gratitude

…the Holiday Season.

Tomorrow, this home begins to fill with family, chatter, laughter, and good smells, and it will be overflowing until Sunday. So much to be thankful for this year.

It’s been a challenging year, but the mountain doesn’t loom nearly as large as it once did. For that I am grateful.

I am thankful for my immediate family…my home is a happy one, our bonds are strong ones, and laughter is often. That’s not to say we don’t have our moments, but the good far outweighs the bad and for that I am grateful.

I am thankful for my extended family…our parents are still with us, healthy, active, connected. Our siblings are our best friends, and their families thrive despite some bumps in the road. Aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins… All are well, and for that I am grateful.

I am thankful for my friends, near and far…they are also our family, and have been with us through thick and thin. They enrich our lives in so many ways, and for that I am grateful.

I am thankful for all the experiences that have opened my mind, taken me out of my comfort zone, and strengthened my connection with The Almighty. For those I am grateful.

I am thankful for my home with it’s leaky roof, and it’s cracking walls, and it’s old fashioned charm. It is warm and comfortable, homey and loved. All it’s flaws remind me that we bought what we could easily afford. In this time when people have overextended and lost all they had, I am reminded that we made a blessed choice, and for that I am grateful.

I am thankful for the ability to see beauty in a clean sunlit window, a wrinkled face, a shriveling flower, a barren winter-ready world. There is wonder all around and I am open to grace however it happens to find me. For that I am grateful.

I wish you all a Blessed Thanksgiving, and a joyful kickoff to a Christmas Season filled with the things that matter.

Grace…hard to define, but you know it when you feel it. It’s that “knowing.” That deep feeling of peace which grants us a moment’s respite from doubt, a split second of true unblemished contentment, a mere glimpse of the divine.

We feel it, but then as suddenly as it comes, it leaves and we’re left with a memory of the moment when we felt whole, hoping that it will descend upon us again. It cannot be forced, it cannot be replicated, it simply happens at unexpected moments.

I can remember several moments when Grace whispered.

The moment my son was laid upon my belly.

A moment, sitting on a rock on the shores of Lake George on a misty summer morning, the smell of campfire thick on my skin.

A moment, watching my daughter carrying my son down a leaf strewn path.

A moment, walking the virtually empty street in Saratoga in the early morning sunshine.

A moment, laying on a trampoline at Camp Wilton, looking up at the stars and feeling swallowed by the darkness.

Most moments of Grace are mere memories, captured only in my mind. But this moment, when I stepped off the path returning to the beach, with the lavender colors of the sky…catching sight of my family, with the vastness of the ocean beyond overwhelming me with gratitude and “knowing”…this moment I was fortunate enough to photograph