Missing you, and longing for you. Should I be thankful for you? I'm not sure what that means. Who are you? Are you former paramour in thin disguise, hunkering down for the rewrite? Or are you someone who came later...

I've been thinking about thankfulness today, with Thanksgiving. I feel grateful - but "slant," such as for the amazing E.D. connection (see today's earlier post).

Late afternoon I stood at the window snapping pictures of birds lighting on the feeders and on the ground - an amazing variety of tiny, tuneful creatures - at least two varieties of woodpecker, plus titmice, nuthatches, chickadees, sparrows, and Mr. & Mrs. Cardinal (she warm brown, he bright red with Zorro black mask). My idea was to crop the photos and post them as a group - but cropping resulted in unacceptably blurry, indistinct images of the extraordinarily vivid creatures, so I abandoned the effort. I was going to title the photo montage Musical Diversity, as a thanks for all the wonderful music WKZE has been pouring forth to my hungry receiving ears all year long and then some (but KZE became especially important to me this year).

***
My invisible preceptor or preceptors, or serial preceptors, as in my premarital dating days. Except that I'm feeling a bit Bride of Christ, you're forever far removed - I long & pray, no word from you. Or I'm like a Great Ape in a cage, pulling in vain at the bars. Am I thankful for that? Obviously - not so much.

But I'm writing, and I've lost weight, and I walk every day, and the story isn't over yet. I look younger to myself - as I get older, and grow into myself. Ruth once wrote about growing into one's looks - I think I have finally done that. The gifts that are bestowed in youth - I didn't quite earn those looks. These, I have earned... It's like focusing an old-fashioned camera... there's more cohesion between who I think I was meant to be (and I had lost my way for the longest time) and who I am finally starting to become - which is - wow (I didn't intend a pun) - becoming...

I long for you and miss you and murmur I love you and still I don't know who you are
But I know that you're out there and that you think of me
I don't understand why it's all such an unrequited drama, exactly
To the rather extreme extent that it is, I mean - no meetings - ever, cloaked identities
(If you're two different guys - the same story has played out twice the same way for me?)
I can guess at the usual reasons, of course

I'm grateful that today was such a spectacular day. Fierce winds did shake the house overnight, and there was a strong headwind off the mountains today. At the park the older gentleman with the floppy dog wished me a happy thanksgiving, and I him. Later, in the woods I ran into a woman with two little dogs who beamed at me as we passed, and later still, in deeper woods, another woman with perhaps her grown son home for the holiday, on a walk with several dogs who jumped on me even as I received smiling assurances that the dogs are friendly. It was totally fine, only I'd rather have exchanged words with the passersby than to be greeted so vociferously by the dogs all the while I'm clutching little red barbells.

The sun was out and the meadow (someone wrote in the logbook "are we done chopping everything down yet?") is coming back green - even in November, and the lawn paths are green as in spring or summer, and the woods are all brown...

All of us lonely it ain't a sin, sings the amazing A.A. Bondy. No - just checked the KZE playlist - it's Victory, Trampled By Turtles.

The fast ones - the hares -