several friends have mentioned there's something new and fresh in the air, this air of 2008. i find myself nodding on the inside, my dreams and my journal tell me it's true. and then it's just another day at the same time, one day in a series of many that can feel ordinary and blessed and overwhelming and just plain good.

and so maybe it's me that has changed somehow, and i'm thankful, for a chance to see differently, even that which is the same.

i'm thankful for connecticut at christmas. thankful to have a place to go where i feel this loved. thankful that i belong there, among the barns and old fences, the tall trees and red doors, and everything covered with that white blanket of winter. i sense myself anew in the house that calls my name, and the sounds and smells of family all around. i love the chill outside, and the sound of that big wooden door closing as i step back into the warmth and strip down the layers again. i love being welcome, any season really, any year. i rest in the knowing i can come home, that i will folded in again.

i go there sometimes just in my imagination. when the day feels hard or lonely, i nap on this couch in california, and pretend i'm under the red afghan in a house made of chestnut. i pretend dad is running errands, buying me more sparkled water and dried figs. mom is upstairs in the office, clicking away on something until the kids arrive and pile out of the van with chatter in so many tiny feet. i rise up for hugs from small arms, for dinner of split pea and ham soup made with a salt from the famous family recipe. i rest by the fireplace with a book i don't even need to read. i watch the light change across the walls instead, in magic colors of sunset and snow.




i'm thankful in a new way, because this feeling of home has opened itself these last years. because it's clear now that this wasn't always, and won't always be. i feel aware of how important it is for me, and possibly how rare. i know how much this place of family suits me, in all my memories hidden away, and all the ways that i need them so. i know they are mine, and i am theirs, and i'm so grateful.