
Tomorrow morning, Guion, Pyrrha, and I are setting off for Southern Pines for a long weekend with the Pratt family. I am looking forward to seeing everyone, taking long walks with Pyrrha and Windy around the neighborhood, and stuffing my face.
On the eve of this great American holiday, here is a preliminary list of things I am thankful for right now:
- Guion, everything that he is now and is becoming. And those blue eyes of his! Like an ice dragon! Have you looked at them lately? His eyes are a seriously unreal color, much like Jack Donaghy’s.
- Mom and Dad.
- Mike and Windy.
- Kelsey and Alex.
- Grace.
- Sam.
- Win (and Tracy, by extension).
- Pyrrha, our sweet and neurotic little baby.
- Our community in Charlottesville.
- Christ Episcopal Church.
- The women in my small group.
- A fenced-in backyard.
- Kind-hearted, attentive landlords.
- My job.
- My coworkers and bosses and the camaraderie we share.
- Louis, my new camera, inherited from Grace.
- The poetry of the Bible.
- The public library system.
- Used book sales.
- Ballet.
- Skype.
- Tea. Always and forever tea.
- All the dogs!
- Old friends.
- New friends.
- Maxi skirts and dresses.
- Makeup samples.
- Marcel Proust.
- The American Heritage Dictionary, 5th ed.
- The trees in Charlottesville in the fall.
- Marilynne Robinson.
- Our cars, that they run.
- Poetry.
- Sufjan Stevens.
- Japanese vocabulary that still comes back to me.
- Art museums.
- The Virginia Museum of Fine Art.
- The Atlantic Monthly.
- The New Yorker.
- Calligraphy.
- Pyrrha’s dog friends.
- Handwritten letters.
- Nettles.
- Joanna Newsom.
- Friends’ babies.
- America.
- Pyrrha’s ecstatic jumps in the air when I come home.
- Peace.
- Eyeglasses.
- Long walks around town.
- Enormous clouds of starlings.
- Virginia Woolf.
- Great restaurants.
- Brother Beer Works.
- Japanese ceramics.
- UNC-Chapel Hill.
- All of my beloved former English professors and even the journalism professors who scared me into a job.
- Boots.
- High-quality writing utensils (especially pens from Japan).
- Childhood memories.
- Horses.
- Letters from Aunt Lib.
- The Chicago Manual of Style.
- Soft leather leashes.
- Editing.
- Fonts.
- Vladimir Nabokov.
- The Eucharist.
- A community of artists.
- Little notebooks.
- Relay Foods.
- Ample storage space in our tiny hovel.
- Pie.
- Memories of the Compline service at the Chapel of the Cross.
- A new Trader Joe’s in town, even if the parking is apparently atrocious.
- Anton Chekhov.
- Tights.
- My beautiful rings, from Mary Windley.
- Cut flowers on the kitchen table.
- Homemade oatmeal.
- Journals, which I have kept for about 18 years now.
- Solitude.
- The Book of Common Prayer.
- A priest who loves William Faulkner.
- The view of the mountains as I drive home from work.
- Talking about film with Jonathan.
- Rabbits.
- American literature.
- Alphabetization.
- Sex.
- Grapefruit.
- A warm home in the winter.
- Forgiveness.
- The Virginian countryside.
- The person of Jesus.