Holiday Leftovers

Three meditations on care (or an alternative subtitle I considered, "take that ham bone out of the freezer and make soup with it.")

A bill, tax forms, and two pairs of wonderful wool socks from my friend B.

Poetry

"After Despair"
Little by little, I feel myself
called back to the world. Holes
left by the woodpecker in a dead tree
console me with their evidence
of another living thing seeking what
it needs to survive. And mushrooms
that push up through layers of leaves
like huts hastily built against
the coming cold. Blade of moon
hung on the nail of a star in the night,
and the neighbor I pull over to greet
the next morning, how she reaches out
to rub my arm through the open window.

by James Crews

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Journeying

—On Christmas Eve, we walk to a neighborhood restaurant for brunch. My husband and I follow our three kids up the hill from the house. My young adult children talk and bump against each other, same thick hair, same ease of gait and manner. This isn’t a family tradition, but I want it to be. We’ve made a reservation because this place always has a line outside, no matter the weather. We don’t wait long. Our server arrives with a wide smile, long amber braids, matching eyelashes. She wears a Christmas sweatshirt, a necklace of colored lights, gingerbread earrings, and a Santa hat. I notice the other servers, all in the same hat but different accessories. One man wears a red suit coat and pants covered in Santas and snowmen. He’s mixing a customer’s Bloody Mary. I am so happy. I am this man’s suit.

I tell our server that I love her outfit, but I don’t think she catches my compliment. She’s busy getting drink orders and arranging silverware. We sip coffee and orange juice. One of us orders a carrot juice concoction that really is orange. Our server returns. I want her to see how happy she makes me. I don’t think she does. She’s busy. She’s working. I keep trying. My daughter orders red velvet cake pancakes. My sons both get meatloaf and cheese grits. My husband, for whom sauces and condiments are the most important part of any meal, gets eggs Benedict. I order biscuits and gravy. My mother’s version of this dish has ruined me for all others, but if I think a place has a chance of coming close, I order it. I keep trying.

Our conversation quiets while we eat. My daughter’s pancakes really are red. We try each other’s food. My sons pour more coffee. I begin to vibrate after downing my second cup. The waitress checks in, not too often, just enough. Eventually, she brings the bill and boxes for leftovers. She wishes us a Merry Christmas. We return her wishes and climb out of the booth. The biscuits and gravy didn’t quite measure up, and I don’t think our waitress ever saw that my smiles were for her. On the way out, I check the bar for the man in the Christmas suit. I see him. He’s still there, mixing drinks dressed up in hope and happy. He’s trying.

—My daughter and I attend a Pilates class on Christmas Eve. The teacher is the owner of a local yoga, dance, movement studio I frequent. A couple of weeks ago when I told her I had breast cancer, her eyes got watery; she said, “not you.” Today, I tell her the surgery is scheduled, that I may or may not need chemo and radiation. There are many variables. I will not know what they all are until at least six weeks after surgery. My daughter and I spend the class balancing on foam rollers, lifting weighted balls, and doing squats with straps. Pilates doesn’t tax me physically, but it does improve my balance and posture. It makes me aware of all the tiny muscles that bind the disparate parts of me together, my fabric.

—Smoke pours from the open oven. My husband and I are cooking Christmas dinner. Sugar from yesterday’s cinnamon rolls has dripped and burned on the tinfoil covering the oven bottom. We turn on the overhead vent fan, but the smoke detector is too quick. It shrieks at us from the stairwell. We wave dish towels at it. It persists. I run to open the front door. My husband opens a kitchen window, and I hear a crash. I think he’s dropped one of the casserole dishes he just removed from the oven. But when I hurry into the kitchen, I find him standing next to the open window, surrounded by dirt with two house plants in his hands. One has several broken shoots. I lament their loss, then tell him what, to me, is obvious, you can’t open the window without first removing the plants that run the length of it.

We sweep up the mess. The smoke is gone. I close the window. “They fell on my head,” he says. I picture my husband bombarded by plants. Ouch. My emotions slide from cold to warm. He saved my plants. I laugh. “I can’t believe you caught them.”

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Gardening and Making/Mending

Three cats in the winter sun.

The above picture is not about gardening, but it does take place in the garden. It’s also not very clear. However, if you look closely, you will see three cats. All three are feral. The larger cat is Momma. The two half grown kittens stuffed into the black plastic nursery pot are her babies. I call them Qtip and Cookie. Qtip is nearly white with dabs of brown and black on her ears and tail. Cookie’s black and white coat reminds me of an Oreo. On this cold morning, all three cats found the warmest spot on the outdoor table below our dining room window. When my daughter and I discovered the babies snuggled into the pot together, we squealed and laughed, overwhelmed by cuteness and delight. I’ve since moved the heated outdoor cat house that lives on our front porch to this table in hopes that Momma, Qtip, and Cookie will find shelter and warmth during these coldest winter months.

Emotional Support Chicken and mystery object

Today, I’m announcing the winner of the third A Thin Space Handmade Item Raffle. Every quarter, I gift one of my paid subscribers a handmade-by-me item. This quarter it is an “Emotional Support Chicken”¹ I thought this gift was particularly appropriate given the events and emotions everyone is experiencing at the moment. Who doesn’t need a small wool chicken to squeeze.

But before I get to the winner, I have to explain the item in the other picture. Yes, folks, this is a boob. And by the time you read this, I will have knit a companion for it. In my last post, I wrote about my recent breast cancer diagnosis. I had a double mastectomy in early January. I am unsure if I will want or need these knitted replacements, but the project kept my hands busy in the days after surgery. If you would like to learn more about the non-profit who supplies the pattern and who is also looking for volunteers to knit and crochet them, here’s the website.

And now, the winner!

Amanda S.

Amanda, I’ll be contacting you via email to get your mailing address. Congratulations!

And a thank you to all of my paid subscribers who support me here in this way.

Upcoming on Threshold: A Live Podcast

Being with Fear: An Occasional Series on Difficult Emotions

What happens to you when you are frightened? What does your brain do? Your body? Fear is a powerful emotion. Often we try to avoid or control it to escape it’s overwhelm. In this session, Julia Rymut and I will discuss fear as indicator and signal. We will also talk about what it means to be with, rather than try to remove or change an emotion that can be profoundly destabilizing. Join us on Monday, January 26 @11:00am CT

Recordings of previous podcasts are available here.

1. You can learn more about the Emotional Support Chicken here (I knit the Junior version).