
My son, Kung Fu Panda, sits in the bathtub singing as he stacks plastic shapes into a rocket. "Three, two, one... blast off!" he says, then lifts the blocks into the air with a whooshing noise. I am thankful for sitting here, watching him from the toilet, a laptop balanced on crossed legs, my back poked by hard porcelain.
I am thankful for the cloud of white cat hairs scruffed onto my laptop desk by my one healthy, well-behaved, clean kitty.
I am thankful for radio stations that spit static on the long ride from Central Pennsylvania to home, and for my son whining in the back seat that he misses his cousins.
I am thankful for clothes that are tight one moment and loose the next, for a body that can't decide what size it wants to be but contains a heart that beats fervently.
I am thankful for the employer who told my husband two months ago that he would eliminate his position at the end of November, then signed him to a much smaller support contract. I am thankful for the new employer, waiting in the wings with a tantalizing second interview (this Tuesday) and hopes of new stability to come.
I am thankful that, despite all the chaos left behind in my late mother's house, she tucked our family mementos -- photos, her writings, her art -- into carefully selected safe hideaways.
I am thankful for a family that can come together from all corners of the country and spend two weeks together, grieving, supporting, sharing and remembering.
I am thankful for a Thanksgiving table where the food was a pale memory of Mom's cooking but the faces around the table were those of my greatest living loves.
I am thankful for every inconvenient, troubling, annoying, nagging aspect of my life, for underneath that web of dust pulses the vivid, peaceful, glorious beauty of every single moment.