Contrasts and Thankfulness

 

     Wow! What a blast of siding ripping, shingle flaying wind we just experienced these last three days. It is finally calm today and it feels eerily quiet compared to that howling banshee we heard both day and night. I don't think anyone got any sleep. We lost some siding from the house and our neighbor had a huge piece of metal something fly off his chimney. The temperatures also dropped by twenty degrees. It certainly gave us a sampling of what is to come when winter arrives.
     I was just admiring our little rose bush with its cheery blooms the day before. It is a treat to see such pretty flowers in November. In seasonal contrast, the bittersweet vines that represent fall trail up the trees and fence posts right across the road. It's fun to see bits of summer bloom alongside pieces of fall like this here in Virginia.
     I heard reports of snow in New England on Monday from my sister and daughter. In keeping with my fickle self, I both shake my fist at the blustery wind and cold, yet feel homesick for the gray skies and barren landscape that are November in my mind's northern eye. How I wish I could have the best of both worlds, north and south. I suppose the roses and the bittersweet represent this inner struggle I experience to know where I belong.
     As our children have grown up and expanded our family, the folks around our holiday table now fluctuate from year to year. We never quite know who will be able to travel or who will decide they want to begin their own family's traditions at home. Steve and I are fine to go with the flow. Sometimes there might be four of us around the table and other times there could be twenty-four. This Christmas, for example, we will have no grandchildren here. Instead we will have four dogs (and their owners). Now that's a new one for us!
     Whatever loved ones may be around your table this holiday, whether they be two-footed or four, I wish you a blessed time together, filled with thanksgiving.