The morning is clear and bright but best seen from inside the house. The wind is cold. I filled the bird feeders earlier, all 5 of them, and couldn’t wait to get back inside for a cup of hot coffee.

Despite the sun and blue sky, showers are predicted. I am a bit skeptical. It rained all day yesterday and last night. The rain was heaviest at night.

When I was a kid, our neighborhood was filled with kids. We lived in the project, not a brick city project but a project of duplexes with front yards and flower beds. We moved from South Boston to the project when I was almost five. We lived at the top of the hill. After my sister was born, we moved to a larger duplex. All my growing up was in that house. It was on the corner close to the top of the hill. We had a bigger front yard than the other houses. It was a grassy, little hill. Most fathers were World War II vets, my own included. Most kids were younger than I, only a couple were older. My best friend lived at the of the top of the hill in our first duplex.

I have so many memories of living in that house. Every Christmas the tree was in the same corner. We had to move the TV. My father’s favorite chair was by the picture window. There were two closets almost right beside each other. One held coats while the other was a sort of junk closet. The furniture was always in the same spot. It was never rearranged. The upstairs hall was small. My bedroom faced the backyard. It was right beside the bathroom.

My memory drawers hold all of my life in no certain order. The earliest days are now a single picture or a simple memory. The longer stories have faded. I am always surprised when a memory jumps, triggered by a smell or a picture or even a taste, from one of those drawers. Mostly they are small memories, not spectacular events. I think those are the most treasured. 

The rain has started, but it has been light. The forecast is for rain all day into tomorrow. It has been a long while since the last rain. This storm is welcomed.

My week has been busy with more to come. Today and Saturday I have concerts, but tomorrow’s concert has been cancelled, and I’m glad. Four in one week plus practice and a lesson is a bit over the top.

Life is filled with mysteries. Some are never solved. I was a part of one yesterday. I was on the mid-Cape, on my way home from my concert. I was moving along until I hit bumper to bumper traffic. It was slow going, start and stop, start and stop. Finally the traffic broke. I looked around. There was no accident, no hapless speeder stopped by the police and no car disabled on the side of the road. Why it was bumper to bumper is the unsolved mystery.

When I was a kid, the best part of Thanksgiving was the two and a half day school week, and Wednesday was a bust. We got out at 10:30 and spent the morning mostly coloring turkeys and making one out of a Dixie cup for the body and construction paper for tail. That became a Thanksgiving table decoration.

My mother always bought an enormous turkey which I swear we ate for days and days, even weeks. It defrosted in the sink. My sisters and I remember my mother waking up in the wee hours on Thanksgiving to get the turkey ready. She made her stuffing first. I still love her stuffing. The key is the Bell’s seasoning. The Bell’s box which looks old, from an earlier time, has never changed. The turkey on the front looks like it belongs in the oven, plucked of course. It has long been a New England tradition but is now available all over. Before my sister could buy it in Colorado, we had to send her some. I remember the turkey cooked for hours. My mother would baste it, and when the oven opened, the aroma made my mouth water, and I’d beg my mother to give me a bit of the stuffing, hanging out of the turkey and crusted on the end. The windows steamed. The kitchen was hot.

My Thanksgiving memory drawer is overflowing, filled with the sights and smells of all those Thanksgivings of my childhood with my mother always the biggest, the most prominent part of all my memories of Thanksgiving.