Happy Thanksgiving

Dining with a good friend at Metrazur this week, I enjoyed the view across the main terminal at Grand Central Station. Thank you, Jackie Kennedy Onassis for saving this gorgeous place for us. People were hustling back and forth through the station and it was a beautiful scene. Soon they would be home with family and friends sharing a holiday that is not about commerce, but about getting together with friends and family and being thankful.

There is so much to be thankful for. I am so lucky to have good family and friends. I cherish them as I have never before. This year may have been marked with loss, but it has also been marked with many gains. I feel I have had the chance this year to connect and re-connect with many people who make my life richer. My family, both close and extended are healthy and I have been able to help people I love as they move forward with their lives and grow in new directions. I have good food to eat, a lovely home to live in. I am free to speak my mind in a society which still offers more freedoms than anyplace else on earth.

I hope to reflect upon these gifts tomorrow, this weekend and to hold them more in mind as the days move forward.

I wish these blessings to everyone who reads this and I hope you all have a warm and lovely Thanksgiving.

The Spring House in Winchester Center

 There are few places on earth I would rather be than at our house in the country. We have owned this house since before we were married. In fact it was the Thanksgiving after my father died which spawned the purchase of our first major piece of property. Not wanting to dwell on my father’s death the previous April, my small extended family of Bobbie and Ferd, my brother and his fiancé and Jim and I all decided we would find a neutral location to celebrate Thanksgiving. Becky, my soon-to-be sister in-law, and Don were coming from Massachusetts. Jim and I were in New York and Bobbie and Ferd were in Chicago. We decided to meet in Western Connecticut at the Boulders Inn in New Preston. They had a good restaurant, we could sightsee a bit around Connecticut and ignore the still sore loss of my father. It was a lovely, if bittersweet, weekend and reminded me completely of how much I loved Northampton and the area around Smith when I was in school.  Jim and I returned from the Thanksgiving weekend and decided we needed a weekend retreat.

Let the Holidays Begin!

One of my favorite holiday rituals is the arrival of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. Walking to work early in the morning, year after year I have come upon the great tree lying on its flatbed truck waiting to make its debut. There is such promise and excitement surrounding the tree as it lays there. It is easy to think about the thousands and thousands of people from all over the world who will walk past and dream Christmas dreams of toys and Santa and good wishes for the future.

They move so quickly and efficiently to haul the enormous tree up onto its stands, dress its branches and surround it with scaffolding to being decoration. Each day I would walk past to see the progress.

This year I wasn’t walking past early in the morning, but I did detour to see the tree just having been hoisted into position. Crowds were watching with wonder and excitement as men crawled all around the great tree readying it for each successive step.

This year’s tree came from the front yard of a New York firefighter. He and his family were thrilled that their tree would be famous throughout the world and would bring happy smiles to so many faces.

Let the holidays begin! This should be a time of joy and thankfulness and I hope I catch the spirit and that I can share it with as many as possible.

Fiber and Frolic in October

October was a packed month and the proof is that I am running about a week behind processing events. First there was Ellie’s and my 3-Day Walk, a huge event for us and deeply satisfying. The next big event was my Friends of the Smith College Librairies Board Meeting. This is a favorite activity as I get to go visit Northampton and see Smith and the other board members are a tremendously intelligent and congenial group of women. The third weekend in every October is the New York Sheep and Wool Festival and I have already blogged about fiber and sheep ecstacy. Last up for big events in October was another annual ritual—Stitches East.