Thanksgiving with My Soul: Finding Gratitude When Alone

I had never spent one Thanksgiving alone, having married young and into a family with ample sisters and brothers-in-law.  Oftentimes two dozen family members crammed into my in-law’s small house for the holiday meal. It was a sight to see with the children at card tables and the adults around one oblong dining table in the kitchen.

But one Thanksgiving, I found myself newly single.  My children were now grown, and my household was just me.  I had hoped to spend the entire day with my retired parents, but my mother had a cold and didn’t feel like cooking. I wasn’t motivated to cook a huge meal for only the three of us.  We decided to meet in town at a chain restaurant for our Thanksgiving meal. 

During our meal, we reminisced about the adventures my dad had provided for us when I was young.  I smiled, remembering how it felt flying in my dad’s small plane with it bobbing up and down over the Tehachapi hills. We laughed about camping in north British Columbia and how dad decided to pack us up in the middle of the night when the flash-flood warning came.

After our meal and more conversation, Mom announced she was tired and wanted to go home to rest.  The prospect of going back to my empty house on a special day didn’t appeal to me but I didn’t know what to do.  I couldn’t shop because stores were closed.  I couldn’t visit anyone because my friends had their own families.

I realized after talking with my parents, that my adventurous spirit had been on hold far too long.  So, I decided to do something outside my comfort zone and drive into the foothills to a small gold rush town.  The following is what I wrote that day.

It is now 3:50 in the afternoon and I drove an hour up a mountain to be with my soul.  I sit here now at a table by the window in a quaint cafe, in a tiny gold rush town, writing on a yellow legal pad borrowed from the waiter.   A middle-aged man sits on a stool playing a waltz on an acoustic guitar.  I feel the tempo.  It is a Vienna waltz, and I want to dance.  I am alone, yet strangely, I do not feel alone.  I dance in my mind.    I want to ask the title, but good manners tell me I cannot.

I notice how finely-dressed the customers appear wearing well-made sweaters and slacks, ala Ralph Lauren.  A man sits near me.  With his curly gray hair and a little bald spot on his crown, he reminds me of Einstein.  He is wearing a greenish tan tweed jacket with tan leather patches on the elbows, so classic.  Yes, classic, traditional clothes abound in this charming café with its rose print tablecloths and rose pattern-stained glass windows.

I am a fledgling writer, and I am learning to notice what is around me.  I continue to live in my mind of dreams, but I also live in the world.  The man in the tweed jacket is ordering now.  I heard him order Chardonnay wine.  I want to meet him and talk with him.  He is alone too.  But I cannot.  I am a little shy today and besides maybe he cherishes his aloneness, his solitude.

I look outside the window and see old-fashioned streetlamps, lit now, although perhaps they were lit earlier, and I didn’t notice.  The sun will be going down soon.  It will be dark, and I will have to drive down the mountain.  Of course, as is typical of me, I didn’t plan.  I wear prescription lenses and have only my sunglasses with me. I will need to leave before it gets too dark.  I hadn’t planned on being out so late, but I chastise myself for not planning for times like these.  I want to squeeze in as much life as possible.

I notice the hostess scurrying around the tiny room, waiting on tables, making sure everyone is comfortable and attended to.  She is young.  She looks very smart and fashionable wearing her black velvet skirt, black boots with steel rivets on the sides and black and hot pink print filmy top.  The ensemble seems to complement her black dyed bob with a fringe of bangs and her wide red mouth.  She appears to be full of life and vitality.  Such is youth.  I’m just over fifty now and I think about my desire to stay young even as I grow older.  I try to look fashionable too, wearing a red pullover, brown cords and brown leather jacket with pockets and detail reminiscent of a flight jacket.  My hair is long and wavy, sitting fluffed out on my shoulders.

Through the window, I see narrow, rolling cobblestone streets and flower boxes at shop windows.  I feel fortunate to have a car that was able to get me here.  I feel lucky to hear this beautiful music.  I hear another song even lovelier than the last.  My life is overflowing with beauty today.  It is a cornucopia, filled with music, lovely strangers, a quaint café, a beautiful town and earlier today, parents whose simple tastes treated me to dinner at a chain restaurant. 

It is colder now.  I can feel a draft by the brick wall next to my seat.  Now the guitarist is playing “Over the Rainbow”.  He is quite good.  Yes, I feel blessed.  I am thankful on this Thanksgiving Day.  I truly am.  Even alone.  Part of me still wants a relationship, to be emotionally and physically intimate with someone who cherishes me and loves me.  But today, I am discovering that it’s good to be free and I hope to have more days like this, to explore, see new people and just be myself.  I am putting back some pieces to my life and creating new expressions of myself.  I don’t ever want to lose “me” again.

The guitarist is now playing “Lara’s Theme” from the movie Dr. Zhivago.  How cosmic can this be?  I had recently discussed music and movies with a songwriter friend, another guitarist, at this very café, and I had remarked that Lara’s Theme was a song one could dance a waltz to.  I had hoped our friendship would evolve into a relationship, but it wasn’t meant to be.

I look across at the guitarist, and I get up to see if he has a CD to sell and he does.  I buy it, talk about the music and give him my dance business card.  I don’t know why.  I don’t want to date him.  Maybe I will collect another friend?

I am a romantic.  I see life differently than most.  I need to be with dancers, poets, writers, artists, songwriters, singers, musicians and actors of the world.  We speak the same language.  I want to stay here much longer and yet I am getting a chill.  I wonder how much longer I can keep a table while only drinking coffee.  The tables are filled as hungry people come to eat their sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner.  The man with the Einstein hair and tweed jacket is still here.  I wonder about him.  Is he a professor?  He would make a classic professor in a movie or play.  I feel I need to leave as I am taking up room for only coffee.  But I yield to my desire to stay and linger a little longer.

It is darker now and the man with the Einstein hair and tweed jacket left the café. Through the window, I see him striding down the little street, hands in pockets.  The waiter must have lit the votive candle on my table when I got up to talk with the guitarist.  The couple near me are being served now.  Lamb, I hear the waitress say.  It looks wonderful and I am tempted to order dinner.  But with only sunglasses for driving, I need to go.  I hate to leave.  I will have to learn to plan and put an extra set of prescription glasses in my car.  Reluctantly, I leave my cozy café.

Note:  In the years since then, I often thought about Thanksgiving when I drove into the hills to connect with my soul.  I learned the beauty of being in the present moment and the wonder of observation.  Through the years I have found joy in connecting with writers, artists, musicians, singers and songwriters.  And I have found my soulful connection to the world through writing.