It’s Thanksgiving Eve, and I sit here in my mother’s soft floral granny gown thankful for family and home and health and good friends. And coffee and pens and words to weave and our bed–a big dreamy canopy upon which I can actually rest my head right now if I lean far enough.
Moments ago I sat here dabbing at eyes misty from a conversation with a beautiful friend, followed by the editing of a post that held me spellbound and weeping for the duration. I do love the way that girl writes.
One thing that beautiful girl does is remind me how to step outside the concrete, what seems easy to describe but never quite hits the mark, to delve beyond, search behind, push past. To dare, to risk, to believe in flying. Our shoes are concrete and we swim with the fishies till we sink to the bottom when we could be soaring among the clouds with the red-shouldered hawk until we are free to dream.
I don’t ever want to lose the way back to dreaming.
I sip chocolate caramel coffee kept toasty by a candle warmer at the corner of my desk, savoring the aroma and flavor both at once. Closing my eyes, I work at setting my mind adrift. Adrift…she used that word, but she sounded sad and hollow and lost. I use it for loosing the moorings, cutting the ropes and drifting free. But I’ve been there, too, hollow and lost. I remember it well, babies all around and needs coming like late-labor contractions and me feeling inept to meet any of them let alone all. I remember longing for the creative me to resurface. She did.
I am grateful for where I have been and where I am. I am grateful for the financial hardship that taught us to depend on God and each other, for the stresses and worries that cemented us together as a family. I am grateful, perhaps more so now looking back, for all those babies who came and who are now grownups having babies of their own. I marvel at how those beautiful babies have become such beautiful adults who bless us all. Thank you, God, that they came.
We will spend Thanksgiving without our oldest two and their families. Such is the life of big families where beloveds are met from afar and hearts are entwined by a miracle of God across the miles. Time gets split, but we are grateful for the time we have and don’t fret what we gracefully give to others.
We smile our thanks for what we have.
A Beautiful Life 