Posts Tagged ‘thankfulness’
More Thanksgiving
During the three-day-weekend following Thanksgiving, we enjoyed leftover turkey sandwiches and some spectacular creamy turkey with wild rice soup that Cyndie whipped up from the remains of our feast. Saturday night, we were both looking for a change. A scrumptious homemade pizza from scratch more than fit the bill.
By the middle of the afternoon yesterday, neither of us had an appetite, let alone a craving for what to do for our Sunday dinner. I suggested we wait until either of us got hunger pangs and then we could revisit our options. Before we reached that point, Cyndie happened to notice we still had all the side dishes left over from the holiday meal that we shouldn’t let go to waste.
That made the decision for us.
When all the goodness was heated up and heaped on plates, it became the only thing I could possibly have wanted. It was a Thanksgiving feast all over again.
I am even more thankful than ever for all the blessings we enjoy.
- For the culinary skills Cyndie employs daily to feed me better than I will ever deserve.
- For our home and a warm bed.
- The companionship of all our animals.
- Family and friends who love us and make us proud.
- Entertainers who work every day to bring laughter into the world.
- That most people understand the risks of the pandemic and take healthy precautions.
- That the majority of people in the world are good and would help others in need.
- I have a job that gives me access to health insurance.
- That the NFL football team I stopped watching yesterday didn’t quit when I did.
- Jigsaw puzzles, a fireplace, books to read, and my lifetime collection of music to listen to.
- That I saved 100% by not buying anything from much-hyped sales “bargains” over the entire weekend.
- A car that safely makes my long commute tolerable.
- Monday mornings, that make a prior weekend seem that much more precious.
Okay, I admit it. I turned off the game when the punt was fumbled. I had a puzzle to finish. Imagine my surprise when the score was flashed on an update of games later in the afternoon.
If you are reading this from beyond the Minnesota region, just disregard that part. It’s not really important.
Honestly, yesterday was a pretty dreary day for me. I suspect a large part of it was the harsh reality that the long weekend was ending and a return to the workweek was getting closer by the minute. The stark contrast of weather from the sun and warmth of Saturday to cold, cloudy, and windy Sunday didn’t help, either.
Ending on a high note of feasting in continued thankfulness is a pretty good way to break that spell.
Here’s to not letting a single dreary day become anything more than a temporary affliction and making a point to pay frequent attention to things we can be thankful for each and every day.
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Fitting Feasts
Despite the peculiar Thanksgiving “ungathering” in the U.S. yesterday, brought on by the miserably timed (like there would ever be a good time) runaway community spreading of COVID-19, I am personally aware of many feasts that were had by individual households anyway.
I unwittingly broke a loose promise made to my mother a lifetime ago by not eating our Thanksgiving dinner at the old family table. We were gifted with rights to the table when we bought our first house, with the requirement that we host Thanksgiving on it for years after. Yesterday, since there were just the two of us, Cyndie and I chose to dine at the coffee table in front of the fireplace instead.
Cyndie performed her usual heroics in the kitchen and prepared a turkey with classic side dishes that could have fed a houseful. Luckily, she had baked most of the extras the day before so she could distribute portions to her mom and our kids in advance for a modified version of sharing the holiday feast together. Cyndie did her own custom door dash delivery to each of them.
In true 2020 pandemic fashion, the Friswold clan logged in for a video conference from each of our homes for the chance to see faces and hear voices on a day when we would normally have been together. The typical hijinks ensued.
“You’re muted still!”
“Turn on your video.”
[waving hello]
[all talking at once]
[followed by awkward silence]
Ah, but there is nothing like actually hearing the voices of our loved ones. Priceless.
As Cyndie and I got a few bites into our plates of Thanksgiving goodness, after voicing adoration for each of the fabulous flavors, I turned to her and asked, “Are we supposed to start arguing over politics now?”
Mostly, we just cooed over the fire in the fireplace, the exceptional quality of our holiday feast, and how good we have it despite the national crises simmering all around our country.
Much thankfulness ensued.
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Great Indoors
You know the saying. It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. I don’t know what phenomena might be pushing the local dew point temperatures to extremely tropical levels, but it is driving our heat index into the triple digits again. I’m not a fan.
At the same time, I really don’t have much to gripe about. The workplace indoor temperatures are air-conditioned down to a level that keeps my arms cold all day in a short-sleeved shirt. From there, I step out to my car and turn on the AC for the long drive home. Our house is perfectly comfortable with the geothermal system making great use of that constant underground temperature in the upper 50s(F).
Of course, this works because I’m done with the time sensitive chores outside, enabling me to pick and choose whether I’ll go out and deal with the immediate elements, or avoid them.
It makes it difficult to pay true attention to the present moment. I’m off in some other world, down a maze of insignificant Reddit posts like hatted cats pawing attention-getting bells to trigger repeated delivery of a treat, or highlight videos of soccer players tangling for a header where one uprights the other and then guides his flip to a full rotation that lands the opponent upright again before ever crashing to the ground.
Cute, but basically mindless, compared with what is available in and around the space where I’m breathing.
Yesterday evening, I was describing my June week of biking and camping to a visitor and reminded myself of how in-the-moment that activity can be. We are out in the elements all day, sleeping on the ground in tents all night. Breathing the air, inhaling the scents, hearing the birds and freight trains.
We notice everything about the wind.
When I’m not biking, I pay no attention to what direction the wind is blowing. Why do I neglect to notice?
My habit of not truly being fully present in a moment allows for obliviousness to that kind of detail. My mind can wander to expectations of watching the World Cup final on Sunday, or mulling over imagined reasons why our 4 acres of hay-field have yet to be cut by the neighbor who, back in the beginning of June, volunteered so to do.
In my comfortable car during the long commute, lately I’ve been listening to deep cuts from my library of music, allowing it to carry me off to distant rekindled memories or fantasies of mastering my own version of various enticing songs.
I’m thankful I don’t have to be out in the heat, but at the same time, I regret how my avoidance accommodates a distancing from the realities of the present moment.
I take some solace in having just sweated through every layer of several sets of grubby clothes over the recent three days of heaving hundreds of hay bales. We were reasonably enmeshed in the moment for those hours of each day.
There is some balance there… and, always an opportunity to strive for better attention to the immediate pleasures of the artificial environment of a comfortably conditioned “great indoors.”
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Concocting Thankfulness
Amid the backdrop of societal problems of racial injustice, religious violence, political corruption, patriarchal rape culture, unbridled banking industry crimes, insane sports and entertainment industry salaries, over-commercialization of holidays, and overall people’s misplaced priorities, we pause in the US today to give thanks.
Our Thanksgiving holiday harkens back to a time when one tribe of people gathered together with the indigenous people whom were seen as lesser-than, to feast over their bounty and good fortune. Somehow, the feast became an annual tradition, despite the despicable behavior of the dominant group that whitewashed deeds to allow themselves to feel okay with their means to an end.
Today I enjoy the luxury of living with horses. They give me many reasons to be thankful. I am acutely aware of the privilege that contributed to the opportunity for me to achieve this luxury. It requires some mental exercise to get beyond the guilt and shame over the behavior of the people who came before me to pave my way.
Our horses help me focus on the present moment. They live without pretense, ask for little, and give to no end.
For the American holiday of Thanksgiving, I struggle to identify with the thanks being brandished about, but for the genuine art of being thankful, I am all in.
There is much love and plenty of family and friends to be thankful for, and in that regard I am richly blessed. My solution to dealing with all the ills of the world is to send love equally in all directions. Where I don’t feel love, I can produce it. From that effort comes genuine feelings of love, suddenly manifest. It’s not unlike thankfulness.
Love and thanks are not far apart. I am thankful for very many things, and today I will contemplate that. I send my love to you all, and hope that you find much to be thankful for, too.
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Relative Something 