Thanks-giving

In between making the third kind of cranberry sauce and the carrot pudding for my family’s holiday dinner, I’m taking time out to write this. I’m sure everyone who writes a blog or a newspaper column or an e-mail to a friend is composing a similar message today, but that’s fine. It’s as it should be.

A few years ago on a trip to Key West, I was struck by the “sunset celebration” that goes on there every evening at the water’s edge. In the travel article I wrote on that trip I said, “If the sun set only once a year, so the folk wisdom goes, everyone would stop to watch. In Key West they watch it every day.” I think, too, of a Jewish teaching that, at the end of our days, we will be called to account for every fruit in its season that we did not taste.

Isn’t that what Thanksgiving is all about--noticing the things--small as a pear, huge as a sunset--that enrich every one of our days?

I wish you all a holiday warmed by the presence of loving family and friends. I hope you find yourself surrounded by what nurtures you. And I wish us all the good sense to notice.