Grateful

I'm grateful for many things, as usual, this year. One thing that's been particularly on my mind has been the current environment regarding the environment! As a result of serious, widespread awareness of global warming, combined with the soaring cost of gas (high by our standards, and certainly hard on many families' budgets, but still low compared to its price in many other countries,) "green" is finally being taken seriously. I see that as a very hopeful and positive development.

I'm grateful for the local food movement, which brought home to me that choosing the food we eat is inescapably an agricultural and ecological act, not just an economic, nutritional and gustatory one. And I'm grateful for our co-op, which makes it so much easier to act on that understanding and to support our local small-scale, often organic farmers.

I'm also grateful for an eight-year-old boy who has finally allowed me to start reading him one of the best children's books ever -- Half Magic, by Edward Eager -- and for his shrieks of laughter during the funny bits, and for his ability to be serious and sweet and insightful and wacky and bouncing-off-the-walls energetic (but not too often, for which I am also grateful). I'm grateful for a lovely 15-year-old girl who is learning to drive with her usual determination, is gradually coming to terms with some difficult changes in her life, plays the flute like an angel, strives to play the violin just as well, and yearns to make a life in music. And I'm grateful for the exciting opportunity to see a mature and poised 18-year-old girl, my amazing first-born, loved by so many who know her, move into a new phase of life at college four states away, ready to stretch her abilities, explore her options, and discover new passions.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.