Gratitude Thursday

It's the last Thursday before Thanksgiving, so I'll pause to give thanks again tonight.

Grateful for music that keeps me sane. There are so many songs that make me happy, make me think, make me melt, make me cry. Make the soundtrack that I live by. This is the one that is doing it for me today. I hadn't heard it in so so long and when it came on the radio I almost wept for joy, hearing it again and realizing how much the lyrics resonate with me.

Grateful for words that inspire me. There are so many writers--poets, novelist, essayists, and bloggers who give me a reason to keep reading, keep writing, keep looking for the words that will tell my story, I couldn't possibly list them all, but these are the words I posted on my wall recently, to remind me:

The Woman in the Ordinary
by Marge Piercy

The woman in the ordinary pudgy downcast girl
is crouching with eyes and muscles clenched.
Round and pebble smooth she effaces herself
under ripples of conversation and debate.
The woman in the block of ivory soap
has massive thighs that neigh,
great breasts that blare and strong arms that trumpet.
The woman of the golden fleece
laughs uproariously from the belly
inside the girl who imitates
a Christmas card virgin with glued hands,
who fishes for herself in other's eyes,
who stoops and creeps to make herself smaller.
In her bottled up is a woman peppery as curry,
a yam of a woman of butter and brass,
compounded of acid and sweet like a pineapple,
like a handgrenade set to explode,
like goldenrod ready to bloom.

Grateful for so much, but these will have to do for now.