The Holidays Approach

I had finished writing the blog yesterday and was about to send it to Woody to upload when I got a message that my old friend Charles Coe had died of a heart attack. I will miss him and so will everybody else in the Massachusetts poetry world. When we were running Leapfrog Press, we published his first two books. Sitting in the tub with this bad news I realized that almost all of my Black friends have died before me, although some of them were younger. Life in this country is immensely stressful for people of color, especially these days. For many years he and another poet friend drove the hundred miles from Boston to our Wellfleet home for Thanksgiving dinner. I can still hear his deep voice improvising an ode to the goose (Charles was a natural musician).  I miss him already.

I am working hard on my potential new collection of poetry, presumably my last.  I am just at the very early stages of going through my poems, making an initial culling. I will of course end up with far more than I can use, but it will be a good start.  There are an awful lot of poems that I’ve written since the ON THE WAY OUT, TURN OFF THE LIGHT. That came out in the first few months of Covid and the Knopf office was empty. My editor had gone to her family’s home in South Carolina. The proof editor went to L.A. and vanished. The list of people I wanted galleys sent to vanished. Nothing was done whatsoever for the book. No readings, of course, no publicity, almost no reviews. I don’t think there was anybody there to send out review copies.

I hope if Knopf accepts this book, it will come out to better odds.  But that’s far in the future – as yet there is not even the skeleton of the book.  Just a pile of poems that grows bigger every day.

Friday, Woody did what we hope is the groceries for thanksgiving.  If anything turns out to be needed on Wednesday, he can drive to Orleans and get it.  But we have our pumpkins, our turkey, the makings for stuffing, gruyere cheese for the whole pumpkin, already pureed for desert.  I make rum pumpkin pie in the morning. The afternoon before, I’ll make apple-cranberry sauce. I find that it is less acid and people eat more of it than any of the standard cranberry sauces, including my old favorite made with Cointreau and oranges.

Then on thanksgiving morning, I’ll put the pie together.  At that point, I’ll it’s time to tidy the house until  it’s time to start the potiron tout rond from Julia Child, although I have modified the recipe a bit. I do that often with recipes.  After that I make the stuffing.  If I’m going to make my recipe for mushrooms, it will be the last thing and they will cook while we dress and set the table. The cats have to be fed before the mushrooms go on. I have to laugh at how ‘regimented’ all this sounds. But in this insanely unpredictable world, our chosen rituals ground us to things that are familiar and good.

It has been a quiet time with my mouth is disarray. By now, the oral surgery has healed about 90%, so I think I can eat the feast and enjoy it.  I still can’t eat anything that might cut into the gum or disturb the temporary.  But I think I’ll be fine. It’s a small turkey that will probably will only yield a day of leftovers (the part I like anyway. Woody can eat all the white meat he likes).

I have been combing through Black Friday deals, mostly buying staples at much reduced prices. Honeyi, cat food, bath salts -- that kind of thing. Nothing fancy so far.  

We are still eating leeks from the garden. This week, I plan to make leek and potato soup again.  Not to freeze (the freezer is full and somewhat dangerous to open), but so we can eat sparingly before the  Thanksgiving ‘pig out.’