What I Like About Today

Today, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, is a most wonderful day. It’s all behind us now. All the doing and making and planning, all the peeling and measuring and tenting with parchment paper, all the successes (pie) and failures (mashed potatoes, ironically) are over and done. The traveling to and fro is done. The drinking of red wine poured from wax-covered bottles is done. The candles are gutted and the carcass is picked clean and turned into stock (or tucked into the freezer.)

The blessings, which were gathered in from the corners, have been recited out loud and counted (but some also whispered, barely heard, in the background noise of a thought). Politics and sex and religion have been merrily debated, along with the usefulness of Twitter and how a certain breed of cow, seen just up the road, has the most delightful bangs and curvy horns. The fire is now cold in the fireplace, the dogs are exhausted and snoring, and the big feast is over and soon, the long weekend, too.

Where I live, the day is sunny and cool. We still have autumn color and kale in the garden and a few figs left on the tree. The only persimmons remaining are on the high branches and we squint up at them, wondering if it’s worth it to bring out the ladder (yes, of course, but maybe later).

I wander around in this perfect day, feeling contented and grateful and lazy. Surfeited. It is important to know and recognize when I’ve had enough and notice that there’s (momentarily) no wanting, no flailing about in desire. Just this day, a perfect day to catch bits of sunshine through the last of the leaves on the trees and eat a piece of pumpkin pie for breakfast. The feasting is over but the contentment lingers and it’s a magnificent thing, isn’t it, when enough has been enough?

Related: A Teeny-Tiny Thanksgiving

(Image: Laura Trippi)