Like many of you, my deepest appreciation and most abiding gratitude is for my family.
And then my friends, my pets, the beautiful wilderness.
Rain, humor, good books.
Music, sunshine, I could go on and on.
But first and always, family.
Which makes a week like this one especially perplexing.
I am heartsick at having lost a beloved auntie on Tuesday — suddenly and way too soon.
And yet, today's Thanksgiving and there really is so much to be grateful for — my husband who is healthy and my daughters, one still sleeping, one out with her dad feeding a neighbor's chickens. The crisp fall air. A good friend on his way over to run The Turkey Trot with me. And the amazing family I'll fly to tomorrow, to honor and grieve and celebrate my aunt. Life is both dark and light, bitter and sweet. It doesn't erase the thankfulness on a day like today — it makes it all the more keen.
A friend shared this stanza of a Wallace Stevens poem with me yesterday and it's just so perfect for this sentiment I'm going to share it with you. (Thank you, Elisa.) Happy, happy Thanksgiving to you all.
From Sunday Morning, by Wallace Stevens
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measure destined for her soul.