Mary and I occasionally utilize our Blog to remind readers that life is ten-percent what happens to us and ninety-percent how we react to it. Granted, there are a fair number of items that appear to be coming all at once over the past two years, most out of our control and some of considerable consequence—coronavirus, health, finances, climate change, political polarization, etc. Each needs its own response. But we can choose our attitude and response to each. And, with care on each, we can be part of the solution vs. part of the problem.
So, what might all of this have to do with Thanksgiving? Mary’s and my reply is . . . “Everything!” The fourth Thursday of each November offers us an annual choice: Are we thankful? And, if so, for what? And, do circumstances permit sharing that thankfulness with family and friends? For most, this Thanksgiving (as it may have been last year) is markedly different from previous Thanksgivings due to the inability to be close with family and/or friends. For some, this Thanksgiving will not include a family member or friend who has succumbed to Covid 19. These times can be trying for all. Yet, these times offer each of us the opportunity to identify the items for which we are thankful and how we wish to celebrate each.
You readers may have written about this at some point in the past. This may be a good time to dust that writing off and share it with others. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a piece on this that we’ve dusted off and wish to share with you here:
The Harvest Moon
It is the Harvest Moon! On guilded vanes
And roofs of villages, on woodland crests
And their aerial neighborhood of nests
Deserted, on the curtained-window panes
Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes
And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!
Gone are the birds that were our summer guests
With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!
All things are symbols: the external shows
Of Nature have their image in the mind,
As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;
The song-birds leave us at the summer’s close,
Only the empty nests are left behind,
And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow circa 1876
Our life is how we live it. The occasion is what we make it. Our wish for you is a Very Thankful Thanksgiving!
Love, Mary & Forrest
