Toast to the Turkey

I'm a Thanksgiving person. Like there are cat people and dog people, I'm a Thanksgiving person.


I think very fondly of the years that I sat at a table spread by Adam and Ben, who probably will read this at some point, and toasted our gratitude so elaborately that we might have fallen off our chairs before we ate. And I think very fondly of that one college-era Thanksgiving of "tequila rapido," with our friend Forrest's mom, who observed in the wee hours that I was too drunk to keep playing her games and so administered cold turkey, instead of letting me go to bed. And let me be clear that this isn't an alcohol thing, although those two vignettes are obviously from the days before pregnancy and breastfeeding. There's just a pure spirit of celebration that comes with Thanksgiving. I've successfully separated it in my mind from any historical events, and I celebrate it as ritualized gratitude for gratitude, in which you eat and give thanks and eat and give thanks until you can't eat and give thanks any more.


This year, I'd like to toast the turkey, and...

The chef, who is never me.

The many friends with whom I have reconnected.

All the forgiveness that I didn't deserve.

That I have someone in my life who actually believes that turkeys say, "gobble gobble."

Hot cocoa and every part of the distribution chain that brings hot cocoa to me.

That my husband stole a flower for me on the way home from work today.

That my husband came home from work today.

And...

Your blogs.

If you are a blogger, and you are reading this, I do mean YOUR blog. Even if I don't comment, I read it. And even if I don't read it very often, when I do read it, I tend to read back to the place where I left off when I read it before. And, just in case you still don't think I mean you, if you have told me something in conversation that I already knew from reading your blog, I probably didn't let that show.

Tomorrow, in my post-turkey state of regret and resolution, I will post about how reading blogs is bad for me. Given my particular weaknesses and imperfections, which include gluttony -- and there's the real reason why I love Thanksgiving -- that is true.

But today is the day before Thanksgiving, and I'm celebrating gratitude.

Today I'm saying thank you to all of you for letting me read your personal thoughts, and your poetry, and your rants, and your prayers. I'm saying thank you to all of you for letting me know that I'm not alone in so many things that I'm not alone in, like...injured kids, and sleep frustrations, and poor housekeeping, and work stress, and obnoxious theatre patrons, and being inspired to laugh by your baby for no apparent reason, and crying on your kitchen floor, and being deeply concerned about the world, and having a love/hate relationship with Starbucks, and WalMart, and Disney princesses.

Thanks for writing to me.