Thanksgiving Notes

Liz, Jacob, and I had a lovely little feast on Wednesday (see Liz's blog or my food blog for details and photos) so that Jacob could be with his family on Thursday. I spent all Tuesday evening and the better part of Wednesday in the kitchen, and was so happy to have the time, money, and motivation to do so. I love, love, love cooking for myself and good friends.

Thursday morning at ten o'clock I attended the annual Thanksgiving Community Concert at the tabernacle. It was a joyful event in a handsome setting. The opening number was a choral arrangement of several phrases from the 55th chapter of Isaiah, the twelfth verse in particular:

For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

This struck me quite forcefully because, a few weeks ago, I went on a prayer/meditation walk, culminating in a (tentative) Big Life Decision, which was greeted immediately by a sudden stiff breeze that sent the topmost leaves of a nearby birch tree into a noisy, frantic flapping. It startled me; the sound was so loud, and so unlike anything I'd ever heard out of a tree. I exclaimed to myself, "That tree! It's clapping its hands!" 

(Of course, I was very pleased with the poetic-ness of this idea, and thought myself very clever and original. Now I find out Isaiah was there 3,000 years ahead of me. Ah well.)

After the concert, I went to the Samuelsons' home. Brother Samuelson had invited me for Thanksgiving the previous week. I helped him and his wife with dinner, chatted with his mother, met their kids and grandkids and friend, Paula Soper, who is another professor in the English department, ate a wonderful, noisy meal on a clothed ping-pong table set for fourteen, petted cats, sang songs of praise, and sampled five kinds of pie. They are a beautiful family and it meant a lot to me to spend this holiday with them.

After the main festivities I was invited to stay and watch a Christmas movie. I wanted to, but was tired from three days of Thanksgiving-prep, so I took a rain check and was driven home where I walked into a sparkling clean kitchen -- courtesy of one golden-hearted LizAnne Whittaker. 

I think I was asleep by 8:45. And very cozily, happily, gratefully so. 

Happy Thanksgiving.