Thanksgiving

Hostess gift from Cindy - lovely autumn colours

I think the concept of Thanksgiving Day is a good one.  So good that I try each day to find something to be grateful for, even when things are not going well.  Sometimes it's being grateful that things aren't worse!  Over the summer and my recent health issues it was getting very hard to find those small blessings and receiving these lovely towels as a hostess gift from Cindy touched me deeply.  Woven on the same warp with two different weft colours makes them siblings, not twins.

I love having textiles woven by other people.  We have quite a collection now of tea towels and each time I pull one from the drawer to use - because I do use them! - I remember the person who made them, which brings them close, as though a little of their essence has come to live with me.

So today I will remember all the things I am grateful for.  The sun is shining after several days of cloudy windy days.  The season is waning and winter is approaching but for now we have a lovely autumn day with a little colour still on the trees.  The gusty wind yesterday took more of the colour down and rain is predicted for the coming week.

I still enjoy the roll of the seasons as the days go by.  Even if the winters have been dark and dreary for the past few years.  The cold and short winter days make the summers all the sweeter, I think.  If every day was perfect, a lovely day would be less special?  Or perhaps not.

Thanksgiving comes earlier in Canada than the US.  I think the distance from now to Christmas helps make each 'holiday' a little more special, although that may just be because I was raised in Canada and it has always been this way for me.

Today we will take mom out for dinner.  Neither of us feels capable of cooking a big meal.  I'm content to have someone else to the cooking - and even better - the cleaning up!  We will have a quiet appreciation that we are here, still able to feel gratitude.  It's been a challenging time for us since my brother died in 2008.  But I'm still here, so I guess that means there is more I need to do, something still to accomplish?

It is the mystery of life.  What's it all about, anyway?  I don't know.  I just know that I am still here, still able to weave, maybe even help other new weavers to a better understanding the the craft.

I don't mind being 'old'.  I do mind terribly getting decrepit!  But that is life.  We come, we learn, we do our best.  As to what comes afterwards?  Well, no one can see behind the veil.  All we can do is the best we can in the here and now....