Brighten my northern sky.

Happy Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for my infallible mother, my resilient dad, for my sister and for my sense of humor which seems to match nobody's but hers and that we could make a nest of blankets in the family room last Sunday to watch Inception together, I am thankful for the gold Rococo mirror hanging in my bedroom, for my down comforter, for my boots and the three books I got in the mail yesterday; I am thankful for a kind and understanding boss, an amazing job, and outstanding co-workers who bear-hug me, occasionally tease me, and who help me learn new programs. I'm thankful that miss Josie, miss Michelle, and Mister Tom came to visit at intermission and Josie told me about wearing big girl undies and clutched my fancy green mask and petted the damask of my dress excitedly for ten minutes while I got to chat with my outstanding sister and her outstanding husband who got diagnosed with leukemia two months ago and for whom things are looking far up. I'm thankful for lessons I learn and the bamillion bits of useful knowledge honed from blogging. I'm thankful for Casey and David and Bryant and Jeffrey and Trevor. I'm thankful for my birthmother and for the life that she has given me. I'm thankful for hope. I'm thankful for Kaitlyn Flanagan for making me write. I'm thankful for growing up and laughing and noodles and Emily. I am thankful to have spent the second half of this year in league with a cast full of good people that make me laugh and hold me up every day while we're performing together. I am thankful for the friends I know I can call in a pinch, the friends I admire so much I could explode, and the ones I see every few weeks or months that I wish I had entire lifetimes to hang out with. I am thankful for my grandparents and their raspberry bushes,  for writing, for the DI, for A.S. Byatt, Derek Walcott, Brian Friel, Salman Rushdie, Zora Neale Hurston, and Emily Dickinson for making this semester dreamy, for enamel jewelry, for teas of the cinnamon apple spice and tension tamer persuasions. I'm thankful for prayer and oatmeal squares and all simple carbs while we're going there and House and for this song, which I would like you to imagine I am singing to you, but in a woman voice, because if I could, I would sing it to you. Because I love you. And I'm thankful for you.