As I’ve firmly established on my blog by writing about it more than once, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Here’s why:

1. Making the meal. It’s not only about the process itself, but about the traditional things I make just on Thanksgiving and the way they connect me to people who are gone or just not with us right now. I make a cranberry jello my father-in-law loved and I try to make stuffing as good as my mother-in-law’s was. (I’m not successful very often at that. I’m afraid of it being too soggy so it ends up too dry almost every time.) The dinner rolls I make are from a recipe that my mom taught me when I was 12 or 13; even though I learned how to make them from my mom, they make me feel connected to my grandma Florence.
   Apple pie is the dish that connects me to my mom the strongest. I make it almost exactly like she did, except I use butter instead of Crisco in the crust (I’m not sure she ever got over that) and I add brown sugar and more spices to the filling. OK, maybe it’s different, but still: it connects me to her. While I am cooking the ghosts gather, saying hello, giving advice. And not just ghosts, but memories: my kids’ baby Thanksgivings, the years one child or another decided to help me, Haley making the rolls with me for many years. Nathan’s first Thanksgiving when he was only 6 days old and Jake had an ear infection and Haley was just be-bopping around in her purple spinny velour dress and gold curls—that year I didn’t bake anything, just showed up and let everyone else take care of me. The first time I made apple pie and I was so anxious it wouldn’t turn out. Memories and ghosts, sugar and flour and nutmeg and berries.
2. No gifts are involved. Even though there have been gifts some years, like the year my mom surprised us all with aprons she’d made, or the year Becky gave us appliqued tea towels. But usually, the stress of all other holidays—finding the perfect birthday gift, stuffing the Easter baskets, figuring out that one magical Christmas surprise—is gone. It’s just family and food.
3. We had a few rough years when we were first married, negotiating when we’d go with each side, but usually it all worked out OK. It was a different feeling but I loved eating with Kendell’s side of the family as much as my own. Babies came, people got married, sometimes there were extra friends. Many years felt crowded with so many people, and it was loud and hot and happy.

But this year—this year. My mom is literally a ghost. Haley is in Colorado; she’s traveling to Utah in December but didn’t feel like she could swing two trips that close, and plus, it’s hard to get holidays off when you work in the medical field. Nathan is in Monterey. Becky’s at a soccer tournament with Ben, Suzette is eating with her husband’s family, Cindy is swamped with school and so her daughters are cooking for her. This year, it’s just me and Kendell, Jake and Kaleb.

I would’ve still cooked.

Except one day last week, Kendell found me crying in the kitchen. It was just a random Tuesday morning and I’d made a pumpkin protein shake and I started crying. Because everything is over, really. No big family meals anymore, but everyone else off with their adult kids and grandkids. I can’t go to my mom’s house anymore, or my mother-in-laws. I can’t bake pumpkin bread just because my father-in-law liked it. I can’t sit at the kitchen table in the kitchen I grew up in, with two extra leaves and still not bit enough for everyone, with my dad telling off-color jokes.

Four is such a small number when it comes to Thanksgiving.

So he saw me crying and he suggested that we just go to a restaurant this year.

Maybe next year it will somehow be different. Or maybe I will just be able to deal with everything without crying into my pumpkin protein. Who knows.

This year, it’s Thanksgiving eve and I’m not cooking. No yeasty smells are wafting in my kitchen. I’m sad about not cooking, but at the same time it is a relief. Because I know if I was cooking tonight, I would be grieving again. (I’m crying now, just writing this.) I would feel engulfed in conflict, telling myself to be grateful that I still get to spend Thanksgiving with Jake and Kaleb but also still feeling it, too, the gap of those who are gone.
And it’s not because of the effort—if just one kid said “Mom, I really want you to cook” then I would’ve cooked. But they don’t really care. Jake even said “Mom, it’s not only about what we eat. Mostly it is about spending time together.” And he is right, even if I am missing all the other people I’m not spending time with.

I will still bake pies. Probably I will make some homemade bread, too.

But this year, I am letting it go. I don’t want to pretend that everything is normal. It is different, so I am going to let it be different.

I’m not forgetting the traditions, the singing occasionally interrupted by a little dancing in the kitchen while I cook, the welcoming of ghosts.

I’m just taking a deep breath and remembering, yes, but also just being present with what is.

Maybe I will always miss those big Thanksgivings. Maybe I will eventually host my own. Maybe something I can’t even imagine will happen. For 2019, I am hurting, I am sad, I am missing people, but I am also grateful for the people I do have.

I will be OK.

I was waiting in line at Costco in my exercise clothes today—

and before you think “oh, hell, what is wrong with you? wearing your exercise clothes everywhere?” (and by “you” I mean, sure, whomever is reading this, but also the uptight voice in my head that says stuff like that to keep me in my place, to remind me that there are rules and wearing your exercise clothes everywhere is a clear violation of Modesty or Social Fashion Rules or just Plain Old Personal Pride in your Appearance), let me explain that sometimes I like to run to somewhere. So if Kendell and I are going to, say, Costco, I’ll leave 45 minutes or so before him, run there, stretch for a bit, and then go to Costco with him when he gets there in the car. Doing that helps keep running fresher for me because then it wasn’t my same old route around the park.

Before I got to Costco, I finished at Starbucks, because it has a railing that is the perfect height for stretching. It was chilly and when I stopped running and breathing hard, I could smell the cold, new snow on Timp, mixing with that coffee smell, and I stretched and I was smiling because I was thinking, again “I just really love running, I’m so glad I went.” I had an intrusive thought: all those coffee drinkers in Starbucks probably think you’re weird stretching out here but I shushed it because I was happy and grateful and just the right amount of hot from running and cooled by the wind and because sometimes that runner’s high is subtle but so delicious.

Anyway.

I wanted to run somewhere, so I ran to Starbucks where Kendell picked me up and then we went to Costco (which is on the far north side of the same parking lot). We gathered our stuff—milk, zucchini, a new bath towel just because there was a coupon and the soft minty green one was pretty, some chocolate caramels even though I’m not supposed to eat chocolate—and had a few samples, and then I was waiting in line.

An older woman (I learned during the course of our conversation that she is 68) got in line behind me. She said, “I hope this doesn’t sound strange, but I think you have a beautiful body. I mean, I love your cute outfit (I had on THIS rad plaid capri with a skirt), but really, your body is gorgeous.” And then she hugged me.

This could’ve been a weird experience. OK: it was slightly weird for a stranger to tell me I have a beautiful body. But, I confess I hugged her back.

Because life has been a little bit brutal lately. (When will life stop being a little bit brutal?)

Because perimenopause is a bitch. A bitch who’s added a layer of belly fat I can’t seem to shake. Well—that’s not entirely true. I can shake it, and that’s part of the problem. I don’t want it to shake. I want it go just go away.

Because I’m trying to deal with a medical issue that’s not lethal but is really annoying and sometimes painful enough to send me to the ER.

Because I spent the morning mourning.

Because I really don’t feel beautiful, or strong, or powerful these days. I feel like I am a wrinkled lady with greying hair who’s lost her way and maybe wasted her life. (Except the kids. The kids were never a waste. I love them.)

This woman in line behind me at Costco continued talking to me. She talked about how women should take care of their bodies so they are healthy until they die. She talked about how she didn’t learn that until she was 65, but in the past three years she’s turned it around and is taking care of her body. She told me that I need to take especial care to keep my glutes strong.

Then I paid for my stuff and she said “don’t forget your glutes!” and then I thanked her and told her to take care of her own glutes. Then I left Costco.

I’m still a chubby, middle-aged woman who can run but not very fast, with disproportionate thighs (or maybe my waist is the problem?) and a softening waistline. I’m still annoyed at myself to find that I am here, at 47, still trying to figure out my life.

I still don’t know how to believe her that I have a beautiful body.

But I felt like The Universe was paying attention to me today. Not because of beauty, strength, speed, strong abs, or a cute running skirt. But because The Universe knew I needed to feel loved.

And for a little while I did.

Today I was looking for a blog post I thought I'd written with instructions for making a rag quilt (I either never wrote it or my blog is hiding it from me), and I came across THIS POST  I wrote ten years ago, which is ostensibly about a quilt but really is about my marriage and its struggles, creativity, loss, grief, parenting, love, and the lump I still have in my throat.

So many other lumps have been added since I wrote that post that I wish I could just reach bag and hug that Amy I used to be, for all the stuff she doesn't know she will have to work through. And for the clear validity of the painful things she was feeling when she wrote it.

I am different but the same. 

I still find myself making quilts to assuage some hurt. The hurts have been different than I expected, and some entirely surprising experiences have happened since 2009.

But, you know, what I wrote there is still true: sometimes I feel misunderstood by my husband. (And by “sometimes” I mean almost always.)

A decade ago, he was asking me why I was so invested in quilting. He still asks me this question. Why make a quilt for a baby when it would be so much easier to just buy a gift at the mall? (And yes, less expensive.)  Why spend time making another quilt for our house, when we already have a bunch? 

That also gives me a lump in my throat, but what can I do? 

Unlike the Amy I was a decade ago, though, I am much less invested in apologizing or feeling guilty. He doesn't have to understand it. I don't even have to understand it. Is it a compulsion? An obsession? A way of avoiding cleaning the bathrooms?

I don't care anymore.

I like making quilts. And this year especially, fueled by the absolute gobsmacking amount of fabric my mom left when she died, I have been making quilts almost nonstop. Six or seven baby quilts and an enormous flannel quilt for Jake, and all of the shopping for a new quilt for Kaleb. I've even made progress on my black and white half-square triangle quilt. Not to mention the, I don't know, maybe 15 hot pads I've made as gifts?

It doesn't make sense, but it is helping me process in ways I don't fully understand.

In September, Kendell walked into my crafty space and said "what are you working on?" and I said “a table quilt!” and he made that face: I don't understand my wife.

Tables don't get cold and they don't need quilts, right?

Except, I have thought for a long time about making a quilted tablecloth. It seemed a little bit overwhelming as I have an ancient oval kitchen table. If I made a quilted tablecloth I’d feel compelled to make it oval, too, and that just seemed impossible, so I just thought about it. For a long time.

But then I read THIS POST and I thought: OK. I’m not the only person in existence who thinks a table might need a quilt.

And then I saw THIS  “Fall Leaves” quilt block pattern by The Sewing Loft.

And I had my idea.

I used the pattern but I modified it by making it bigger. In the pattern, the largest block is 12x12, but my table quilt is 47x47. This was pretty easy to do, and turned out just fine except for that top point, which isn’t exactly the same as the smaller blocks in the pattern. (But it’s OK.)

This quilt top came together really fast. After shopping, I pieced the top in one afternoon. I was excited, thinking that I’d have it finished for at least half of September, and then I could put it back out again in November.

But then I decided to piece the back with my leftover scraps, and that actually took longer than making the front.

And then I started quilting it.
The quilting on the leaf is meant to look like leaf veins. I did that quilting with my walking foot, and it turned out really well (you can do some pretty good arcs with your walking foot, I discovered! They just have to be large) but it took a long time. Once I finished quilting the inside of the leaf and around the leaf itself, though, I still had to quilt the off-white background.

The off-white (or maybe it is pale, pale greige?), paisley background that I love with every drop of my paisley-loving heart.

I wanted swirly lines on the background, and as I’ve been personally funding my quilter’s house payment for the last little while, I just couldn’t afford to take it to her. And then it was almost October so I decided that instead of quilting my fall table quilt, I’d make a Halloween one! And another Halloween one!

(Which is a different post altogether.)

But as October drew to a close, I kept looking at my leaf. I wanted to finish it. I wanted to put it on my table for November. So I decided to put on my big girl pants, get brave, and do some freeform quilting.

Even though I’m pretty bad at freeform quilting.

But I took my time. I watched several tutorial videos about how to adjust the tension correctly, and how to move your hands with the fabric, and how to keep the stitches smooth and consistent. I practiced on several different swatches until I had the tension as perfect as I could get it (no eyelashes!). I found a thread that wouldn’t be SUPER obvious on the fabric. I spent one entire hour just drawing the loopy shapes I wanted to make. I took a deep breath, adjusted my big girl pants (which were actually my comfiest pair of running tights), and got to work.

I, Amy Sorensen, freeform quilted my Autumn Leaf table quilt.

Is it perfect? Not even close. I did manage to not have any eyelashes on the back, but the stitches are not consistent. The loops aren’t all the same size and there are some that are more octagon than oval. Even the top itself: I think the stem is obviously out of proportion and should be shorter. I cut off the leaf tips with my binding fabric.

But I love it: the colors, the patterns of the fabrics. The contrast of the aqua stem and binding. The fabric itself that I found for the binding—I love that fabric and think it is perfect.

I love the mishmash of angles on the back, the way it looks like those triangles are open lids.

I even love the quilting, even with its imperfections. You can learn something from every quilt you make, and part of what I learned from this one is the tiniest bit of confidence that the only reason I’m not really good at freeform quilting is because I haven’t practiced enough.

And I love that I kept doing it until I finished. I stuck with it even when I accidentally quilted part of the extra back fabric upside down to the back and had to unpick a bunch of stitching. I finished!

Yesterday I washed my table quilt and my tablecloth while I was (finally) packing up all of my Halloween decorations. I set out the Thanksgiving items I have and, once the quilt was fresh out of the dryer and appropriately crinkled, put it on my table.

I’m sure Kendell has forgotten that little conversation we had in September, about why in the world I’d be making a quilt for the kitchen table. I didn’t bring it up. I didn’t even point out how pretty the table looks. Do I wish he could understand? Yes. Is his lack of understanding going to stop me from quilting? Clearly not. It brings me a specific kind of happiness that I won’t abandon just because to him it’s just some squares of fabric.

But I guess what matters more is that I understand a little bit more. There are many reasons I love quilting (and scrapbooking, too); one of them is this feeling of success. I made this, not anyone else, so it exists just because of my efforts. It can exist in the world for longer than I do, even. It can be on our table for the next decade, maybe. Even if the table is different or even in a different house. It can become a part of our story, of my story. Just like the quilt in that post I wrote ten years ago, which right now is on the foot of my bed. I still love that quilt and have gotten it out every September 1 since I made it. It is also part of my story, a background detail and a mute witness to a whole bunch of experiences I could’ve never guessed I’d have.

This morning, Kaleb went to school late, so he had time for a relaxed breakfast. I made him three scrambled eggs, two pieces of toast, and a protein shake, and he ate at the table with the quilt. I almost said “don’t spill” but then I didn’t, because that is its purpose, to cover the table during whatever meals are eaten there. Who will eat there, and what, and what stories will we tell with it under our elbows?

I’ll check back in a decade and let you know.