Happy Thanksgiving

Greetings from Maine

Running across the river...

And through the University of Maine.

Aunt Rose's infamous Chex Mix.

Peggy's pumpkin pie!

And I started knitting again! An infinity scarf with tassels.

10 More Things

My birthday is almost here. It's sneaking up on me this year. With so much going on, the days just fly by: three restaurants to open, condos to build, and a two year old to raise. I'm going to be 32. I haven't thought much about it except that it sounds a little more mature than I am used to saying but that it also feels right.

Reflecting back on this year, I can see it was seminal. My daughter is growing into a person. The proud flesh of my marriage. My growth as a leader at work. A mountainous marathon under my belt. Best friends getting married. An old friend that passed. It has run the gamut.

It feels like I should throw some feathers in the wind -- put some prayers into the future. So with that, ten more things.

1. Take a storytelling class. Finish my essay "The Greatest." Be on stage.
2. Go to the Met more. Go to the city more. It's a pleasure, remember!
3. Go to a Korean spa and have an awkward naked experience but be profoundly exfoliated as a result.
4. Speak more Spanish.
5. Go to Europe with the Mr. And maybe The Baby. Let's go to South America too to visit the cousins.
6. Have another baby. Maybe lots of babies. Don't worry so much about the future.
7. Move. To a beautiful old house!
8. Watch less TV. Way less. Create more.
9. Eat more vegetables. (All of us).
10. Go for it. Really. Make a run at the best life ever.

The Wrong Woman, The Wrong Man

It Was Like This: You Were Happy

by Jane Hirshfield

It was like this:

you were happy, then you were sad,

then happy again, then not.

It went on.

You were innocent or you were guilty.

Actions were taken, or not.

At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.

Mostly, it seems you were silent—what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness—

between you, there is nothing to forgive—

but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment

he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.

It doesn't matter what they will make of you

or your days: they will be wrong,

they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,

all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,

you slept, you awakened.

Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

Speaking of Marriage

My college roommate got married last weekend!  

I have never seen anyone so excited to get married. It was life affirming to see such pure joy in two people's commitment. It made me feel proud to be married.

She is from Massachusetts and found an amazing place to get married, New Marlborough, in the Berkshires. The ceremony was in a meeting house that was built in 1771, and the reception and lodging was just down the street at the Gedney Farm, two old barns that have been converted. There was no TV, no cell reception, no wifi, no nothing. Just old friends, good people, and the excitement of two people coming together to spend the rest of their lives together. And peak foliage. Did I mention peak foliage? 

All together awesome sauce.

Sharing a Poem: Love and Marriage

For What Binds Us
by Jane Hirshfield

There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they've been set down-
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There's a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest-

And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.

"For What Binds Us," by Jane Hirshfield from Of Gravity and Angels (Wesleyan University Press).