To read an excerpt from the book, please click on the following link:

ashaveilbook.blogspot.com

An excerpt from The Pleasure Palace, my romantic comedy, can be found here:



Friday, November 24, 2017

Post-Loss Holidays

I wake and breakfast on coffee and oatmeal. My house does not have the scent of Thanksgiving cooking. It has not, for many years. The first year it stopped, I went to the Zen center for Thanksgiving, which was wonderful--there is always a potluck on Thanksgiving, with the relatively calm and sane members of the Zen community.

In subsequent years, whoever is able to in my family goes to a buffet at an upscale hotel. I'm doing that this year, gratefully. This is the first Thanksgiving without my father to call on the phone. Nothing makes a person feel more gone than the holidays.

I really admire my dance troupe leader, S. At our last meeting before Thanksgiving, she said she was going to celebrate basically by holing up in her apartment and resting, doing the things she likes.

The last year and a half have been some of the most exhausting, confusing, beleaguered years of my adult life, and that is saying something. I have much to be grateful for, especially in the realm of dance and writing.

But nothing at all really obviates the loss of my father and three other friends this year who died. Next holiday I will say, "It has been two years," the next year three...and so on.

Let's hope next year's holidays are a little better for all who grieve today.