Christmas Blessings

This Christmas has been a tough one for me. I don't really feel like I fit in either part of my two lives, college and home. Kind of like I'm living in limbo. But, there are still lots of tiny wonders that I've been with it enough to be thankful for since I've been home. I'd like to take the time to acknowledge each blessing. Here they are:

My family. I never cease to marvel at them. They keep me sane. Never have I known such intelligent, loving, and capable people, and the fact that they're all mine, the fact that they love me even though I'm often uninteresting and despondent, is the richest treasure in all the world. My family is the beautiful cocoon that I carry with me wherever I go, its warmth giving me strength and much laughter.

Music. It's music that makes me see the connections that we all have to each other. Music tells stories in a way that plain old words never could. Music is one of those intangible things, like love, that creates magic. Music encapsulates the majesty of living. All its bittersweetness, anger, and the energy of just being.

(Especial references to The Decemberists, Cat Stevens, Neko Case,Neil Young, The Roches,Frank Sinatra, The Who, and Puccini, as ever.)

Sustenance. Food, the backbone of existence, is happily much more than just that. With the Neanderthals invention of fire, we got much more than we realized. We received flavor, gorgeous gushing gems of deliciousness. Oh, food. So good (when done the right way. Might I suggest my mother's kitchen?)

Sunshine. Thank you, Sunshine! I couldn't make it without you! I'm thankful that you're here in the "dead" of winter, warming my body and my heart. Giving light and depth to the flowers and trees all around me.

Lastly, the sky. The stars that I can now see reduced me to sobbing on the drive home from the airport. It's the stars and the moon that daily (rather, nightly!) remind me that I'm meant to be imperfect, that I'm not meant to have all the answers, and that there is so, so much more to this whole life than just me,my worries and fears. And the stars are beyond any other beautiful thing I have ever before seen. They're diamonds studding a velvet sea. And with the stars, I never feel lonely like some people might. Instead, they're glittering reminders that to everything, one must turn, turn, turn....

Merry Christmas. I wish that love, peace, and all those other little things that combine to make a full existence come your way.