"Thanksgiving when we need it," 5 x 7 watercolor, 140 lb. d'Arches cold press

 Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving on your journeys.

While the roads are not always smooth and straight, the bumps and curves help us be thankful, for what we've endured, and for what matters most, for the gift and giving of love. 1 Corinthians 13

Harvest's home, Thanksgiving

"Harvest's Home," 5 x 7 watercolor holiday greeting card

"Lay by in store," wrote the Apostle Paul to the Corinthian Christians long ago, urging them to save their gifts for those in need.

That phrase has an agrarian  basis, as rural people always took their harvests and prepared for the coming winter--whether canning garden  fruit and vegetables, or putting up feed in barns.

I suspect the Pilgrims did the same 401 years ago when they celebrated harvest with the first Thanksgiving.

Barns always catch my attention, and become painting subjects, even though I'm more urban and rural. Why? Don't know one reason, but perhaps one is that they are home to harvests...laying by in store during hard times.

Decoration Season

"Decoration Season," 5 x 7 watercolor holiday greeting cardAdd caption

A week from today, Thanksgiving, if not sooner, people will be putting up Christmas decorations, burning on lights, putting up trees, adding color to the days and nights. It's already happening in stores and malls of course.

This year, we're ready for some decoration in our world, some brightness...the pandemics of disease, deaths, racism, intolerance, hatred and political sickness have made it a dark year.

While most sane people will limit the number of guests, there will still be welcome signs out...much needed decorations of normality in an abnormal year..

Today's watercolor.

"Time is gone before you are aware"--another day

"Winter Dawn," today's 5 x 7 #watercolor card

November dawn. Cold yielding to light. 
Thanksgiving for another "sunrise," for warmth, for beauty. For another gift of another day of light and life, from the long nights of November, of  a world of misery in the forms of war, greed, and hatred.
Time slips away...a day to savor each moment.

    "It was the end of November. All the days were short and dark. ...
   "Day unto day uttereth speech. The clouds change. The seasons pass over our woods and fields in their slow and regular procession, and time is gone before you are aware of it."
--Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

Reflections of thanksgiving

Reflections of Thanksgiving, 5 x 7 #watercolor card

Shorter days and bare branches of this season can be gloomy as the year nears its end and the season of death approaches.
But, not always, especially at this time of thanksgiving. Nature still provides glorious times to enjoy, especially in the more raw, intense light, giver of life.
'Tis a time for reflections, for remembering, for rejoicing, because brilliance and color are more intense against the contrast of perceived gloom.

Thanksgiving gate

Traveler's gate, 8" by 10" watercolor, 140 lb. d'Arches cold press paper

Thanksgiving makes me think of traveling, even though there's less of that now than in the past. But I still travel in memories of families and friends, many long gone, or scattered through the years and miles. 
Sixteen years ago I spent the holiday in Santa Fe with my Uncle Mike, watching snow fall on the Sangre de Cristos. I've opened and shut, and passed through many gates since then.
Gates beckon even more as a day, a month, a year and life wanes this November. This small watercolor followed the larger one of a week ago. 
This Thanksgiving is happier than that one 16 years ago, but I wouldn't want to forget either one. The last time I saw Mike, seven and a half years ago before he died, he told me, "Terry, enjoy every day you live."
Have a Happy Thanksgiving. Today is another gate.

Bridges to peace

The call home...5" by 7" watercolor

Home.
That's what most people think about around Thanksgiving, Christmas and the holiday season.
Those who are far away remember the gatherings of previous years, especially when they can't return. As they grow older, they establish their own homes and the tradition continues.
For those who miss them across the years and miles, the tables bring memories in spite of the vacancies.
Phone calls and cards help, but it's not the same. The hope and anticipation for eventual reunion holds.  And for those who will never return, their memories still inhabit "home."
The holidays are bridges to peace, to love, to family and friendship, to home--like covered bridges in a snow-blanketed landscape in the upper Midwest, linking home with travelers, and years and memories.

Thanksgiving Day stroll

Thanksgiving Day stroll, today's watercolor, 9 by 12 140# d'Arches

I have much to be thankful for in Oklahoma and America, with thoughts of so much need here, and so much turmoil and tragedy in the world. Let us rejoice in our comfort and plenty, and treasure the memories, the families, the present, and the journey ahead.

Thanksgiving

"November"--8 by 10 watercolor

Thanksgiving Day

       is a journey of years, 

of lives, 

of memories, 

of tears,

of laughter, 

of togetherness, 

of separation,

of places

      and tables

      far and near.

Bountiful plates

      of food

are only symbols

      of  servings

of  years between

and family and friends

      gathered around tables

as the journey continues.

Brown leaves and Thanksgiving thoughts

"All come from dust, and to dust all return."

Most of the color is gone from the autumn leaves. They speckle the ground with infinite shapes of brown as another winter approaches.

Others cling to their trees, as if waiting for another stiff breeze or cold front to sweep in and bare more branches. Those leaves still with some yellow and red and green in them stand out even more before they too turn brown.

It's still and quiet early Thanksgiving Day, skimming white clouds muting the sunlight and the shadows, almost as if the human world is catching its breath and noticing what is important. 

The leaves are a kaleidoscope of memories and blessings... infinite, unique  and unending  relics of lives lived, melting into the ground from when they came. 

On a day of giving thanks, for uncounted blessings,  surely, the lesson of the leaves is to enjoy today, and be thankful for the present. I'm reminded of the words of The Preacher, Solomon, in Ecclesiastes:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Thanksgiving glue

I sat in the Santa Fe apartment one Thanksgiving a decade ago, watching out the window as the gray skies turned white with snow obscuring the Sangre de Cristos.
It had been a dark year and I'd retreated to my Uncle Mike's home, where it was warm and friendly, if lonely. I yearned most for phone calls from my far away children, and the conversations, while brief, added to my Thanksgiving for a sanctuary, for hope, for acceptance.
Isn't it strange the images and memories that come to us on Thanksgiving? While I remember few as a child growing up, I have an aquifer of them from the time I began my own family...and most are joyful, though tinged with sorrows and regrets as the years pass.
Each of you have similar memories...I can recite a few, because they run together the more there are. One, in the rolling corn-stubble fields of eastern Iowa, my wife and first born son dined on a pheasant I'd shot that day. It was stringy meat. The decorations in the big two-story farm house and love were wonderful.
Another, the entire family, including in-laws and more, packed up and rented a cabin, kitchen and all,  at Red River New Mexico, splitting the costs, dining while snow fell outside.
For several years my brother, wife, and his children trekked from West Texas to visit and play games and dine. The cousins played and laughed.
When those visits ceased, Thanksgiving lost some of its splendor for me. It would become a day of sadness and thoughts of time passing.
Later, our southern Oklahoma home became the center for gathering around a round oak table, and photos were always taken, a big smiling crowd of all ages. But we didn't take enough, because as some died, we wished we'd taken group photos every year.
I don't know the memories my children have of the gatherings, but I'm sure they are richer than mine, and I cherish what they have. Now their families are making their own memories, of which I'm a small part, as scattered as they are. I also cherish the brief moments I have with them on these holidays, remembering the earlier ones.
Now as I gather in other in-laws' homes, and the family prayer is said, naming people I don't know, I garner new memories of graciousness and joy. And one year, the prayer included petition for my first-born son who was then serving in Iraq.
But I miss my trips to Santa Fe, visiting with my uncle. Now the falling snow will be on his grave in the National Cemetery across from the window where I watched not so long ago.
Thanksgiving and its memories are a glue that holds me together. I am thankful for much, and especially the memories.