~:: A little more about thanks ::~

For me, when I can’t get to the  keyboard to write, it’s like having to sneeze in the middle of a solemn assembly.  But when I can sit down and start pounding the keys, the relief my fingers give me is glorious.  It’s always been that way from me – once I’d got hold of my first electric typewriter.  (Holy cats – what if I’d been born before parchment was invented?)

There are so many things I’ve been wanting to write about.  Part of the function of this—personal log—is that it actually counts as a journal.  The rest is all about writing a letter to people I like.  People I want to share my heart with.  I still have Disneyland and weather and dogs and ideas all backed up – if this were a physical condition, they’d be prescribing unpleasant cures for me.  And I’m, like, sixty eight blogs behind in my reading.

My last night with Gin, my fun sister and her hubby – having really quite miraculously escaped death on the highway, driving home from my house where they were when I wasn’t – got to spend the evening with us.  (If you want to read an incredible story, post me – what they went through was a-mazing.)

But it’s all about time: I realized day before yesterday—I am three weeks behind – in business, in dust, in holiday preparation, in bills.  But now, Thanksgiving is celebrated, taxes paid, some dust allayed, the inside lights all put up for Christmas, the outside ones almost finished, the decorations (boxes and boxes of them) hauled down, gone through, and put in new places (since the remodeling has changed the shape and flow of our long-time home).

And I even sort of cleaned up my little artsy/craftsy area. Have you ever noticed how any kind of deep cleaning is like knocking over one domino in a line of hundreds? Cleaned out the hutch, and the kitchen cabinets, and the den – which is now the a/c area referred to above. Then I force the children to take the stuff I can’t stand to get rid of completely. Anybody need some mugs?

a goofy person

the friend I brought him – all the way from Disneyland

I don’t know how you mamas with children manage to write as much as you do—especially those swell tutorials.

Now (I was writing this Sunday), the kids are at church in their own wards and G is at meetings (poor thing) and the puppies are rampaging in the piles of snow that were dropped on our heads last night.

This is not a picture of the piles of snow.  This is a picture of a storm we got long before Thanksgiving – on the 20th of Nov.  I was impressed with this dusting of white – then.

See?  Those trees still have their flaming leaves.

I finally have a chance to write something.

That last entry?  The one about Eden (not really about Eden) I put up a few days ago?  Yeah – that went out before it was finished.  Somehow, I hit the publish button long before I’d done it up right.  So now you will get a double dose of pictures.  Hope you don’t mind.

Goofy person demonstrating Karate

Have I lost you yet?

No.  This is not our idea of inventive and economical Christmas decor.  Though I will admit – there is a festive cheeriness effect going here.   In reality, this is a dog-proof fence, to keep the Wandering Tucker from getting himself squished in the street.  I have put this picture here to keep you from getting away before I’m finished with you.

The Actual Entry:

At church today we were having a discussion of gratitude, being asked for synonyms of the word. In the end, someone said, “Humility.”  And the word rang with rightness.  When you realize that the things you have – whatever they are, love, shelter, intelligence – are all a gift, that you can work towards having them, prepare for them, desire them – but that, in the end, it’s really kind of a miracle that you end up with them, that is the beginning of gratitude.  From there, amazement takes over.

There are mornings when I wake up making lists.  They start with “Thank you for – .”  Honest, I’m already doing the list thing even before I come full awake.  This is not any kind of sign of my virtue, but rather, I believe, a desperate act of amazement when I find myself still alive in spite of everything.  Because I do not deserve any of the things on the thank-you list.  Most of them, quite the opposite.

M is a little stretched here by the lens.  But the smile is the same.

Sometimes the list starts with toilets and running water.  Sometimes with mercy.  Thank you for mercy.  Without it, I would be in sad shape.

So right here, I am going to make a partial list of things I’m grateful for.  I don’t really expect anybody to be terribly interested in these things, but this is my journal, and I’m gonna write them down anyway.

Love.  I have to start with love. It’s the frame of the world for me.  And the corollaries begin with family.  I believe that family is the most precious of all amazements.  You can live anywhere under any conditions if you are together in it.  I am grateful for parents who had tremendous qualities of integrity, faith, forgiveness, determination.  They took us camping, taught us to work, taught us to be honorable, and to laugh.  Very different from one another, my mother and father, but an unbeatable combination – solid, philosophical, funny, unfailing.

Thanksgiving dinner.  This looks like a solemn moment.  It wasn’t one.

I am thankful for my beloved and beautiful sister, and my crazy, kamakazi brother.  For my Aunt Jeannie, who is both friend and godmother.  And for my cousins, some of whom have become dear friends.

I am deeply grateful also for friends who have become family, for my crazy, dear, right-hand Rachel, and for Geneva, who has kept us alive under trying circumstances.  And so many at church, people I’ve known now for multiple decades – still fresh, still fun, still deeply connected – and their children, many of whom feel like they are my own.  And for a few really, really wonderful old friends found through music, or through my writing, or though my teaching years – we are all shining, helpless debris, happily caught in each other’s comet tails. I know people who should be canonized – for their goodness and service, for their courage in the face of great difficulty, for their constant kindness to me.

This is beginning to sound like a very big group.  I wonder if you can only tell how many people loved/hated you by who shows up at your funeral?

The mongrel, random table – I LOVE scrap-quilt decorating.

But to be a little more concrete:

Toilets.  And antibiotics.  And trees.  Color.  Eyes to see with.  The smells of lilacs and onions and hot butter and new bread.  A brain that can do acrobatics – it’s just a pleasure to feel the thing running.  Legs, arms, finger joints, feet with toes that can grip and push.  Ideas.  Materials like glass and paper and clay and mud and fabric.  People who work in factories and make these things in so many colors and thicknesses.  The mail service.  Electronics.  Wheels.  Rivers.  Creeks.  New apples.  Dryers you can pull hot clothes out of.  Drains: one of the great mysteries of our time.  Trash removal.  Phones.  Talking.  Tongues.  Thumbs.  Fences.  Open spaces.  Drifts of snow.  Drifts of cherry blossoms.  Hot dogs.

Other people’s imaginations.

Can you guess what this thing is?

Printing presses.  Freedom.  Laughter.  Puns.  Handel.  Harmony.  Refrigerators.  My house.  That it can be kept warm without blowing up.  The flash of fish.  Horses.  Puppies – even the ones who chew up stuff.  Needles (sewing, knitting).  (I could NEVER make any of these things for myself.)  Paint.  Thread.  Spots and stripes.  Clouds that catch fire with the sun behind them.  Airplanes that stay up.  Cars that stay down.  Zebras.  LIGHT.  COLOR.  Canyons.  Kind people.

Mercy.  Justice.  Compassion.  Knowledge.  Curiosity.  Determination.  Words.  Words.  Words.  Thinking.  Sleeping.  The fact that going to the bathroom is not a flipping sin.

Holidays.  Eyes to look at.  Marbles.  Lawn mowers.  Hay.  Pumpkins. Seasons.

CAMERAS.

The internet.  Opportunities to give heart.  Getting heart.  Food I don’t cook.

For not having cancer (at least, not yet).  For being taught about the eternal nature and beautiful purpose of life.

For hope.  For try.  For try again.

Hearing.  Languages.  Touch.

Peppermint and chocolate.

Balsamic vinegar.

People who put their knitting patterns up on line just for fun.

Skinny little knitting needles.  Colored rocks.  Huge mountains.  For not having to jump out of an airplane.  Christmas lights, dancing, jumping, climbing.  Leaves.  That leaves change color.  Hedgehogs (I’ve never seen one).  Libraries.  Freedom to choose.  Freedom to fail.  Fireworks. Pie.  Computers.  Babies.  Eggs (don’t you think eggs are magical?).  Circles, squares, rugs, weaving, pieces of things that can be put together in new ways, problems to solve, red shirts, fancy riding-sorts of boots (I don’t own any).  Presents to give.  And to get.  White fur against black or red.  Books, books, books—the kind with pages. Pillows.  Soft things.  Textures.

Birds.

Okay, I’m not running out, but I think I’m finished.

Phone calls from children who are on their way home.  Safety.  Courage.  Happy endings.  Purpose.

Tomato soup.

I’m stopping.  Really.

You can add things to this list, though.  Go ahead.  Drop some things into a comment.  Do it.  Fun.  I’m thankful for fun.  And for conversation.  And for the chance to know people and love them.

There.

I stopped.  Choirs.

Dawn.

Love.

Ha.  Full circle.

These last two shots are the actual piles of snow I was talking about earlier.  Happened on Sunday.  Three days before December.

I am thankful for the first real snow.  And the coming holiday.  And hot chocolate.

And stopping.

So there you are.