The sun is overtopping the house, golden light spilling into the front, lighting the Salvia blossoms that remain and that one blooming Cowpen Daisy by the curb.
The oak leaves are bright green and swaying in a gentle breeze.
There is a pie in the house: apple/pear/cranberry. Attention! There is pie.
We returned to the aroma of baking last night as the pie cooled, having filled ourselves downtown amid the lights of the city and the buzz of the hipsters laughing, drinking and checking their phones. We ate chicken and meatloaf and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and corn fritters and deviled eggs.
And today there will be another feast. Turkey. Sweet potatoes again. Green beans. Stuffing. And attention! There will be another pie.
My grandfather would have been delighted.
The three of us (Trudy, mom and I) will sit down, a smaller thing perhaps than those Thanksgivings of old with all of us gathered under the glowing light of my grandparents’ magical dining room, but a fine thing nevertheless. A fine thing. We three will sit at the table with a spread before us, such as it will be, and think of our gifts.
I am thankful for so many things.
I am thankful for blankets I can pull about me at night. For arms intertwined with Trudy’s. For happy dogs in the morning. For happy dogs at night. For a boy about to graduate from college.
I am thankful for lights we read by in the evening and for farmer’s market eggs in the morning.
I am thankful for butterflies and bees buzzing in the yard. For lizards hiding in the rocks. For beetles scurrying in the leaf litter. For the snakes that we rarely see but know are there. For wrens and mockingbirds and cardinals and bluejays and titmice and doves and owls and hawks. And even for vultures soaring just above the treetops.
I am thankful for the dirt that we plant in. For the warm, rich compost pile in the back. For the cucumbers and tomatoes and peppers and greens that grow out of the ground by some magic that I still cannot quite believe.
With all of this, I am blessed. By all of this, I am humbled. For all of this, I give grateful thanks.
Happy Thanksgiving to you.