Thankful Thursday: Moved to Good Cheer

It's been a grim week. Hearts are heavy with the mass shooting of children, with the sudden death of poet Jake Adam York, and with a strain of flu that has hit unusually hard this winter. In all this, the thread of thankfulness that stitches the season with hope and joy feels rather thin and tenuous.

And still, it is Christmas. We have our symbols, our traditions, our touchstones. For me, it's Silent Night. I'm not sentimental but that song tears me up. Usually, it hits me while I'm driving alone at night along a quiet road. A distant radio station plays a static version of Silent Night, and I am overcome with a melancholy ache.

Sometimes I am among others, in a crowd, when the song flattens me — while mumble-singing at church, or while buying milk at the market.

It's a lonely sort of lump-in-the-throat.

Once, I broke down at the Dollar Store. I was ambling down the aisles of cheap plastic baubles when Silent Night played over the din of harried shoppers. Overwhelmed with the season, I rushed from the store holding back a sob.

The other night, at Seashore Family Literacy, a small group of youngsters offered an impromptu concert to a mix of proud parents and restless siblings. Beaming and happy, the children belted out their favorites and valiantly mumbled through tougher terrain. All the while, their joy, their effort, was contagious. When the earnest young ones sang Silent Night, I was lifted from my state of ache and moved to good cheer.

Thank you Seashore singers for allowing Christmas spirit to trump a string of dark days.

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places, things and more. Joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude. What makes your world expand? What are you thankful for today?

 

Winter, this muteness

Hold on, a friend says, light will return. Oh, these December days of long dark and little light. In this season — when the heart is heavy, the body chilled — I cling to her refrain.

December

Too long alone again and words clutter,

hover behind my clenched teeth, my mouth

no longer sure what slight adjustments equal speech.

My tongue is the petal of a tulip touched by front.

My throat, in the next year, will belong to the hawk

or the fat, black garden snake lying dormant

now in the crawlspace beneath the house.

Winter is made of this muteness and these windows

and the long view of white fields through icy glass

where nothing moves and nothing raises its voice.

— Sandy Longhorn
from Blood Almanac

5 Great Novels of 2012

After a rough patch in which every book I read left me with an underwhelming sense of "eh," I'm happy to announce the literary lethargy has passed. In this last month I have enjoyed a joyous rush of really good books. Mind if I share my favorites?

5 Great Novels of 2012  

The Orchardist
by Amanda Coplin
A spare and moving story set at the turn of the century in the Pacific Northwest. A masterful debut in both character and pace.

Beautiful Ruins
by Jess Walter
An Italian history and a modern Hollywood combine for an engaging love story.

Rules of Civility
by Amor Towles
Set in 1930s New York, this fictionalized tale of money, opportunity and social circles is both energetic and touching — and a loving tribute to a glorious city.

The Shore Girl
by Fran Kimmel
Glass Castle meets Ghostbread in this story of lives on the edge, written with clarity and perception by an author who smartly skips the cloying sentimentality that often infuses this topic.

All the Dancing Birds
by Auburn McCanta
In this hand-me-the-hanky fiction, the narrator — a woman with Alzheimer's — shares the story of her eroding mind.

How's your reading life? What's on your shelf, or your mind? What book grabbed you and won't let go?

I've had this meal

Anthony's Diner

Yes, to the fresh
blueberry cobbler
even though I'm not
hungry and it will
double my bill,
because I'm on the verge
of tears and can't finish
my egg salad sandwich,
because this waitress
who never smiles,
whose eyes are hard
from seeing,
has somehow noticed
my sadness
and when she offers the cobbler
there is that other thing in it—
she and I, part of that small
black tepee of crows
I saw on the road this morning,
all business, sharing this beautiful violent day.

— Diane Swan
from the 2012 Women Artists Datebook

Thankful Thursday: Hang On Lil' Tomato

It's time again for Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause for gratitude. Go ahead, take a moment to appreciate the big things (life, love) and small things (books, breakfast) and the assortment of people, places & things inbetween.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for Pink Martini, a quirky but elegantly cool band from Portland, Oregon that mixes, mashes and dishes up delightful tunes such as the one above. 

Hang On Little Tomato

The sun has left and forgotten me
It's dark, I cannot see
Why does this rain pour down
I'm gonna drown
In a sea
Of deep confusion

Somebody told me, I don't know who
Whenever you are sad and blue
And you're feelin' all alone and left behind
Just take a look inside and you will find

You gotta hold on, hold on through the night
Hang on, things will be all right
Even when it's dark
And not a bit of sparkling
Sing-song sunshine from above
Spreading rays of sunny love

Just hang on, hang on to the vine
Stay on, soon you'll be divine
If you start to cry, look up to the sky
Something's coming up ahead
To turn your tears to dew instead

And so I hold on to his advice
When change is hard and not so nice
You listen to your heart the whole night through
Your sunny someday will come one day soon to you

— Pink Martini

Join me, won't you? Gratitude, like people, gains strength with a bit of appreciation. Please share your Thankful Thursday thoughts in the comment section below, or on your very own blog, facebook page, twitter account, school locker, cubicle wall, bathroom mirror . . .