Thanksgiving

In no particular order of importance, I am thankful for the following in my life:

1) Zoe. Ok, I said no particular order of importance. So, I lied. What can I say? She's my daughter.

2) I got to do a cross-country motorcycle trip on the best bike God ever designed (and allowed BMW to build.) A K1200RS. I only wiped out once, had my bike vandalized once, and got a speeding ticket for doing an unmentionable speed, BUT no damage to any bone in my body.

2) I got be a deckhand on a schooner for summer in Maine. We'd take on a dozen or so passengers, leave for six days of harbor- and cove-hopping, then return for 24-hour shore leave and do it all over. I'm thankful that the worst part of that whole experience was losing the straw-pull with my fellow deckhand. The stakes: having to unbolt the head after a passenger had, uh, used it, and couldn't flush it down. I had to dump it overboard, clean it, and reassemble. Well, at least now I know how to do it if it ever happens on my boat.

3) Four high school friends and I piled in a VW van and tooled around Greece for five weeks, camping by rivers and on beaches. For three days I laid with a high fever at our camp on the beach. And when we got back, my mother said, "I told you before you left that there was a deadly virus going around that killed several young people!" Oh yeah, that's right; she did. We forgot. I am thankful I had such a good time and it wasn't spoiled by my death.

4) I am thankful that I got to play regularly on the Alice in Wonderland bronze sculpture in Central Park when it was still so big that it took both of my hands to hold onto Alice's extended finger. I have gone back and it appears that sculpture is still a favorite with kids, but it has shrunken significantly.

5) It took me ten years to achieve my dream of owning a weekly newspaper. I ran it for five years with my then-wife. I am thankful that I was at such a helm of tremendous community influence and responsibility and no one egged our house even once.

6) I have known true love. I am grateful that I have gotten beyond the period in my life in which I didn't think I ever would again. (Did a lot of damage in those years; to myself and to others.)

7) I got to grow up in Germany and get an international perspective on how arrogant and ignorant America is.

8) I got to live in America and get perspective on how pedantically bureaucratic and emotionally constipated Germany is.

9) I sailed straight east on the Atlantic ocean for nine days. We were so far out that we were completely dependent on ourselves. The part I am thankful for, is that the seasickness subsided after the first 48 hours. And that we had GPS to find Bermuda.

10) For seven years, I got to be a Captain of Industry when I took over my father's manufacturing company. I had the complete playset. The factory, 150 workers. International deals. Business trips all over the place. And then I got the accessory kit too: the sports car, the, um, lifestyle, (that means women.) But seriously, it was hugely satisfying to grow a company (which I -- perhaps unfairly -- had always criticized as purely capitalistic) in such a way that the employees enjoyed it, and the banks were impressed. But the part I am really thankful for: when it all tanked, I never missed any part of that. Not the money, not the fast and loose lifestyle. I am thankful my parents taught me that materialism is not what makes you happy.

11) Twenty years ago my partner at the time and I went over to new friends' house for a get-to-know-each-other dinner. The guy of the other couple and I ended the evening in a two-hour long argument over art and capitalism that ruined the couple dating thing before it even got off the ground. I am thankful that he and I haven't stopped arguing since. For the latest on what riles me, click on his link above my profile.

12) I am white. Financially secure. Live in America. That is to say, as much as anyone hates to admit it, I am thankful that I belong to the oppressor class. Oh yeah, I am male too. But I am not convinced that we are the superior gender. Just brute force that's kept us there until now. Two three generations from now? Beware, my sons.

13) I am not allergic to coffee, chocolate, stinky cheeses, Hungarian salami, olives, and wine. I am grateful for the last one in particular.

13a) I wanted to make a smart-ass remark and say that I am thankful that I am not addicted to any of the above either. But that is not true. In fact, it has just taken an enormous amount of self-discipline to step back from being an alcoholic. (I am hesitant to use that word, but what else can you call it when you used to get drunk every single day that God let the sun shine on this beautiful earth?)

14) I have lived so many lives in my time. Seen so many countries. Lived as a scholar among books and as a woodsman in a hunting camp. Rural and urban. So many jobs, divergent careers. Wealthy and poor. Drunk and sober. From school drop-out to best-in-class. With dogs. With cats. Didn't care for the reptiles. Volunteered for a battered woman shelter and yet enjoyed my share of fun spanking. Motorcycles, VW camper van, sports car, sailboats to comprise a fleet, skis, rollerblades, banana-seat bicycle.

15) Some people are born with musical ability. I am tone deaf. Some have incredible mathematical minds. I need a calculator to count my fingers. I am not the rifle, but the shotgun: scattered and unfocused at times. But there has been one thing that I have been able to rely on as something I was good at in life. And that thing has sustained me in life. Helped me through tough times, and provided me with opportunities during the best of times. And that is writing.

I know I am more at home than most in the landscape of language. And I enjoy this landscape. The other day I was writing about a lack of homeland. Maybe this is my homeland. Words. Towering novels off there in the distant horizon which I have been threatening to ascend some day. But for now, here in the rolling hills of letters and essays, I am enjoying these rivers of thoughts. Every now and then a sentence will take me by surprise and sprout up, quickly branching out into a poem. And there are some low hills here too of short stories on whose summits I gain surprising insight into my own psyche.

I am grateful for being gifted with writing.