When I write, I feel a flow from my heart to my fingertips – my heart expressing itself on the page. What wants to be known? revealed? said?

Sometimes my heart wants to share the joy its feeling, like when I wrote a story about our dog Cally, a black lab who joined our family in 1997 as an eight-week-old puppy. The memory of her sings in my heart.  As I wrote about her, tears welled up in my eyes. I could feel her floppy black velvety ears between my fingers. I laughed as I wrote about her running errands with me, of how she would jump into the back seat of the car, settle in, and nap the entire time. I could feel her sad brown eyes looking at me when the cat was sleeping on her bed, only to later find the two of them sleeping together – black cat, black dog, in an acquiescent bundle.

Writing about Cally reminded me how much love I held in my heart for her and how, for sixteen and a half years, she brought an immeasurable amount of joy to our family.

The heart is tender; she holds me in her embrace until I’m ready to write about those things that need to be put onto the page, to relieve the built-up pressure of a life lived. This past year has challenged me as I’ve written about my past, those childhood years that shaped me. My heart wanted me to write about them so she could show me I didn’t have to hold onto those memories any longer. Writing let the flood gates open and the story that had been encompassing me my entire life, flowed out onto the page, allowing me to see it differently. I can feel the release. I can feel a new me emerging.

Through all the writing, I’ve noticed my old self hasn’t gone easily. It’s wanted to hold on, but my heart said, “keep going.” So I did.

The heart, in her wisdom, holds us in our truth. She knows it can be easier to stay with the old familiar ways. But she also knows that something better awaits. She encourages me to write, so I do.

“Sure, we can do Thanksgiving at my house this year,” I said to my sister. “But do you really want to drive three hours?”

For many years, my mother hosted Thanksgiving at her house. She claimed it was her favorite holiday. I’m not sure why it was so special for her. I don’t remember it being her favorite holiday when I was growing up, but things change, especially as we get older. When my own kids were little, she made holidays easy for us and didn’t expect us to travel to spend the day with her. So, when the grand-kids were grown and she claimed Thanksgiving as her favorite holiday, calling in July to remind us she’d be hosting at her house, no one complained.

My sister would drive three hours making stops along the way to gather her clan. My family would collect at our house and we’d drive two hours to gather for the day, arriving at my mother’s house in Vermont mid-morning making sure to time it so we wouldn’t get caught up in the annual Thanksgiving Day 5K Road Race, an event that pulls in hundreds of runners. The route went through the village and ended right where we’d turn to get onto my mother street. If we mistimed our arrival, it could take a quarter of an hour to work our way through all the mingling participants. She’d call each Thanksgiving eve to remind us of the event.

Her house was over a hundred years old, and typical of an old New England farmhouse with its small rooms, it had a small kitchen. Actually, it wasn’t that the kitchen itself was small, she did have a large farm table in it, but rather, it was the twenty-four linear inches of counter space filled with a coffee maker and a toaster-oven that made it feel small as we tried to prepare our Thanksgiving dinner. After a few years though, the kitchen became the stage of a beautifully choreographed ballet – we each knew where we should be, and when.

Our Thanksgiving was, in fact, so well choreographed, that my mother could sit in the living room with her glass of wine, never needing to lift a finger, which was good because she had a tendency to become overwhelmed with people in her house. I was never sure if she actually enjoyed having us all at her house for Thanksgiving, or if it was the idea of it that made it her favorite holiday. To make it as easy as possible for her, we’d do all the set up and made sure her house looked like no one had been there, except for a few leftovers, when we left.

Whoever arrived first would be assigned the task of bringing a table down the steep and narrow stairs from the second floor and place it next to the regular dining table. We’d collect chairs and set ten places with table linens, fall-themed cloth napkins, and my mother’s Friendly Village dishes.

Since it would have been impossible to prepare from scratch in that kitchen, my sister would bring an already spatchcocked turkey and appetizers, my mother would make the potatoes, squash and deviled eggs ahead of our arrival, and I’d bring my homemade cranberry sauce and creamed onions that I’d heat up in my slow cooker.

We’d set up a folding card table for the pumpkin pies and other assorted desserts at one end of the kitchen between the two front windows that looked out onto two coolers full of wine and beer on the kitchen porch. I always brought along extra jars so everyone could take home a serving or two of my homemade Indian pudding, a New England tradition and family favorite. Made with cornmeal, butter, milk and molasses, and baked in the oven for three hours, the pudding is rich and delicious and thank God Thanksgiving only comes once a year. We learned, after several Thanksgivings, that the pudding was too rich to eat on a full tummy. But not wanting to miss out on it, everyone would settle for a small taste as long as they could take a serving home for later.

Have you ever noticed how once the turkey’s been in the oven for only a short while, it starts to waft its turkey-ness throughout the house? It establishes itself early in the day and, depending on how big the turkey and how many people are sitting down for dinner, it can take center stage for several days. The routine at my house was always turkey dinner, then turkey tetrazzini, followed by turkey sandwiches on homemade bread, with dressing, and cranberry sauce. Then finally, when the carcass was picked apart, I would make turkey soup. For some reason, turkey soup is not my favorite. I haven’t decided if it’s the soup I don’t care for, or if it’s the idea of having to eat more turkey. Perhaps I could freeze it and see if it tastes better in January.

Back in my mother’s kitchen with the turkey out of the oven, my son would start on the task of carving while I made the gravy. Making gravy from scratch, tasting the richness of the turkey drippings, adds a touch to the turkey dinner that canned gravy cannot, and never will, match.

Making a delicious homemade gravy, starting with a combination of a roux made with flour and butter, then whisked together with the de-fatted drippings from the roasting pan and liquid from the cooked giblets, is pretty easy and definitely not on anyone’s diet. Adding fresh ground pepper helps bring out the turkey flavor.

Olives, pickles, and nuts were placed on the table, away from the little kids, along with the cranberry sauce, creamed onions, dressing, rolls, squash, potatoes, the gravy boat, and the platter of turkey. My sister would always insist on something green, so there might be Brussel sprouts, green peas, or green beans as well. A meal worthy of a blessing.

Then there was that one Thanksgiving. The one when my brother came home from California with his at-the-time-girlfriend and his two adult daughters. It was wonderful to have them visit, but was, without a doubt, my least favorite Thanksgiving. My brother’s girlfriend, who was the nervous type and needed to keep busy, decided she’d be in charge of our Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t think it ever occurred to her that she might be intruding on our tradition, the tradition where I was in charge. She was invading my well-established territory and I wasn’t happy about it, but I could accommodate her knowing, in all likelihood, we wouldn’t be seeing her again. It all worked out okay – I guess. I just have to say that I’ve never heard of anyone cooking quartered potatoes for three hours, but apparently it was her specialty.

The following year, when we gathered at my mother’s house, we were right back in our groove, dancing around each other, grateful for the opportunity to come together and laugh and enjoy the day. We didn’t know it would be our last Thanksgiving with her. I thought we’d be dancing in that kitchen forever.

When November arrived, the year my mother died, we realized Thanksgiving had become a time we all looked forward to. We’d miss not getting our families together. In honor my mother, my niece offered to host Thanksgiving at her house which meant we’d each only have to drive an hour-and-a-half. It was very sweet of her. We’d continue the same tradition of bringing side-dishes and doing as much of the work ahead as possible. Being a new mother, in a new house, with newly acquired in-laws can be exhausting, and as plans shifted from hosting our family of six, to hosting her eight in-laws as well, we had to change plans. We moved our Thanksgiving to Saturday, so the in-laws could gather on Thanksgiving Day, but my poor niece. Even the most superhuman host would be hard pressed to manage two Thanksgivings. We had to come up with a better plan.

I offered to host at my house, but what if no one wanted to drive three hours for the day?

“Well, you’re the matriarch now,” my sister informed me, “so yes, let’s have it at your house.”

“That’s great,” I said, and added, “but I want to start a new tradition. If we gather together the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the kids won’t have to decide which family to spend the actual holiday with, and everyone can bring their leftovers. We can all relax and enjoy our time together.”

And that’s how our new tradition of Leftover Thanksgiving got started. Our first year we had turkey tetrazzini, the next year we had turkey sandwiches with all the fixings. I’m still not game for turkey soup, although I suppose it might be worth a try. As long as we have Indian pudding and family – why not?

It had been a tough morning and the day never improved. Jenny had arrived late to work having spent too much time trying to get her hair just right.

“Damn it” she yelled as she slammed the hairdryer onto the vanity.

“Why do I have to deal with this every single day? Why can’t I have hair that just does what I tell it?”

Even before she had opened her eyes, the day went downhill. Jenny started thinking about her weight.

What was the scale going to say this morning?

Most of Jenny’s mornings started out this way. The worry over the scale, the hair that wouldn’t cooperate, the decision about what she could wear that would cover up her bulging tummy and thighs.

This being human is amazing even if it is a full-time job. And it’s not like it’s even a forty hour a week job. It’s all day, every day, for decades - possibly for over a century.

It probably starts the same way every morning. If you’re lucky, you get to wake up when you feel like it, but mostly we wake up to an alarm – either digital or four-legged. We hop, drag or get ourselves pushed out of bed and begin our day.

How do you accept the challenge of a new day? Is it something you look forward to or do you tend to dread it.

Each day is a new beginning, so even if you dreaded yesterday, today you have a new opportunity.

I love that. I love knowing that I always have the opportunity to try a new way.
Being human is a gift we have given ourselves. Do you believe that? Can you see how your life, no matter how challenging, is a gift?

“Well,” you might say, “if it’s such a gift, why does it feel so hard sometimes?”
If your life feels hard, think about this:

Who do you know who has had the exact same life as you? The same experiences? The same joys? The same hardships?

No one.

Your life is unique and that’s because you have something to offer the world that no one else has. Every aspect of your life has made you who you are.

I’ve been thinking about being stuck. Stuck as it applies to not wanting to change. Sometimes, even when we don’t like what we’re doing or how we’re behaving, thinking about stepping into a new way of being can be unsettling because we can feel like we’re stepping into the unknown.

Patterns of behavior are established for a reason, but what if the reason no longer exists? What if the pattern has become toxic in its old age?

What I find interesting is how we can learn about ourselves and the patterns we’re holding onto through our relationships. We learn about our triggers, we learn what we like, what we don’t like, what our needs are.

Relationships help us grow. But what happens if we don’t allow them to? For instance, what if you’re in a relationship that leaves you talking over and over to yourself or someone else about how much that person annoys you, how they don’t get you, or how they seem to hold a superior attitude?

The other day, after watching A Man Called Otto, my sister and I were talking about Tom Hanks and some of the films he’s been in. We both thought Apollo 13 was a good movie. My sister commented that she was sad for that one astronaut in the movie who got sick because he held his pee. Me, not remembering that part, asked why he had to hold his pee and she couldn’t remember. So I googled it and it turns out that Houston had told the astronauts they couldn’t dump their pee because they were concerned it could move the craft onto a different trajectory.

Can you imagine, a small condom filled with pee tossed into space shifting the trajectory of a spacecraft?

If that’s true, then think how small things, and I suppose a condom is one example, can change the trajectory of a life?

As humans, we struggle.

Doesn’t it seem odd to you that struggle is something we all have in common?

I guess the question I have is: Is struggle our true nature?

I don’t think it is.

Love and being in joy are our true divine natures and we are first and foremost divine beings. In a human body, we experience life on earth to grow and evolve our souls. I believe we give ourselves experiences so we can so we can make choices of how we choose to be in any given moment.

I love looking through old pictures. Those times when my family appeared happy with toothy smiles. Well, except for the one when my sister was minus her two front teeth.

There’s a snapshot of her in that stack of pictures from the 60’s when we were on our annual two-week camping vacation on Cape Cod. She was around six years old and wearing her dark red and navy-blue plaid seersucker bathing suit. It was a one piece with white piping on the pockets and yoke. I had one just like it. We would sit at the edge of the shore line at Nauset Beach waiting for waves to come up onto us and deposit sand in our pockets. We would laugh so hard. In the picture of us at the campground, my sister’s wearing her bathing suit with her beloved cowboy boots.

There’s a story of a woman who always cuts off the ends of her roast beef before roasting it. One day someone asked her why she removed the ends and she replied that her mother had always done it that way, it was how to cook a roast. Curious, when the woman asked her mother why she cut off the ends of the roast, the mother replied that it was the only way it would fit in her pan.

Do you cut the ends off your roast?

Most of us do. We learn things at an early age by observing our parents or caregivers. We also learn from social media, advertising, or from observing our peers. Those observations go into our subconscious and drive our thoughts and beliefs until we question them. So often though, we don’t question them because why would we? Only until they seem to be causing a problem, we are questioned by another or they present themselves as some sort of a discrepancy to something else we’ve learned more recently, do they ever rise to the level of being examined.

I used to worry what other people thought of me. Well, in all honesty, I still do, but not as much as a few years ago. It’s a process.

Spending time wondering what other people think can use up a lot of energy and precious time. And in the end, can we even really know what someone else is thinking?

Have you ever heard the saying “It’s none of your business what other people think of you”? It sounds a bit harsh, but think about it for a minute and you’ll see that it makes perfect sense.