Giving thanks

Although my new existential mantra is "I ache, therefore I am," this does not refute the grand blessings in my life, not the least of which is just being here. As I've related here so many times, I have no idea why I outlived all my closest male friends, nothing that could have been predicted in medical records or observations of life styles, but here I am, long after the others have passed. Alive and functional enough to have completed a feature length digital film in my seventies, no mean feat. And still brooding about things like Art Song Music Videos and Chamber Operas. My word!

There was a time as a young man when Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday because it was a gathering of friends. About half a dozen couples in LA spent the holiday together each year, a tradition that continued after some of us moved away to go to grad school. Indeed I was in the loop until we moved to the east coast and my marriage broke up. But all that was decades ago. Thanksgiving has not been the same since.

Today I really enjoy, as opposed to accept, very few holidays. Indeed the best for me now is really an old family holiday from my childhood, the Army-Navy football game. I make black-eyed peas and enjoy myself rooting for Navy. An ex-army navy brat.. Childhood wins.

Which reminds me that I broke my mother's heart in two ways, though she forgave me for both: first my leaving Cal Tech, a shock since I had good grades. I didn't realize how active she was in the various Cal Tech mothers organizations, activity that stopped after I left. I left for complicated personal reasons, and it's never been a decision I regretted.

And then I up and joined the Army, the son of a Navy officer. Mom never understood, though Dad did from the beginning.

I suppose I disappointed her in a third way, too, by not having a stable marriage with children so she could enjoy grandmothering. Maybe she never did forgive me on this count.

Warts and all, my life has been blessed. I bitch, of course, but I stop as soon as I hear myself, for I have nothing to complain about in a larger understanding of the world. I'm one of the lucky ones.