NO PLACE LIKE HOME (Giving Thanks)

It's the time of year when we gather with friends and family around turkey and pies. I’ll be doing that, too, and today will be a mad dash to get everything done before The Big Day. Sometimes, in the rush, I forget what I’m celebrating, and why. Yes, Thanksgiving is the quintessential family holiday, and despite the joy and frustration family members provide, we’re thankful for the opportunity to gather.

Thanksgiving is more than family, though; Thanksgiving is about the courage to go to new places, to dare to try something new. The people who settled America found enough bravery to sail across the unknown ocean to a land they’d never seen. And ever since then, people have flocked from every corner of the world to settle on this quirky piece of real estate.

I’m thankful to live in this great country where I am free to gather, for in some places this is illegal. I’m thankful that I have opportunities to choose my path, and that my children have the same opportunities because in some places your job is chosen for you from birth. I’m thankful for the men and women who care for my nation, who protect it from those who wish to take away my freedoms (enough said).

I’m thankful for my health care providers, and thankful to be able to pay for those services. I’m grateful for my education, my home, my poor accident-magnet Honda. I’m thankful I can shop at small local stores or chains or Wal-Mart or Amazon.

I am thankful for my children; until recently, in some countries I might not be able to raise more than one child and certainly not a girl.

I’m grateful I can write and read anything I wish, without fear.

In this era of terrorism and corruption and inflation and Mother Nature run amok, I’m thankful to be alive and experiencing the world, for it reminds me that even though I’m small and only human, I’m still capable of doing good.

What are you thankful for?

Peace…

THANKSGIVING

Remember those you love, and give thanks for all you have. The smallest things mean so much, even a can of hash.

My small plate offered up at Michael Solender's Feast of Flash ==> THANKSGIVING



Peace, Linda

What I have learned this past week...

--Making up a hospital bed with a terminally ill person lying in it is a science

--Managing pain is an art

--Writing 50,000 words in one month is easy

--Writing 50,000 words worth their paper is not

--Eating meatballs and spaghetti on Thanksgiving Day is amazingly satisfying

--Most of my greatest friends I have never met

--My children are capable of accepting sadness and death

--My father is the strongest person I have ever met, aside from my mother.


***


The Writing... I 'won' NaNoWriMo on Day 29. This year, I was fussier with my words, not satisfied with 'filler'. I'll detail the process later, and how I dealt with slow periods (I refuse to call them blocks), but first I want to read through the 152 pages (!) I wrote these past 30 days. Now, Clayton Pettigrew calls me, perhaps because North Carolina inspired this particular character and I have spent so much time in that state. Several contests and submissions to send in, after receiving my fair share of rejections...

The Reading... I've given up on GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, it's just too intense for me to read right now. I'll return to it after the New Year. Now, in the thick of PEOPLE OF THE BOOK which is stunning in its structure and evocative retelling of history.

Peace, Linda

Pre-Given Thanks...

We often say "thank you" in return for a good deed or a kind word. But why wait? Henry Simoni-Wastila, my minister husband, raised this idea last Sunday before our Unitarian Universalist congregation. He says it much better than I, so here's an excerpt from his sermon:

If you are thankful, you cannot help but feel that you have been blessed, that you have been given something good. We can be expectantly thankful - pre-grateful - having a priori gratitude. Now, logicially, that may not make sense. Logically, we should wait for good things to walk our way and then be thankful afterwards. After all, it's a little rude to be thankful for something you haven't been given yet!

I am suggesting that we be grateful first. But isn't that jumping the gun? Yes. But pre-existing gratitude can be a general philosophical attitude towards existence. Gratitude before the fact can be a religios response to reality as a whole. You don't need to have a specific thing or event to be thankful about.

In psychology, it is said that in trying to be happy, we can start acting happy and then real happiness will start to develop on its own. Sometimes, when I am tired or sad, I just smile. It makes me feel a little better. The Buddha's smile is on a face that has seen it all, and yet can still, while being aware of the impermanent nature of all, still smile. So tune yourself into that Buddha's smile.

This same psychological principle of "acting happy in order to be happy" might apply to a religious pre-positioning of gratitude, If you think of your life as something you should give thanks for, then there may develop in your life things that you will be thankful for.

Pre-Gratitude. Nice. Sort of like "pay it forward". Pre-positioning my gratitude, here are the things I give thanks to:

--My husband, for being himself and always stretching in new ways, and my children for evolving into the fascinating individuals they will become

--My parents, for sharing their truths so I can understand mine

--My sister, for sharing her joys and fears

--My fellow writers - Chrys, Jimmy, Deborah, Kim, Marg, Steve - for sharing their lives and their stories and their successes. Their generosity knows no bounds...

--The friends I have now, and the ones I have not yet met.

--My mentors, they are so numerous, I am so blessed...

--My mind, for not failing me and leading me on wondrous journeys

--Each morning, for it signals a new day, a new adventure - and isn't that what life is all about?

EVENT!!!!!!! If you're in the vicinity of the Big Apple this weekend, check out THE BEST MEMOIRISTS PAGEANT EVER. Both published and deserve-to-be-published writers will be reading their memoirs at the The Bowery Poetry Club. My personal fave is my writing buddy and friend Chrys Buckley. We finally met this week, but that's the subject for a future blog. She's a brave, lovely, sweet young woman who wields a fiery pen and a powerful voice. Catch her reading from MOONCHILD this Saturday, 24 November 1 2007 at 3:00 pm. The Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery, NYC.

For what are you grateful now and in your future? Peace, Linda