thanksgiving

1. I am thankful for the CIBC’s Run for the Cure and dj steveboy’s podrunner podcasts. Both have done me a world of good.

2. I am thankful for waking up before the Babe from one of our afternoon naps together. It means we both have woken up because we want to, and not because the other is calling the shots that day, leaving us both happy. Also, it means that when Boh wakes up the first thing he sees is my smiling face, the face I use to communicate to him “I love you; I will always be here for you when you wake up.”

3. I am thankful for waking up.

4. I am thankful for every time I learn something new, like that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are two minor characters from Hamlet (I really have to read that play), and for every time I remember how amazing occupying this world truly is (see: acres and acres of maple trees halting the process of photosynthesis while driving to a mini Ituna in the midst of Canada's biggest concrete jungle, and Boh.)

5. I am thankful that the year after my Baba passed away I moved to the province where my Baba’s youngest sister, Auntie Ollie, lives. In Auntie Ollie’s tiny one-bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto, I have eaten three glorious Thanksgiving suppers (soon to be four!) in the company of the most representative cross-section of Canadians I can think of, people who’ve become family, even if I have to be reminded of their names every year. In Auntie Ollie’s tiny one-bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto, I’ve found a little piece of Saskatchewan that was exported over twenty years ago, modified, and still immediately reminiscent of home. In Auntie Ollie’s tiny one-bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto, I get to see a woman who once in a while laughs the same way my Baba used to, a little throaty from years of smoking, but genuine, in a way that makes her eyes sparkle, letting you know she is in that solitary moment truly happy to have you there, even if you are for the weekend invading her tiny one-bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto.