I had a good weekend, with quiet decompressing time with F (we can't fit our schedules together very well these days), and then dinner with my chosen family -- B and her smart funny lovely gf A (or Tank), and D&D, my most rooted friend (long-ago lover) and his partner. I made the best turkey I've ever made (dressing cooked separately, turkey stuffed with onions, garlic and herbs, rubbed with olive oil and more herbs, then covered in olive-oil soaked cheesecloth, basted liberally with chicken stock). And was really happy to have my people in my beautiful loft. None of them is much given to making Pronouncements about gratitude (mocking me gently for mine, more like it), but I think they were appreciative too.
So I'm very very grateful for everyone who was in the room last night, and for the time and space to notice the pink of the sky right now, and for the many doors opening in front of me since finishing my phd. And for finding myself much less stressed, much more present. And.
More than that. I wanted to blog about someone else I'm grateful for. My neighbour and friend, another Katherine-of-many-variant-names. Her most recent blog post is about thanksgiving and her fervour for it, so it's a propos, I think. But more than that, I wanted to just... acknowledge her a little.
First, she's the best neighbour ever. She left a note on my car when I first moved in, praising my smartcar and noting that its puny size meant that maybe she could fit her scooter in my spot. She offered to pay, I said no -- but other than lending her some space I wasn't using anyway, I have given her NOTHING in comparison to what she's given me since I moved in. She does all the standard good neighbour stuff -- looks after plants and mail when I'm away, checks that I've turned off the iron, helps me when I can't figure out where the fuck that beep is coming from.
But more than that, her PRESENCE in my life is just a gift. She's generous, warmer than a good pair of hut booties,
, wry, and joyful. She connects herself to people everywhere she goes. She's unbelievably resourceful and creative -- the only person I know who can resuscitate a dead ipod, keep a slightly crotchety old Honda 250 running with flair, stuck vintage suitcases on her hallway wall to create a cunning way place to store undies and socks -- and can make soup out of a hunk of garlic.As if all of this general GOODNESS wasn't enough, Kat is also unbelievably talented. She's a designer who has written some cool stuff about greening the cab industry, a fabric artist, a ceramic artist with a piece featured in Toronto Life this month, a dj and... a singer-songwriter. When I first met her, she was singing a lot of covers, in dinner clubs and sometimes small bars. But over the past two years, her voice has just... soared, expanded, blossomed, ripened -- whatever the term for "wow, this person is something special." Now she's writing her own songs, and working on a CD, and she's just... sublime. I heard her sing about a month ago and was impressed; I heard her again the other night (when she hosted a thanksgiving potluck and a gig) -- and maybe it was my state of mind, and maybe it was her singing in the awkward audience of her family (hee, her mom needed to leave partway through her set and asked her to find some part of the potluck while she was on stage and she just made it work, making everyone laugh), with a piano that had no F -- but this time she seared my guts. A song about her friend Christina, who died too early, has replayed itself for me since then... along with a song about Canadian and culture that's all too vivid with the current election... just, ringing, true, lovely.
I am cooler because I know Kat. And I'm grateful for her.
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