Thanksgiving

Giving thanks is often overlooked, trivialized, or is profound and fulfilling. It’s something I  know I don’t do often enough. 

An artist friend and I were knee deep in conversation the other day - and managed to move into memories of early days in our art adventures.  She told of being encouraged by a friend to have a first ever showing of her art. She said that she couldn’t afford to pay to frame the paintings and he subsidized the framing and the show.  It was a huge success and from there, she took bold moves in her art and in her life.

“I thanked him then,” she said, “but I’m only now realizing, he changed the course of my life.”

We celebrated  our Arizona Thanksgiving Day on Thursday. Ten of us - a small band of people away from the relatives we are traditionally taught to feast with. Eight of us had Nova Scotia connections - Nova Scotia lives.  Our neighbors who joined us visited once in Tidnish, so we counted that as a Nova Scotia connection - making it 100 %.

I felt moved to toast - “ When you don’t have family close by, you make a family.  Today, we’re family”.  We shared the traditional foods made by all of us, and decided this family could really cook!

At the end of day, we were all standing together and one friend was patting our old dog, Baxter, and saying some lovely things about him. I added that I thought it was wonderful  that at his age (15) he still loved being with everyone, in the middle of things.

“I know,” she said.  “He came to the bathroom with me.”  

Now that’s family!