Thanksgiving Tidings

Happy Thanksgiving!

There is always lots to be grateful for, and I ascribe to the camp that thinks it's a good idea to list and celebrate!  Here goes, in random order.
1.  Family:  It's sustained me throughout, but this year of flux has found my family stepping up and representing big time.  From support for our adventure to ways to stay connected across the oceans, it's been a comforting "boon" as they say here.
2.  Colleagues:  Present and Past:  Since we spend so much of our waking hours with them, it's always a bonus when you can enjoy them!  My Weber family continues to keep in touch, which I love, and I have some very valued colleagues here who have done many things, large and small, to make my move less crazy and my job easier.  To my boss in Delhi and the foreign service national angel, to my colleagues here in Jaipur,  dnhanyavad.
3.  My landlady.  She just rocks.  She sends me food across the lawn when she thinks I look tired (I can pull a very long face when I'm hungry.), and gave me the D.L. on just about everything I needed to know to get along here in Jaipur.  And she's great fun to be around, and makes me laugh.
4.  My driver/personal assistant/bookkeeper/personal shopper/cultural informant/life saver.  My days here would be far less stable without him around to say "Yes, M'am", to my every request. The cosmic score sheet will forever be tipped in his favor, I'm afraid.
5.  Everyone reading this blog who has sent me a note to just say hello, a huge thank you.  It helps me feel less disconnected from the supportive circle I am privileged to be a part of.
I'm happy to say there are more people to list than I have energy for at this early hour, so I will end with  a Thanksgiving poem written by Iowa City's own Marvin Bell.  I simply love the image this poem evokes for me.

Around Us
by Marvin Bell
We need some pines to assuage the darkness when it blankets the mind, we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly as a plane's wing, and a worn bed of needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind, and a blur or two of a wild thing that sees and is not seen. We need these things between appointments, after work, and, if we keep them, then someone someday, lying down after a walk and supper, with the fire hole wet down, the whole night sky set at a particular time, without numbers or hours, will cause a little sound of thanks--a zipper or a snap-- to close round the moment and the thought of whatever good we did.