At My Door

(I'm linking up with Bonnie's Faith Barista Jam today. Bonnie's story of her journey through PTSD encourages me so much. I eagerly anticipate the publication of her book in June, 2014.)

At My Door

As I anticipate Thanksgiving this year, I miss what I have had and what I have never had.

My aunt, uncle, and cousins used to come up from Mississippi to celebrate with us, collecting back to the family land. I always hoped to finish house cleaning in time to go outside and wait for their arrival. Standing in the crisp evening near the edge of the road, I'd peer into the darkness, watching as headlights pricked the distance, blinked behind a hill, then reappeared and drew closer, closer. Sometimes, they veered off at one of the three branching roads, but finally, one pair continued gliding straight toward me until the large van lumbered to rest in our driveway. Our house filled, and thus began brimming over days of conversation and play. On the big day, we added two extra card tables to the end of our kitchen one and scrounged chairs so all the family could find a seat. Surfaces filled with favorite dishes: seven-layer-salad, crescent rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, turkey,and pies--chess, pumpkin, black raspberry, and apple. Air warmed with celebratory voices and fresh bread scents. Wedged with cousins around the young end of the table, I felt a robust happiness. The Thanksgiving meal exemplified for me the rare security of belonging in a group.

Sometimes I feel as if the vast spaces of my beloved fields have got inside of me, somehow, and predisposed me for an almost unwitting solitude. My adolescence had its loneliness. After we moved to the home place when I turned thirteen, I never experienced a close friend outside of the family. I declared to my mother before I left for college that I had no expectation of making friends. I would go and do my job. (Thankfully, the experience out-performed my expectations.) Even today, I am not a very good friend. I withdraw far too often. I have the wind-sculpted snow and the bare timber branches against a gold and purple sunset in my heart--and also the hunger for apricot kitchen walls and yellow lamplight framed against the night.

As I struggle into my grown woman identity, I find myself longing to create a type of home for others--a space of welcome, renewal, comforting. I want to draw that same warmth around myself through giving and receiving, listening and speaking. But I feel almost ashamed--counterfeit--to voice these desires, to reach for a character of nurture and welcome. Who are you, a voice whispers, to claim such things--passive, self-absorbed recluse that you are. But different words also linger in my mind, written by an instructor as our class shared "wishes" for each other during a final meeting: "I have one big wish for you. My wish is that the world will come to your door. I know you will be there beckoning with open arms." (Repeating in my memory, the words seem almost a prayer, a benediction.) "Lucky world!"

For my students' laughter, for my family's friendship, for teachers' encouraging words, and for the tender kindness of my God as He speaks new messages of hope into old, despairing places--this Thanksgiving, I am thankful.