Home for the COVID-Days

Holiday time is upon us and I've been observing the dark days most mornings.  Yogis and Taoists view these months as the yin time, the tamasic phase of the meteorological calendar.  This year is especially dark, just name your mix of dark - COVID, the election, isolation, fear, or - ?? My morning meditation has been a struggle and I've drifted off the path. I had been trying to force it, but attempting to force meditation is fruitless.  Last week I got the message to just sit.  Close eyes, listen to the noises go by, think the thoughts my brain insists on thinking.  Sit.  After a few mornings the urge to pull out my pendulum arose and again I received a message -  don't ask questions of the pendulum, don't make it work.  Just hold it and observe.  So I close my eyes and simply feel the movement, if any.  I open my eyes and watch the pendulum tremble or sway over my upturned palm in whatever direction energy moves it; or, I reflect upon its stillness.  Not inquiring, not seeking, just feeling its energy.  

I feel holiday sadness deeply this year because my family's traditions are all up in cinders.  In a way, it's almost good timing for Coronavirus restrictions.  There are just so many empty seats this year, and not all from the loss of my sister and nephew.  The family kids move away, that's the natural cycle of life, but each one's absence is another empty chair.  My son Alex lives close enough to visit, but he will not come in the house - another empty chair.  The loss of beloved traditions in itself is an empty chair. 

Observing the pendulum swing, I have to be honest.  Over the years the holidays have waned from exciting to pain-in-the-ass to why bother.  This year I'm ten steps farther down the negative ladder.  Thinking these thoughts while sitting in awareness, I let them flow.  

In the dark this morning I grabbed an amethyst cluster to melt into, and let the memories pop.  My mother starting the Thanksgiving meal at 6:00 a.m. by making three pies - pumpkin, apple, and a mince pie for my brother.  I would stare into a large jar of Nonesuch Mince Meat with repulsion,wondering what the stuff was.  Then came the roasting of the turkey and as the smells fully permeated the apartment, I would listen for the rumble of the elevator and guess who was arriving, excitement growing as the doorbell rang again and again.  How did we fit so many people into a small apartment and how was there room for a 25 pound turkey, too?  The mashing of potatoes and the artful construction of the gravy.  My job was to open the can of jellied cranberry sauce and slide it with a satisfying schlurp onto a tiny dish, where it jiggled in its accordion vacuum-packed shape.

The gravy.  If there was a St. Gravy it would be my mother.  My sister became the Archangel of Gravy.  We could have easily forgone the turkey and trimmings and just gathered around punch bowls of buttery mashed potatoes and tureens of gravy.  And pie, pie, pie.  My niece Liz is the Pie Wizard.  So many!  Pumpkin and pumpkin with pecans, apple and apple streusel, German chocolate.   Lemon meringue, sky high and light as air as it floats across the palate.  All the smells and the laughter.  The best part was hurting our bulging stomachs afterward, stoned on turkey gravy and flying high on sugar, laughing about memories as it all degraded  to digestive matters.  Farts and dumps, in other words.  And memories of memorable farts.

 

I let the images swirl unfettered, and blend into a tapestry.  My cousin Bob fingered the latch under the folding wing table and the entire meal crashed to the floor.  The year Mom dropped the turkey, the year of the blizzard, the year of monsoon rains, the year Kenny was home from Vietnam.  Cooking my first Thanksgiving meal in a tiny oven in Germany.  Christmases in Hawaii and in the Arizona desert.

As I gazed at the amethyst cluster a memory spilled out of each sparkling facet.  The smell of Christmas trees under the Roosevelt Avenue elevated.  Americana marketing and the labels you see once a year - Bell's stuffing, Carnation condensed milk, One-Pie pumpkin and Bruce's canned yams.  The smell of a crisp, cold of December day.  The taste of raw pie dough and smell of sage.  My four month old son gazing at Christmas tree lights with wonder and light reflected in his eyes.  Struggling to drag presents up the stairs to my Aunt Kate's apartment, and climbing out on her fire escape to sing on New Year's morning.  The neighborhood awash with Christmas lights, and wading in a living room of discarded wrapping paper.  The sound of excited pajama feet running out to the pile of gifts under the tree on Christmas Day.

Deep inside I felt the spark of spirit stirring.  The spirit is this time of year: the snap of chilly air, the slant of the sun in the afternoon, and the darkness inviting you to light a candle.  It's atmospheric and intrinsic.  The spirit is dull, but the essence of it survives in my heart.  This 2020 holiday season is yin as yin can be; fighting is inevitable so in order to survive, I embrace the yin and succumb.  I let myself nap after work, relish my warm chai tea and sit with my charms in the morning, feel the cloak of darkness and abandon tradition.  Fight it or flow with it.  Might as well flow - and enjoy a drop  of Irish.  

Slainte, I toast the empty chairs.