A few years back, on this blog’s first Thanksgiving, I wrote a piece for Thanksgiving that, six years later, still pretty much says everything I want and need to say:

I moved from North Dakota to Minneapolis in October of 1985. It was a spur of the moment thing – in fact, it started with a drunken statement to a bunch of classmates at a college homecoming party two weeks earlier. It was five months after graduation, and they’d all come back to Jamestown (my hometown and college) with stories of their fun careers, fun cities, fun lives…

I was doing roofing and siding, wondering what the hell one did with an English degree. But after five or six gin and tonics, I found myself dancing with Monica Costello, and telling her “Yeah – I’m still here in Jamestown”. Really, she asked? “Yeah, but I’m moving”. Where, she asked. I thought about it for a second. “Minneapolis” seemed to be a place I could afford to get to. When, she asked. “Two weeks”, I blurted out without really thinking.

Damned if everyone didn’t remember that promise when we all sobered up. So – two weeks later, I loaded two duffel bags and a guitar into my ’73 Malibu, and I was off.

Six weeks later, it was Thanksgiving. I still had no job, I was broke and malnourished and cold. I’d had a few interviews, but no bites. I had dinner at a friend’s place. And on the way home, I drove downtown, and walked out onto the Central Avenue bridge, and looked out over the city in the dark. If you’ve never seen it, looking at downtown Minneapolis in the dark, when everything’s all lit up, is stunning; for someone just in off the prairie, it was like looking at Manhatten. I was cold, and scared out of my shorts about my short-term prospects – and for the first time, I felt strangely at home in this new city.

And every since then, Thanksgiving has seemed like the turning of the new year for me – the time when I reflect on the past year’s agonies and flubs and successes, and look forward to the next year. Much more so – for me anyway – than New Years’ Eve, which is more decompression from Christmas than anything.

Things to be thanksful for?  Many.

But I forgot one. I’m thankful to be here. Now. Doing what I’m doing, and with the chance to be doing the same thing – or better – next year.

God bless you all. And if you don’t believe in God – well, bless yourself silly.

And that’s all still true.  It’s been an “interesting” year, in the classic Hindu sense of the term.  But I am – we are – still here.  And as I frantically scour the internet for directions on how to cook the turkey that I neglected to defrost two days ago (how do I forget that every single year?), it feels almost trite to count off all the things I’m thankful for.

I’m here.  But there’s less of me (I lost 20-30 pounds this past year.  It’s been a difficult year on the family front, but there are more than enough of the little sparks of hope that keep one going.  Yes, I am doing better than I was this time last year, or even four years ago.

As I look at the news from Muimbai, I am thankful that I live in a place at a time where people furrow their brows and cluck with concern about “nasty campaigning” and “partisanship” over things that would pass for “high school pranks” in parts of the world where nastiness means “AK74s” and “partisanship” means “piles of bodies lined up behind a warehouse”.

I’m thankful for the outlet this little old blog provides, and for all the people who’ve come into my life in the almost seven years I’ve been doing this.

So Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!