giving thanks

thankful |ˈθa ng kfəl|

adjectivepleased and relieved : [with clause ] they were thankful that the war was finally over | [with infinitive ] I was very thankful to be alive.• expressing gratitude and relief : an earnest and thankful prayer.

when it comes to holidays i play favorites. thanksgiving is the best. i love that it centers around simple joys like food and family. i love the origins of the story as well, pilgrims and the mayflower, plymouth rock, and squanto. it really is the story of the start of our country-venturing out, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, and defying expectations--and our collective legacy of combining cultural backgrounds to make something new and different. that thanksgiving continues to be a yearly tradition in our lives means something. i think we as american people recognize the value of reflecting on all that we have and that is a cultural trait i am very proud to claim.

today i wanted to give lip service to the obvious. thanksgiving is truly about being thankful and letting the gratitude i feel for my life and my circumstances take center stage. and in my world this means articulating what exactly i feel thankful for. living as most of us do in relative plenty and nearly absolute freedom, i have so many things to name. i live a very lucky life. i am healthy. i am surrounded by good family and love. i am happily married to a soul mate. i am raising two children who delight me and make me understand the meaning and importance of selflessness. i have friends, near and far, who buoy my spirits and inspire me with their smarts, creativity, wit, and caring. i have choices about what to do with each day i live and i know that there are places and people and circumstances not so lucky. i feel a profound gratefulness toward nature for all it teaches, inspires, and provides in my life.

i could rattle on and on and am guessing you could too. one of the things i try to be mindful of is that even when life is really going awry and down the tubes, there is always something worth my gratitude. on a really shitty day the fact that i am breathing in and out, alive, comes to mind. on a better day, i can get a little more specific! i think that's a trick to contentment, to just remember that there is always something worthy of our thanks, or if you want to put the half empty spin on it: things could always be worse!

so this week as we're all feasting, sitting around various tables with those we love, let's let ourselves be awash in gratitude and attempt to name it in whatever way feels right and let's celebrate that for this one day a year there is a collective moment, a national mindset of thankfulness.