November Hangover and an Excerpt from Bloodstone

November was a devil of a month!

No, I did not win NaNoWriMo. Far from it. But! It did stoke me to continuing writing! Lir and Simon have been with me in my waking and sleeping since the first day of NaNo. In fact, I think I've written more in the last week than in the entire month of November.

The cleaning and preparation for Turkey Day near did me in and left little time for writing. But it was worth it! The Loomis Clan Plus ate, laughed and laughed some more, and told their stories. Hilary, my daughter-in-law, positively glowed with the completion of her first trimester of pregnancy. It was the first time she and my son, Critter, met the Loomis bunch. Our little house overflowed with family, friends and dogs (who simply wriggled with delight and were as exhausted as we were when it was over). On the Friday after T-day I could hardly move, but it was a good feeling of exhaustion and aching muscles.

And then there came the demise of the vacuum cleaner and the death of the garage door opener. Ugh. Money and Bud's Holiday Cheer (which is always in short supply due to an understaffed Post Office) flew out the front door. Ah, well.

Anyway, here is another excerpt. This one is from last night's writing.

******

It was a great relief to have Caddy take charge. Lir envied the children she greeted as she headed toward the sleeping caves. No responsibilities, all the time in the day to have fun, and Caddy to stroke and kiss the hurts away. She pulled the curtains back that surrounded her bed-shelf against the cave wall. Her groan of pure relief echoed against the wall as she slipped off her boots and wiggled her toes. Then she fell, face-first, onto the wool-filled pallet atop the shelf. Her mind still whirled with the days events, though, so she turned onto her side to face the wall. She reached out her hands and placed them flat against the chill stone. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, cleared her mind as well as possible, and sent her prayer into Euphmum, the Mother.

       Mother, fold and embrace Onodath Zumcar into your loving arms

                                           as we send him to you. 

      Hold Caddy, Cort, Torn, Simon and all the children here in the Caves

                          in your fierce protection and abundant love.

      And give me strength, Mother, to face these days - to face [spoiler here] - 

                              and to do what is best for your children.

         If it be in the best interest of ALL, please ease these burdens I carry.

                    Help me find my place within the Weave and live it 

                                   with strength, beauty and love.

Lir felt the familiar warmth of the Mother’s love and energy flow from the stone into her arms and through her body. It had been this way since she was old enough to leave the cradle and sleep upon this shelf-bed. Each night before sleeping she would pray herself and her small problems into the Mother through the stone of the Cave walls and be filled with comfort, assurance and strength for the next day. She hadn’t known until she was about eight summers old that not everyone did this. She’d taken it for granted. No one had told her to do it. It just came as natural as breathing to her. She’d flattened Purdis, a portly youth apprentice to the Foundary, for teasing her about it. No one bothered her about her odd habit of praying into the Cave walls after that.

It was not that praying was unusual in the Caves. Indeed not. Caddy had instructed them all from the time they were tots to give thanks to the Mother for their food, shelter and friends with the usual prayers at meals on the first day of a ten-day. She had told them the stories of the Weave. They celebrated the festivals of the Winter Moons, Spring Blossoms, and Harvest Moons. But most of the children took them as “Caddy’s tales” and had little understanding of their importance in the history of the people of Euphemric.

Lir lay back and snuggled down into her pallet. She pulled her ragged quilt up under her chin. She had struggled to make that sorry quilt under Caddy’s frustrated tutelage. She had no patience for needlework. She wanted to be running. She had squirmed and complained the entire time of the making. It was moot who was more thankful for the quilt to be done - her or Caddy. 

She now fingered and stroked the pitifully embroidered symbol of the Weave that decorated the top of the quilt. [Describe the symbol]. A small, gentle voice whispered in her head and it wasn’t Simon’s voice. It was a voice she’d heard most every night of her life.

You are an important strand in the Weave, my daughter. A strong and vibrant thread. I am with you. Take heart. 

She had always thought that voice was the mother who had given her birth, [spoiler].

She suspected she had been mistaken.

******

It always amazes me how things pop up while I'm writing that I never could have expected. That symbol, fer instance. I have no idea what it is. I suppose I will have to draw something? Or have someone draw something? I don't know. But I'll leave that until later and just go on writing.

Thanksgiving

I've been thinking a lot about my mom this last week. Or maybe she's been thinking about me? Whatever, she's been on my mind with all the preparation for Thanksgiving. She passed on almost 24 years ago now. That's hard to get my brain around at times - that she's been gone from my life for that long. A massive stroke took her just a little over two years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's. But that's another story for another time.

Thanksgiving was Mom's time - her big show. She was upfront and center stage which was an uncomfortable place for her to be. Life for her revolved around Dad and me, you see. Mom was the support staff in the family - chef, housekeeper, secretary and accountant, decorator, maitre'd, event planner and activities director. All that wrapped up in a 5'2", plump, white-haired, smartly dressed and tidy package. She was much more comfortable working behind the scenes than having the lead role.

But at Thanksgiving, Dad and I were the go-fers to her Director status. It was her yearly grand production and her anxiety over it vibrated through the house and the two of us for the weeks ahead.

Depending on the year and who lived where, who was in town, who married, and who had passed away, we could be entertaining 20 to 30 people for Thanksgiving. This was how it was for the 22 years I lived with my parents. We also entertained on Christmas Eve, but that was a different show which revolved around a Swedish meal, complete with Lutfisk and Glogg, and was mostly for my father's side of the family. That was more a combined effort with Dad directing. Another story there, too. But that's Dad's story.

I don't remember the menu ever changing. Those in attendance expected and eagerly anticipated Mom's expert, Francios Pope trained, Thanksgiving cuisine.

Roast Turkey, (of course!) basted by strips of bacon
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy (cornstarch gravy, never flour)
Candied Sweet Potatoes
Mashed Turnips (loads of butter)
Green beans
Cranberries (made with fresh cranberries, but also the canned jellied ones for the lesser trained palates)
Mom's wondrous homemade Pumpkin and Mincemeat Pies with hardsauce (I've never managed her Mince, never!)
And her Piece d'Resistance, Stuffing
Fresh rolls, garnishes of veggies and olives filled out the table along with bottles of Champagne served and sparkling enticingly in Mom's prized crystal.

Dad would be in charge of vacuuming every square inch of the house (walls, curtains, furniture, and every nook and cranny) and scouting out enough chairs. I was bathroom cleaner and duster. The house had to sparkle. We knew it. We'd suffer mother's moaning agony of guilt afterward if it didn't.

On THE DAY Dad was charged with Bartender duty and had better have everyone's favorite liquor of choice and enough ice on hand or sleep in the family room later that night. (Or wish he had!)

I had the distinct and dubious honor, as daughter of the house, of table setting. As a child of eight or ten this was indeed an honor. I adored mother's exquisite Marshall Field's gold threaded table cloth and napkins. That thing was incredibly heavy and draped beautifully. I even loved the smell of it. I'm not sure what it smelled like, exactly. Maybe years of Thanksgiving dinners, Woolite soap and the blue tissue paper mom wrapped it in for storage, but it was a nose-treat for me each year. I'd wince with each drop of gravy or cranberry that our guests would later so blithely splatter on it. I knew what it would take mother to get those spots out! And how she'd agonize over them. I'd always feel somehow responsible, no matter who did it. After all, I was tablecloth proprietor.

I'd lovingly lay mother's Franciscan Bone China (Harvest Wheat pattern with gold inlay and platinum trim) at each place. Place the silver plated flatware from the inside out (right - knife edge towards plate/large spoon/small spoon, left - dinner fork/dessert fork on top of neatly folded napkin). Make sure matching silver plated salts and peppers were filled. And the most painful and harrying part - checking the crystal to make sure there were no chipped water goblets or champagne/sherbets. I dreaded this. If there was a chip my memory would be grilled by mother to find out the how, when, and who from the previous year. I had to be on crystal alert through the entire event.

When the family came, though, most of my duty was over. The aunts and women cousins would be Mom's arms and legs for the duration. I was freed to fend off my continually fighting boy cousins and keep them from murtelizing each other until they departed for home. Another dubious distinction that sometimes resulted in bruised ribs and split lips.

When all was readied for the table after Dad had carved the 20+ pound bird, the crew settled in for their yearly taste bud extravaganza. Grace was said, a Thanksgiving champagne toast was made, and we chowed down. In my experience, nothing has ever compared. Even sitting at the kid table, an ancient wooden card table battered from boy-cousin oxfords and laid with a garishly flowered, lesser tablecloth and our everyday china, my mother's cooking expertise quieted my monster cousins. The first couple of minutes of the meal were always spent in a meditative silence of appreciation. Then the "ooohs" and "aaahs" and "well done, Margarets" broke in and the voices and laughter of family together reverberated off the immaculately vacuumed walls and dusted furniture for the next hour and a half.

She'd done it again. And exceedingly well, as always. Applause!! Applause!!

I've resumed Thanksgiving cooking these last couple of years for my partner's clan after several years' hiatus. This last week as we shopped and cleaned, and as I planned and cooked, I felt Mom closely with me. Bacon draped turkey went into the oven. I made her unique stuffing and got rave reviews and requests for the recipe. I sweated timing and kept an eagle eye on the rolls, though the bottoms burned again, so I know it's the baking sheet and not me.

It's a totally different feeling, different people, and different era of my life, but Mom was there with me while I cooked, and it was good and right. And I am Thank-full. Mom, I love that you stepped out of yourself for one day a year and produced a memory, a lesson, and a charge in bringing family together through sitting at table and enjoying a special meal.

Thanks, Mom. I love you.