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I'm sitting at my kitchen table on this day before Thanksgiving, the wind outside my window blowing the last of the warm weather away, contemplating the cornucopia of blessings in my life for which I'm grateful.
Despite all the upheaval in my life and in the world around me, the blessings are still limitless.
The first on my mind, for I leave in a few minutes for the two-and-a-half-hour drive to pick her up, is my daughter, who will join me here in Albuquerque for Thanksgiving this weekend.
This is our first Thanksgiving together as just the two of us and the first time since her mother and I separated that I have a home of my own to welcome her into. I'm profoundly grateful for her presence in my life and for the home I'm now able to share with her.
This time last year, still on the road and about to spend my second consecutive Thanksgiving with my friends Bob and Diana Mitchell in Michigan, I could not have begun to imagine all the unexpected gifts this year would bring, among them:
• a home of my own after 30 months of full-time travel...and the arrival here in Albuquerque, a month after mine, of one of my closest friends -- who now lives a five-minute walk away.
• a home in the foothills of (and with a view of) the Sandia Mountains, which have inspired and uplifted me from the moment I first saw them nearly three years ago. (In fact, my very first place drawing was of the Sandias.)
• the long-awaited publication of my novel, The MoonQuest, not to mention the two awards it has already garnered and the glimmerings of interest in my screenplay adaptation of the book.
• the imminent publication of a second book, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write and the production of its companion CD. (I'll have more to say about these in a newsletter in the next week or so, when I'll unveil its amazing cover...though you can get a small-size sneak preview on MySpace.)
• all the wondrous and miraculous ways I have been taken care of, even as I've let go most of the touring, teleconferences and private sessions that were my financial mainstay on the road.
There is so much more...too much to enumerate. But I can't complete my incomplete list without mentioning you. Through all the radical shifts and transformations in my life and, no doubt, in yours over the past year, I'm enduringly grateful that you are still in my life, part of my creative and spiritual family.
Whether or not you celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, I wish you an abundance of all that would bring joy and gladness to your heart -- today, tomorrow and every day.
Photo by Mark David Gerson: Sunrise over the Sandias
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