Giving Thanks

Giving thanks can be very hard. It would be easier for me to write a sarcastic take on this day of overeating and having to be with relatives we don't really like, most of the time. Or a take on the real history of the day. Or on the massacre of the turkeys. Or many other topics that are dearer to my sinister mind.

So I try to be thankful for the hard lesson I'm learning slowly: How to swim out of the harbor of cold rationality and snug smugness and fences built against all kinds of messiness into the real oceans of life, where we make mistakes and whirl around in passion and find true treasures in something that looks like shit at first glance. I want to learn to swim and to truly love the other swimmers, not just think that I love them. Hard work, this trying to be less evil.

On a more practical level, I give thanks to the change in American politics. It may not be much of a change, but it's a crucial one. I'd rather have measles and mumps than terminal cancer, and that is what the Democrats represent to me, in comparison to the wingnut edge of the Republican party, still in power, by the way. At least we have a chance now to avoid WWIII a little longer. And I give thanks to the American voters, for renewing my faith in the basic sanity of the people.

And I give thanks to all those who read this blog and who comment here. The other day I was reading a really insightful and fascinating comment, and I felt suddenly so incredibly honored, almost awed, that I can be part of these discussions. That we have these discussions and this community, however fleeting it might be. It is truly something to be thankful for.