Feeling Thankful
At this moment, the calendar is ten days into November. Over the past eight months, so much has happened in my life and Kit’s that was dark and foreboding that at times, I’ve felt starved for light. For a lightness of being. For steps forward rather than another fall backward. When Daylight Savings Time brought nightfall an hour earlier, there was cause to feel glum. And yet, I’m feeling just the opposite. I’m feeling thankful.
For Halloween, I donned a paper mâché Venetian cat mask and tucked fall-colored mums into my hair before greeting local Trick or Treaters who began arriving at 4:30 up and down our quiet road. Then just like bats, the assemblage of kiddos had all flown off into the night with their buckets filled with assorted treats. When they were gone, a group of our neighbors gathered at Carol and Jim Lee’s open garage for a feast of homemade vegetable soup, Boursin Truffle and Sea Salt cheese, mulled wine, and frosted pumpkin cookies (minus the one their Golden Retriever Cedar nabbed for himself). For their friendship, sustenance and support, I feel enormously thankful.
This autumn, the maples and oaks in Nevada County have bedazzled residents and tourists alike with intense fall colors ranging from autumn blaze reds to shades of orange and yellow. Liquid Amber trees at the Lodge where Kit resides provide me with star-shaped leaves that I take to Kit’s room and tape on his wall, creating an indoor tree for him to enjoy next to his bed. I tell him that the Japanese maples along our driveway have never been as vibrant as they are right now.
Blessed with warm days and chilly nights, neighbors are busy chopping wood and dealing with outdoor chores. Now with rain in the forecast, I’m feeling the need to get help with gutter cleaning, blowing pine needles off the roof, and bolstering the posts on a retaining wall supporting the slope at the back of the house. I’m also taking time to take care of myself. Before rains arrived earlier this week, I set off on a solitary walk down a quiet road appropriately named Timberline with woods on one side and the backyards of local neighbors on the other. For almost an hour, it was just me, a few chickens in their coop, and a man chopping and stacking firewood. Perfect for the body and spirit.
At the Lodge, Kit works with his physical therapist on standing up from his wheelchair and maintaining a sustained stance while holding on to a set of parallel bars. In addition, he and I work on strengthening exercises while he’s seated in his wheelchair. His progress gives me hope. In the hallway there is now a November bulletin board that captures how I feel. It is a collage of autumn leaves and pumpkins with the message “Feeling Thankful.” Our journey continues to be hard, but it no longer feels impossible.
When I leave the Lodge after Kit has had dinner and he’s cozy in bed, I turn on a battery-powered candle on the table by his bedside. At home, electric candles placed around the house form points of light that connects us. They say to me, “Kit, we’ve been here before, and we know the steps. We are dancing with the whole universe and the light that connects us will keep us moving forward in the days and months to come.”
Over the past month, two wonderful novels brilliantly adapted for television have brought light into my evenings. Tonight, I’ll finish Bonnie Garmus’s 6-part series Lessons in Chemistry on Apple TV+. On November 2, Netflix released a four-episode production of Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel All the Light We Cannot See. I can’t say enough about these two books, their authors, and the quality of the writing and cinematography of both productions. They are powerful, poignant, prescient and not to be missed.
And worthy of note, I’m feeling thankful for bread—so basic in our diet, so sustaining, and so delicious. Not just any bread, but the Rosemary Meyer Lemon Sourdough boules garnished with sea salt flakes from the Baker and the Cakemaker Bakery in Auburn, CA. Delivered fresh to Nevada City early every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, this handcrafted artisan bread is a work of art to behold and to savor.
When my sisters Kim and Kelly visited Nevada City and Grass Valley in October, we devoured two loaves of this irresistible bread in five days. The night I prepared a lemony shrimp stew with cannellini beans, I served it with slices of warm buttered sourdough that we dipped in the broth until none was left in our bowls. My sisters loved the bread so much that they each stuffed two freshly baked loaves in their luggage before flying back to San Antonio.
This November, I’m feeling thankful for the points of light that continue to illuminate the way down this road Kit and I are negotiating together, one step at a time.
“There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.” - Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See.