Giving thanks

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I focused on being truly, consciously grateful for all the goodness in my life.  I contacted many of the people and groups that have added so much to my well being, to my writing, to my soul, to let them know how much I appreciate them, appreciate the joy and wisdom they have shared.

I'm most grateful, of course, for Sweet Hubby, and for my family and friends.  Those wonderful, kind, darling people always top any list of blessings.  But I'm grateful, too, for the gifts of modern medicine and dentistry; for the heating and air conditioning which make any season pleasant; for modern plumbing (where does it all go?); for how easy travel is.  (Yes yes, I know air travel isn't as much fun as it used to be, but still, it's rather amazing, isn't it?  That we can get to almost anywhere in the world in a day or less?) 

I'm so grateful that I decided to move to Seattle; it felt immediately like the right place for me to be.  I'll never know what brought me here, but whatever mysterious force it was, wherever in me the impulse came from, I'm so glad to be where I am.

I'm grateful for the muse that has made me a writer.  It was never a decision, and sometimes I wish I could give it up, but my imagination continues to throw ideas and concepts and beginnings and endings as me, and I simply don't seem to be able to ignore them. 

I'm grateful even for all the aches and pains and stiffness and limitations of getting older, because they all let me know that I'm still alive, that I've made it into my seniority, that there is still a world of promise and possibility for me to explore.  I'm still here to continue making a life for myself on this beautiful, if somewhat tortured, planet.

So much goodness.  So much to be thankful for.  It's almost too much to absorb.