Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, 2018

/ Sheila / 1 Comment

It’s Thanksgiving, and I’m counting my blessings.

It’s hard to do. But also easy. Life is full of contradictions now, and always will be, I guess.

When one is missing, the absence is as sharp and noticeable as the presence of others is visible, and sweet.

But it’s not only Alex who’s gone. We’re missing so many from our family. A good number are on the other side now. It’s tempting to get lost in that reality, to focus on the years gone by.

But if memories of other Thanksgivings are part of this day, we’re also mindful of the good things of life. There are so many to count.

We talked about the list before eating. One of the mentions was “thankful not to be homeless.” This, from the five-year-old in our group. What does it say about our society, that this is so common? And that five-year-olds are aware this happens?

So we talk a bit about that, and other things. The usual, and the normal: family, friends, love, relationships. The physical. Food. Pets. The good stuff.

It’s a day to savor, and to mark. I try to practice gratitude every day, and most of the time I’m successful. There is always, always, something to be thankful for.

But it’s meaningful to do it as a group, oldest to youngest, to acknowledge all the things. Maybe one day, we won’t need to reference the issues of the homeless. Or watch news stories of soldiers celebrating far from home. 

Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you find yourself. May you have many good things to count, and more to come in the future.

And God bless us, every one!

My mother’s table – Happy Thanksgiving!

/ Sheila / 1 Comment

I’m celebrating this Thanksgiving at my mother’s table, once again.

It’s not often, at this point in my life, that I find myself surrounded by family for the holiday. We often visit in summer, or at Christmas, but the Thanksgiving break is shorter, and makes for a harder trip.

But this year, the stars aligned, and we have a cross-section of ages and family branches, from multiple time zones and states, gathered to share the day and the feast, to tell stories and catch up on news, to snap photos and give hugs. We’ll hear about what’s new, remember what’s past, (and who’s passed), and talk.

Most of all, we’ll talk.

In my mother’s kitchen, around my mother’s table, we’ll talk. The stories will flow, and mostly they’ll be funny. Sometimes the talk turns to country and opinions, and the opinions are always strong, and strongly voiced. But no one is uninvited here, whatever is said. We’re family, and that’s that.

My mother has two tables, in side-by-side rooms. There’s a formal dining room, and we’ll have enough people in the house that both tables will be used.

But it’s the kitchen table where the magic happens.

It doesn’t matter how long it’s been, when we gather, we eat, we talk, and we laugh, often late into the night.

Like so many families across the country, we’ll do the traditional things, eat traditional foods, and mark another year.

There are some missing from our clan. Some just can’t be here, too far to travel, and too short a break. We’re missing others who’ll never sit with us again. But they’re here in spirit, and in stories, and in the recipes we use, the names we recall…”Papa,” “Mama,” “Daddy,” “Mother.”

The day will be full, and we’ll be full, stuffed with all the trimmings, and all the favorite dishes offered up to mark the meal, to say this is a special time, to remind us of tradition and occasion.

We are thankful, the lot of us. We’ve all known joys, and we’ve each known loss. We’re a cross-section of Americana, in so many ways…from careers to interests to where we live and how we talk. Some accents are southern, some less so. Mostly we’re united by common genes, common faith, and heritage of place and upbringing, though we’ve wandered far and wide from our starting points.

Thanksgiving is a day for many things…a national pause to say grace and peace, to thank and remember, to eat and celebrate. Mostly, to me, it’s about family. Purer than any other holiday for that focus, it’s a day that allows us to be together with no other motive than that…to be together. The food and the other traditions are really the extras. It was never really about what’s on the table.

What we’re really thankful for are the people, gathered around.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! May your table be full of food cooked with love, and the chairs be filled with faces you love. As you look around tomorrow, may you know who you’re thankful for, and find kindred spirits to talk and laugh with.

I’ll be at my mother’s table, and I’ll be thankful to see the faces, hear the stories, and feel the love.

~ Sheila

Mindful and grateful: Happy Thanksgiving!

/ Sheila / 2 Comments

Gratitude is truly an amazing habit. The spirit of thankfulness works to soften and soothe, helps me see the good all around me.

Practicing gratitude, I am mindful.

Practicing mindfulness, I am grateful.

Today I’m thankful for the way life gives unexpected joys. I’m grateful for time with family and friends, health, enough work to stay busy, enough quiet time to find inspiration.

I’m thankful for for the steady presence of voices and faces in my life that enrich and encourage.

I’m thankful, as I cook in my son’s somewhat spartan kitchen, for the gifts of tradition, ritual, and surprise. Moving out of my comfort zone, living without all my stuff for the past year, has shown me that I can do all sorts of things, without the gadgets, without all the known and familiar.

What’s known are the faces, and the memories of place, and history. What’s familiar is the love, and the laughter.

The surprises sometimes come in the form of something forgotten…like a main ingredient to a once-a-year dish. Sometimes the surprises are the spur-of-the-moment decisions that become the best part of the day…stopping to capture a photo at just the right moment, or a conversation that goes right to the heart, and warms me to the core.

The beautiful scenery in the mountain west gives me one more thing to appreciate, this Thanksgiving. The sunsets and the blue, blue sky…so beautiful!

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This weekend we’ll do some driving, looking at familiar sites, and recalling when we lived here, the Colorado front range the backdrop of the every day, and yet never taken for granted. When I have the chance to be here now, I drink it in, and revel in the magic of the grand peaks, the colors, the seasonal cold, the white of snow.

Mostly I’m thankful that this was the setting for family, and for memory making. I’m thankful for lessons learned, and joys re-discovered, for the people that make it all possible.

I wish the same for everyone…gratitude, mindfulness, peace, and joy. Happy Thanksgiving!

~ Sheila

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving grace

/ Sheila / 2 Comments

Thanksgiving is here, the one holiday of the year that is, by name and spirit, inspired by the grace of gratitude.

We gather, we talk, we prepare, we eat. Oh yes, we eat. It’s the beginning of butter season, and all things good.

We list the things we’re grateful for. And for most, the list is some version of a litany of the important people in life…spouse, children, family, friends; important pillars of life…health, home, job; important attitudes of life…thankfulness, forgiveness, joy.

I feel all that, and more. I am so grateful. But today, “more” is my special focus.

This year, “more” is all the uncertainty and upheaval the past few months have brought to my life.

Uncertainty doesn’t sleep well, doesn’t feel comfortable. It has become the knot in my stomach, the question behind all my plans.

“What next?”

And yet, even as I sat and gathered myself this morning, sitting hard against the wall by my bed to focus my thoughts, start my day with calm and quiet, I knew: the coming joy is rooted in this time of in between, this period of lostness.

I’m walking in the valley of indecision so I can choose, and choose wisely.

These are the days of hard questions: what do I want? What is essential?

The voice in my mind answers: my partner is essential. Family is essential. Faith is essential. The rest…the where or how or the timing of the choices…window dressing that puts the pretty bow on the real gift. The real gift is the people, priorities in order, values in place.

Knowing who I am, whose I am, who I am with, and who I love are the bedrock essentials. Nothing else matters…not where I live, or how I earn income, how big my house is, how often I travel. Because I know the answers to the essentials, I can take a breath, step back, let the details sort themselves in good time.

It’s easy to get that confused…to take the people and relationships for granted and treat the externals like they’re most important. I can admit I’ve done that, acted like all the “big” decisions were the drivers of life. They’re not…they’re context, but they’re not the heart of the story.

This year I’m not hosting the holiday feast..the trappings of my physical life are in a Public Storage unit in Washington. I don’t have all the externals together…no decorating for Christmas this weekend, or gathering family for the perfect Christmas card pose.

Family is scattered, and I don’t have the pretty bow to wrap us all together.

But I know the answers to the questions of heart, the essential ones that frame the rest.

And I am so grateful. I have my Thanksgiving list. And when we go around the table to say what we’re thankful for, I can acknowledge: the uncertainty, the question of “what next?” points me to the deepest joys. The very not knowing becomes a gift to show me: security is in the intangibles of my life, in the people and the love that isn’t tied to an address, or a piece of furniture, or an orderly path.

So yes, today I’m celebrating that I have no permanent home at the moment, just a permanent mailbox address. And I have no vision for where I’ll be next year, just a vision of who I’ll be with. I have no forecast of my annual income for 2015, but I expect to cover all the usual needs of life.

I’m in between, and I’m grateful. I may look lost, but I’m not.

I’m full of expectation, full of anticipation. What turn will my story take now? And how will my choices and my life lessons be a light to shine for others?

Happy Thanksgiving! May you all know “who” is on your list when you go around your table, or you recite to yourself the joys of your life. When you know who is important to you, the rest is just glitter.

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