Thanksgiving Blessings

     When I wake in the morning, I peer out a slit of a second story window to the north east. The sky is pale pink or coral as it silhouettes three trees. I have measured these trees growth in the twelve years I have inhabited this space by the levels of blind panels their tips touch. One is the first to turn golden in the late summer signaling fall is on its way. It is also the first to begin to leaf. I can predict with mild accuracy the weather of the day. Today, is sunny and windy. Gusts of wind bends the spruce like a wobbly soldier. The movement of the three trees in the subtle light is mediative.
     Yesterday morning during yoga my instructor, John, asked us to write something we were thankful for on a post-it-note and put it under our mat as our intention for our practice. "Now, there is your family, your job, your house, the food you eat. Let us now think about something smaller that you might over look; something in your life as simply as your breath."
     It didn't take me long to start writing about my hands and feet. Movement. I am thankful for movement. Holding my paintbrush can be painful after an hour. So I switch to my left hand or a bigger brush and see what I can get done in the remaining studio time for the day. Some days, I push myself beyond pain being inspired to create with the realization I will have trouble making dinner and holding my fork. Same with my right foot. I use my left for my sewing machine pedal and have developed nearly equal cadence control in free-motion quilting. Driving is tiring and my ankle can begin to cramp. Consequently, I hold the break with my left assisting something I learned to do when I stopped nose-up a steep hill and when I drove a Jeep Cherokee as the brake was so stiff. I reflect that four years ago after my craniotomy my right appendages could have been paralyzed. How would our, my family's, lives have changed? What would have become of my art? I couldn't drive my children to their music lessons and the swimming pool. And, not being able to climb stairs, I wouldn't be looking out a second-story window at sunrise-trees swaying in the wind on this Thanksgiving Day. But, I am. I am.
    Take a moment today to meditate on a moment you take for granted. Find thanks in the everyday, the ordinary, the sublime. As Americans, we have this annual day to slow down, gather our family, our friends, our peers, our enemies and be thankful. Everyone has goodness in them and a place on this Earth. We are here in this very place, this country, this state, this city, this home because we arrived here; this very space we exsist. Our neighbor belongs here. Those who anger us belong here. Today, follow the compassion of the First Peoples to the wayward aliens who washed up on the Atlantic coast in their wood ships hundreds of years ago. Find compassion as love begets love. Move. Move however you can. Push yourself to go beyond your fears and trepidations and be thankful. Allmen.