For 20 days I took an all-cold shower after yoga every morning and today, on Thanksgiving, having the house all to myself, I grunted and snorted and really hammed it up in the shower, finishing things off with a stiff towel.

I clipped my toes on the edge of the wooden trunk in the den. And slugged another cup of coffee in the dark contemplating things, taking stock.

I had to pull over and talk to Charlotte because she was upset with how I handled the cranberry sauce. We had planned for the two of us to make it together, me guiding her, but then it just became a task (I turned it into that) and then I got short with her about the zesting (she had criticized the words I used and said I could have done better) and so basically we got into a fight over it, which was sad. She used her small voice with me as we sat in the car and explained how she felt, and it hurt to hear that. Hurt like it did clipping my bare toes, still cold, on the edge of the wooden trunk.

I took time off from blogging because I wanted to do something more Important and I did for a time, for about as many days as I did yoga and cold showers. I assumed the pose of a writer on the couch. I went back and forth with those mental games. I had a decent chapter but no outline. I just kept going back and forth editing but there seemed no way forward.

I got more work again, thank heavens! I hadn’t worked since the Fourth of July. I read up on public and private MEC because I couldn’t even remember what it stood for. I read it on my phone in the corner.

In fact most Thanksgiving celebrations I bet you will see families doing that, saying they need down-time or whatever, they need a break from all the family time to just zone out on their phones. That makes me kind of sick to think that.

It is all dark still and the cat is glad to have me home. I heard something hit the floor and her scampering about and realized it was the nub of a ginger root I left out to grate over the cranberry sauce. I told Charlotte we’d have a redo. I feel like I’ve been doing that all my life (the redo). These holidays, every day in fact, is like that.

I looked up the lyrics to a Cocteau Twins song, the one Lily played for us earlier in the week. I thought I’d send the lyrics to her and we could talk about it later, maybe read them together. Beetles and eggs and blues and pour a little everything else. You steam a lens stable eyes and glass not get pissed off through my bird lips as good news.

See it doesn’t have to make as much sense as you think it does to be true. Life doesn’t work like that either.

Categories: parenting, writing

Tags: creative nonfiction, Memoir