Welcome, Donaya Haymond

Gratitude: A Poem

Walt Whitman once said that laughing flesh was enough. Good company was enough - Assuming you like the company, it is so. Epicurus said that friendship, adequate shelter and food,freedom and time for thought, that is enough... How his name grew associated with gold-plated spoons is one of histories little ironies.

The Beatles posited that love is all you need, which clearly is oversimplifying the matter: Romeo and Juliet had love but their raging hormones, and sense of melodrama and entitlement led to singularly stupid ends,and if you are speaking of a more general, charitable love,how happy do you think the average humanitarian is with always another unfortunate to help, and billions more beyond
her reach?

The mind plays a cruel trick upon our psyches, where it adjusts your expectations so that the pariah may feel atop the world when given a smile and the prizewinner droop upon receiving the silver one is tempted to find fault with the unsatisfied winner, to tell the truth any one of us would have felt the same, including a leper you passed on the streets of Kolkata,given treatment, emotional support, and a few years of wealth,give anyone a CEO’s pay for a decade and they scream when it is reduced by a tenth.

We are living in a matrix not of computer simulation but of a masquerade we ourselves create, not letting the true wonder of the world in there is so much of it we could annihilate our intellects, replaced by constant agape and ‘mazement.

So today I would like to be grateful for the moments when the deception slipped a little, when I felt your hand envelope mine,
when I trotted to my room with an armful of fairy tales,when I put on my contacts and saw the stars with renewed clarity when I stopped reading and talking and listening to music and ate my gooey apple cobbler with my eyes shut,letting the trills of brown sugar dissolve in my tongue, no barrier of inattention between us.

You don’t have to believe someone is at the other end saying "Thank you" keeps your eyes open a little longer.

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Donaya Haymond
http://sites.google.com/site/legendsoflaconiausa/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/manage/?act=46206608#/pages/Donaya-Haymond/193150455153

Welcome, Tiranth

Hello everyone! I'm Antonia Tiranth but most everyone just calls me Tir. I want to thank Ginger first of all for being so kind as to host me on her blog. She offered awhile ago and usually I have a blog entry ready to go but this one took me awhile to think up. What am I thankful for? Well, of course there are the obvious things: my health, my job, my family, etc, etc. I've said many times in many places about how I'm thankful to Delilah K. Stephans for being my writing buddy and kicking my butt when it needs to be kicked. I'm thankful for my sister in spirit Elle and my fiance for being my rapid fans. But there is one thing I've never mentioned being thankful for and I'm really surprised he hasn't called me up on this. I am exceedingly and for always thankful for my muse.

A tiny purple dragon appears with a squeak. Tir's Muse : Me?

Yes, you. Thank you Shir for being my muse.

The dragon looks stunned for a long moment and then lifts his head proudly

*laughs* I know, I usually post about wanting to turn him into a giant hippo or how I'd love to tear his little scaly wings off but without him where would I be? Yes, I have many files of unfinished stories and sometimes I run head first into walls but with Shir, my world would be a dull place. Shir brings me worlds of my own to play with and so many interesting people to talk to. Not only that, from what my muse has brought me, I've met many wonderful authors and made many new friends.

Shir looks quite smug.

He's going to be unbearable for months now but it was long over due. And now I'm off to find something else I'm very thankful for...pumpkin pie and a huge dollop of Cool-Whip.

I love hearing from everyone so please stop by my website. I'm also on twitter and facebook.

Thanks again Ms. Ginger for letting me and Shir stop by.

Welcome, Janet Elizabeth Jones

The "I" in Gratitude


First thing I need to be thankful about is the opportunity to post here today. So, thank you, Ginger!

I told Ginger I was going to come here today counting my blessings. I'll spare you the itemization. It's a lengthy list, and you have treasured blessings of your own to be glad for. And when it all comes down to it, my list and your list would probably tally up pretty much the same, and I think it's safe to say, it would be the same for our fellow human beings throughout the world. That's the thing about gratitude. It's a human thing. It's also like a garden. It has to be cultivated.

I was trying to be clever with the title of this post and say that. Not sure I managed it, but the three ideas I'm striving for is that gratitude is, like every other human emotion, a state of mind. As such, it's as unique to each of us as our individual self-perception, and it's a choice each of us make, every single day, just like anything else in life.

In fewer words (never easy for us writers), I realize that in order for me to be the "I" in gratitude, I, as an individual, must consciously decide to be as mindful as I can be of all I have to be thankful for.

In other words, I have to get over myself and be grateful.Grateful that I'm here. Grateful that you're here. Grateful that there is a "here" for us to share. Grateful that we have time and opportunity and intelligence and perseverance to make this "here" the very best "here" we can share, the best we can pass on to those who come after us.

For many of you today, in this moment, faced as you may be with grief, pain, illness, relentless expenses, ailing dear ones, uncertain futures and unemployment, this decision will call upon every ounce of personal strength and fortitude you have in you. If you find yourself in such a situation, and you are able to be grateful in spite of it, then I hope you know, you're exhibiting one of the most remarkable and beautiful things about being human that humanity can show. And gratitude in the face of such hardships, as you probably already know, brings with it its own rewards.

And you already know, too, that gratitude is a state of mind, like joy, and peace, and humility, and also like anger, envy, and greed. Either we carry it with us, or we don't. It's a choice we make, as individuals, and we share it with others by expressing it, just like a smile. We may not always see the difference we make when we show our gratitude, but I like to think it makes the day brighter, even if we don't see it right away. For one thing, I believe being grateful is good for me, regardless, and saying "thank you" makes me feel right with myself and the world. Because it's not all about me. And it's not all about you. It's all about all of us, together, making individual decisions to create as peaceful, safe and happy a world as we can.

And it starts by being grateful. The reason it has to start there is because when we see what all we have to be thankful for, we realize how precious--and fragile--life is, and that makes us want to protect it, to cherish each other and to make the time we spend here mean something.

There's no telling what might happen if suddenly, we all woke up and decided to be grateful together. Oh, hold on. Yeah. Here in America, it's called Thanksgiving Day.

Unhappily, that holiday is sometimes overshadowed, because being thankful doesn't sell TVs, dishwashers, stadium seats, tires, toys, cars, Christmas trees, diamond rings, thigh masters, Ginzu knives, Spiderman decoder rings or any of the other things that we like to play with and own and feel good about adding to our existence. Sure enough, in our consumer society, gratitude doesn't pay and being thankful just doesn't sell a thing.

Well, except for turkeys and those yummy sweet potatoes that Mother bakes in the oven and puts marshmallows on top of. Slurp. And then there's the apple salad... :)

But if we notice Thanksgiving Day being overshadowed, if not downright skipped over, during our holiday season, we can still keep it alive in our hearts. Because, look, families still gather together and observe whatever the holiday means to them, and this in itself is a tribute to the importance of being thankful.
It's just that, this month, which is set aside as a time of thankfulness, we're going to find ourselves challenged and distracted on all sides by things (or the pursuit of them), situations and many tribulations.

But in our hearts, and in our ways, we can make the decision to be grateful, and we can show others the appreciation that will, in turn, make them grateful they got out of bed today.

Even if your thanks goes unacknowledged, it's a good thing in itself. It carries with it nothing less than the power to heal in cosmic proportions, because being grateful is another way to love, and loving others overcomes strangleholds of old emotions left too long, turns curses into blessings, brings what's broken back together, and best of all, brings each of us home to ourselves and makes us realize what it really means to be human and alive.
So, thank you. :)

Janet Elizabeth Jones
www.janetejones.com

Welcome, Barbara Romo

Fall is here!

Okay, I know you Northerners are shaking your heads because autumn officially arrived weeks ago, but seasons change a bit differently down here on the Border. No doubt you, too, look for signs outside the arbitrary number assigned to a certain point in time. That touch of crispness in the air carrying a faint scent of wood smoke, schoolchildren bundled in wool skirts and team jackets, trees bursting into the rich reds and glorious golds of their final show of the year. Maybe even a snowflake or two...

In Laredo, Texas, we have none of that. Well, it's true we've grown so accustomed to the hundred-plus degree days lasting from late April into October, when those first 70 degree days finally hit we have a tendency to reach for the lone hoodie lurking in the back of the closet. But our smoke comes from a barbecue grill, our palm trees don't change color, and a snowflake would seriously stop traffic.

What we do have is butterflies. Clouds of them, yellow and orange and brown, dancing around your legs as you walk, clinging to the bricks on the wall beside the sidewalk, forming drunken tidal waves across the roads until you despair of being able to drive slowly enough not to send handfuls to butterfly heaven. They're our sign of fall - delicate little "leaves" with a mind of their own, here for a week or three, then gone, leaving nothing behind to rake or bag or mulch.

When my husband and I moved to Laredo four years ago, it was to be an adventure, an opportunity to learn more about the culture of my husband's family, who immigrated from Mexico to the U.S. nearly a century ago. But I wasn’t expecting the culture shock. Raised in Dallas and having spent the first half of my married life in Houston, moving to Laredo, for me, was like emigrating to a foreign country.

Things have often not been what they seem – like the ice cream truck that sells Frito Pie and sweet, icy raspas instead of the predictable Popsicles & chocolate-covered treats we were expecting. Other things have been wonderful discoveries, like the frozen bars on a stick at the local paleteria, where artificial flavors, colors and non-dairy substances are scorned in favor of chunks of ripe mango or coconut or pineapple frozen in real cream. And even on the hottest days, someone on a corner somewhere in town has fired up a grill and will be selling home-cooked five-dollar steak, bean and rice plates to support their church, their school, their political campaign, or maybe just a neighbor who needs help getting to San Antonio for their cancer treatments.

We’ve heard local musicians so stunning their audience momentarily forgets to clap, and eaten soup so good it's worth fighting for a parking meter in the eighteenth-century-wide downtown streets, just to stand in line outside a restaurant that doesn’t even bother to put up an sign.

The deer are so comfortable at the local university, the does tuck their offspring to bed on the lawn in the middle of campus, and the tiny fawns, eyes wide, watch cell-phone chatting students trudge by on their way to class mere feet away. And the human families are so important they do everything together, which means the dozen people ahead of you at the express checkout lane probably is just one person picking up milk and you'll be out of the store in far less time than you think.

Like the hero in my book, I’ve been an alien in a strange new land, but I’m glad to have been here. I'm thankful I learned how to see the butterflies.

Barbara Romo
Undercover Alien – CrescentMoonPress
www.barbararomo.com

Welcome, Elaine Cantrell

I like Thanksgiving. Sometimes it seems to get lost between Halloween and Christmas, but it doesn’t at my house. Ginger asked us to think of some favorite Thanksgiving memories, but right off the bat that sounded hard to me. There are so many! I found, though, as I sat down to think, that for me Thanksgiving is associated with having the people I love around me.

Don’t get me wrong; I have an entire list of things to be thankful for, especially this year. For one thing, and it’s a big thing to me, I have a lung condition that has responded beautifully to treatment. I’m able to do things now that I haven’t really felt like doing in years. The doctors say I’ll probably improve a little more too! So, yeah, that’s really something to be thankful for.

I’m also thankful that for now at least all of my family members have kept their jobs. In today’s economy I know that isn’t always the case.

My sister who lives in Alaska is coming home December 14th and visiting until the middle of January. I haven’t seen her in five or six years now, so I’m thrilled and so very grateful about that.

I’m also grateful that my last book, The Best Selling Toy Of The Season, has done well. It makes you feel good when that happens.

Uh oh. The list of things to be thankful for keeps getting longer and longer, but like I said before, for me Thanksgiving is about the people I love. One of my favorite Thanksgiving memories happened about fifteen years ago. For a time my husband worked out of state while I stayed in South Carolina to keep the kids in school. I’ll never forget how my heart surged toward him when he walked in the door on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. He had a big box with him, and when I opened it I found a little decorated Christmas tree. I had mentioned that I needed something to put on the dining room table during Christmas, and when he saw the little tree he liked it and got it for me. I still use that tree even though it looks a little ratty now. It was really cold that year. I remember how he brought the cold in with him and smelled like fresh, crisp air. I remember how the kids swarmed over him too. He had three full days with us, and since it was the beginning of the holiday it seemed like we’d have forever to be together.

I felt pretty much the same way when my son came home for Thanksgiving when he was in the military. He was stationed in South Korea, and we hadn’t seen him in oh, maybe nine months or so. When we picked him up at the airport he looked so trim and wonderful it brought tears to my eyes. That particular Thanksgiving does have one sad memory associated with it. My son’s dog, Bonnie, had cancer, and we were trying to wait until he could get home to see her once more before we did what we had to do. He did get to see Bonnie, and I think he felt better about her death because he got to say goodbye.

Other Thanksgiving memories? My step-sister, whom I love, baking two turkeys without telling me. I baked one too, and we only had sixteen people coming to dinner. My granddaughter jumping up and down and begging to get the Christmas tree out so we could put it up next day. My grandson throwing a roll at my husband. (He was only two.) My father refusing to eat pumpkin pie because he didn’t like it. He admitted he’d never tasted it. My mother getting miffed because my mother-in-law’s turkey tasted better than hers. My husband and I getting our picture in the paper because we went shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving. We had a list which impressed the photographer. (Yeah, that was a crazy thing to do, but we had fun.)

Okay, I’m getting nostalgic here so this is a good place to stop. I hope each and every one of you has a beautiful holiday season surrounded by the people you love. And if you’re in the market for a Christmas story let me put in a plug for The Best Selling Toy Of The Season. You can get it at http://www.midnightshowcase.com or at Amazon.

Thanks, Ginger, for the invitation. I love coming here.

Elaine Cantrell
http://www.elainecantrell.com
http://www.elainepcantrell.blogspot.com

Welcome, Janis Susan May

Giving Thanks – An Outdated Custom?

Mention Thanksgiving and our heads fill with visions of family gatherings with surfeits of turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes (with or without marshmallows) and pumpkin pie, generally preceded and followed by football, football and more football. All well and good, but how many of us actually believe the day is more an occasion for gratitude than for gluttony or sport?

Like it or not, we live in a culture that believes in entitlement – we should have all we want because we deserve to have all we want. By that thought process, wanting equates deserving. Why should we feel thankful for what we feel we are supposed to have?

I find that specious reasoning. Just because we feel we deserve – on whatever grounds – something, does not mean we should or will get it. Nothing is guaranteed in this life, not even life itself beyond this moment, which makes everything a gift. Weren’t we all taught as children to say ‘thank you’ for a gift?

On a personal level, I am thankful for so many things – for a loving family who taught me so many things – for a kind and patient husband who supports me in every way possible – for friends who make this world a much better place to live in – for good health and an ever-increasing projected life span – for having been born in a free, capitalistic country where every person could rise to the limit of his abilities and application – for the technology that keeps me warm in the winter and cool in the summer – for my skills, such as they are, and the freedom to use them as I choose… the list could go on and on.

But those are the big things. I am also thankful for the small ones – the smell of coffee in the morning – the sight of a field of daisies – the opportunity to laugh with a baby or tell stories to a child or talk with a teen about their future – the feel of a cat’s rumbling purr when I pet her – watching the pure joy of a little dog when she is taken for a walk – and many, many more.

Every moment of life is a gift. Every day of our lives we are given 86,400 seconds to do with as we will, and to my mind that deserves a great big Thank You. Every day should be a Thanksgiving Day… but please without pumpkin pie. I don’t like pumpkin pie. But when someone gives me some I say ‘thank you’ for it anyway.

www.JanisSusanMay.com
http://twitter.com/JanisSusanMay

Welcome, J.D. Webb

Thank You, Miss Dine

Miss Dine, my sixth-grade English teacher, had mousy brown hair drawn back in a bun and wore thin dark-rimmed glasses. She was one of the scariest people I had ever confronted in my short eleven years on earth. A gruff voice came from deep down, deeper than any of the gentlemen of the sixth grade who secretly wondered if she were really a guy. There was a telltale moustache if you got too close to her. Of course, no one wanted to do that.

She dressed in dark clothes even in the stifling hot summer of 1952. She never seemed to sweat, which was another favorite subject of the sixth-grade gentlemen. More than one classmate mentioned that dead people don’t sweat. Most of us had seen the movie, Zombies in our House.

Guesses about her age ranged from a way-old 35, to a whopping at least 50. Her look would stop you in mid-thought and some suggested it had broken the huge clock on the outside of Oakland Grade School building. But, that was never verified. One thing you didn’t do in her class was act up. Unfortunately, I was a proud master of acting up. Her wooden ruler was very stout and she was not stingy about using her weapon. Her demeanor was effective. I hardly ever acted up in her class. Miss Dine did not hesitate to inform my mother.

She knew her English and was relentless in taking us to the wonderful world of sentence diagramming. How were we ever to get along in this world if we could not converse with a properly diagrammed sentence? No matter that we all seemed to communicate well enough. I was a surprisingly good diagrammer and didn’t shudder as my classmates did every time the mandatory white chalk was placed in the blackboard’s squeaky-clean eraser tray. That board really was black and I was often obliged to wash the dust away. And I had to clean the erasers -- outside, of course, even in the dead of winter -- and replace them on the ledge.

I remember one-day class was almost over and the chalk had not yet appeared. The class surreptitiously peeked at the big wall clock, willing the minute hand to pass up three or four numbers and hurry to the closing hour. It didn’t happen.

“Oh, look. It’s time for diagramming to begin.” It seemed that sentence was the one thing to put a semblance of a smile between the bulldog jowls of Miss Dine. “Lewis, we’ll start with you.”

All eyes swiveled to Lewis. In the annals of the worst diagrammers he was the world champion and to top it off, he stuttered. Lewis was a big kid and most everyone liked him. But this was an answer to a prayer. No way would anyone else have to have their brain dissected by one of Miss Dine’s tirades about how incompetent we were. And Lewis would take up all the remaining time.

Lewis stammered through a fairly easy sentence and then got stuck on one of the prepositional phrases containing two subjects. He knew I could probably do it so he looked back at me as he paused and pretended to ponder. Lewis crossed his left arm over his chest and rested his right elbow in his hand, tapping the chalk against his cheek. That always made his shirt rise up over his bellybutton and caused the girls to giggle. And unlike Miss Dine, he could sweat. Two huge watermarks instantly appeared on his shirt under his arms. When he pondered I usually tried to give him helpful signals. I had just motioned for two subjects when I got “the look”.

“David, are you helping Lewis?” Two deep-set eyes pierced my heart and I wondered whether the phrase, “if looks could kill” would actually claim me as its first victim. I began imagining what my obituary would say.

“Yes, ma’am. I guess I am.”

“You either are or you are not.” Miss Dine never used a contraction and pronounced “either” as if it started with an ‘I’.

“Yes, ma’am, I are. I mean, I am.” The weapon drawer was opening. It was only a matter of time until the dreaded ruler appeared. The fact that the class was snickering hardly helped my dire situation.

“Are you trying to display some comedic talent, Mr. Webb?” Oh, no. She used my last name. En guard.

“I was merely lending a helping hand to a friend, Miss Dine. I am truly sorry. It won’t happen again.” Oops, I used a contraction.

“It most certainly will not. I believe the erasers are going to need some extra attention after class this evening, Mr. Webb. Be here at four o’clock sharp.”

I can still picture Miss Dine standing in front of the class. Granny glasses before they were in vogue, old style lace-up granny shoes, usually a plain black dress buttoned up to the neck and a stern you-better-not-mess-up look on her face. Everything in her manor and attire said she was a teacher and there was no mistaking it. I don’t remember whether we had any fun in that class. But we learned. Her methods fostered a learning atmosphere which is undoubtedly now lost forever.

Despite enduring the eraser details, I realize I learned more from Miss Dine than any other teacher I had in school. Her methods were just the ones I needed to apply myself and all of a sudden, English became a subject I enjoyed. Unfortunately, I never returned to properly thank Miss Dine. I wish I had thanked her for her dedication and patience. Teachers had a difficult job back then and today it’s at least ten times harder to be a teacher. If you had a teacher who made an impact on you and he or she is still living, make it a point to thank them. It will make their day and give you a good feeling as well.

J. D. Webb

www.jdwebb.com
Shepherd’s Pie (Golden Wings Award winner)
Moon Over Chicago (2008 Eppie Finalist)
Her Name Is Mommy (Now available)
Smudge (coming 2010)
Stuck in Valhalla (available at Sniplits.com)

This essay was previously published in the Apollo's Lyre issue this year.
http://apollos-lyre.tripod.com