All She Needs by Sandra Martz

Marta lives alone in a space so familiar she can easily navigate it in the dark. Her only companion is an old black cat, an evil beast who bites her uncovered toes and sleeps all day under the bedspread. Sunlight streams through the small windows that flank her bed. The cat yawns and stretches, drops to the floor and heads to the kitchen for breakfast.

Marta isn’t sure of the day of the week but that doesn’t matter much anymore, her routine unbroken by obligations to others. Today she’ll pick the last of the green beans and cook them up with small red potatoes from the farmers market. Her son next door is away for a week. She enjoys the freedom from his questions: How does she feel? Does she need anything from the store? How can she ever explain that all she needs is right here: a warm house and an ornery cat to keep her on her toes.

Thanksgiving

For the first time in 30 years I did not cook a Thanksgiving meal.  I drank Martinelli's sparkling apple cider with strangers.  It was not the same. 

Post-Turkey

While shaking out pumpkin pie crumbs from the tablecloth, retrieving grimy cocktail glasses mysteriously left behind the couch, and washing endless amounts of silverware, rubbermaid containers, and pots and pans, I think I figured something out today. Hosting holiday dinners has always left me with mixed feelings. While longing for the community of friends and family gathering in my home and enjoying my cooking, I have also felt an edgy resentment towards those same loved ones for the amount of work involved.

It truly is an exhausting and lonely exercise. Long treks through Safeway after work, lugging bags of cans and bottles and five-pound sacks of flour and sugar up the stairs to my apartment. Cooking and planning and cleaning for days. I'm barely able to get myself dressed and ready for visitors because of all the details that scream out at me.

It occurs to me that I am hanging on to a tradition that was born when people didn't live alone, but were part of a larger community that would take this chore on together. We all seem to want this traditional experience, but the way we live now (at least the way I live now) makes it an onerous task for one individual. It's just a thought I'm working on -- how to find the meaning and experience I long for within the current reality of my existence.
Then again, I do get to keep the leftovers.