I woke up today not knowing what I was going to do. I hoped for the vibrating hum of my cell phone or the ping! of an instant message. But nobody’s around, nobody’s calling. It’s just me, my computer, and my washer and dryer; us against the colder world outside. It is because of this lack of purpose, it is because I know I still have two days left of my long weekend, that I have taken this day to walk around in my gray hat with the light blue pompom and accomplish nothing. I cook pasta in the afternoon, sing Meat Loaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” as I wash my hands, search for Black Friday deals then give up because the sites are running much too slowly. I am truly, utterly, spectacularly bored.
But today, in a way, is special. We’re supposed to ponder over what we were thankful for yesterday, and to wish we’ll have more to be thankful for next year. So I am thankful for this quiet time, this alone time. I’m thankful for these moments that require nothing but a winter hat, PJs and fuzzy leopard slippers.
But I am thankful for more than the chance to take a step back and breathe. I am also thankful for the mistakes I’ve made (because you can’t learn anything from your life without them), I am thankful for my stress (because it keeps me grounded), and I am thankful for my occasional tears (because it means I am far from mechanized). I am thankful for the people I will meet tomorrow, the next day, and in years to come. I am thankful for my parents, my brothers, my cousins, my aunts and uncles and extended family. I am thankful for my friends. I am thankful for the people who have said, “I love you, Alexa” and meant it. I am thankful for all of it.
I know I talk about my grandma a lot, but I want to share the poem I wrote for her during undergrad. It is my way of giving thanks to her:
Untitled by Alexa L.
written in April of 2007
Her life was poetry defined:
her heart, its rhythm,
her strength, its beat
like visual music,
pages upon pages of verse,
feminine rhyme,
whispers in iambic pentameter.
But I could not have written better poetry,
than that of which she shared with me;
her life
in stanzas
to be read over and again
because her life was more than words and proper grammar.
Her life was a symphony of sound
and if you looked close enough,
read between the lines, you would see
that though her life could try to be expressed
she meant more than merely words to little me.
Happy Belated Thanksgiving.