplace mantel in the rising woodstove heat waves, I see the tips of the single deer antler found on one of the innumerable long walks I have taken through the all-around-us-here Connecticut hills, woods.
All along the top of my wife’s grandmother’s lovely slant-top, oak desk built by distant relatives in 19th century Massachusetts, photographs of my children, my eldest son and middle daughter in their college graduation gowns, caps, on the cusp of setting forth on their own, something they have both now done so well. My youngest son dapper in a button down shirt, smiling that big smile; today I will pick him up, bring him home, another college semester behind him. All three of them will be here soon, moving again through these worn rooms where they played and fought and grew into who they are and are still becoming.
A few days ago and 30 Fahrenheit degrees warmer, I went on a long-neglected favorite gravel bike ride, ascending up the leaf-covered single track trail hundreds of feet to the top of a nearby ridge known simply as West Rock. There I rode the once-paved, now crumbling, abandoned road people could ride cars down long ago, stopping at the big circling pull-offs, look-outs, graffiti, broken glass, the view of the valley, the reservoir only visible since the leaves were gone. I rode the length of the road, down then up again to the south end where you can still drive a car, the road smooth and freshly paved, and look out across New Haven, the Long Island Sound, then on to the roundabout at “Judges Cave” where Dixwell, Goffe and Whalley, only street names today, hid out from the King’s agents so intent on exacting revenge that even the guilty-dead were dug up, drawn, quartered…. Then back again down, down, brakes creaking through the leaves hiding rocks, potholes I’d hit, spin sideways, nearly falling, till I made it back finally somehow unscathed to the smooth road, the three big climbs home, my bike computer telling me I’d traveled 23 miles, legs spent, then showered, pulling on sweat pants, a favorite hoodie, settling in and pushing to find the next word, then the next.
And Charlie is up now, bringing me two tennis balls at once, somehow held against teeth and big, floppy lips, finding a way to jump up on hind legs and land hard on front legs so just one ball comes loose, spinning my way. He backs into a doorway, waiting, the game he has invented, me trying to kick a ball past him, one ball still in his mouth so he can only use feet to stop it. He takes the game seriously. He is competitive. He will play as long as you will, and when you have had enough and sit back down and try to return to work, he will toss a ball into your lap, try and try to urge you back into the game.
Winnie, our orange tiger cat, emerges from behind the stove, her fur so hot, and flops on the cool wood floor just in front of the stove. She wants my chair (her chair) but won’t join me here. She doesn’t do laps. Her cry is a soft, imploring “mah.” If she’s hungry, she’ll herd me toward the stairs, then up and into our bedroom where her food bowl is kept hidden in a drawer so her gluttonous step sister, Cleo, won’t steal it. They are both rescues discovered several years apart alone, fending for themselves, ill and bedraggled and nearly feral. This may be why they hate each other, why Cleo periodically will chase Winnie through the house, tail billowing to twice its size, emitting throaty growls, hisses. Cleo will get in your lap, though, at times kneading her paws deep into my belly, purring hard, falling against me and pressing her chin down across my chest in fleeting moments of utter abandon.
I have just baked two small loaves of sourdough bread with chia and fennel seeds. The day before, I fed my starter, stirring fresh flour and cool well water into the starter in a big bowl, then fed it again before going to bed, and in the morning it was foamy, sweet-smelling, alive, and by that evening, after the rituals of stretching, folding, waiting, laying into freshly floured proofing baskets, I dumped each loaf from its Dutch oven onto the cooling racks and cut too early into a thick, crisp crust with its big leaf-like edges that had sprung up and out with that first rush of heat…and slathered that steaming first piece with butter.
Just last night, my daughter, the first child home, and I made an olive and garlic and last sprig from the garden rosemary focaccia, she pressing dimples into the bubbling, olive-oily dough….
These and so many other small-yet-so-large things emerge all around me when I take the time to look, listen, remember through the glare and cacophony of the too-loud world, and give thanks.
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Lovely.
❤️❤️