The holidays are a culmination of many swirling dipositions for me. As I prepare for my trip back to my hometown tomorrow be with family, I look forward to the relaxed soulfilling effects of being surrounded by those that you need be nothing but yourself, just your presense is beneficial, and visa versa. I look forward to throwing back a few with my Pop and heckling each other endlessly, and basking in the unconditonal love and calm warmth that radiates from my grandmother. And thereafter, traveling to my moms, and relishing in her rationality and reassurring words and perspectives about virtually everything, and at some some point trying to abscond my brother from his sometimes turmultuous household and disappearing for awhile without permission, deliberately unnaccounted for, and unanswering, just to piss his overbearing spouse off, because he needs that and I dont mind being the bad guy, and thats what brothers are for.
But a loom hovers also. Returning to my roots puts highlight on mortality, and the realism of this point in life, and its reflection on the past...my triumphs and failures highly visible, the exposure of being in the proximity of those that have witnessed and/or are privvy to all, as opposed to the anonimity of aquaintances and coworkers of everyday life. But my melancholy mostly resides in the presense of empty chairs, the seats at the table of those that have passed on from this world, and highlighting the realization of how tremendous that void really is for me, wishing so much I could talk to them just once more and let them know how much they are missed. Being forced to dwell on how that circle has decreased in the past years and my mental preparation for those yet to be missed. And then there are the empty chairs of those that are still of this world, but in all respects have "passed on" in way of their presense and identity to that circle. The still slight embarassment I feel having to show up alone, without my own family unit, having in recent years dissolved, albeit out of my hands, yet still the wake of a significant and unnecesary failure, and bears little relief to the guilt and inadequecy I feel that the elders dont get to see and visit with my child on this occasion, that they have to settle for just me.
But, as I must, I will whether thru as always, and embrace the reflections of both the happy and sad, as they all have there place and purpose. I will laugh at the present, cry at the past, and show my cherishedness for those that I have left. I'll pass my kid around on the phone, I'll have a cigar at my granpas grave, just me and him, and I'll visit old friends of whom I am to find...and all other aside, Im gonna enjoy the hell outta some real North Carolina cookin, make a complete pig of myself, and lay in the den and groan while I watch the Dolphins hopefully destroy the Lions!
If ya made it this far, I wish all of you fullfilling and safe Thanksgiving for you and yours.
Peace,
Maji
