Samain and the 2% crescent of the Moon of Growing Darkness
Friday gratefuls: Water Grill. The Spiny Lobsters. Fresh Oysters. Thanksgiving with Ruth and Gabe. Jen. Gus. LoDo. Denver. Down the Hill. Shadow Mountain Home. Ruby. With her Snow shoes on. Cold night. Living alone. Kate, always Kate. Talking to her. Ruth potentially on the Dean’s List. Her next semester classes. A history minor.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gabe’s hug
Kavannah: Perseverance and chesed
One brief shining: Only a brief while before it swam in a large aquarium with many other Spiny Lobsters, then it boiled in a pot, got cleaved in half, plated with liquid butter and coleslaw, given to a server, and delivered to my bibbed presence where I took the small fork and deftly lifted most of its meat out of one half, dipped a chunk in butter, and the great circle of life went on.
The Water Grill. A fancy, and by that I mean expensive, Sea food restaurant. It has a Seahorse sculpture over its door, but no signage visible from the street. My second Thanksgiving in a row eating a Thanksgiving meal down the Hill in Denver.
With two downtown Thanksgiving’s literally under my belt (ha) I’m curious about the number of people who no longer cook a meal for friends and/or family. The reason? Both times all street parking has been full and the restaurants I saw had packed tables.
The Water Grill has many tables and booths, a big place with glass buoys made into chandeliers, old boat propellers and coral behind the booths. Full. And stayed full over the two hours Ruth, Gabe, Jen, and I ate there.
Don’t know about the others but my excuse is I no longer have the stamina, the standing in one place capacity to cook a full meal. When the bill came, I paid it, thinking about what I had really purchased. Sure, a meal. But that was secondary. What I really paid for was the two hours spent eating by Ruth’s side, talking to her about college, talking to Gabe. Jen.
Remember that Thanksgiving we ate at the Water Grill? When I was a freshman at UC-Boulder? We had Oysters and Spiny Lobsters! Oh, right. I remember.
I’ll remember the sudden and unexpected Bear hug I got from Gabe, from behind, as I got up to put my coat on. Heartfelt. And, from Ruth after that. A brief hug with Jen.
Brought to mind the Ira Progoff seminar in Tucson, April of 2014, when I realized we needed to move to Colorado to support the kids. The fruits of that decision as well as my decision to stay here, not move to Hawai’i. Which I could easily do now if I wanted.
Love is a verb and it becomes real, Velveteen Rabbit real, in moments like these.
Drove home into the Mountains as Mother Earth turned her other face toward Great Sol, the early Night fully fallen when I pressed the garage door opener and drove Ruby into her stall.
