My Tin Foil Pond
It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
I wish I had a river I could skate away on.
"River”, Joni Mitchell
When I was little my grandmother’s dining room held a a strong fascination for me. Right before the holiday season began she would put out her porcelain Christmas village and, while I could barely see the top of the buffet it decorated, I loved it. Standing on a chair I would skate the small people around the tin foil pond all day. Life was happening here. Life was magical in the small porcelain village.
Around me food was always cooking and, shockingly, poinsettias were not available in every store. I listened while I skated those figures around that tin foil pond as my parents and grandparents placed a flower order and made a plan of how to pick them up and get them home without damaging the special tropical plants in the upstate New York cold. It was like a covert mission. A mission to light up our home with something rare, something magical. Later my grandmother and mother would make the sausage stuffing so it was ready for the bird in the morning. Grandpa would stroll casually by letting them know that more onion was always nice. You could never have too much onion. On occasion someone would trudge out to the local pizza shop and bring back a pie, because the oven was full of so many others. These are my memories.
Now, as an adult, there is often not enough room in the schedule to truly accommodate the holiday. How did they ever make it all happen? I often work till midnight the night before and pick up again on Friday morning. One day. One day for Thanksgiving. Where has celebration gone?
Thanksgiving is a day to recognize abundance and we barely give it its due. One day to notice the love around you. 364 others lost doing what?
I have learned as of late to appreciate all the things I can not see. My children are scattered around the country starting their own lives, their own families and traditions and much of my love sits in the heavens. But gratitude for the more than human world is something to embrace. I thank the trees for their wisdom and warmth. I thank them for a cool breeze in summer and a fire in winter. I look to the animals in my community finding ways to live, to raise and protect their young and they remind me of tender emotion and pure love.
The second part of thanks is giving and I wonder if we would be a better community if we focused on the giving. I am grateful for so many things but what is my reciprocity? What is my contribution back to the land, the trees, the animals? If we marry our thanks with contribution, we enter into a new way of being. A reverent present way of being.
Ironically the next day is black Friday…WE ACTUALLY NAMED THE DAY AFTER THE DAY OF THANKS, BLACK FRIDAY… Grace reveals abundance, not lack, and yet we dive headfirst off the Eucharisteo cliff into a season of want, of need and more more more so quickly we forget the peace of a full heart.
I want to go back and skate away on that tin foil pond. I want to smell my grandmother’s stuffing and hear my grandfather’s voice. I thank God for the family I have and the ancestors that walk this walk each day along side me. I like the gentle reminder to open my eyes a bit wider. I think contentment has gotten a bad wrap. It could truly be a radical way to live. What if we had faith that we have everything we need? What if we lived truly satiated by the joy and recognition of our abundance?….for more than just one day…You see life is happening here. Life is magical in our small porcelain villages. And my tin foil pond? It is the perfect place to skate.