We turned the TV on this morning to watch the parade just in time to see Santa arrive. The Christmas season is upon us! I would be lying through my teeth if I tried to deny how much I enjoy this time of year.
I will be spending today on the couch. The recovery from my hernia surgery is taking longer than it should because of how my internal physiology was altered during a different operation ten years ago. It is, however, progressing exactly the way it should, and all seems to be well. Standing and sitting are both still a bit challenging, so stretching out on the couch it is. As far as hardships go, I’ll take it.
What I am learning from my recent digging through family history, is that when you look at our pasts, they’re all bad. Over the millennia, we have done unspeakable things to each other in the name of personal gain. Similarly, if you take apart the origins of Thanksgiving, starting from the arrival of Christopher Columbus and moving on to that first meal in Plymouth, you can uncover all manner of examples of the utter baseness of human beings.
Henry David Thoreau wrote, though, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” We cannot change the past, we can only try to improve the present. Today is the day to look with an open heart toward the future. We celebrate this season every year to give us all a moment to be grateful – grateful for what we have and not bitter about what we don’t. This moment of being thankful will propel us through the next month into all the holidays that celebrate light, birth, and renewal. Today is a day to share.
I am grateful for my husband, my family, and my friends. I am grateful for the access that I have some of the best medical resources on the planet. I am grateful to everybody who reads what I write, even if I have never met you. I am grateful for my small, furry constant companion who is, as I write this, staring at me in total disgust because it’s been about an hour since he’s been fed and he can’t believe that after all he’s given me, I am choosing to callously ignore him while he’s starving to death. I am even grateful for the uncomfortable ache in my slowly healing balls that will keep me from sitting at a table with friends later today. That ache is a much-needed reminder of how easily it can all be taken away. I am profoundly grateful for all of it.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
Husband! I don’t post a lot publicly (which is odd because I’m the actor 😜), but today I’m saying, in front of all the people, that I‘m crazy nuts about you, and I’m so grateful for you and for your gifts. Happy, too, that sharing them with world in this manner brings you such passion and joy. Happy Thanksgiving to you and to all of your fans on here!!!! 🍁🍂🦃
Happy Thanksgiving and continued good healing. Grateful to have found you and your words during Covid. You are a gift that keeps on giving and taking new paths. May we heal our world through the knowledge of our past and the present. Thanks for sharing yours so beautifully! 🧡