It seems that I have penned a
special Thanksgiving holiday note since the inception of this blog; but,
somehow, I missed last year. My diaries
are currently in storage, and my memory is not up to the task of going back a
whole 365 days. What the devil was I
doing last year? So, now the pressure is
on to be particularly memorable this year…
In reviewing what I wrote in previous
years, I seem to always say that the country is in a perilous state, that
things seem particularly dire this year, and that I don’t know how we’ll
overcome it all. But, it’s our
responsibility to be happy, to be thankful, and to fully realize the quiet miracle
of our lives every day.
Not doing that this year, and here’s
why.
News flash: we are always
on the brink and things are always
trending to disaster. I’ll be jiggered
if I’m going to haul that hoo-haw out again this year, because I think pointing
out the negatives in our lives doesn’t do us a whole lot of good. So, yeah, things are terrible, it seems no
one is happy with the election (even the winner), and the world as we know it
is changing so fast, no one knows what to hold onto. It was much the same last year and will be
much the same next year. Been there,
wrote that.
Instead, I’m going to tell you what I’m
happy about.
I’m happy to be an American, and
delighted to now be a Californian. We
may not always be satisfied with the way our government and institutions work,
but they do work and that is more
than can be said of many countries. The
sunny little beach town I now call home after more than four decades in Gotham
has reminded me again and again of the simple decency of most people, of
forgotten arts of friendliness and neighborliness I had lost in the Big City,
and demonstrated that nature has the upper-hand on us, and not the other way
around. I am surrounded by good people,
and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I am happy that I continue to be
moved by beauty. The dangerous thing
about spending too much time with people who make a career of the arts is that
one can stop feeling an emotional response to them. I am delighted to say that I still gulp
before masterful paintings, am still heady after great novels, and can laugh or
cry at music. (My taste tends to run
towards the Great American Songbook,
which always puts me in mind of Noel
Coward’s wonderful putdown: Strange
how potent cheap music is.) I am
delighted that this blog has everything from Michelangelo to Charles
Schulz, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Finally, I’m glad to have faith in
America and Americans. Patriotism was
never popular among most of my friends; any positive sentiments towards the
country are mostly met with ironic dismissal or sneering condescension. (A gift from the 1960s.) But I think we are a great people, or, at
least, we try to be. I don’t know the
future of our land any more than you, but I do know that Americans are capable
of great things, great kindness, and unity.
That last quality – unity – has been in fairly short supply in recent
years, but I think it will make a remarkable resurgence in the months and years
to come. We can but hope, and I wouldn’t
have it any other way.
This Thanksgiving, make it a point
to greet your family, friends and neighbors as people, and not as units of some
political philosophy. Love and nurture
each other, and remember to be kind and ethical. And, finally, remember to be thankful. Thanks for the many blessings in your life,
the bounty of the world around you, and for the quiet, ineffable mystery of
your own existence.
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