Sunday, November 23, 2008

on beautiful days and giving thanks

It was a beautiful day.

It was one of those days where you keep trying to take a photograph in your mind of every moving moment and every time the light from the sun catches on your face. A day when finally your soul can rest in the comfort of converation and cups of coffee, when the people you are with are the people you love and the sky seems so wide and full of wonder.

I am so blessed. Some people say lucky, and others say fortunate, but I feel like those words can be a copout because they don’t imply that what you have is given from someplace else.

Two friends and I drove up to Spokane today to take my roommate Adrienne to the airport, to kiss her forehead and tell her we loved her and can’t wait til she is back with us. The dimensions these friends and neighbors of mine have been constantly adding to my life lately is astounding; I keep being amazed by the grace they have for me and that we have for each other ever day. It’s like every day another layer of ourselves is pushed aside so we can grow deeper and closer and more real.

To be honest, my heart craves to leave Moscow some days. I feel suffocated here sometimes, with the nearest city being over an hour away, and where I can’t go anyplace without running into a familiar face. Sometimes I feel like I am trapped, and I look at the next two or three years I will spend at the University of Idaho as a neverending stretch of time.

But more often than not, I realize that my life has found the consistency that it has been lacking for so long. This place, Moscow, is where I belong right now. I realize that these friends – these people I have been able to surround myself with – are my lifelines. My constants. My makeshift and dysfunctional family that supports and loves one another no matter what goes down, no matter who or what wins the battle. And sometimes we fall short, and we lose, and we are let down. But I think that’s okay.

I think we are learning through the rain to appreciate days like today even more deeply. A day when I start my morning dancing with my roommate to Aretha Franklin and ACDC in our pajamas, and cups of coffee with pumpkin creamer sit beside me while I open the shades to let the sun shine in to flood our apartment. A day when my friends and I serenade my mother over the phone singing ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,’ and when the open road in front of you seems like the most wonderful thing on earth.

Thanksgiving week is here and soon the day will come crashing in around us and be gone again without warning.

But when I give thanks, I give thanks for today.

I am thankful for this moment, new beginnings, for my friends and neighbors that have come to support me through the sleepless nights and the rainy days. I give thanks for right now, for the ability to change and to be changed, for how bright the sun can shine, even in my small town, and even in November.

It is true; I am exactly where I was meant to be, and for that, I am grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

1 comment:

Snuffy said...

I must say that I adore reading your blogs. I understand your dislike for the life in Moscow at times. Always you end up walking into someone's life that you hoped you could have avoided. It happens to me more and more, and it is disturbing on those occasions. I hope that I never become that person in any of my friends lives; especially you. I know that our friendship is still new, but I have hope that it will last for many years to come, you are a beautiful person both inside and out. I am glad, and always will be, that I have had the chance to meet you! And for that, I am truly grateful.