An attitude of gratitude

In the High Country in front of Larrabee Mountain

Al took this picture of me last Thursday. It was such a beautiful day that I think I will remember it as being one of the finest fall days I've ever had up in the Mt. Baker wilderness. I've just begun my eighth year with the Senior Trailblazers; I started hiking with them in late September 2008, and now the hikes and the way things change from season to season have become familiar and cherished.

Tomorrow, October 13, is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. They celebrate on the second Monday in October, while we in the US celebrate on the fourth Thursday in November. October seems reserved for Halloween on this side of the border. I see decorations everywhere for it, and I guess pumpkins and ghouls are appropriate displays for the season. I've got a blogging friend who decorates her entire house with spider webs and sparkly witches and posts pictures of them for the enjoyment of her followers. I'm glad she does it so I can enjoy it, since I'm not much for doing it myself.

Thanksgiving, however, is a favorite holiday, because I have the chance to contemplate all the things that I enjoy and am grateful for. First of all, I am grateful for my health and my ability to spend time in nature and then enjoy the feeling of being tired after a day in the wilderness. I am definitely hooked on it, and I look forward to my Thursdays, rain or shine, to play outside. The coming week, however, is bringing lots of rain to this part of the country, and in the High Country, the precipitation probably will be in the form of snow. That means the spot where I am standing will be covered with white and will become inaccessible in a few short weeks. Until next year, that is.

I am also grateful for the abundance and variety of foods I have available. Yesterday I harvested the last of the broccoli from my garden and began to prepare my plot for the winter. As I ate the steamed broccoli with my dinner yesterday, I marveled at the fact that it was grown right in my back yard and tasted better than anything I could have purchased at the store. It's taken awhile for me to appreciate vegetable gardening, since I was such a novice at it two years ago, but I've already got all kinds of plans for my little space next spring. I'll plant some garlic before I put it to bed, but otherwise I'm just about done for the year. I look around at my neighbor's plots to see what they've done to get ready for winter and I've learned quite a lot.

I am grateful for my community of friends. We just got a new neighbor in our downstairs apartment and will be learning more about the single woman who has moved in. I went down yesterday and introduced myself; she's just moving into Bellingham after living on a boat on Whidbey Island for the past several years. Her daughter lives here and is expecting; she'll be around to enjoy her grandchild. I already like her and am so grateful that I've got another "woman of a certain age" to get to know. That's a relief; I hope she stays for a long time.

Yesterday I enjoyed coffee after my walk with the Fairhaven walking group, and we laughed and carried on like a bunch of teenagers as we sat at the round table and talked about our lives. Two of the women are also gardeners, and they gave me some tips about how to prepare the garden for the winter. We discussed the pros and cons of planting a cover crop; I'll have to research that. When we arrived at the coffee shop, it was pouring rain outside, but when we left, all the clouds were gone and the sun felt strong and warmed us as we made our way to our individual cars. I love these women and know some of them from my hiking group, too. In fact, it was Peggy and Linda who kept encouraging me to join the Saturday walking group, but I resisted at first. I didn't think I could walk that fast and enjoy it, but now I look forward to it every Saturday. And I'm much faster than I was when I first started.

I'm also very grateful that I have the ability to write. Although the writing I do every Sunday morning is a bit "seat of the pants" stuff, I find that it gives me enormous pleasure to sit with my laptop in the early morning and pound the keys, with hopes that somebody will find what I write enjoyable. I never tried to gather followers for this blog, but more than a hundred people follow it, and I look forward to your comments very much. I learn something every week from you. What a fine community I share with my fellow bloggers! To think that a few short years ago I didn't even know that this community existed and now it's an essential part of my life. I am fortunate indeed.

I decided I'm going to write some short biographies of my friends here in Bellingham. It was an idea that came to me in the middle of the night, and I thought about how much I'd like to know the history of some of the people I only know in one context. I've already interviewed my fisherman friend Gene and my hiking friend Rita, and now I've got to spend some time distilling the information into just the right amount. Then I'll run it past them before publishing (probably on my other blog) to make sure they are happy with it. Just the week after I made the decision to do it, I got a call from the local newspaper to see if I would be willing to be interviewed about my skydiving career. It will be for their Prime Time bimonthly magazine that covers the activities of seniors in the area. Another one of those serendipitous happenings, don't you think? Anyway, I'm excited and looking forward to it. I wonder if they will give me a chance to see what they write before it goes public. It's the right way to do it, if you ask me.

Yep, I've got a lot to be grateful for, and I've only scratched the surface! There's my family and my partner, good books to read, my warm and cozy apartment, and much more that doesn't seem to be bubbling up to the surface right now. My tea is gone and I'm beginning to think about getting up and starting my Sunday, now that my self-imposed contemplation of life has been accomplished. I do hope you find yourself in an "attitude of gratitude" this week, as the fall season moves us ever closer to winter's dark days.

Remember we have each other, and on the other side of the planet, it's moving ever closer to summer! Another blogging friend has been posting pictures from Canberra of the daffodils sprouting in her garden. It's always wine o'clock in some part of the world, and spring and summer too. Be well until next Sunday when we'll chat again.