Blessed

It's almost Thanksgiving, one of those American holidays that are part of this season of giving, being together, and eating a lot of food. I'm Jewish, and not from this country, so the holiday season isn't quite the same for me. Yet I like Thanksgiving. I don't dread family gatherings like many do at this time of year. I like being with family, and I like the opportunity to exchange thoughts with others about feeling thankful.

When I was growing up, my mom would make chicken on thanksgiving, because turkey was too dry. Even now, I'm a dark meat turkey eater. At my best friend Karina's Russian household, Thanksgiving was/is always a big day. A wonderful feast with a pack of joyful Russian and Armenian immigrants who are deeply thankful for all they have here in America. The feast precedes the turkey - salted fish, pickled everything, vodka, wine, purple salad, many other salads. Then the turkey comes out, with stuffing made of buckwheat, and it's hard to remember to save room with all the other food there is to eat. I'm deeply thankful that I've gotten to spend a few Thanksgivings with Karina's family.

This year will be our last Thanksgiving here for a while, and we'll be at Dave's aunt and uncle's house with the whole family. My dad will be joining us, which is nice. I haven't seen him since July... I spent the morning today making two big pots of hot nourishing soup, with all the vegetables of the season plus ginger, coconut milk and curry paste. I love soup, especially when it's cold out. I have to remember to ask my dad not to say, "Oh, you made soup, just like your mother used to make." The comparisons to my mother don't rub me the right way, and I get frustrated when my dad gets lost in nostalgia. He takes patience. Yet I am deeply grateful that this Thanksgiving he'll be with us; last year he was in rehab, I think. He also missed Passover. I don't know how much more time I get with my dad around, and I don't want to have any regrets when he's no longer around. I know he's looking forward to seeing Dahlia and giving her some presents he got her.

Last Sunday my sister and I went to our hometown, Palo Alto, to visit a very old friend named Dina. Dina is a woman, now 60, who took care of us after my mom left for about 2.5 years. She would come to my house in the morning, get us going to school, go to her day job waiting tables, come back to our house after school and make us dinner and spend time with us, iron my dad's shirts, clean the house, then go to her house and do the same for her own two kids. Single mom. Totally incredible woman with the biggest heart. I don't think my dad and sister and I could have survived those difficult years without her. I hadn't seen Dina in over 10 years, and Sharon hadn't seen her in over 15 years. We spent the afternoon together talking and noshing around her kitchen table, with the company of her 3 and a half year old granddaughter. Dina runs a daycare center, so her house is filled with toys and kids' cubbies and mini cars and sandboxes inside and out. So sweet. It felt so good to be able to say Thank You for all that she gave to us. On our way home, we drove through our old neighborhood, past our house, and pointed out each spot along the way that meant something to us. Both Sharon and I felt deeply grateful by how comfortably we'd grown up there, despite the upheaval and challenges. It was melancholy and cathartic, and very real.

The other night I got an email from a friend in Miami, a woman I met back in 1994 on a beach in Eilat, Israel. She's from Uruguay, and has been living in Miami for several years. She and her husband have 3 kids, and the first was born with a cleft lip. He's since had surgery to repair the cleft, and this is something she is deeply connected to. The email she sent was about an organization called The Smile Train, which does cleft lip and palette surgeries on kids in very poor countries, and teaches local doctors how to do the surgeries as well. They take no overhead on donations, and each surgery costs only $250 and takes less than 2 hours. The email had a YouTube video attached to it, of The Smile Train's trip to Bangladesh and India, where they did a bunch of surgeries. I sat and watched the video with tears in my eyes, moved by the photos of children with their loyal and grateful parents, before and after their surgeries. I cried with wonder and gratitude because WE ARE SO UNBELIEVABLY RICH HERE IN OUR COMFORTABLE LIVES. I complain about wanting to own a home, and yet my monthly rent is more than many families have to live on for a whole year. I have the luxury of being able to compost the parts of a vegetable that I don't need, when I know that many people are putting even the peels and ends into their soups. I treat myself to some new clothes each year, when so many wear threadbare shirts or nothing at all. Needless to say, I was deeply moved and humbled, not for the first time.

I am grateful for the nourishing food we get to eat this Thanksgiving and all year long. Grateful for the incredibly beautiful and bountiful stores and farmers markets that sell our food.

I am grateful for the abundance of family and friends who surround me, support me, reflect me, appreciate me.

I am grateful for my incredible health, for the strong legs that allow me to dance, the strong mind that allows me to think, the strong heart that allows me to feel and do everything else, and even the strong intestines that help me nurture myself so that I can be.

I am grateful for my husband and child, for their health, their joy, their magic, their love.

I am grateful for our cozy home, and for a safe community.

I could go on and on, and in my heart I do. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.