Offering Thanks

Sure, it's trite. And everyone does it.

They all breathe, too. Should you stop 'cos of that?

I am actually, as happens, thankful; and I am thankful to find myself feeling that way, as I passed many years waking up every morning and thinking, "Oh, rats, I woke up again." Now I wake and think, "Goldfish, ten cent piece, let's go!"*

This morning, I woke to purring, looked over and there were my two cats, father and daughter, aged 18 and 17, curled up on the pillow next to mine, happy as can be. I'm thankful they're still here and still happy.

I'm thankful for friends old and new, for the ones I know in real life, the ones I know online and the ones I've met only through their books. Data Viking, Tam, Robert H., Turk, C. Jay, Handsome Dave, Todd the Believer, The Shaggy Guy (ha! Thought I wouldn't put the Latin and your photo together, dija, C?), Breda, D. Martyn, that Kim dude, Jeff, Jeff, the purple-haired folksinger, Carter of M.A.R.S, Hal West, Bob and Matt and everyone listed over there in the blogroll, Spider, Jax/Julie and all the rest of you, including the Canadian Critic: I'm glad we met. I like hearing/reading what you've got to say.

For what's left of my family and the support we give one another, I am thankful. We've reached the age where new faces outnumber the old ones, more so with every year; and yet in the new are the echoes of those who went before, a better memorial than any stone.

I'm thankful for my work. It's frustrating, sometimes scary and we operate under immense pressure. Wouldn't trade it for the world.

I'm thankful to have been born in a country where the citizens are deeply skeptical of their government and have considerable power to affect it. I hope to do what I can to keep that trend going. --Yes, the States have problems; but we're a seething pool of solutions, too, and have the liberty to try 'em out.

Mostly, I'm thankful to still be here. We all live in a very thin region of a very small planet in a very large universe. Our lives are less likely than starlight, as fragile as soap bubbles, tiny. Yet every day, we go out there and push back at entropy; every day, we seek our joy. We've done right well for ambitious pond scum or Divinely-sparked clay; we've done right well.

Pondering the enormousness of the Universe, I'm thankful -- I'm filled with wonder! -- that I'm pondering at all. That there's any me or you to be a-pondering.

It is full of stars.

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* You got that, right? Carp. Dime. Unh.... Oh, Pete's sake. Yes, it's that weak.