Praise the bridge that carried you over. --George Colman

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

When our perils are past, shall our gratitude sleep? ~George Canning

After spending the last twenty-four hours rushing about, trying to deepen my breath and quell the anxieties that have swelled amidst the sudden onslaught of holiday preparations and emotional strain, there is a certain calm, hurrah, that has found me. The cleaning ladies (myself included) have come and gone, the floors have been spit polished and shined, the bathrooms scrubbed and set to sparkle, and I, for my part, have moved about the stuff in the circuitous route that takes them, adrift and out of place, mere trifling annoyances, transients of clutter, to their proper homes, where they can gloat and gleam knowing that tomorrow, perhaps, or the day after, they’ll once again move about and knock chaos out of this short-lived order. I am so thankful to have found these two women from Moldova, so happy to have someone to help keep an eye out for the cobwebs and the ladybug infestations and the fingerprints on the woodwork that creep up on me and add to my overwhelm. There’s something about cleaning the house that allows me the space and meditative calm to clean my head, deal with those inner dust bunnies that, if left unchecked, can derail your memory and muck up your thoughts.

What a miserable thing life is: you're living in clover, only the clover isn't good enough. ~Bertolt Brecht, Jungle of Cities, 1924

We’re heading to Williamstown to make merry with my mother, who has offered up her lovely house to host tomorrow’s Thanksgiving feast, and the discombobulated, slightly discomfited depths of collective soul that have risen this week to shout and spill and cry foul. Lately, there have been many reminders that motherhood is indeed a messy business, bringing about an endless cycle of joy and heartache, challenges that strip the protective layers of steely resolve to bare your deepest specks and blazes of soul. Despite her own preference for order, my mother has been often found herself amidst our mess, and I am always grateful for her generosity and willingness to take it on, offer a steadying hand, a word of comfort.

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul. ~Henry Ward Beecher

There are many things that swirl about, these blessings of each and every day that rage and burn and hold such supreme importance in our lives that they surely would not fit into one small day of Thanksgiving. There are the huge, huge triumphs that emblazon the skies, there are more subtle episodes of grace and love, and there are the daily, hidden missives that arrive to slip underfoot in the hustle and bustle, or, if taken in, time slowing enough to receive the gifts that unfold in an expanding bloom, to burst forth in an eloquent, bathing light. To follow through on my gratitude has always been an intention, and often a failure, of mine. Enveloped with a sense of thankfulness for someone, in my mind I write a card of thanks or make some small notion from my heart, adding them to my crowded mental to-do-list. There they often sit, long-neglected nixies, never quite making it to the out-box or their intended recipients, and the pinch of shame and regret fills my hollows and starts to smolder within. I resolve to do better, to turn the task into a daily rumination, to reach out to you with gratitude big and small.

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. ~William Arthur Ward

Today, there are the lone geese that fly and honk overhead looking to join a formation, a flock, that remind me of my own sense of feeling adrift and disconnected; there is the way the view has opened up into the wetlands and the farmland beyond, easing the distance between these worlds, an invitation to take notice, rest here, soothe spirit and slow the pace; there was the sunshine that exploded out of the sky for a short while only to hide again behind these grey, pilfering clouds of November; there was the way my dog nestled her head into my hand and looked at me with eyes that promised love and loyalty no matter how it might take to settle my fears and crash the gates. And there’s more, there’s always more.

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder

Soon, soon, I’ll be looking for a river to skate away on, but for now, I rejoin the flow of family life, keep an eye out for the flock and the treasures that fleece and line these chilly dark days, and welcome the festive warmth of the season into my heart. I send you love, I send you thanks, I wish you well. xx, Liz

Give Thanks

When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength
Give thanks for your food and the joy of living
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies within yourself

~ Tecumseh