Ingredients for a Great Thanksgiving

(1) A beautiful natural setting, in this case the south Washington coast, where we stayed in a house set among grassy dunes and looking onto the expanse of the Pacific Ocean, over which a constantly changing sky gave dramatic contrast, now tumultuously gray with clouds, now streaming rays of late afternoon sun, now opening telescopic windows of blue, now tinged with sunset pinks. The wind tore at the grasses and tossed the rain in torrents against the house.

(2) Friends and family, in this case three beautiful children (nine and a half, nine, and seven years old), one of them my granddaughter; and their parents, including my son and daughter-in-law.

(3) Good and plentiful food, in this case a grand meal starring a turkey that was, we have to say right here at the beginning, superb, maybe because it had come from a local turkey farm and lay calm under the hand of the farmer as my granddaughter slit its throat; maybe because it soaked in a brine bath for eight or ten hours; maybe because my son smoked it for hours in the smoker he had made from beer kegs.

 Whatever the multiple causes, the turkey was the unmistakable king of the Thanksgiving meal, flanked by a chickpeas-and-squash-from-the-garden dish, pumpkin fritters, quinoa-mushroom stuffing, cranberry sauce, and a green salad, contributions from each of the adults. 

As for my pies, in spite of the early-morning disaster with one of the pie doughs that crumbled into bits when I tried to roll it, in the end I had three excellent crusts for three excellent pies: apple-pecan upside-down pie (voted the favorite); a beautiful dark red cranberry-pecan pie with sour cream topping; and banana-sour cream pie with a gingersnap crust.

(4) Fun things to do with kids that do not include watching television, such as, in my case, answering the request of the two girls to make candy by supervising them in the making of caramel sauce: easy enough that they could do it themselves, fast enough that they didn't lose interest before the project was over. When the sauce had cooled, they invited everyone to dip apple slices into it for an afternoon treat.

            The children also made grape-vine wreaths decorated with turkey feathers, and, one late afternoon, were invited to jump off a cliff. The sandy beach, pounded into white foam at one endless edge, was stopped at the parallel edge by an eight-foot cliff stretching down the coast. It was just high enough to take courage for the first leap. The sand was deep and soft enough to cushion the landing. One after another the kids leapt off the cliff, rolled in the sand when they landed, then jumped up at once to climb back up and leap off again.

            Best of all was the swimming. Rebecca, who swims regularly in the Puget Sound, had brought a wet suit for each of us. On Thursday afternoon and again on Friday we struggled into the heavy, rubbery, skin-tight suits, then braved the cold air and stinging rain to walk to the ocean. The children were in the water at once, dashing into the waves, then running back, chased by waves that sometimes overcame them, knocked them over, drenched them. They came up laughing, ready to do it again.

            I waded out, farther and farther, the waves splashing gradually higher onto my well protected chest. Finally, I took a deep breath and plunged my unprotected face into the cold water under a wave. After that it was easy – jumping waves, diving under them, swimming through them, riding them on a boogie board onto the sandy beach, then sloshing through the waves again to ride back in when just the right wave curled my way. Again and again and again, like the kids jumping off the cliff, like the ceaseless rhythm of the surf, I charged into the vast Pacific Ocean only to be propelled back onto earth again, until I felt battered and beaten by the waves and the rain and the wind and left the cold salt water for a hot shower, clean clothes, and good food.

(5) Treasurers from nature, in this case, for the children, a white-shell spiral they created on the beach,

and, for me, two images: puffs of foam blowing off the beach and rolling and running like sand-pipers, losing volume as they ran, but trying, trying, maybe with a great deal of effort – yes! up the sand bank and then, with a foam-muffled cheer for freedom, blowing out of sight over the land.

            Another day, on a walk on the beach, I saw, among the sandpipers and sea gulls, a white-face, white-tail, black-body bald eagle soaring low over the beach, giving me in its majesty and grace as much delight as the fanciful foam-puffs that made it over the cliff and into freedom.
(6) Memories of such precious days as these with people I love.

The Virtues of Silence

            Among spiritual practitioners silence is often considered a virtue. When I was a hippy, I occasionally took a vow of silence for a day, just to see how it would affect me. When I was in Atlanta recently for my sister's memorial service, it was not spiritual motivation but laryngitis that enforced silence on me, and not for a day but for most of the week.

            On the flight to Atlanta, I caught a cold that settled into laryngitis. I thought at first I could whisper my eulogy into the microphone at the service, but by that time, I could barely croak even a whisper. My brother read my piece for me. He read beautifully, and, listening, I let the tears flow down my face as I wouldn't have done if I had read the piece myself.

            Afterwards, at the reception, I whispered hoarsely how glad I was to see so and so until I met a speech therapist, a friend of my sister, who told me that the cure for laryngitis was not to speak at all, not even in whispers. I realized that that was true, since by now my whispers, too, were vanishing. After that I smiled and hugged people and touched my lips and shook my head in explanation, but I didn't attempt to say another word for four days.

            For the rest of the week I was but a silent participant at family gatherings. But how much does one participate when one can't talk? I had previously sometimes thought I contributed little to conversation when I was with my siblings, but now it was remarkable how frequently I wanted to interject an opinion or a thought. Sometimes I tried writing down a thought, but by the time I finished expressing it on paper, the conversation had moved on without me.

            Maybe what I had to say wasn't that important, after all.

            A few years from now, when my siblings discuss the family gatherings during that week, they'll say to each other, "Wasn't Diana there? I thought she was, but I don't remember her." I moved among them like a silent ghost.

            After four days of complete silence, I started using my voice, but as little as possible. When I had to say something, I would explain in a whisper that I had laryngitis and then whisper my request: "Decaf latte, please." "What size?" the barista would whisper back. Once when I tried writing down my question, the person to whom it was addressed took the pen in hand to write an answer back.

            Isn't this curious behavior? Do we limp when we see someone on crutches? Do we close our eyes when we're around the blind? Why is laryngitis different?
            Maybe because silence is a virtue. Maybe, when we automatically lower our voices around someone with laryngitis, we're taking advantage of an opportunity to learn the benefits of quiet. Maybe we discover how unnecessary so much of our talk is, after all. "There are many fine things," Thoreau tells us, "which we cannot say if we have to shout."

Taking Care of the Spiritual Self

            I've been having kind of a rough time lately – dealing with my sister's death, then immediately afterwards completely blowing my chances to get a job I wanted by doing badly at the interview, then spinning into despondency for having done that. On top of that, it's fall term, and I'm not teaching.

            Last weekend I hiked into the Red Buttes Wilderness Area on the Frog Pond-Cameron Meadows loop trail partly to see if I could still do a difficult hike after a summer of inactivity (knee injury, excessive heat, wildfire smoke) and partly, of course, to see what the trail would offer.

            Had I forgotten that every hike offers wonders? Had I forgotten that the mountains are a sure antidote for what ails me?

            After the first steep mile, my hiking partner and I entered an enchanted forest, where a thin white line of snow turned everything it touched into lace –­ every needle of every pine tree, every stone, root, or limb, every branch of every bush, every scabrous edge of bark. 

Gradually the snow deepened until we were kicking through a half inch or more. Where the sun had visited, briefly, before it tucked behind the mountain again, winter-brown stalks rose from wet earth. We walked from snow-sprinkled woods to sun-melted patches of browns to shaded open spaces where bushes, earth, rocks, and sticks were painted white.

           Flourishes of ice decorated the edges of Frog Pond. At Cameron Meadow, just under the Mt. Emily ridge, ice had spell-bound the pool into silent immobility.

            Occasionally we could see views of the aftermath of the Seattle fire, where it had spilled over the ridge onto the Middle Fork, burning in scallops down the mountain: a beige-brown scoop of burned trees here, a clump of black evergreens there. Green forest still dominated the mountain. This had not been the kind of fire that swept so fast over the Columbia Gorge or through Napa Valley. This was a friendly fire, the kind to be grateful for.

            At one turn in the trail, we saw, through the trees, a green mountainside polka-dotted with the pointed white cones of snow-burdened evergreens. On the Cameron Meadows trail autumn leaves covered the ground like a fabric of yellow and brown hues: tawny, flaxen, buff, terra cotta, tortoiseshell. A cluster of mushrooms complemented the colors.

            Once, when I stopped walking to take in the beauty of the forest – that carpet of yellow, the early afternoon dusk, the stark linearity of a clump of tall, white-skinned madrone trunks – I saw a bear clambering down one of those long slim madrones after a meal of berries at its top, descending hind end first, looking now over the right shoulder, now over the left, scooting as fast as a fireman down a pole, a rolling black ball on a white trunk.

            Even the hour's walk at the end of the hike, from our exit at the Cameron Meadows trailhead to the car at the Frog Pond trailhead, usually boring and tedious, was enhanced that day by autumn trees and winter air.

            The next day I had a conversation with a friend about what we mean when we talk about the spiritual self (religion aside). I'm not sure I know. I long ago gave up the struggle about whether I am developing my spiritual self. It doesn't seem to matter. What does matter, and is probably relevant to that spiritual self I claim not to understand or to nourish, is that being on the mountain trail with its white beauty, its fallen leaves, and its galloping bear has left me a better person today than I was before.

A Story from My Past Unfortunately Still Relevant Today

            The brave women who have spoken publicly about the sexual misconduct of people like Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, and Bill Cosby are helping bring those men to accountability for their actions. Their stories have also opened a path for women to tell about similar misconduct from lesser known men, stories that indicate that a certain permissibility of treatment towards women I had hoped was a part of the past apparently is not. To recognize its existence is the first step towards eradicating it. For that reason, I offer my own story, which takes place at Cambridge University in the late sixties.

            Because students at Cambridge take only one set of exams, at the end of their years at university, the weeks before exams are full of tension and anxiety. After exams, release explodes in the May balls, exotic all-night affairs at each of the colleges, accompanied by a week of other social gatherings, such as the sherry party I attended in the beautiful gardens of Queens College. Flattered to have been invited, I was dressed to English-society perfection. The gardens were beautiful, the grass thick and perfectly cut, as always at Cambridge, and the flowers in full bloom. Butlers passed glasses of sherry on trays through the crowd.

            At some point during the party a dashing young man brought me a glass of sherry and introduced himself as Ian somebody, a student at Trinity College. He was handsome and smart and debonair. He flattered me by his attentions, and he saw to it that my sherry glass was kept full. My head was spinning, but I was so inflamed by the occasion and by Ian's attentions that I didn't realize how drunk I was. Because in 1967 no one ever talked about the dangerous connection between sex and alcohol, I didn't know to be cautious. When Ian suggested I follow him to his digs at Trinity College, I had no objection.

            Nor did I object when he took me to bed. I was not fully aware of what I was doing, though Ian was. He never hesitated. My virginity was no deterrent. "Isn't it beautiful?" he kept saying, and I kept thinking, "No. It hurts. It hurts."

            When I woke up the next morning and saw the blood on the sheets and realized what I had done – what I had allowed to be done to me – I was horrified and in shock. My impulse was to run away. I had to go home. "You should wait until people are coming in and out of the gate," Ian said, reasonably. "Then you can leave without being noticed."

            But I was terrified. I had to go home. I had to flee, to get away from this man. I walked through the gates of Trinity College in the early hours of the morning, having obviously spent the night in a man's room, but the porter, who must have seen me, didn't say a word. (This was part of the culture of the day that allowed a Cambridge University student of good breeding and in good standing to rape a woman without repercussion.) I don't think I was stumbling, but I felt all tight within myself, my vision no bigger than one step in front of me. I made my way home and went straight to my room, where I stayed for days. I didn't speak to anyone and hardly emerged to get food from the kitchen. I lost myself in fantasies that Ian was in love with me and was going to marry me. I was not applying myself to my studies. I was isolated and in shock.

            Classic rape victim symptoms.

            My housemates were worried. Polly, another American student, came into my room to visit with me. Talking about the sherry party or Ian, whom she had seen at the party, or anything she thought might get me to talk about what had happened, she said, in the vernacular of the day, "I'm glad you didn't let him go all the way with you."

            I crumpled. Tears that had been shored up ever since that night poured out. I confessed what had happened. I cried at last, but I was still numb and depressed.

            One day, when the doorbell rang, someone called up the stairs, "Diana. There's someone here to see you."

            I went to the door. Ian was on the doorstep with two of his buddies. My housemates crowded behind me, watching protectively. Ian chatted with me for a few minutes, debonair and impersonal. He didn't come in, and he didn't say anything in particular. He left with an airy wave of the hand, turning to the street, followed by his cronies, who hadn't said a word.

            I have always thought that my housemates had called Ian and told him he needed to see me. And they were right. That's exactly what I needed to bring me out of my numbness. It didn't take me long after that to resume my studies and return to myself.

            No one called it rape. There were no counselors to go to with my story. There were no repercussions on Ian, who, as far as I know, might have deflowered a dozen more young women by deliberately getting them drunk and taking them home with him. I like to think he has learned better by now, that he has come to realize the harm he did to me, the invasion of my body, the trauma he put me through, the villainy of his behavior. I like to think that young men parallel in education, parentage, and social status today would not think of doing as he did. But recent events would have me believe, instead, that a culture of rape as tacitly acceptable in the eyes of some men still exists.

            It was many years before I could call this incident a rape, though it was certainly what we today call date rape. I am lucky that I recovered quickly and that the traumatic effect lasted only a few years. I was lucky in having friends who knew how to take care of me. But it has taken many, many years for me to admit that I was raped – "admit," as though the shame is mine. I do feel shame in admitting what was done to me, and I wonder – did Ian ever feel shame in having done it? Or did he boast to his friends about his exploits – "deflowered a virgin last night" – drinking beer in the pub the next day, before attending to his studies as usual?