thanks

It was a long weekend. and it is still the weekend. Eliott Creek behind us as we head up I-5, and more and more this is a homecoming for me. Not my new home anymore, just home. This transition, this marriage, this life, continues to become what is true, and what is behind me begins to take its proper place: my past. Now, if you've been reading along, my past won't stay where it belongs, has a life of its own, rattles in the dark (I have so many skeletons in my closet its a wonder I can hang up my clothes) and also, truth be told, I drag it out and play with it when I'm bored; a time-worn stuffed lamb, once-white plush curls gone flat and gray, one eye hanging by a thread.

But Thanksgiving was big. Lots of family, but not mine. My son did not show up. And I went through what I suppose mothers go through to one extent or another-- sadness, rejection. I know it is not unusual for a grown child to dis' the new family on major holidays. Painful. And yet it is just another layer of the release that has been demanded of me as I move from that life to this, and see it as all one and the same. It is. I know. But I do draw my lines.

After a pretty rough start, I spent much of the early years protecting my son. I have spent my holidays making sure his were free from violence, from poverty and want. I have spent years dragging him with me, hither and yon, from one safe place to the next, dodging bullets and idiots. I have made my holidays special with his presence. And now he is grown. He is older now by four years than I was when I had him and began the soul-cutting process of motherhood and detachment. I know we birth them to release them. I know this. I read the book. And I thought I had. But this thing happens in layers. I remember a couple of years ago when my mom died, and I felt pushed to the front of the cosmic waiting line. Maybe that is the final release. But there is something about the physical distance between us now, and the selling of what was our home. It makes me wonder what he thinks of me. If he feels somehow left behind. It is not the same without him, that much is true.

Again, the cabin was warm and welcoming, set up like a b&b with almost everything we needed. Almost. No mirrors, which is not such a bad thing. The stove is propane, and I baked pies one at a time, an apple and two pumpkin. I reheated the ham and made terrible yams with pineapple. In my enthusiasm to get out of town, I forgot at least one ingredient for each thing I was making. And these are things I had agreed to make: a ham, pies, yams. I forgot: sugar, cinnamon, brown sugar and something else. But I didn't forget them all at the same time. ONe by one I ambled over to Patricia's house and asked for an item at a time. It became comical fairly quickly. I am not Betty Crocker. But I did bake the best apple pie I have ever made.

green apples
1 cup sugar
cinnamon (borrow as needed)
3 tbsp flour
dash salt
juice of 1/4 lemon

1/3 c butter

cut up apples, toss with next 5 ingredients
put in bottom crust
dot with butter

bake until you can see it bubble and smell the apples.

yum. pie. I love pie.

Everyone was hammered. The smoke was dense, and the comments, "this is the best apple pie I have ever tasted," were dimmed. I could have fed them cardboard.

But my son wasn't there.