Grateful

This is no traditional Thanksgiving. Everyone I’ve talked with has spent at least one holiday–Thanksgiving or Christmas–on their own. And for various reasons, this looks to be mine.

Yet I feel wonderfully at peace. To a great extent, I chose this for 2012, and I know the space and quiet this year exist only so that in future years, it can be filled with something better. Truer. Warmer.

Family.

Someday.

So this Thanksgiving, I am deeply grateful for many things. But here’s my top ten for 2012, in no particular order:

Dance
My friends
My students, or fellow-learners as the Taoists would say
Hope–that “thing with feathers / That perches in the soul / And sings the tune–without the words / And never stops at all.” That indomitable, unquenchable spirit that keeps each one of us going in dark times–sometimes for no reason we can see. Yet.
Freedom of speech and expression–not so that I can say whatever I want, but so that I can participate in a global democracy of ideas, a free exchange of thought that invites me to see the world in new ways
The literature that embodies that democracy of ideas, from Shakespeare to Walter Mosley, Jane Austen to Larry McMurtry, and that bring solace, entertainment, joy to the human experience.
Music, for doing much the same.
Love–of all kinds–for its capacity to generate growth and illuminate life
Electric space heaters, because damn if it isn’t cold this November
And you–for reading this.