Only Tim is missing now

Thanksgiving, more than anything, I think, is about 'family'.

Only Tim is missing now. Josh and Cathy and the three girls and Laura the dog (who Bela seems to like but who tried to eat our cat, Lukie, who is now under our bed behind a closed door refusing to eat or pass food and water) left Baltimore at 6:30 am and had no snow until Connecticut and got here by 1:30 p.m. after stopping at a Japanese bakery in New Jersey that Cathy loves.

So, only Tim is missing. His train gets to Union Station in New Haven at 11 a.m. tomorrow.

He'll be here for a couple of hours before the 'guests'--really, adopted 'family' get here and we will be together and reminisce and tell stories and talk to Morgan and Emma and Tegan and eat and eat and drink and drink for hours on end.

My favorite holiday by far. Almost here. Only Tim is missing now....

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU ALL....

Mimi is home!!!

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. And much of what I love is the arrival of people I love.

Mimi came tonight--she was up at her apartment in Stockbridge, working at her job as Development Officer for Jacob's Pillow, and because of the weather outlook, left early and go here about 6. Bern had told the dog, "Mimi is coming" about an hour before and he'd been laying by the front door ever since and when she came in he went (I think it's safe to say) a tad berserk, jumping and barking and fairly moaning in delight. He loves Mimi so, as well he should, as I do.

Tim's in Brooklyn and will come early Thanksgiving morning on the train rather than risk the weather tomorrow,  and we'll all fight about who is going to pick him up, because we all love him so. But Mimi is his wife now--for well over a month--and she'll get dibs on driving to New Haven.

Josh and Cathy and the 3 granddaughters are leaving Baltimore at 7 in the morning. I wish they had come tonight because of tomorrow's snow, but driving after being a lawyer and prosecutor all day might be worse than some snow. With luck (which they'll need on the day before Thanksgiving on I-95!) they'll be here in the early afternoon. At which time the beserkness of our Puli will return--he loves the girls and Cathy and is respectful of Josh. They're bringing their rescue Pit Bull, Laura, who Bela, our dog has never met, so that is a mild anxiety. But we've been telling Bela that Sumi/Laura is coming and Sumi, their last Pit Bull who died this year, was Bela's fast friend. So all should be well....

Then Tim on Thanksgiving morning to complete our family. Bela will be glad to see him, but Emma, Morgan and Tegan will be over the moon! They love, love, love the man they've called "Uncle Tim" their whole lives and who, this time, by law, will be their uncle in fact.

Then, later that day, John and Jack and Sherrie and Hanna will arrive, the heart of our 'New England Family' for 30 years--more excitement for the dog and the children who call John and Jack and Sherry 'aunt' and 'uncle' as well.

God help me, I'm reverting to my amazement at my blessings again. "Our Family" will gather day after tomorrow and eat food Bern and Sherry and Jack and John and I have prepared the same way we have for years. And we will bask in each others' presence and eat and drink and fall even more in love.

I am blessed, beyond imagining. And I KNOW IT. That it seems to me, at my favorite holiday, is what matters.

How Thankful I am. More than I can say. More than even I can know....

May your Thanksgiving be as wondrous as mine. That would make you wondrously blessed as well....

So, maybe I'm not really losing it....

A couple of times I saw this link on line to "11 early signs of dementia" and didn't click on it because I've lately stood before an open refrigerator door, not knowing why and have gone to a room to get something and forgot, when I got there, what I came for....

Finally, I went to the link and maybe I'm not really losing it. I didn't have any of the 11 early signs (among which were forgetting what common objects were for--I've often heard this: 'not being able to find your car keys is normal, not knowing what a car key is for is dementia'--'eating objects'...haven't started doing that yet, though the credit card on my desk looks tasty; 'money troubles'...well, Bern handles our money so how would I know; 'falling a lot'...well, I'm clumsy but don't fall...if  'bumping into things' was a sign, I'd be looking for a home; 'staring' is one and I don't, unless it is Jennifer Lawrence or Minny Driver; I forget what most of the rest of the 11 are, but 'forgetting' isn't one of them, unless it's forgetting what a car key is for or forgetting your credit card isn't food. Oh, I remember two others: "not getting sarcasm" and "not being embarrassed". No problem on either case for this old bird....

My father had dementia his last few years of life and though I found some humor in it, it wasn't ME that had it. So, I am always noticing if I am showing any of his signs.

I think most of us fear 'losing our minds' and memories and 'self' more than we fear dying.

And well we should, I think, at any rate.

So, just so you know, I'm good for now....

My Lucky Day

So, looking through my papers, as I often do, I found a poem I wrote over 8 years ago that I was going to share with you in this post. And I will, real soon. It is an ironic look--isn't everything a bit ironic--at stuff I received as email one day in September of 2006. OK, so here it is:

MY LUCKY DAY

This morning, I had oatmeal and discovered,
just by turning on my Dell computer,
that I had won three remarkable monetary prizes
while I was sleeping, dreaming about a woman I knew in college
with legs from there to here and back again.

We didn't have sex in my dream--me and long legs--
but we discussed it:
and I have discovered, as I age,
that talking about sex is about as good as sex,
especially in dreams.

Trying to remember her name, I learned I was a millionaire!
I won three lotteries I never entered:
one is British and would pay me 1.5 million pounds sterling.
That, I know, whatever the exchange rate is today,
is quite enough money.
But, besides that, I won a million euros in and Irish drawing
and three more million, America, in a lottery
held in Bermuda. Imagine that!
Just by sleeping dreaming and talking about sex
with a long limbed woman whose name I don't remember
and who is in her late 50's now
(but not in the dream)
I had become rich.

What a lucky day!
And add to that it was one of those profoundly perfect
late September mornings in New England.
Lucky me! What a lucky duck...!

I bought an apartment on the upper east side
with a view of Central Park.

Plus, as you can imagine,
knowing me,
I sent huge checks to Save the Children,
the Democratic Party my parish church.
I endowed a chair in modern poetry at my college,
gave money to most of my friends
and set up a scholarship fund for long-legged women
whose name begins with 'W' ("Wanda", I'm almost sure
that was her name...or "Wilma"....)

All that before a second cup of coffee
and before the email from a lawyer in Rhodesia
asking me to please accept four million dollars
to watch out for the inheritance of his client,
the widow of a Rhodesian politician who needed to get
her fortune in an American bank.

It was such a lucky day that I sat on the deck
with a third cup of coffee and a cigarette,
simply enjoying autumn in Connecticut.

JGB--9/30/06

That would have been the post if the verdict of the Grand Jury in the Ferguson case of Michael Brown's shooting by a policeman hadn't come in.

My poem, whimsical as I think it is, simply reveals how sheltered and removed I am from the realities of the nation I live in.

I don't know how a policeman ever would have to shoot and kill an unarmed teenager. I simply don't see how all the training the police have would lead to that. Shoot them in the leg and subdue them. Use a taser and subdue them. Use your club and subdue them. And to have to shoot an unarmed 18 year old multiple times before they were subdued, until the 8th or 9th bullet (still some disagreement on that) killed them...I just can't get my head around that.

Now, add to that that the unarmed teen was Black and the Officer was White and things spin out of orbit.

I don't live in the world where that would happen. I live in a world where I can write a poem about the nonsense that gets emailed to us all and never have to worry about being unarmed and Black and being shot multiple times by a Police Officer that must have several options to subdue me and yet killed me with the 8th or 9th bullet and was exonerated by a Grand Jury.

It makes me want to fly to Missouri and demonstrate with those who live in a world so remarkably different from mine but which is in the world I live in.

It makes me mourn that I am so shielded from the world of Ferguson, MO, that I can be whimsical and have a third cup of coffee on my 'lucky day' when God knows what will happen in Ferguson tonight and in the days to come.

The word I haven't used yet is the 'R' word.

I won't use it, but it is true. Until we deal with the 'R' word, how can any day, for any of us, be a 'lucky day'?

How???

Ah, Puerto Rico....

All the time I've lived in Connecticut--since 1980 now (the first hundred years they tell me, are the hardest!) I've seldom been able, in basketball at any rate, to rub it in about West Virginia University, my alma mater. Oh, we owned UConn in football in the years of the Big East (I miss the Big East so)--I loved playing games with other teams in places I'd actually been (Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Rutgers, Louisville, all those places) but in basketball...I never had any braggin' rights.

Well, tonight, after what happened in Puerto Rico, I can say, loud and clear, "How about them 'Eers!"

(Which is West Virginian for 'How about those Mountaineers'?)

78-68. WVU over UConn. Bobby Huggins over Kevin Ollie. Jerome Staten over Boatwright.

Oh, that felt good to write!

Waiting for the woman

When I start sorting through papers of my life, you have to be submitted to them. Here is a poem I wrote in 2006, when our dog was not a year old. Now he's almost 8 and still the same.

WAITING FOR THE WOMAN

Our dog--only ten months old--
a Puli (Bob Marley's hair walking)
climbs on our bed--our futon, actually,
and lays on the pillows, with one leg
and his head up against the window
that looks out on the driveway of our house.

I found him there tonigh,
Gazing out, looking for the woman,
my wife, who is away
at a birthday dinner
(God bless her....)

I asked him if he were
waiting for the woman.
And from his look, I knew he was.

Totally committed and obsessed,
riveted to the window,
watching, waiting, longing,
for the love she will bring to him.

And aren't we all--each in our own way--
leaning our faces against the window
of Life...watching...waiting...longing,
for Love not yet here
or present, still distant and away?

The moon

Tonight, as I stepped out on our chilled deck to smoke a cigarette (I know! I know! Don't chide me about it! The cold does more to curb my smoking than all my friends' warnings....) I looked up, as I always do, to find the moon.

It's too overcast to see her, but I looked anyway.

Today I was sorting through all the 'paper' of my past, and found a poem I wrote a decade ago about the moon. I was sure I must have shared it in the 1100 or more posts on this blog, but when I typed 'moon' into the blog search box, I got several hundred responses (I mention the Moon a lot) but none that was this poem. So here it is, from November 26, 2004--4 days short of 10 years ago.

THE MOON

OK, so I'm out on the deck smoking a cigarette
and drinking red wine.
What I'm really doing is watching the moon
through the trees in this, my now favorite tiime
of the year...when all is bare, stark, dying and thin...
knowing what comes next is new life.

Most people I know would chide me for smoking
and more than a few would deride my for
the red wine--but I no longer care.

What I care about is the moon, the moon, the moon.

I know why countless ancient folks worshipped the moon.
Why wouldn't one worship what brings dime light
to deep darkness and moves the seas.

Like the seas, the moon moves me.
Outward into the great chill of the ionosphere and beyond...
though I will never possess the moon, she draws me near,
though I will never own her, I worship her.

When the waxing ceases and the waning begins,
the moon pushes me back, deep inside myself,
down along a dim passage I seldom have walked,
to a door to a room I don't remember knowing,
and I open the door...and there I find, the moon.

So I stand and stare, wishing to know more,
longing to possess the wondrous brightness of it all.
Waiting on my deck, smoking and drinking, watching this only:
through the bare trees--the moon, the moon, the moon....