Un-Tradition

Thursday, November 26, 2009


I wake first today.

Piper is breathing easier. Her fever must have broken during the night; the flush on her cheeks is only rosy sleep flush.

The curtain is drawn over the window on Pete's side of the bed, but the day feels brighter already than the last five days of gray. I roll over with a stuffed nose and a throat that aches suspiciously and sigh at the prospect of what my next few days may bring.

There is a lovely mist making magic outside this morning, softening everything, even the obvious quiet of us alone at our house for Thanksgiving with no plans for turkey or visiting. The leaves are falling red from our neighbor's Japanese maple. I stop-noticed them yesterday. They are brighter than the dogwood leaves I've been watching across the street, meaning to photograph, leaving well enough alone.

I might make a pie.

I might not.

It seems everyone is planning and cooking and baking and going, and here we will sit again, enjoying our home and one another, missing other loved ones we're not seeing, suspending tradition.

And maybe we'll talk deep today, share praise together for three weeks left, for broken fevers and staggered strength (like staggered choral breathing, sharing the air for the long, sustained held-notes), for four years married, for a Thanksgiving five years ago when Pete was stuck at an airport, and I was at my parents' home missing him, wondering why I was missing him so much and we decided to leave it in God's hands - until that Christmas in 2004 when God asked me what I wanted, and gave me to Pete.

It's just another day for us, really, a gifted day home to wait together to see what God may do with it, what new memory we'll make.
"Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness,
You who seek the LORD:
Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
And to the hole of the pit from which you were dug.

Look to Abraham your father,
And to Sarah who bore you;
For I called him alone,
And blessed him and increased him.”

For the LORD will comfort Zion,
He will comfort all her waste places;
He will make her wilderness like Eden,
And her desert like the garden of the LORD;
Joy and gladness will be found in it,
Thanksgiving and the voice of melody...
"

- Is. 51:1-3
There will be other years for tradition and turkey and football and travel. We don't need all that for thanksgiving.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

8 comments:

Lyla Lindquist said...

In favor of a quiet day at home together, the suspension seems a worthy pursuit. Praying you can suspend the oncoming illness as well.

Janet Oberholtzer said...

Hi ... found you via someone on Twitter and after reading one post already know you are a wise woman!

Totally agree with this post, especially the last line - "we don't need all that to enjoy thanksgiving."

Holidays (actually any day) will be what we make of them, with what we have, where we are. And to trust ourselves enough to do that!

Hope you don't get real sick.
Enjoy your day

Anonymous said...

sounds like a good day to me.

except for the sore throat, hope you all get through it soon.

S. Etole said...

a thankful heart makes any day a day of Thanksgiving ... be well

Maureen said...

So much brilliance left in the maple leaves, which seem to be waiting for change, as you are, as this season of Advent approaches, as your new miracle waits to take breath.

Blessings to you on this Thanksgiving Day.

Corinne Cunningham said...

Enjoy the the day - it sounds like it will be wonderful!

Carrie said...

Yeah, we're just hanging out at home, too, in our pj's. :) We had biscuits & gravy for late breakfast & cheese dip & enchiladas are cooking for supper with the Broncos game coming up. :) Happy Thanksgiving - hope you feel better soon!!!

Cassandra Frear said...

The people we love are the treasure. Always.

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