Thanks Giving

Some things I am thankful for:

•   our lovely little home, its coziness, its solidness, everything it has offered us in security, safety, and containing (barely) our love and hijinks

•   my family: those here: Spitfire, Boy Wonder, Bug, and Gpa; those not: Geeps and Gma, Mimi and Magic, Nana Banana (wherever you are), Keen

•   butterflies birds & bees, and other critters

•   sunshine, almost every day of the year

•   the cat, who tears up the furniture but has put up with us all these long years and loves her little boy

•   the dog, who hears no more and has slowed in her gittalong, but has been my co-pilot for 16 years and has eyes for no one but me

•   the bird girls, who give me eggs everyday tho I promise them nothing

•   good neighbors, who I hesitate to ever leave, tho the house grows ever smaller

•   Gpa, who helps me out and keeps me company, and his presence the thing we never knew we were lacking that makes our family tree sturdier rooted in this desert’s harsh soil

•   Bug, who has brought me this far and I’d be lost without, who keeps me grounded and allows me to soar, who gives me the craziest gifts like these here young’uns

•   Spitfire, who keeps me on my toes and conspires with me to lofty heights (nothing is beyond your reach), and animates my world

•   Boy Wonder, who populates it with sound effects and who shows surprising sensitivity and thoughtfulness, taking care of those older than him, and is always interested in the same geeky things I am (geography, puzzles, Legos, trains, Star Wars…)

•   books, their writers, their pages, their printers and publishers and agents and all the business that goes into getting them on library shelves and into our waiting hands and minds

•   art, in all its forms, even if it’s disturbing and I don’t want to look at it, and those brave or brazen who make it

•   my hands, that help me care for those around me and make art and write when I can muster it

•   technology, that brings together communities and information to seekers, despite its many flaws

•   trees, grass, crops and all things green, growing & beautiful

•   water, that nourishes all this, the earth, our food, us

•   food, the hands who make it, the hands who grow it, the warmth a lovingly prepared meal gives the house

•   health, the good health of my family and friends, and access to great healthcare, including so many amazing professionals we’ve been lucky enough to find, who help us care for ourselves and others

•   community, those we gather around us, good friends, budding and potential friends, the energy we give and get back

•   work, the purpose it gives us and the security it gives back

•   ideas, those we can’t shake and those that shake us up

•   beauty, which I can’t seem to escape, tho admittedly I don’t try

A Story Written to Introduce My Daughter to Her 1st Grade Class

Once upon a time there was a girl named Spitfire who loved books.  She read morning, noon, and night.  She read mythology at the breakfast table, stories about magic on the drive to school, and long sagas involving princesses, horses, and dragons late into the night.  Sometimes she even sprinkled letters into her cereal by accident and ate them.  When she finished a story, she would open her magical box of costumes, and coax her brother to act out the stories.  He became a valiant prince or guard, she a heroic queen or wicked witch.  They’d sneak to the kitchen where their mother, a poor wench of a kitchen maid, was toiling over boiling pots, and snatch her away from her servitude to join their adventures.

Now, Spitfire loved stories not just because they were magical and came alive for her, but also because they taught her about the world, about things she might never see or experience on her own.  After all, she was just a young girl who lived in a small house with her smallish family in a cozy neighborhood in the city.  There was a lot to see there, but it was just a fraction of what was out in the big wide world, and all the history of the globe before us.  What could she know about the life of a frontier family settling the Great Plains or a French orphan gamboling around the streets of Paris?  How could she imagine the feats of the young god struggling to become a hero in the shadow of Mount Olympus, or the wishes granted by a magical genie who pops out of an ancient lamp?  Through books, she could learn all about the vast and endless world, and know all the most interesting characters.  She could even learn how to solve problems.

The heroes of the girl’s stories, and sometimes even the villains, became her best friends.  She loved them infinitely.  And she also loved her real friends with every tiny chamber of her heart.  One day, Spitfire’s friend Isabelle had a problem and couldn’t figure out what to do.  She was terribly sad.  Spitfire listened to Isabelle (which is sometimes the best thing you can do for a friend) and really wanted to help her so she would be happy again.  Neither of them knew the answer.  Spitfire thought and thought, but she had never tackled a problem like this before, and problem solving takes practice.  She was starting to despair, too, when a glimmer of a thought struck her—she suddenly remembered when a character in one of her books (a princess, no less) had a similar problem, and remembered exactly what the princess’s friends had done to help her.  In fact, she and her brother had acted out that very scene while careening over the beds and leaping over the old dog in their very own house.  And she had a wonderful idea.

Instead of explaining to Isabelle how to solve her problem, Spitfire invited her friend to delve into the magical box of costumes.  They got dressed in the most splendid dresses they could find, donned their most comfortable shoes—for adventures called for rugged footwear—and armed themselves with any tools they might need for their saga, including a trusty plastic sword for each (you never know when a princess and her maid might encounter a villain—and though, of course, it’s best to solve problems with your words, it’s also best to be prepared—those villains are awfully hard to convince).  Then Spitfire helped Isabelle act out the solution to her problem, and they had a wild adventure, to boot.  Isabelle was so relieved to find a way to solve her problem, and Spitfire was proud to have been able to help.

When Isabelle went home, Spitfire settled into her favorite reading spot with a new book and got so engrossed in the story she couldn’t put it down, even when her mom called her to come to dinner.  They finally had to come to a compromise—that Spitfire could come to dinner dressed in full armor, no matter how much she clanked at the table, and she could go back to her story when they were through.

 Poster for the song "The Princess Who Saved Herself"

by Jonathan Coulton (a favorite song for our daily school commute)