Thanks

Today is Thanksgiving and although I miss Zoe, and I never, in any of my fantasies, could have imagined my life looking the way it does now - I couldn't be more grateful for all the blessings in my life.  My little dog Lola is lying on a small throw rug at my feet.  My loftmate Abigail is in the kitchen, making herself some breakfast, no doubt Lucy is sitting nearby.  I'm about to go to the gym for a run on the treadmill.  I am working again.  I've moved through a year and a half of the most difficult time I've ever experienced.  A staged reading of my play is scheduled for February, with a new and much more satisfying ending.

And I just read this in my latest, favorite book "Fearless" by Steve Chandler.

"In my life, crawling out of the cave of despair, one book led to another.  Where would I find courage?  How would I make a living?  How could I succeed at anything after having been such a failure at everything?  Do I try to remember what my two alcoholic parents taught me.  
Books were the answer.  Books taught me everything.  You're not going to find it in books?  Maybe you aren't, but I did."

That has been true for me, particularly over this past year and a half.  It wasn't entirely books - but all the spiritual work and research and my own writing was often stimulated by something I read, or by someone sharing something they'd learned from a book or a spiritual teacher.  

So thanks for all the lessons learned - wherever they came from, no matter how painful, they all contributed to a transformational time.  

Feeling blue, then not

Well, I have to say, thanks to the wonders of the telephone, what started out to be a pretty depressing night, turned out to be quite fun.  I'm alone tonight - my apartment mate Abigail went to see "Wicked" with the company who's staying here.  So I've been home alone with my two dogs and I spent the night on the phone with several friends, who were also home and we laughed and I was able to remember just how grateful I am for friends and for my new home and for all the blessings in my life.

I've been listening to music and really enjoying how beautiful our living room looks - I promise to add a photo soon.  My camera died and I have to get a new one, so I'm looking around for an inexpensive point and shoot camera.  

I'm looking forward to our little Thanksgiving gathering tomorrow - no family, just friends - and plenty of good food.  I am so grateful just to be alive and to have survived a pretty rough year.  

As Cy O'Neal said to me in Friends In Deed, and my friend Joe said the same thing tonight: I have a blank canvas and I am now starting to fill it with everything that I desire: caring friends, a lovely home, my dogs, an always loving relationship with my daughter (even when she's WORKING and BUSY), writing, my community, an interesting future.  

I'm grateful to have this blog to write and for living in a great city, a city I love, filled with so many fascinating people.  In February, I'll be whining about the cold, but for tonight - it's quite perfect. 

A new thanksgiving

For the first time in many many years I will not be having Thanksgiving with any member of my family.  We used to go to my mother's ... and I have to admit after a few hours, I couldn't wait to get back on the Long Island Railroad and go home.  But I also looked forward to the gathering every year and the conversations and even the arguing.  

This is the first Thanksgiving that my mother is gone and I miss her and I really miss my daughter, Zoe, but I am so proud that she found a job in San Francisco.  
I am so grateful that I can cry now, after so many years of keeping a lid on all my feelings,  because there was too much to deal with.


Right now though, there is so much to be grateful for, so I'm going to list my top ten:

1. My daughter
2. My health
3. Our newly re-decorated home (which looks amazing)
4. Abigail (my wonderful loft mate)
5. All my wonderful friends and family
6. Michael Eigen
7. Friends in Deed
8. Pema Chodron and meditation

9. My spiritual practice

10. My writing

Here's a quote from "The Wisdom of No Escape" by Pema Chodron:


"The first noble truth says that if you are alive, if you have a heart, if you can love, if you can be compassionate, if you can realize the life energy that makes everything change, and move and grow and die, then you won't have any resentment or resistance.  The first noble truth says simply that it's part of being human to feel discomfort."


Thanksgiving can be a very discomforting day.  It's rarely the perfect family photo op we all imagine it will be.  But I think if we focus on the gratitude for what we have, it usually works out pretty well.  At Friends in Deed I love the idea they talk about that the glass is neither half full or half empty, it is both.  And that the quality of our lives is not determined by the circumstances. 


So I hope you have a good Thanksgiving, wherever you go or whatever you do.  And I do suggest pants that stretch.

The thanks I'm giving

Aside from all the personal gratitude I have for my life, my family, friends, dogs, health, abundance...all that stuff, I have to say that the overwhelming feeling of thanks I have is that in less than two months we will have a new President, a new administration, the Republicans will be packing their bags and getting out of town as their jobs are filled by Democrats. The Senate and the House will have Democratic majorities. And although I know Obama is no magician and that we are in for a rough ride, it is such a huge relief to have another brilliant person leading the country, whose values are what we need right now and who is bringing on board seasoned and intelligent women and men to help him govern.

What a relief is all I can say. And it's good to remember that although it took eight years, it's going to be over soon. In something like 53 days.

Hallelujah. Whoppee. Thanks, gods and goddesses. Yahoo. Amen!!