Simple Gifts

Oh, I'm just so gloomy today. Hardly appropriate for thankgiving. So, in honor of the day, a list of things I'm thankful for:

1. My writing window looks out at ground level. This part of our apartment, towards the front of the house, is partially below ground, so I look out at the garden at the garden's own perspecive, flush with the clover and well beneath the roses. It reminds me of when I was a kid, and loved looking at things from underwater. The simplest change of persoective does so much sometimes.

2. Brian is a wonder. He's talented and educated and possesses a native intelligence about the workings of things that puts my absentminded movements through the world to shame. Plus, as my mother noted this past summer, "he's very good-looking" (and now my mother's blushing).

3. We got fresh herbs in our CSA box this week, and the kitchen smells like a holiday.

4. I have a wonderful mentor at school (the word 'mentor' seems bandied about a lot in buisiness contexts these days, but to me it'll always be the goddess Athena appearing in disguise to Telemachus). He's got me teaching Latin next semester, and is almost entirely responsible for the rest of my teaching career as well.

5. The cat is fat, and likes to lie next to me, snoring.

6. I've got more good books to read right now than I know what to do with. Some I can't mention because they're Christmas presents to be (I have to make sure they're good before I go giving them away after all), but they are, each one of them, so satisfying and fascinating in their own right that I'm having trouble deciding which one to pick up next, and so just keep handling each one in turn.

7. My family is far away, but I know they love me.


Seven seems a good number. Happy thanksgiving everyone!