|
|
|
||||||||
|
The Habitation
|
||||||||
|
a journal from Richards Bend
|
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
December 1, 2002
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. I think it stems way back to my Grandfather... Looking back, i think now, it must have been his as well - contagiously. Every Thanksgiving morning of my childhood, I remember him calling - excitedly wishing me a happy Thanksgiving - only to showup at our house a few moments later. They lived nearby. Enthusiasm is what you'd call that - and Blue is what you call these days of late November... Blueasbluecanbe, beyond any notion of color - Blue as specifically non-color - My Grandfather used to lurch back in his easy chair - I remember his warm den - quiet there, like only an old persons house can be - clocks ticking in the background and the hissing of a gas-log fire place... and the day outside, late November - crisp - high blue sky - and brilliant sunshine... he'd lurch back and say simply that it was a blue day outside. I never believed that he meant that it was a sad day - nor did I believe that he was talking about the color of the sky... I have come to believe now, he was talking about something altogether different... He was talking about something, a feeling, a condition in the weather - combined with an emotion - a quietness, calm - an element in emonature that doesn't specifically have a word to describe - no connotation - no description - other than his word "blue" - His word, combined with longlife and experiences there in, are the only characterization there can be, for now, for the days upon which he was remarking - Perhaps another word that comes close to describing the days for which defy all other chictorization is "November".
But, of course, November is gone now - at least by the calendar - The Blue days my Grandfather spoke about are certainly still here - for this first day of December... And aren't we silly to think that something as prominent in nature as "November" should abide by a 30-day calendar... today, this first day of December was as "November" as any of the 30 days preceding it - and I have thought of him a great deal - but then, I always do.
Jon Boy has been here with me at Richards Bend for the Thanksgiving... Each time he visits, I am more and more amazed by how much he loves the place... No TV - No Nintendo... And the place, with the woodstove now, a few weeks seasoned, is taking on the smell of an old fireplace... the smell, pioneeristic, smells of fire even long out - and the various spills of lamp oil and kerosene - the smells of home - the smells that only a log cabin can have. Even though my Son is considerably less woodsy than I am now, or was when I was his age, I am no less certain that when he is older, he will have an affinity for log cabins, wood fires and oil lamps - the smells of which will transport him back in time, so surely, it will be as if in the physical - And these memories - of him and I at Richards Bend, the building of them, is one of the most charming things in my life. I feel no less thrifty, saving up these memories for him as I would saving money...
He's gone now - along with the November.... and, as usual, I miss him greatly... but he is doing so well... it seems things are settling down. It feels like resolution without action... like healing, but also different... it feels like one of those things, you're sure things are different - better, but you don't remember what you did to make them move in that direction - that perhaps it was an accident, or that nature itself filled in the gaps - or transported you to a different place - and you can't remember the path. Things are genuinely calm now... Things are blue.
|
||||||||
| page created with Easy Designer |