It's Not About The Stuffing?

So Jeff, who is a serious history geek, was explaining to me yesterday that the Pilgrims and Indians sitting down for dinner together on the first Thanksgiving was really all about the fact that the one Indian tribe was about to be overrun by another tribe and the first tribe pretended to want to be friends with the Pilgrims because the Pilgrims had guns.

I promised not to be cynical about Thanksgiving yesterday, but seriously, how can we celebrate something like that? With pie and stuffing?

Still, it made me think about interdependence and how much I like it.

I have a friend at school who is from Indonesia and isn't very good at English, but a whiz with math, so we've built what I hope will be a lifelong friendship based on him getting me through graduate-level microeconomics class, and me telling him when his grammar is wrong. And we just learned that last year after the ice storm in the Berkshires, when we bailed and went to the Cape to wait a week for the power to come on, a neighbor with a front-loader (which is some kind of big construction vehicle) moved a great big tree from the middle of our driveway for us. And if the cats catch mice in our cellar, I have Jeff who will remove the mouse remains for me, since I can't bring myself to deal with it. In return, I show him love and gratitude.

So I think the Indians might have just gone ahead and told the Pilgrims that they needed to borrow a cup of gunpowder, and maybe the Pilgrims didn't need to steal the Indian's corn - and I'm really sorry about the smallpox in the blankets. Let's just acknowledge that we need one another and do our best to be trustworthy about it, o.k.? That's something worth giving thanks for.

Permission

Susan just wrote a post on her blog that is kinda un-Susan-like, but also very Susan-like in that it was honest and a little raw and tender. It gave me permission to let myself be... whatever I am right now.

Things are a bit itchy these days. It's nice to be not working and making a giant leap towards my Master's degree, but scary because I'm not working and not ready for this giant leap. If I commit to trying to graduate in May, I've got a ton of work to do - research and stuff - that I wasn't ready for just yet. And I don't like not working. Not just because I'm not making money (although I like money) but I have for so long wrapped up my identity in what I do for a living, that I'm a bit lost.

This has all made things a bit strained in the household...

When other people express their opinion of my situation, I'm uncomfortable, whatever the opinion is. School friends have been incredibly supportive and tell me how wonderful this all is - a gift I've been given to just be able to be a student for a while. Others tell me how sorry they are that this horrible thing has happened and ask if I'm o.k. Either way, I don't want to hear it. Should I be grieving or celebrating? I just can't make the suit fit.

I find myself just reaching for the wisdom that comes from living the life I've lived (actually we've lived, Jeff and I) - that things we didn't plan for happen, sometimes the result of mistakes or just circumstance - but every time we've had to work through something hard, we've come out better on the other side. I'm learning to trust that now.

It all really works out the way it's supposed to. I'm choosing to make peace with it. At least for now.

Bi-Coastal

Arrived home in the Berkshires yesterday after a beautifully warm weekend on the Cape. When you get those in November, you have to pay full attention, right?

Our life has been a bit tumultuous of late and, I was feeling all "the world should have bigger things to do than mess with me" when we went for a walk on Coast Guard beach on Sunday. There was a part of the shore that got our particular attention - this inlet (nope - not up on my shore words or anything...) close to Nauset Marsh where the waves come in from two different directions and sometimes the ones on the left take over the ones on the right, sometimes the other way around. But I caught sight of a few that seemed to join together in the middle and created one peaceful, harmonious wave that rode into the land as one. In my particular frame of mind, I thought how powerful it could be if people could figure out a way to do that. No one has to overpower the other, no one needs to win - just blend the energy and resources to make one special thing. Pretty profound, huh?

Then on the way out of town Monday morning, I made our ritual stop at Dunkin' Donuts in Harwich for a coffee for the road. When I got inside, there were three people behind the counter all admiring a baby (maybe a year old, just a little less) sitting on the counter and who the counter people presented with a chocolate munchkin. All of us - those working, standing in line, mother, celebrated with the baby and her joy over this munchkin - we clapped and smiled and cheered her good fortune. I love what a small town the Cape is in November, and chance to see just a moment of simple happiness was a bright spot in the day.

Back to the leaf-covered back yard and didn't mind a bit raking and appreciating the gift of a near-70 degree weather to put the yard to bed for the winter.

Power to the Slicker People!

So it was a cold and soggy Oysterfest, but what a resilient bunch we were! If the Casuals had the decency to come out and play, the least we could do was dance in the rain. And while I was mostly appropriately dressed, I am not, in fact, a fisherman so I was not one of the folks really appropriately dressed in rain slickers, nor did I fall onto the pavement and wriggle in excitement and joy of Oysterfest and the Casuals.

And Jeff ate his first Oyster (which was shucked by one of the finalists in the Oyster Shucking Contest) and it didn't come back up!

All in all, a successful day.

Note To The Universe

That's it - we've had it. Job loss, my car repair, Jeff's car repair (for the third time), can't get my paper written. Now the house (almost) blew up. Where does it all end?

By the end of last week, we were still able to chuckle - appreciating the life lessons that come from adversity and all. Of course when things go bad, they always get worse! Hahahahahah - yep, really funny. But when Jeff got home today just in time to meet the electrician (who, BTW, returned our call on a Sunday!) AND THE CIRCUIT BREAKER BOX CAUGHT FIRE, I stopped laughing. Jeff, to his credit, was laughing uproariously as he told me how exciting it all was. Fortunately I stayed a little longer on the Cape and have missed all the fun.

So, Universe, enough already. We're making the most of all the adversity, but we have limits. You could send us a little something good, just to keep us hopeful, o.k.? A little lottery windfall or some brilliant inspiration for my paper that I can't get written - we're not greedy. Just a little something good, couldja?

We'd appreciate it very much.

Gratitude

So I admit I've spent just a little bit of time feeling sorry for myself in the last couple of weeks - having my job "eliminated" actually means I was "eliminated" and that's a little hard on the ego.

Until today, when I spent some time with a classmate, who has become a dear friend, from Indonesia. He lives in Padang, right where the earthquake happened. Frans is a lovely man who I expect will be a delegate to the United Nations or win the Nobel Prize or something as soon as he finishes his degree and goes back home. It's really difficult for him to be here and he is trying study while he knows that his neighborhood has been reduced to rubble and his friends and neighbors are missing. Kinda puts things in perspective doesn't it?

I was going to say more, but I think that's enough for now.

Where Have I Been?

O.K. - so remember back in May when I expressed lofty goals like keeping up my blog and becoming a poet? Once again, I set myself up for failure. Not that I haven't had anything to do, mind you ~ there have really been quite a lot of events leading up to today.

Let's see - June was o.k. except I got a new boss that was completely without integrity, talked about his wife while showing his girlfriend around the office and it took much too long, months even, for the powers that be to realize he probably wasn't a good hire. Ultimately he was fired, but not without a great deal of heartache inflicted on everyone.

Which brings us to July, when I got to get back to my beloved Cape refuge, then got Lyme Disease (but found a really nice doctor in Harwich who took good care of me). Here are the lessons from that experience: I hit my drives high and right with a fever; it's still fun seeing Chandler, especially outdoors at The Juice; lobster egg rolls at The Juice still taste wonderful, even when the antibiotic make you nauseous, as long as you have enough wine with them; the new Harry Potter movie wasn't that good at the drive-in (or maybe it was the antibiotic and the fever and too much Advil); you shouldn't come home from vacation with Lyme Disease and then think it's a good idea to install ceramic tile in the bathroom (or even select tile at Home Depot), even though we're really happy with the floor; going back to work while on antibiotics makes me really super nauseous.

August relatively uneventful, except for Jeff who took kayak lessons and won his division in club championship. He's an overachiever.

Then September, when school started up again, my job got eliminated (but I got severance), I added classes two weeks into the semester and still haven't caught up and, right up until today in October, my ass is getting kicked by professors that I really respect. On the upside, the Casuals have been held over at Woody's and are playing Oysterfest, the leaves are starting to look beautiful up here in the Berkshires and I have enough time in my schedule to act like a real grad student.

How have you been?