Thanks-giving

[Along the Pacific coast, November 2011.]

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety—

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light—
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

~Mary Oliver

I am thankful for this rainy day.
I am thankful for this beautiful state in which I live.
I am thankful for this good food, that I have enough when so many do not.
I am thankful for my friends and family.
I am thankful for sweet dogs.
I am thankful for the Pacific Ocean (and all the oceans of the world).
I am thankful for pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies.
I am thankful for KFOX (and classic rock in general).
I am thankful for my unfailingly nice and lovely husband who also never fails to make me laugh or fetch me a cup of tea in the morning.
I am thankful for that most of my meal today originated within 100 miles of where I sit right now.
I am thankful for my two wonderful San Francisco farmers’ markets, both within walking distance of my house.
I am thankful that I had a fun and awesome wedding and I am equally as thankful that it. is. over.
I am thankful for coffee (always). And also! Pots of tea.
I am thankful running and I are friends again.
I am thankful for possibility
I am thankful for Maine in winter and summer, too.
I am thankful for tomatoes in season, butternut squash pureed with maple syrup, and organic potato chips.
I am thankful for this life.

[In the woods, November 2011.]

* Today, Thanksgiving, is one of my one of my very favorite days of the year, mainly because it combines two things very close to my heart: food (and the cooking of it) of course, as well as the giving of thanks — or, really, the feeling grateful-for. Is there a better feeling in the world than gratitude? (OK maybe love, but that’s something better suited to February ruminations and anyway I sort of think the two are closely related.)

Some days I swear I wake up simply grateful to be, cozy and quiet tucked up in my comfortable bed with the morning grey-light filtering through the windows, knowing I have good food to eat for breakfast, and, if I’m particularly lucky, a Sunday morning New York Times waiting for me downstairs. I mean, of course there are those days I rise on the wrong side of the bed and burn my toast or drink green tea because I’m out of milk and there is just no way I can drink my coffee without milk or cream. Of course there are those days. But in general I know I have it pretty good and I try not to take it for granted.

This morning it's drippy and softly grey in West Marin, and we are going to make a cup of delicious coffee and take the dog up into the woods through the pine trees and back down again down the trail with a view of Tomales Bay to the left. I'll come home and pull out the sweet potato-tahini dip, the cauliflower soup, the smoked salmon, the roasted butternut squash. I'll drizzle olive oil over the turkey and slip it into the oven, crack open a bottle of sparkling wine to mix with pear nectar and pomegranate seeds, nibble a pumpkin cookie, and cross fingers this next year proves just as delicious and full of surprises as the last.

Happy Thanksgiving.

*Wishing you lots of good food, friends, and family today and every day.