Giving Thanks

It seems to me that in the past year, I have been blessed with many gifts. I was thinking about this a few weeks ago when I zipped my son into his two jackets, a gift from my mom (Abuelita.) The yellow fleece hung down nice and long under his fireman raincoat, and I thought about how grateful I was that my son would be warm, playing outside at recess on the first chilly days of late fall.

My son also recently decided to begin giving kisses. We were reading a book by Todd Parr, and there's this page that reads, "All mommies love to kiss and hug you!" Of course, when I read this page to Langston, I always pause to give him a big smooch on his cheek and a hug.

But a little while ago, Langston was sitting cross-legged on the floor across from me while we read the book, and when I turned to the page, he stood up in a hurry, wide-eyed, and just charged in to kiss my cheek. It was the funniest little thing - he just planted his face on my cheek, and then dived in for a hug.

This evening, after a day of tooling around a little corner of Maine, my father gave me more to be thankful for as,on our way out of the supermarket, he casually proposed, "Why don't we go find a place that sells lamps."

I am thankful we are warm.
I am thankful we have food.
I am thankful we live in this beautiful, beautiful part of the country.
I am thankful for all of my family, especially my parents.
I am thankful for my son's smiles, his funny talk, his way of getting excited about a good book.
I am thankful for my colleagues' generous gifts of laughter and hand-me-downs.
I am thankful for the warm new glow of light in the living room.

Pretty Things

For the past few weeks, I've been having these little, intensely beautiful encounters.

I was jogging on the river path, which I learned curves around into the water in a little strip of land. I was thoroughly enjoying the crisp air and the sensation of running on a thin meter of land with water on each side, when two great blue herons arose, slow wings driving their ascent. I stopped and laughed in surprise.

The next week, as we neared the car, there was this sunset. Big, thick ripples of crazy neon blue, fuschia, and orange. The colors draped the entire sky, not just the section near the horizon.

Then, a few days ago: a shooting star. Its arc was picture-perfect, almost imaginary, like in a movie.

And then there's my kid.