A Month of Thanksgivings

First, let me salute everyone writing their hearts out for National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoWriMo. I tried it a couple of years ago and failed miserably, though I did last about 6 days and made a little headway with a story I've been toying with for years. Go forth and write. May you last 30 days and 50,000 words.

In lieu of my writing the Great American Novel this month, I will concentrate on thankfulness. I won't hold myself to 50,000 words about what I'm thankful for and my thanksgivings won't be in any sort of order. No, just random things - the great and the small - that make me grateful for living every day.

I see I'm a day behind and should've started this list yesterday. Let's blame it on Halloween-hangover. So I'll catch up with two big thanks today.

First:  I am so very thankful that I can read. I take it for granted, never giving it a second thought. But, oh, how much joy reading gives me! Beyond the necessary task of reading just to function in the world, reading lets me think, dream, imagine, wonder about worlds I know and worlds I don't know. That learning ABCs can lead to complex, creative thought and feeling is miraculous. For books and stories and treatises and articles, whether bound or electronic, for authors and dream-weavers and storytellers and truth-tellers, for the basic, magical ability to read - I give thanks.

Second: I give thanks for the colors of autumn. Nature transforms herself in every season, but the last hurrah of the year is just glorious. The leaves are beautiful in the bright sunlight, as well as in the dark rain. As a warning to my family and friends, I hope that the colors of autumn are a metaphor for life, and that I become more brilliantly colorful as I approach the end. And now, I shall go out on this beautiful day and celebrate the colors of autumn, giving thanks all along the way.

Life is good. I'm thankful.