Thanksgiving

I'm thankful that both my parents are alive and in relatively good health. Many of my friends have lost one or both of theirs.

I'm thankful that my whole family will be together today. We've endured some tragedy together but right now life is good.

I'm thankful to have a co-conspirator to share all the adventures with, big and small.

I'm thankful to have the smartest and most fun friends a person could imagine. Too many of them are far away but thanks to the Internet, we can still reach out once in a while, and friends I haven't seen in decades are poppping up again.

I'm thankful for the people who have shared their knowledge and expertise this past year. My birding guides, yoga teachers and work mentors have helped me grow personally and professionally.

I'm thankful to have a good job with some fine people. I have fewer co-irkers than I did a year ago. It's a tough time out there.

I'm thankful for my own health and physical ability to get out and do almost everything I want to.

I'm thankful for access to high quality food, clean water and clean air; being near so many woodlands and prairies where I can go to recharge my spirit; having a sturdy, warm home especially now that winter is here; hyphens and semicolons, my favorite punctuation marks; the Internet, my primary source of useful information and conduit to distant friends; orchids and aroids that bloom and even the ones that don't; warblers, Diet Coke with Lime, sushi, comfortable shoes and good books.

Treading the Primrose Path

My garden includes a primrose path. It's taking some work and replanting to get the plants established. But the gold and red ones have settled in nicely. In Hamlet, a play you may have heard of by William Shakespeare, a chick named Ophilia cocks off in the third scene of the first act thusly:

...But, good my brother,
Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own rede.

From what I've been able to find, Bill S. coined the primrose path phrase himself. The primrose meant beauty in the Elizabethan era and the path, of course, is life. It's a metaphor for a comfortable, casual existence.

Some times I think I'm on the primrose path myself, and I like it. As I write this I'm sitting on my deck looking out on blue and green leaves, purple flowers and the late afternoon sun shining on the grass. A wren is calling behind the pagoda dogwood and the water is splashing pleasantly in the rain barrel fountain. Soon I'll go in and enjoy a tasty and nutritious dinner. Tomorrow, after a few hours in the office my weekend will begin. I haven't decided exactly what that will include, but it's my time to do with as I will. This isn't the life I live all day, every day. But it's a state I strive for. It's the one that work and other obligations support. I'm not a puff'd and reckless libertine--at least not yet--but I believe there's an inherent value in enjoying life. There's a rede you can reck.