November 22, 2007 – Izzy and I made our final rounds with Rose last night, after a neat Thanksgiving Day meal cooked by Paula and Emma, who labored as usual over their candied yams. Neither of these women spends a lot of time cooking in their lives, but working on Thanksgiving has become a family tradition for them. Turkey, cranberry sauce, mash potatoes, candied yams, Pecan pie. Great meal, and thanks. I took this night shot, and I have a lot to learn about night shots, but I liked this one, which took an hour, as Izzy kept moving and I had trouble with the shutter speeds.The light comes from the sensor floodlight by the side of the house.
  Emma introduced me to the poems of T.S. Eliot, and I am grateful for that, as I was mesmerized reading his work and read some of “The Love Story of Alfred Prufrock.”
   It might seem a bit down for Thanksgiving, but seemed very apt to me. I really love it:

   “And would it have been worth it, after all.
    After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
    Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
    Would it have been worth while,
    To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
    To have squeezed the universe into a ball
    To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
    To say, “I am Lazarus, come from the dead.
    Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all” –
     If one, settling a pillow by her head,
          Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
          That is not it, at all.”

    “And would it have been worth it, after all, 
     Would it have been worth while,
     After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
     After the novels after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor –
     And this, and so much more? –
     It is impossible to say just what I mean!
     But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

      Would it have been worth while
      If one, settlihg a pillow or throwing off a shawl
      And turning toward the window, should say:
          “That is not it at all,
           That is not what I meant, at all.”

   I love those verses. It was a neat Thanksgiving. Tomorrow, back to work, maybe also to a movie.