Challenge to a true Thanks-giving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Largely, I think, because it is what I so want Christmas to be: a holiday centered on a feast, on gratitude, on family and friends and spending time with one another, undistracted by notions of material obligations. Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving an official national holiday during the Civil War because he felt it necessary that we should pause and give thanks for our many blessings even among (maybe especially among) our worst trials. That there are always things to be grateful for. This Thanksgiving is challenging me to actually focus on thanks; to live up to Mr. Lincoln's original intent.

This year I will be spending Thanksgiving in my hospital bed, with my wonderful husband by my side. I won't get to overstuff myself and then go sprawl on the couch and shoot the breeze with whatever family I'm surrounded by. I won't have my favorite pecan pie; the only dessert I anticipate is the pumpkin mousse the hospital will provide. Honey has the turkey ready and will bring it and some sides from Boston Market. We'll probably play a game on my computer and maybe a card game; watch a movie and just hang out. Sadness washed over me this afternoon around dinner time as my hospital dinner sat before me. All my family will be spending Thanksgiving surrounded by loved ones, except for me. My brother with his in-laws, my parents with aunts and uncles, my in-laws with Honey's extended family at a wedding in Texas we couldn't attend. And I haven't even left my side of the room since last Thursday. Last Thursday since I've crossed this curtain. I've had exceptionally high spirits since I arrived here 10 or 11 days ago, but they suddenly began to crumble when I pondered how different this Thanksgiving would be from all the others in my past.

I began to cheer up when Honey came by for his (near) nightly visit. Honestly, he's all I need. And it's only one Thanksgiving. Next Thanksgiving will be completely different. And what an extraordinary opportunity to really think about what I'm thankful for and offer genuine thanks for those blessings. It's better than do what I usually do, which is to give my blessings a perfunctory blip of a thought and then dive into the traditional meal!

So what am I thankful for this year? In no particular order:

• That we are going to have a baby.
• That the complications with this pregnancy have been spotted early enough to mitigate them.
• That we have a delivery plan for this baby in the face of these complications.
• That if, heaven forbid, we have to deliver this baby this week, it is viable and would most likely survive and hopefully, eventually, thrive.
• That I have wonderful doctors.
• That I have a great nursing staff.
• That I have the window side of the hospital room.
• That I have a friendly roommate.
• That we have so many generous and amazing friends who love Honey and me so much.
• That this child will probably be one of the most-loved in history when he or she arrives.
• That I have great health insurance. That I have insurance at all! (Seriously glad for this.)
• That I have, at most, another 7 weeks here. (There are other women on this floor here for far longer.)
• That I live in an area where great health care is available to me.
• That I have a dog at home who loves me.
• That Honey and I have loving families.
• That the baby, by all available standards, is healthy.
• That my health has stabilized.
• That the baby likes to have dance parties in the morning and random parkour practices during the day.
• That I'm just an elevator ride away from delivery if we have a genuine "must do now" emergency.
• That we have clothes for the baby to grow into, at home.
• That we got a dresser for free and a co-sleeper for a steal.
• That, despite my irritations with my job, I know they want to keep me on-tap, even though I don't qualify for FMLA. I feel less in the cold about that.
• That our domestic life is stable, safe and loving. It's easy to take that for granted until you hear the concerns of other women in OB-emergency worried about their partners.
• That I have had good spirits throughout this, so far.
• That I have time to nap during this third trimester when I really need it.
• That I got to have a great, refreshing rehearsal weekend retreat with my fellow performers right before the incident that landed me here.
• And mostly: That I have an incredibly loving and thoughtful husband who lives the definition of standing by your spouse "in sickness" as well as in health. He's had to do it several times in the last few years, and I just pray that I'm as good for him when it's him who needs me, as he has been for me.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

* photo courtesy earlycj5 via Flickr Creative Commons

Souvenirs from an Era

A few weeks ago I woke 15 minutes ahead of the alarm, and when I tried to go back to sleep, I couldn't. Cheap Trick's "The Flame" was suddenly, inexplicably and without warning in my brain. Well, actually it was Maroon Five's "She Will Be Loved" - which is even more inexplicable, as they just plain turn me off - which then morphed into "The Flame." Sitting upright in bed, in the dark, I had three thoughts in rapid succession:

1) Damn, NPR for running that story about the Deering Mansion in Miami being haunted. I can't shake it. As either Huey, Dewey or Louie used to say: "I don't believe in ghosts, but I sure am scared of them!" The story made my restless nights even more restless.

2) Wow. Those two songs are structurally very similar. Someone should mash them up if they haven't already. Wow! I noticed an opportunity for a mashup! Look at me! Club DJ stardom is just minutes away!

3) Aww. "The Flame!" It's one of those songs from the soundtrack of my life. A song I may have enjoyed, but because it emerged on my radar at a certain critical moment in my development, I cherish it as a landmark of sorts.

Playing the song in my head, in bed in our dark room, I recalled how I'd relish listening to it at night, coming from my clock radio in my dimmed bedroom. I had a dimmer switch in the room I had from birth to 12 which I rarely turned all the way off. I remember how comforting that song was to me, in junior high, lying in bed, my room in artificial amber gloam, the rest of the house asleep. There are a handful of songs, images and other artifacts that whenever I encounter them, inspire a certain nostalgia that would not have seemed likely when I originally encountered them. Certain pop songs from 1988 - 1989 forever haunt me in ways that other don't. And I think it has everything to do with two things: the fact that that's when my family made our first big move; and that I was at the peak of puberty. (By the way: never move your family when one - the eldest, at least - is in the throes of puberty. It's more traumatic than a move at 10 or 15. I've asked around.)

If I really thought about it, I could find those musical or cultural artifacts that were in the background when I lived in these places that later proved to be memory markers.

• "Stand" by REM will forever be the song that introduced me to REM and the song that I identify most with arrival in my small town. I'd heard of REM, but never anything from them. I was 12 and whenever the video would come on MTV, Dad would get up and get my brother and me to do the Stand dance, encouraging me to accept our new, small town. I resented the new town so much, but couldn't resist Dad's enthusiasm. It's only years later that I appreciate what Dad was trying to get us to do: embrace place and bloom where planted.
• "Mary Moon" by Deadeye Dick is always the song that brings me back to 18, in a small west Texas university starting school completely - and I mean completely - clueless, but feeling utterly liberated and probably the most confident I've ever been in my life. I think I liked it because I had a "Mary Moon" reputation at my high school, but it was mocked, not celebrated. Here was a song that not only celebrated that archetype, but made her (sexually) desirable. Same me, new leaf.
• Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR became my best friend when I had to drop out of college after my first semester due to lack of funds. I still listen to the show as often as possible, but I remember discovering her in Houston, when I was in depression, knew no one and the future looked uncertain. When I think back on those days, those afternoons in my bedroom, I am so grateful to her and to the local NPR station for fostering and sating curiosity.
• The Indigo Girls were always playing from my stereo or from those of my best friends during my college years.
• Margaret Atwood and Kurt Vonnegut were my book buddies the year after college, when I joined Honey at his first station, in the city to which I would never return to live in a million years, but for which I have a soft spot in my heart.

I don't know what the cultural artifacts are that I associate with my current place. I'll probably find them in retrospect. Plus, we've been here long enough - almost 10 years - that I probably have cultural artifacts associated with certain periods in my life, as opposed to places. For instance, I associate Sigur Ros, Rilo Kiley and Ben Gibbard with the period I spent completing my thesis. A friend turned me onto Sigur Ros when he heard the topic of my thesis dealt with constructed languages and gibberish. They sing mostly in Icelandic, but occasionally in a fabricated language. They're so mellow and soulful that I was able to mope and comfort myself in their music as I plowed through. A coworker turned me onto Rilo Kiley and Ben Gibbard, breaking me of my prejudice against Death Cab for Cutie, much to the relief of my husband, who likes Death Cab. I can't place my finger on what it was about those two artists that spoke to me in that manic period, but I latched onto the music he shared, and that we already had in our collection, but I was too blindly stubborn to listen to.

I'm really curious what music or cultural events or artifacts will turn out to the be the familiar landmarks in my memory for this period of my life. It seems like this year and the coming year will likely be so momentous for us that there will be something that I always associate with this period. I'm just eager and curious to find out what it is. It'll probably be evident 5 or 6 years from now. And it'll probably surprise me. I never would've guessed something like "The Flame" would've been among my take-aways from 1988!

The Ties that Bind

Given the events of this summer, in my personal life, it is perhaps not surprising, that I've been thinking a lot about my extended family. I've been thinking of that of Honey's, too, but more about mine, because, well ... they're the ones I'm more familiar with.

Earlier this week, I had trouble sleeping because all I could think about was my parents' mortality. It hit me in a couple of places. The thought of losing them saddened me as their child, but it saddened me even more as their gestating grandchild's parent. I really want our kids to know my parents. They're wonderful, mostly fun people, even if they do get on our nerves, sometimes. It would break my heart into many pieces if they died before our kid(s) were born or before the kid(s) had a chance to develop any meaningful memories of them.

Then there's the simple issue of "what happens to us after we die?" I go through phases when I believe in an afterlife spent in the company of the departed and in the bosom of the Creator (Heaven) and when I think there's nothing, just oblivion; just a dreamless sleep. (Perhaps surprisingly, because of how our society delineates things, the absence of an afterlife does not, to me, signify the absence of God.) I'm in a phase right now when I fear death: my own and that of those I love, because I'm not sure what comes after. And I actually believe in Heaven more for my family elders, maybe because their assurance appears so beautifully effortless - though, talking to them, I know it's not. And that they do, and are about as comfortable with the idea of going there as anyone can be, I think they will spend eternity in Heaven whether I do or not.

I hope there's a divine afterlife. For purely selfish reasons: not just reuniting with my loved ones, but getting to know those who've gone before me who I didn't get to know. Namely notable peacemakers and my dad's parents. There were times in my childhood when I so wish I could've known them. There were many times I felt devalued by my mom's parents, and I longed to have another set to run to, to balance that out, to get personal affirmation for just being me, and not for not being good enough. We only had one portrait of them in our house, growing up. A black and white photo. Which sucked, because I never got to see the supposedly fiery red hair that my grandfather had, that now weaves through my own muted locks. It looks dark in the photo, so I assumed it was brown for years and years. In fact, virtually every photo I've seen of them has been black and white. And often grainy. Kind of like the second-hand memories I've been given of them. Somewhere, among my parent's things, is a reel to reel recording that includes my grandmother's voice. I've not found it, yet. When we do, I'd like to have it transferred into a digital file, so I can hear her. So she can be more real to me. (Wow, I can't believe how much I just cried writing all that. I haven't cried over them in years. In over a decade, maybe.)

These are the things I don't want for our children: to have to hear second hand stories of their grandparents. To have to piece together who someone was based on rose-colored anecdotes. I could never do my parent's memory justice. Especially, Mom's. I really think she's going to be a wonderful grandmother; probably a better grandmother than she was a mother. If her interactions with my cousins' kids are any indication, she'll certainly relish it more and attack it with more enthusiasm than she did mothering.

But what is more difficult is distance. My parents live in Texas, roughly a 3 hour flight away; Honey's on the West Coast, about 6 hours away by air. I lived in the same city as my grandparents until I was 12, and then, in the same state, just an 8 hour drive down the road: two tanks of gas that are much cheaper than 2 plane tickets. We saw them several times a week, and even when we moved, we were up there a lot and they traveled the state visiting kids and grandkids several times a year. Honey, on the other hand, had 6 grandparents, thanks to divorce, all of whom lived in Texas. At any given time in his childhood, that was a 3 - 10 hour flight, and all its costs, away. So, they were slightly alien to him - "family," but not familiar - until he spent a few summers with one set, in his high school years. Going to college in Texas cemented those relationships. Honey's mom and my parents are already trying to figure out when they can come up here for the new baby. His dad has not yet expressed that interest, so I have no idea when he'll come out to meet his grandkid; as yet, we don't have any West Coast travel plans. I can't help but wonder if that'll be an indication of how the grandparent relationship will unfold: mine and his mom trying to get out here as often as they can (I already plan on capitalizing on Mom's summers off), and his dad just sticking to his habit of visiting the East Coast only occasionally. Naturally, I hope we can visit them as much as possible, as well.

I really want our kid(s) to have genuine personal relationships with all their grandparents. I assume it's natural for kids to favor one set or one grandparent over others. Luckily, I don't worry that mine or Honey's parents will be emotionally detrimental to our kid(s), like my mom's (unwittingly) were to me. But I do hope the old folks stick around long enough for the kid(s) to pull wisdom and love from them.