Post-Thanksgiving

Waking early (though about to sleep again), I set to thinking about the fact that I've now lived eight Novembers in New York, and I've been here for all the Thanksgivings, except for in 2001, when I went back to Illinois. 2002 was the first and only time I've seen the Macy's Parade, and yesterday was my favorite gathering yet, not to be beaten for company (more here), mellowness, and thoughtful, lovely food.











I'm also reminded of a passage in Gatsby that contrasts east coast parties to their counters in the Midwest: "They were here - They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of a the moment itself." I'm grateful for the perpetual overcoming, which process brings me closer and closer to home in its truest sense.



Last night, we all trooped up to the roof before people headed into the night, and turning my eyes into a 360-degree panoramic camera, I was amazed afresh by the dark of South Brooklyn, the bright necklace of the Williamsburg Bridge, the grand cutout of the Orthodox dome, a turkey-colored and majestic Empire State, and the several spires marching off into Greenpoint and points further east.