Tomorrow
will be a month since we touched North Carolina land for the first
time as a family. Although I have lived here before for 12 years,
although we have known each other for 10 years, my husband and I, and
although we have been married for seven of those, we have never lived
in North Carolina together, as a family. This is our
first Thanksgiving in NC together. In our new home.
Today
is when I usually get melancholy about life. Never during a year do I
feel the passing of time more palpably than around late fall,
beginning of winter. I just look back at the year past and just sigh
… so many undeserved highs, so many painful lows, I ask myself how
we're still standing, and all in all, a life.
This
year, I am grateful for the many trips and new places we got to
experience, I am grateful for the new opportunities that have been
open to us and waiting, patiently, for us to explore and expand. Most
of all, I am grateful we're all here, on this side of the dirt, all
the people who matter to us, and us, of course.
I
am grateful for our new home and for my very old kitty who is
spending his seventeenth Thanksgiving with us in it. I am grateful
for our means and for the food we put on the table because of them. I
am grateful for friends, near and far who care for us and wish us
well. We give thanks to you all and hope you know we reciprocate.
The
world has been a sad place for the past year particularly. But I am
grateful for the handful of people who care and who still fight for
what is right, for the less fortunate, and for the ones who cannot
speak for themselves. Some days I am not sure this planet will see
another day. It's hard to be an optimist anymore. Some days, I do not
see the end of this darkness we seem to all muddle through, deeper
and deeper, boggled down by confusion, disbelief, sadness and even
desperation. So today, I am grateful that I can write this,
uncensored and free. Still. This, I shall never take
for granted!
I
hope that this day has found you all grateful for at least one thing.
The world might have a chance yet if it did.
Happy
Thanksgiving, you all, and a happy and healthy start to your Holiday
Season!
It's good to be back where our post-Thanksgiving feast walk is amongst tall, aging trees, and where it's quiet. No cars. No traffic. No wind. Just peace, trees, and soft Carolina light.
