Gee whiz, hello, you! How are you? I've been here, there, and everywhere, and all of it was just lovely. I so wanted to be organized enough to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving on time, but the days seemed to evaporate; I sincerely hope your holiday weekend was like ours was, filled with good food and quiet joys and loved ones and all of the precious beauties that belong to this season and this season alone. This morning it was ice-cold, silver-gray, and the air was filled with woodsmoke. I stopped to get a hot chai and a cinnamon bun to munch in the car on my way to jury duty. When my name wasn't called and it was clear I and almost everyone else was dismissed, my heart leaped like a toy on a tight spring, and I drove back through the frosty morning feeling free and full of delight and gratitude, again. The rare gift of a free day at the end of a long weekend of gifts. I am so grateful for my blessings. I try to count them and I get choked up, and cannot speak. A world of wonders, daily. My heart is full.
Leaves crunch, wind swirls, birds huddle. Our big baby girl is talking, talking, suddenly opinionated, thrillingly swift, picking up words and letters and numbers so fast and so suddenly, all spoken in her sweet, lisping, earnest, excited trill. It's almost constant, this bird-like chatter, and oh, it is wonderful. Her eyes shine as she realizes she is understood, sees that she can participate in the conversation. She talks about things I don't even notice, and as I listen hard and try to understand her (because it's still quite tangled and laced with sounds I attempt to parse) so many times it turns out that she is talking about something I was totally oblivious of: The moon in the daytime sky! A leaf that fits just like a hat! Three trees that look like daddy, mommy, and baby! So many things I didn't see until she told me to look. I had no idea it would be this exciting and charming and funny and delightful and really, just utterly incredible, watching someone learn to talk. It's like magic, for all of us, effervescent and full of bubbles popping, glittering the freezing air.
Peace be with you, and joy, this blessed season. And magic. And great love. Xoxoxoxo.
