Whit has been on fire lately. On Sunday he triggered a thoughtful conversation, one that incidentally mirrored in one of those can’t-be-a-coincidence ways the quote I shared on Thanksgiving, the words that best capture how I felt on that day – and in this season – of gratitude, emotion, celebration, and tradition.
“If the only prayer you ever say in your life is thank you, that will be enough” – Meister Eckhart
I’m also thankful for Whit’s sense of humor, though. Matt is away this week, so I’m sleeping as late as I possibly can (he believes the day should start at 6 something, I believe the day should start at 7 something, which is actually not as minor a distinction as it might appear). Yesterday morning I woke up at 7:24, both kids were still sleeping. They were at school dressed, fed, and hair brushed, at 7:55. Not bad.
This morning was more standard. I woke up when I heard Whit come out of his room upstairs. Minutes later, when I was helping him get dressed, he said, apropos of absolutely nothing: “Sometimes it is hard to keep your head on straight.” I did a double take. Why, yes, Whit, it is!
As soon as I stopped laughing, Whit and I headed downstairs to wake Grace up. She was cranky and teenager-ish getting out of bed, and turned really sour when I told she and Whit that I wouldn’t be picking them up after school today. “Why?” she whined, and I could tell that she was trying to decide if she was going to get mad or cry.
“Because I have to work,” I replied, trying to brush her hair.
“Why?” she whined again, looking at me plaintively. My patience on this score is thin. I spend a LOT of time with my children, happily, and I do not relish the guilt trips Grace has learned to lay on me when I have to be away.
“Because I have to work. To make money. And because I like what I do,” I hurriedly repeated the justifications we’ve discussed in detail, ad nauseum. For the record, Grace proudly tells everyone who asks that she wants to be “a mummy, a veterinarian, and a writer.” So she’s headed right for this life of juggling. Tense silence filled the room as I pulled Grace’s hair into pigtails and tried to coax her to get dressed faster. Whit suddenly chimed in from his spot by the door, where he’d been listening.
“In work, the trophy is money, isn’t it?”
Taken aback (where does he get this stuff?) I swallowed and said, quickly, honestly, “Well, that’s not the trophy for everyone, Whit.” It’s certainly not for me, but I wasn’t going to get into it this morning with the two of them.
After breakfast of Chex and yogurt, we piled into the car. Grace was still being surly, averting her eyes from mine and sighing dramatically every few minutes.
“Grace, what’s on your mind?” I asked as I turned down Taylor Swift singing Mine and glanced at Grace in the rearview mirror. She glared back, her jaw set.
“Grace, what’s on your butt?” Whit teased. Ah. Yes, he’s still just a five year old boy, too.
Sunday morning dawned clear and very cold. Winter has swept in in Thanksgiving’s wake. I took Grace and Whit to one of my favorite places, 
A few random things from this holiday weekend …
The bare branches of the tree outside my window, lit from below as the sun sinks below the horizon. There’s something painfully, heartbreakingly gorgeous about the flaming ends of things: leaves at their highest pitch of color, the glow of the last light before dusk. This light comes from below the horizon, and is full of something beyond the edge of our knowing. It sings a song, part dirge and part hymn of praise, of something more abstract and more powerful than our singular human existence.
An airplane traces straight line across the cornflower blue sky. Like drawings in the sand at low tide, this mark is bold, but fleeting. Look again and the bald white line is gone. Subsumed again into 
This light is an elegy. It contains a endless number of farewells and endings, but also, so much beauty. Against the stark, full blueness of a late-day sky, the light holds much emotion that I experience it as an almost animate thing.
A blazed of red against the sidewalk. If you didn’t look down you’d miss it. Luckily, my children are that much closer to the ground – literally and figuratively – and they are constantly pulling my eye and my attention to details I might otherwise overlook.