Giving Thanks in the Middle of the Storm
- At November 22, 2015
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
- 0
Thanksgiving is coming with accompanying storms—we’ve been cold here in Seattle, and it’s getting colder, and bringing some wind, rain, and even snow. We’ve had bad news from family and friends, and missed meetups for readings, parties, editing, and workshopping. We haven’t really been able to celebrate my good news with friends and family, or even just quietly at home—we’ve been surviving, getting by. It seems I almost always get good poetry news when I’m totally unable to really appreciate it—I remember getting the good news about the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg prize right after getting out of the hospital from a lung infection, after our propane tank had been repossessed (due to our landlord’s sloppiness with his records) so we had no heat despite being super sick, and I think that was also around Thanksgiving.
Still, we’ve started decorating, we’re bringing in cheese and cranberries and flowers, prepping for the holidays, despite.
The last week (or two) I’ve been nearly paralyzed with worry about my husband, sicker than I’d ever seen him from life-threatening complications from a colonoscopy but who is slowly recovering, then I was whacked with a really nasty flu—all the things, 102 fever, aches, stomach and upper respiratory stuff, the whole shebang—then the terrorism news pounding a dreary beat on every news station. Yeah, that’s been the kind of fun we’ve been having.
Today I wasn’t totally recovered, but I decided to try to go for a walk in the bright sun (despite the chilly – 45 degree, which for Seattle, is pretty cold) and spotted towhees flittering around and even a baby rabbit eating grass beneath leaves. I finally motivated myself to send out some poems from the upcoming book, Field Guide to the End of the World, out to magazines. I watched on Twitter had a miraculous upset when the #BrusselsLockdown hashtag became a place where Brussels citizens posted picture after picture of triumphant kittens—in Darth Vader costumes, flying with fairy wings through rainbows, even some bouncing penguins – virtually overcoming the nastiness, paranoia, and political rants that usually punctuate Twitter. It was quite silly and inspiring.
It’s a sign that we do not have to be defeated by bad news, by fears, by anxiety. Even if I’m having anxiety dreams every night these days, wishing for health, peace, comfort, and love, all those holiday promises. This is a picture of me and Glenn goofing around at local garden superstore Molbak’s with a Christmas display of big top stuffed animals for some reason, because sometimes we have to give thanks and face darkness with a little bit of silliness. Hey, there aren’t flying kittens, but there are stuffed penguins and a fake stuffed animal circus!