A New Kind of Thanksgiving

Last weekend, my husband, a dear friend and myself went to my cousin’s farm to pick out a steer to fill our freezer. No worries, Dear Vegan & Vegetarian friends—I won’t go into greater detail than this. To be honest, I’m not even sure that I actually saw the bovine that my husband and friend picked; I was too busy trying to make friends with my cousin’s horse and German Shepherds!

So, yes, I was distracted by the dogs beside me as well as a treasured memory of a fellow elementary/middle/high school student’s German Shepherds. We rode the same school bus home, and when she was dropped off at the end of her driveway, two, rather large German Shepherds would weave through the evergreens in her front yard—just to reach her, their girl. It’s quite possible that I’ve shared this memory in a previous blog post, but my favorite recollection of these canines comes from a wintery afternoon, in which their dark coats were illuminated by falling snowflakes.

Such beauty.

Such devotion.

Such a blessing to observe.

My cousin’s shepherds aren’t nearly as big as the dogs occupying my memories, but they each had a doggie grin and a wagging tail. I asked my cousin where he had gotten his dogs from. The answer? From individuals that couldn’t care for them any longer. Although they hadn’t come from shelters, they were rescues—like our Berkley!

Berkley, as I write this entry, is lying at my feet. Luna is nearby as well. Thanksgiving, for our pups, wasn’t this placid. It was, shall I say, ‘competitive’?

Before we left my cousin’s farm, he gave us four cow bones. We, in turn, gave both Luna and Berkley a bone that day. My husband and I set aside the two remaining bones for a special occasion. Thanksgiving Day seemed like the perfect, special occasion.

Before I reveal how this treat was received, I should perhaps inform you that Berkley LOVED the first bone that he was given. In fact, he was quite protective of it, even burying it outside when he had had enough of it!

I don’t support digging holes in the backyard, but it was the cutest thing watching Berkley stash his beloved bone in the hole underneath the grill and covering it up with loose soil. When he was finished his ‘dirty’ work, Berkley’s black-and-white marbled paws were covered with a patina of cocoa-colored soil.

On Thanksgiving Day, however, the pup’s roles changed. Luna became the guardian of the bones, retrieving Berkley’s buried bone and bringing it inside. She went straight to the kennel with it, dropping the dirt-covered bone with a loud bang (most likely to announce her find). Berkley was a bit shocked by this, but recovered quickly when we removed the ‘special-occasion” bones from the freezer.

His brown eyes glowed, his white-tipped tail wagged. Berkley was so enamored with his new bone that he didn’t even walk his daddy to the back gate (an everyday ritual that both dogs keep whenever their father goes to work). Alas! His new bone needed to be gnawed on and watched.

Luna, content with her “found” bone, scurried out of the kennel and underneath the stairs to chew on it. We placed a fresh bone at the opening of her hidey-hole, so she wouldn’t feel left out. Gotta keep it fair!

Luna and the ‘found’, dirt-covered bone….

Unfortunately, Dear Readers, Berkley lowered his guard later in the afternoon.

While I separated pumpkin seeds from stringy, pumpkin innards in the kitchen, Berkley lost his bone underneath the recliner. Luna, still hiding under the stairs, was working on the old bone, but growled at Berkley whenever he came too close to her new one. It was this—her growl, that drew me into the living room. Berkley was circling the recliner, head down, dark eyes worried.

I wasn’t sure, at first, what he wanted. Luna is usually the one that loses toys and treats underneath the recliner (and she does it on purpose, too, as a game). It didn’t make sense to me that Berkley would have stuffed his bone under the chair, but the sad look on his face prompted me to lean the recliner forward anyways.

Unaccustomed to moving furniture, Berkley hesitated to retrieve his bone. Luna, a cunning and quick coonhound mix, swooped in and stole it.

I should preface this next part by saying that I love my girl, but goodness she’s talented at taunting her brother! Not only did she steal his new bone, when the pair went outside, she brought it out with her. It seemed to disappear….

Then, the next time that they ventured outdoors, Luna carried another bone out with her. This one seemed to disappear as well….

There was only one bone left in the house and our shrewd girl spirited it off to her hidey-hole.

This—observing our pups with their ‘special-occasion’ bones—was my Thanksgiving.

It was certainly not the holiday I was used to! I was physically alone—no family, no friends (thanks COVID restrictions), but I was so busy roasting pumpkin seeds and trying to establish puppy peace, that I didn’t have a chance to feel lonely.

Text messages from friends, and a phone call from my mother-in-law, kept me smiling.

Plus, whenever my heart started to yearn for company, I called my mom. At least four times! I kept her as busy as Luna was keeping me (mother like daughter?). In any case, the ability to pick up the phone and talk to my mom, was a blessing.

The dogs, despite their lack of sharing, were a blessing.

Alderaan, purring loudly beside me while I studied Norwegian, was a blessing, too.

So, yes, I was physically without my family and my husband on Thanksgiving Day, but I wasn’t really alone. Love and gratitude are everywhere—we simply have to keep an open heart and mind, and they become easier to recognize.

Thank you, Dear Readers, for your presence here, today. I hope you had a wonderful holiday filled with laughter and love! Sending prayers and light your way.

With Love & Gratitude,

Laura

Prose Photos

Dear Readers,

So much has happened over the past two weeks! Most of it has been downright beautiful, deserving to be photographed, but alas, this writer did not stop to snap any shots. This blog entry, then, will be an exercise in both imagination and prose. Think of it as a pictureless scrapbook.

Can you, Dear Readers, ‘see’ what I saw?

Hidden Treasure

“Come and see what we found!” My husband’s voice was full of excitement.

He had spent the morning in the garage with his best friend, organizing the first floor. Similar to most garages, ours was cluttered with tools, garden supplies and other items that simply don’t belong in the house.

Although a small space—so small, in fact, that only a compact car can fit in it—our garage holds secrets.

We inherited a woodstove, brown with rust, as well as a hip-high, once white, farmhouse-style cabinet. It’s black, wrought iron hinges and handles whisper of another life—a life spent in a warm kitchen where such charming hardware can be cared for and admired. If it weren’t for the drawers of curled, yellow newspaper and an overabundance of “chocolate sprinkles”, I would gladly rehabilitate the cabinet and give it the home it deserves. But…you know… “chocolate sprinkles”.

Crawlspaces underneath stairs tend to be spooky with cobwebs and dust motes—and ours had all of these things—but it also harbored another woodstove!

Hidden behind a metal cabinet, my husband and his friend uncovered a replica Jotul 118 woodstove.

It was love at first sight (for me, anyways).

The replica, albeit quite rusty, features a wrought iron tableau on both of its longer sides. This tableau, in carefully crafted images, is essentially my cultural heritage. There are two lumberjacks wielding a double-handled saw. Their horse waits nearby as they undergo the slow work of felling a pine tree. A small log cabin, bordered by a deciduous tree, seems to be a fox’s intended destination. Behind the lumberjacks stands a grand moose and his family. My heart, like the birds in the wrought-iron tableau, soared with appreciation for this artwork, for this glimpse into the past. My past.

I am, after all, the woodcutter’s daughter.  

The White Mountains are Ablaze

Wednesday of last week included a trip to Boston for another transplant follow-up. I drove the first leg of the journey, through Vermont and New Hampshire, with my brother riding shotgun. He did the ‘city’ driving (thank goodness!). We listened to comedy sketches, belly-laughing, until we caught sight of the White Mountains.

New Hampshire’s peaks were ablaze with scarlet, orange and gold! Set against a nearly cloudless azure-colored sky, the Autumn foliage was utterly breathtaking.

Breathe in the spectacular change of seasons, welcome the harvest and its fruits.

My harvest? After years of doing everything I have been told to do by my physicians, I am now on a “we’ll see you in a year” schedule with Boston. It’s a bittersweet victory. I’ve come to respect and love my transplant doctors, depending on them to keep me safe and healthy. It’s like graduating from high school or college—you’ve been waiting and working for this accomplishment—and, when it arrives, you’re not quite sure how to feel.

You’re going to miss the way things were. Even though traveling four-and-a-half hours there and back is tedious, those rides were often filled with singing and important conversations (like when and where to get married). Still, the excellent blood counts and the taste of freedom, is thrilling. It’s the end of a chapter, closing with a late-night ferry ride on glasslike waters and silver stars illuminating the nearly impenetrable darkness of the sky.

Rainy Days

My windshield, in need of a thorough scrub, was speckled with water droplets. Despite the heated seats and my fleece-lined stockings, I was freezing…and, stuck in the school’s parking lot. I had just finished interviewing at a local school district and was blocked in, actually, by a gathering of buttercup-yellow school buses (‘cheese boxes’, as an older cousin called them, when we were growing up).

While I waited for the buses’ departure, I spied a pair of deer across the road. They were grazing underneath an apple tree, undisturbed by their proximity to a house or to the line of buses. Maybe it was my dirty windshield, but the deer seemed framed by a thin mist, much like using a vignette in Adobe Light Room (the program I use when editing pictures).

Enchanting.

Mesmerizing.

Serene.

These were the words that filled my mind.

Frosty (And, Not the Snowman)

The sun rose slowly yesterday morning, as it does these days, revealing not a green lawn but a silver-white one. The garage roof looked as though it had an inch of snow on it! Fallen leaves glittered in the first true rays of sunshine. Luna and Berkley’s breath, visible as wispy clouds, filled the silence. Even the newly arrived winter birds were still.

This—this heavy frost—was and is a promise of the winter to come.

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein.

Thank you, Dear Readers, for taking this adventure with me. I hope you could “see” New Hampshire’s colorful mountains and our frosty lawn. Sending prayers, love and light your way.

With Love & Gratitude,

Laura

Choosing Gratitude

Dear Readers,

My Facebook newsfeed is full of Thanksgiving and gratitude posts and quotes—for which I am thankful. It’s a nice change to see positive messages. It has buoyed my spirits and reaffirmed my own desire to practice gratitude on a daily basis.

A confession? Even though I have so, so much to be grateful for, gratitude is not always an easy attitude for me to maintain. It takes energy. Persistence. And, for those of us that have been life-long pessimists (or are just plain exhausted), it requires a deliberate change in thinking. In short, gratitude requires work.

Why am I writing this? Because as important as gratitude is, I also think it’s equally important to admit that we’re all human. We’re not perfect. Sometimes, we have bad days, and get upset by anything and everything that doesn’t go our way. It’s in these moments that we have a choice to make: to allow ourselves to be overtaken by negativity or to refocus—and recommit—to a life of gratitude.

For me, Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity to look on the bright side. Seth will be cooking our Thanksgiving Day meal—which means it’s going to taste amazing (for those of you who don’t know, he’s a gifted cook). I expect to have a full belly and delicious left-overs for days. We’ll also decorate for Christmas; a holiday that never fails to fill me with hope and light.

It’s easier to be grateful with good food and the love of your life nearby.

So, the next time I struggle with gratitude, I’ll replay the sights and the smells of the holiday season in my mind. I’ll remind myself to cling to good memories instead of worrying about the uncertainty of the future (which is often what impinges my ability to be grateful).

I would like to thank you, Dear Readers, for sticking with me through the rollercoaster ride that has been 2017. Your support has meant everything to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

With Love,
Laura

Gratitude & Homesickness Hold Hands

 

I slept through most of Blizzard Stella. As the storm’s fluffy snowflakes began to drift earthward, I let the pre-medications and chemotherapy take me away. I burrowed underneath my hospital blankets while my significant other stretched out in the recliner beside my bed. I closed my eyes, falling asleep to the sound of his breathing.

I’ve missed the sound of him sleeping.

Maybe that’s a strange thing to say or to miss…but I do. I miss the comfort of each inhalation and exhalation. I miss walking into our apartment living room, to find him sprawled out on the couch, mouth wide open, reddish hair sticking up in every possible direction.

I am homesick this morning, Dear Readers—for all of the little things that make our life beautiful. I miss the sound of Wallace the Wonderful and Alderaan charging through the living room on the way to their food dishes. I miss the squeal of the tea kettle and the giant mug in the cupboard that reads, “I Freaking Love You”. I miss the scent of our laundry detergent. I miss the taste of chocolate chia pudding (with a dash of cayenne and cinnamon in it).

I miss my clothes.

I miss feeling comfortable in my own my body—the body that didn’t have a 24/7 accessed chest port or an off-centered unicorn horn sticking out of her head.

I miss my life.

Most days, I try not to think about home. I try not to think about the future at all. Yet, here I am, pinning for the comfort of a thick sweater and the orange glow of the Himalayan Salt Lamp in our bedroom. I find myself wondering if my immune system will allow us to fill our screened-in porch with flowers again or if I’ll even be able to sit outside in the sun, sans mask, to write.

It’s the little things that make a life wonderful…and it’s all the little things that I am missing today.

If I am being honest, Dear Readers, I know why this is happening. We received good news yesterday—the tumor is shrinking! Treatment is working! My oncologist is reaching back out to his colleagues in Boston (where I will eventually be transferred) and additional plans for my ongoing treatment will be made. And, while I am beyond relieved and grateful for these positive developments, it makes my status as a hospital inpatient a bit more difficult to bear. It makes the clock’s hands tick louder. It makes each infusion and injection feel a bit more important…because I want each subsequent treatment to work just as well as the preceding ones. I feel as though there is pressure building, an impatience for this cancer to be gone, because I want to be home. I want to be healthy. I want this chapter of my life to finally close and be behind me once and for all.

I don’t mean to sound like an ingrate. I know that this is the privilege of good medicine and responsive genes allowing me the luxury of homesickness. I know, that even in this sadness and discomfort, that I am profoundly blessed.

And, maybe that’s the lesson of this day: that gratitude and homesickness can hold hands. That having something to be grateful for, having hopes and dreams for the future wouldn’t be as sweet if not tempered by the prospect of loss. That, even amid our uglier emotions, there is an opportunity to cultivate still more gratitude and grace.

I hope this week has been kind to you, Dear Readers. I hope, that if you find yourself in a situation of mixed emotions, that you give yourself permission to feel or at least acknowledge the existence of both. Because we’re human, because we’re beautifully complex, because our emotions are a part of our experience here.

As always, thank you for your continued prayers, warm wishes and good thoughts. They are working! I can’t do this without you.

With So Much Love to You, Laura

Cuteness Alert!

Aww…snuggles on a cold, Saturday morning:

Prescription for Gratitude

A sleepy hush seemed to fall over the apartment as I sat down to write this post. The tea in my cup was warm, soothing. Both of my fur babies were curled up together on the end of the couch. Another weekend had come to a close and although I was tired, although I was still in a tremendous amount of pain, I couldn’t help but feel grateful.

Grateful for a weekend spent celebrating birthdays with loved ones.

Grateful for the sights and sounds of beautiful Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Grateful that I have this life at all.

This kind of gratitude—in the face of physical pain—is not something that comes easily to me. I struggle with it, every hour of every day, but it’s something that I feel compelled to write about. To share. To maybe shore up my resolve in the pursuit of it.

I couldn’t tell you when or why I first made the decision to actively cultivate gratitude. Its roots have been forgotten, as lost as that first gratitude journal, but the practice itself has survived. Every night before I turn out the bedside lamp, I write down three things that I am grateful for. The things I list could be the names of family members or friends. Other days, I might record happy events that occurred during the day. Some days, I write down what I eat because, some days, that’s all I can find to be grateful for.

The magic of a gratitude journal is not what you write down, but that you write something down at all. Sometimes it’s the really, really minute things that soften your heart and help you realize just how fortunate you are.

With this in mind—and the fact that constant physical pain is accompanied by the temptation to be a Negative Nelly—I decided to turn my mind even more toward gratitude. Keeping a gratitude journal at night has, on many occasions, shifted my perspective.

So what would happen, I wondered, if I started my day by listing three things that I’m grateful for?

Or, if I paused in the middle of the day to recall three additional blessings, would that have an effect on me?

And, if I faithfully turned to my gratitude journal each night to record three more things, would I finally be able to both see and believe that my blessings outweigh the pain in my back and my legs?

The experiment is young still, Dear Readers, but I am finding that that this self-prescribed regimen of gratitude three times a day has given me something to smile about. It’s something I look forward to. And, it reminds me, that even amid physical discomfort, there is always something to be grateful for.

With Love

Dear Readers,

I decided that, this week, I would take a break from my usual blog posts. Why? Because I would like to share these words with you: thank you.

Thank you for taking the time to read my work.

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement.

Thank you for being you.

In many ways, this adventure is still at its beginning, and while there is much work to be done, I have the best of companions to travel with—each of you. Please know that your comments and your “Likes” are always noticed, always appreciated. You give me the courage to keep moving forward. On this journey, you are a compass and, yes, I would be lost without your continued support and readership.

May the week ahead be kind to you. May it be filled with love and laughter. And, may we meet here, at Of Pieridae & Perras, again next week.

With Love,

Laura

The Wallflower Co-Hosts a Dinner Party

The clock on my laptop tells me that it’s six-thirty-six in the morning. The world outside the apartment windows is still cloaked in darkness, still relatively sleepy and quiet. Inside, too, the night lingers. The living room, in fact, is illuminated only by the light of my computer screen and the glow of our miniature Christmas tree. There’s a steaming cup of coffee beside me and the knowledge that some thirty minutes away, my mother is doing the same thing—drinking coffee and memorizing the patterns of light and shadow that the Christmas tree casts on all of the walls.

This, for me, is the magic of the holidays: quiet moments when life is suddenly more than a busy work schedule and a multitude of adult responsibilities. It’s the first snowflake falling to the ground. It’s a cup of hot cocoa at the end of a long day. It’s a candle flickering in a frosty window.

I was more than a little surprised, then, when I experienced that same sense of magic not in a moment of stillness, but in a moment of laughter among good friends and family.

For the last 29 years, I have been a wallflower. Invitations—to weddings, birthdays, house parties—usually cause me a great deal of anxiety. What will I wear? Will I know anyone there? Am I going to have to talk? When asked to socialize, I usually claim the seat farthest from the action. I prefer listening to others’ stories instead of telling my own. I enjoy soaking in the light of my family’s smiles and the melody of my friends’ laughter.

So what happens when a wallflower co-hosts a dinner party?

Well, there was anxiety involved. Who would I invite? Would anyone even want to come? And, what about all of those family members and friends that I couldn’t invite due to space limitations? How would they feel?

There was also a tremendous amount of cleaning involved. Not-so fun fact: writers are not great housekeepers unless there is a deadline looming.

Yet, despite all the worries and work, when the doorbell rang announcing the arrival of the first guest, there was magic. I felt it glowing in the porch lights, caught in the planters filled with freshly cut evergreen boughs. I could taste it in the delicious food that my partner was serving. I could hear it in the conversation and the laughter warming our apartment. By the end of the evening, my eyes stung with gratitude for the small group surrounding me, for the bright memory we were making, and for the opportunity to step into a role that I could have never had without any of them.

Can I tell you a secret, Dear Reader?

Occasionally, wallflowers dream about having the courage to host a party. They imagine decorating their space. They imagine welcoming friends and family into their homes, taking their coats, and making sure that their guests are well-supplied with food and drink. They imagine having a day, an evening, when not everything they say is a potential mistake. Wallflowers, sometimes, dream of participating, of being fully present and not just an indistinct figure in the background of a faded photograph.

This, then, is the magic and the gift of a dinner party: it coaxes the wallflower to bloom, at least temporarily, and only in the presence of those she holds dear.

Heart-Openers

As much as I love yoga, I often find myself avoiding it. I tell myself that I don’t have the time to unroll my mat, to transition through sun salutations, or to find balance in what I consider to be more challenging asanas. I do the same thing whenever I think about writing fiction, except the excuses are a bit craftier (i.e. “I write my best material in the morning and its now 11:59 a.m.”, or, “Oh no, I think I have Writer’s Block”).

Why would I avoid the things I love?

The answer, if I am being truthful, is that in addition to being hard work, both yoga and writing force you to look inward. Yes, the outcomes are, to some extent, measurable—increased flexibility, a fledgling manuscript—but at the center of both practices is a challenge to sit with your own heart, listening to its sorrows, its joys.

And that—the ability to listen—is where all the magic is.

When I unrolled my yoga mat recently—for the first time in what feels like weeks—Wallace the Wonderful woke up from his cat-nap. He rubbed against my legs while I stood in Mountain Pose. He darted underneath me as I tried to hold Plank. His joy for the mat, for the practice, was contagious. Even as I lifted up into Wheel—a pose commonly known in the yoga community as a “heart-opener”—and all of my back muscles resisted the stretch, I knew something had shifted, something was about to change.

A week later, when I inexplicably began editing my novel (again) for the first time in over a year, Wallace had a similar reaction. He followed the L-shape of the couch until he was at my side. Once there, he curled up in a ball, purring happily. The seams of my heart began to pull.

When I read all of your comments following last week’s blog post—I didn’t need Wallace to translate what I was feeling. I knew, all on my own, that my heart was done for, bursting open with gratitude, with love.

The beautiful things in this life—the things that we are called to do, the bonds we form with others—crack open our hearts. Of course, yoga/writing/relationships/whatever it is that inspires you—involve hard work. Of course, it hurts at times. And, of course, it is 100% worth it.

This Thanksgiving holiday—perhaps more so than any other Thanksgiving I have ever experienced—I find myself grateful. I am grateful for the hands that help, that are constantly and consistently trying to make this world a better place. I am grateful for the voices of reason and of kindness that refuse to be silenced by the cacophony of anger and hate. And, I am grateful for the love that each of you shows me every Monday.

Happy Thanksgiving, Dear Readers.