Another quotation from Annie Dillard to begin my thanksgiving right: in this passage, she is talking about the fleeting glimpses of God we can see through “stalking” creation, seeing pieces of beauty and holiness in everything around us.
“Just a glimpse, Moses: a clift in the rock here, a mountain top there, and the rest is denial and longing. You have to stalk everything. Everything scatters and gathers; everything comes and goes like fish under a bridge. You have to stalk the spirit too. You can wait forgetful, anywhere, for anywhere is the way of his fleet passage, and hope to catch him by the tail and shout something in his ear before he wrests away. . . . And then occasionally the mountains part. . . . It is like the surfacing of an impulse, like the materialization of fish, this rising, this coming to a head, like the ripening of nutmeats still in their husks, ready to split open like buckeyes in a field, shining with newness. ‘Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.’ The fleeting shreds I see, the back parts, are a gift, an abundance.”
–from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
1. broken in hiking boots
2. fat, old fashioned Christmas bulbs illuminating years of memories hanging from branches
3. riding the waves on a cheap inflatable raft on a Florida beach
4. pinwheels
5. knowing you can sleep an extra fifteen minutes after the alarm goes off
6. the fine spray of orange oil when you first dig your fingernail into the flesh of an orange
7. the relationship between Pooh and Piglet
8. lobster with drawn butter and lemon
9. red plaid wool hats with ear flaps
10. watching, for the upteenth time, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (edited version!) with the family every Thanksgiving season
