family thanksgiving

It has been a blessed holiday weekend. Rich and warm and full of family. I even got up at 4:45 in the morning on Friday to go shopping with Dad. We stood shivering in the dark in a line in front of Super Shoes so that I could get an extra ten dollars off of my long anticipated Birkenstocks. He jokes to the lady in front of us that he could have just given me ten dollars and stayed in bed! He made us a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner the night before, with a seventeen pound turkey for just Jon and Bekah and me and him. It was one of those perfect dinners that was delicious, but didn't give that awful stuffed-too-full feeling, that has followed many other Thanksgiving dinners. The night before that, on Wednesday evening, I attended a huge surprise party for Bryan, thrown by his wife Karah, my friend and kid's choir co-leader. I stayed until nearly two in the morning and went to spend the night at Moms, sneaking in, trying not to wake the dogs. There was some wimpering, but they settled down again until my brother trudged up the stairs, unable to sleep, slammed a cupbord door, and the barking let loose. Mom stumbled down the hall, grumpy as always when woken up. She takes the dogs out to the bathroom and Jon and I stand and look at each other sheepishly.

The other day Kelly mentioned a novel that she had just started. It is a novel that I have seen in Christian bookstores. The type that I usually turn my nose up at. Historical fiction romance romance romance. A Christian, laden with sexual tension, romance. Kelly dosen't take it with her when she leaves for Virginia and I pick it up and start reading. It predictable, with a few reverent little nods to God and faith before the characters start making out (they were previously, most conveniently, already forced into marriage). But I take it with me to Moms, and read before I go to sleep Wednesday evening. I read it at Dad's on Thursday evening. I finish it at Moms on Friday evening. And the thing that surprises me by the end is that the characters begin to seem like a family. They wash dishes and have a child and put wood into their fire-place.

I love families so much. I love my own. This morning, after playing with the dogs, and drinking tea I go with Mom, Bekah, Jon, and his girlfriend Tara, to a craft show in Lancaster. We split up into two groups and Jon, Tara and Mom wander off. While my sister looks at jewelry in the neigboring booth, I spontaneously buy a beautiful bowl. It is ceramic and painted shades of green with pale orange water-lillies. The edges are pinched up like a the ripples of a leaf sitting on water, and I decide that I want it for the rest of my life. It is made by a local, central PA artist, a young woman about the same age as me, and it is expensive. Way out of what is left of this months budget. This is coming right from savings. We walk around the show, and I feel the weight of the bowl in my hand and the misgiving that inevitably comes with an impulse purchase. For heavens sake, I just bought a pair of Birkenstocks too. But you can't return something that you buy from a local artist at a craft show. So I tell myself it was a good thing to do, to support the arts, etc. though I still have a bit of a knot in my stomach.

Upon returning from the craft show I head home. There is some problem with Kelly's and my phone, and when dialing the caller only gets a busy signal. I come home, unpack my new bowl and sit it high up on top of the counters with some blue pots and pans. I try the phone and find that I am not able to call out either. The bowl doesn't look right up there. It looks awkward and too crowded and it doesn't match. It is a very vulnerable feeling to have a problem with a phone and not be able to call anyone to help. The answering machine is buzzing strangly though, and I remember the advice that you should always have a simple, plug-it-into-the-wall phone, in the case of a power out. So I go purchase a new phone and answering machine, and the problem is, thankfully, fixed.

So now I am sitting home alone. I wash the dishes and pick up the pieces of hand-made paper that I made yesterday. I left them all over the living room floor drying on dishcloths. Thirteen perfect, embroidery hoop sized circles. They are white with brown flecks looking as much like flour tortillas as paper. I had forgotten to move my laundy over to the dryer yesterday, so I toss the dishcloths in and run the load again. I am lonely. I want a family. One right here in my own house. I tell this to God, and I think the first thing that I thought of was my bowl. That he has a home for me, like I gave a home to that bowl. That I am not a useless object that he wished he hadn't purchased, sitting on his top shelf, mismatched with the rest of his people and his plan. That he doesn't have any regrets. That I am adopted into an amazing family.

I climb up on a chair and take my bowl back down from the shelf. I clear off the table and place it right in the middle with candlesticks on each side. In the last delivery of our organic vegetable box, we got four ears of popcorn. They are to sit and dry for another couple of weeks before scraping off the kernals, so I lay the cobs of corn in the bowl. It looks perfect. Like harvest time. And I light a cinnamon candle and sit it beside me, watching the warm flame flicker as I write.