a few shelves, among many.

Thanksgiving Day, that best of all holidays, is this week. It is time for my annual exercise in sharing what I find myself most grateful for in this life. But the exercise is not just done once a year; it’s a practice I carry out daily, when each morning I express, privately, my gratitude and hopes. It has been a helpful habit over the years, one that serves to lessen my too easily accessed anger and general cussedness (family and friends reading this may shake their heads and ponder, “if this behavior shows restraint, dear God…!”). This Thanksgiving I am thankful—

• For my partner of almost thirty-nine years. Her love and companionship are essential, and her work ethic never flags, in this life we share.
• That she and I have perfected, with years of long practice, the art of the siesta, an essential three-hour quiet time of the three R’s, reading, rest, and reflection, observed from 12:30 to 3:30 each afternoon.
• For the lesson from my father, that in one’s community it is better to rub shoulders than to throw elbows. It’s a lesson I plan to revisit each morning during the upcoming election year.
• For the skills and patience that husbandry has taught me, and for the maturity that has been acquired, sometimes painfully, in its practice.
• That creation is a daily act of revelation on a planet more resilient than we.
• That the current drought is a reminder of the fragility of both our work and how we treat the land. Such reminders of our smallness are always good for our species, if we are willing to pay attention.
• For my younger neighbors the Scarboroughs and the Stricklands, both families who practice the arts of farming and homesteading while working full-time jobs and juggling raising children. They embody the best of this life.
• For my siblings, their children, their children’s children—and the continued possibility of an endless supply of free labor during their visits.
• For the books in my library that provide comfort, knowledge, escape, and entertainment.
• That on Thanksgiving Day I will share with friends around a convivial table the produce from our farms. And in the center of that table will be a country ham, which I cured twelve months back, sticky and shining with a Dr. Pepper glaze.
• And a bonus, if you are counting: for friends Melanie and Sara, and our tradition of the monthly cocktail hour (it really should be daily, you two).

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Speaking of books, a goofy indulgence this week was My Effin’ Life, the new autobiography by Geddy Lee. It was a fun romp—with a somber chapter on the Holocaust—through the rock and roll life of one of the greats. “We have assumed control.”