I appreciate the harvest of this year, the lovely sunlight, the pretty late bloomers in the garden, the taste of the newest vegetables, the scent of the apple trees, a pair of sweet brown eyes that are looking at me right now, the chuckles of my friends in the background working on the potluck brunch, this breath, this earth that brings us together, my free flowing creativity, the words that come to me like music, the feeling of music in my cells since dawn, this Monday that is a holiday, and the plain observation that reward comes after effort and that love too grows in a similar way as plants do: not from shocks and confrontation, not by force, not through fancy wishing, but from love and caring, the occasional weeding out of competing interests, enough letting be, and being there for it.
Some things are so eternal: the look of love is the water, the sound of laughter is the sun for the love to be. (If we play with the idea that we are a lot like of plants, which is quite close to reality and fun to imagine.) Splash your loved ones with both water and sun, the look of love and the sound of laughter. The more the better; the more happiness will grow from it. Happy Thanksgiving.
10 October 2016
…
My comment in 2020:
This is how gratitude feels to me. Wow. I will allow more gratitude to flow into my weekend now.
Nanda Jurela 
hope, you don’t mind me asking, you speak German , but seem to live in CN, how come? greetings from Denmark from the other side of the globe from Liv
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He he, Liv, I had a European education.
The education system in Canada emphasizes French as a second language – mainly in the two provinces bordering Quebec, in Ontario and in Nova Scotia. (The other provinces are much less invested teaching French or other languages in high schools.).. Kids and adults can learn languages, of course, in private programs, private schools, or in university. Many Canadians have immigrant or indigenous parents and pick up small talk from their older relatives.
The average Canadian 20 year old has much less knowledge of other languages (and cultures outside of the local and North American multiculturalism) than the average 20 year old in Denmark, Germany, and most European countries.
Well, I grew up in Europe. I completed my postsecondary education — and my reiki training too! — in Germany.
I was an adult when I moved to Canada. Time is flying, but it has been a while. He he. Since I don’t regularly practise the other languages I speak, I leap to any occasion to do so. 😁
🍁 🇨🇦 🦃
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Thanks you for your answer. Sorry, it took me a while to get back, we were just so busy. Hows come, you decided to move to CN? Where from Germany do you come from? (Hope, you don’t mind me asking, was just wondering while reading your blog.) love from Liv from Denmark which is getting rather cold now and rainy, but that’s also very cozy.
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Don’t worry, Liv — fall tends to be a busy time for many who work in gardens and are preparing for the winter. Here, the season has changed quite dramatically too. I can not believe that only 10 days ago, I wore short pants and open sandals.. and that now it is so cold and dark.
I emigrated because back in the day, I had a plan to start a magazine about literature, philosophy and arts with my then-boyfriend, a Canadian, who became my husband and my son’s father.
None of those plans manifested. My partner became very ill – with his addictions. He destroyed himself. He almost destroyed my and our son’s life too.
I started this blog in memory of him. (He passed on to the other realm in early 2020.) Although my life was a nightmare for at least a decade, and I used the following decade to clean up that nightmare, I honour what was good.
My son is in grade 12 and will graduate as the top student in his high school, as I just learned, from his teachers. So .. I am trying to keep things in perspective.
Things were very bad once, they are not so bad any more. I am writing a blog, my essays are getting published, I raised a good young man.
His father would have made other choices, had he been sober and had he had a better life before his addictions.
He was a fabulous writer.
He was also enthusiastic about my writing.
From the other side, he is cheering me on — with my writing projects, because he always wanted me to publish my words and not keep them to a small selected group of people — grateful that I made choices that were quite difficult, but right.
🧡
..
I grew up in Southern Germany, in Baden Württemberg. It was a prosperous, cautious-conservative region with a very active counterculture scene – punk, left-wing, hard partying, highly opinionated young folk. 😊
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