Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Easily my favorite holiday. I'm not the biggest fan of tryptophan turkeys, and I don't love it for the leftovers. The gathering of friends and loved ones is great, but that happens a couple times a year.
I love thanksgiving because no matter how shitty I feel, no matter how glorious or disgraceful the year has been, it forces me to remember to be grateful for at least something.
With that in mind, here's my list of things I'm thankful for.
I'm thankful to be on a planet in a solar system in a galaxy hurling through a universe that somehow allows things as delicate as dandelions and human beings to exist, albeit momentarily.
I'm really grateful to live and work around people who are caring and supportive enough to call me out on my bullshit. Even when I know I'm right, it's good to have my best friends and siblings fact check me.
I'm so so so very thankful for Dog & Pony theatre company. If it weren't for that community of artists, I think I would have quit working in theatre long ago, rendering my undergraduate education in English and Theatre arts a fun diversion of my twenties.
I'm thankful for Barack Obama, even if he doesn't seem like the man I voted for in 2008.
I'm thankful for the Art Ensemble of Chicago. I just realized a few weeks ago that they are at the core of my musical upbringing, and the lens through which I look at all other musics.
I'm lucky to be born of two decent and loving parents, who are supportive and wonderful in every way possible. On that note, I'm existentially grateful for all of my ancestors, without whom I would not exist.
I'm thankful for the sprawling web of Pollution, Misery and Corruption that is the City of Chicago. Our smiles are naturally selected to shine in spite of everything the town does to make us frown. Others have intimated the same feeling much more eloquently than I can.
I'm so pleased I got to see one of my best friends marry the love of his life this year.
I'm thankful to you for reading this.
