A STATE of THANKFULNESS

 

Thanksgiving week, and all across the continent folks are discussing recipes, menus, and the now-ubiquitous “here come the holiday blues.”

 

American Thanksgiving centers around a single meal because the story attached to the national ethos involves a single holiday feast.

 

Whether true or (most likely) half-true, a tradition that follows most Americans contains memories of these family get-togethers.  I remember my mother telling me about the Thanksgivings of her childhood when I, her Israeli daughter, had no notion what it was about, nor the image of Indians sitting together with Pilgrims in the seventeenth century. I only knew the nostalgia in her eyes for a country she had left to go and help build the Jewish state. But we always remain the children we were, years later and miles away.

 

Holiday meals are fine. But I have come to focus on the matter of the underlaying theme. Thankfulness is not for one day a year. It’s a good habit for every day.

 

I now end each day, just after turning off the lights, with at least three things I am thankful for that happened that day.  Not general things, but specific ones. Some days are particularly challenging, and I count things that could have happened but (thankfully) didn’t. Most days (again, thankfully) it’s easy, because life’s gifts are more abundant than my normal state acknowledges.  

 

This routine has a way of strengthening itself. It’s a good habit to develop. I’m thankful to the person who suggested it. I no longer remember who it was but Thank You.