Richmond, VA

Merry meet Friends,
Michelle here, bringing lots of love and light!


"I don't need a holiday or a feast to feel grateful for my children, the sun, the moon, the roof over my head, music, and laughter, but I like to take this time to take the path of thanks less traveled." - Paula Poundstone


"Most of us have been given more blessings than we have received. ...We may have filled our lives so full of other things that we have no room to receive our blessings.  One of my patients once told me that she has an image of us all being circled by our blessings, sometimes for years, like airplanes in a holding pattern at an airport, stacked up with no place to land.  Waiting for a moment of our time, our attention." - Rachel Naomi Remen. My Grandfather's Blessings


I had not had all of my children home for Thanksgiving in 10 years.  I've always wanted that to occur, but this year I felt it more intensely than ever.  I had this niggling feeling in the back of my mind that this would be the last time we would spend this holiday together as a family unit.  I am divorcing my husband after a ten year separation.  Although we haven't been together, we are still married and did holidays together with the children.  I don't foresee that happening after the divorce.  My eldest daughter, Zakiya, lives in Los Angeles and couldn't always come home.  My eldest son, Donald, would either be in another state or jail.  Either way, they were never all here for holidays.  My youngest daughter, Tiffany, and my youngest son, Jason, always came home.  Anyway, this year I asked her to come home, and because her father and brother helped, she was able to come. 


Zakiya thought she was going to miss her flight because of traffic but with prayer she didn't.  Her second flight from Phoenix to BWI was delayed, causing her to miss her train into Richmond.  After I checked flights, and she spoke with the agent, she was able to get a train into DC and board another train into Richmond.  Tiffany was going to meet her on the first train in DC in order for them to travel into Richmond together.  Tiffany didn't want to wait for two hours and said she would take the original early train.  Jason was on a train from NY that we didn't think came into DC, because of the time of arrival he gave us.  Zakiya and I discovered that Jason's train arrived an hour later and DID come into DC.  She let him know she'd be on the train.  In the meantime, Tiffany changed to that train as well but didn't tell them.  The three of them rode in together and had a wonderful reunion.  The moral is if we allow Spirit to be in control, everything will always work out.  My friend Celeste says all the time that everything will work out.


I always cook for Thanksgiving even if the family has been invited elsewhere.  In my experience people are usually hungry later in the evening for food or dessert.  So I cooked the traditional meal: Turkey, stuffing, gravy, macaroni and cheese, yams, kale, cabbage, green beans, rolls, sweet potato, lemon chess and coconut pies, and a sweet potato cheese cake with a caramel pecan sauce and homemade whipped cream.  Jason demolished at least 80% of the cheesecake but he warned us ahead of time that he would.  Zakiya was the same with the coconut pie.  We went to my mother-in-law's for dinner and I took two pies. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was jovial.  There were cousins galore, including my cousin in law, LaVerne, who came in from Boston.  It was good to see her. 


Even though I was supposed to attend an event on Friday with the in laws and some friends, I ended up spending the time with my children.  On Saturday we went to see Hunger Games.  Afterwards we came back to Thanksgiving leftovers.  Later we discussed several topics, solving the world problems. (LOL)  I have enjoyed the children being home and cooking for them again.  I don't want to do that on a daily basis but I was filled with gratitude to be able to do it.  The time spent with them has been a blessing  There are many blessings within blessings that aren't always as obvious.  There was the blessing of seeing the children reconnecting with each other; the blessing of them acting as they did as children; the blessing of hearing their conversations as intelligent adults; the blessing of listening to their thought processes.  I agree with the quote above; blessings are waiting to be bestowed on us.


According to the quote, we are filled with so many things that we don't have room to receive the blessings waiting.  During the holiday season, thoughts tend to be on food, partying, gifts (given and received) and family.  Time is not always taken to just "be" and listen.  Zakiya shared with me a story of a man who was a janitor on her former job.  In stopping to talk to him one day, he told her how he had taken time off from the busyness of life to travel.  He had been to several places in and out of the country.  Sometimes he purchased tickets through Craigs List.  When she said that, my ears perked up and I thought, hmmm, I can do that as well.  Of course that led to further thoughts of travel.  I'm still trying to travel to New Mexico by way of Colorado.  I'm looking into alternative ways of traveling.  If anyone has any ideas, I'd like to hear them


I think I've been so focused on the lack of a car or money to really travel as I would like, that I haven't been opened to other ways it could happen.  I've been opposed to buses or trains because I couldn't just travel sort of aimlessly by Spirit.  I liked the idea of not knowing where I was going until I got there.  But maybe the answer has been circling around me and I have been too "in my head" to hear it. As circumstances change, I have to do so as well.  As we near the end of this year, I am ending a cycle in my life too.  According to numerology, this year has been a personal 5 year for me.  That means a cycle of freedom, diversity, travel and different cultures.  It is also the number of change, chance, variety, choice, different belief systems, the sudden, the unexpected, the unusual, and the physical.  I will have to devise some resourceful and innovative ways to retain and expand my freedom, while being urged to do just the opposite.  Freedom defined is freedom denied. How true this is!  *Numerology information by Christine Delorey in Creative Numerology.* 


I had almost forgotten this information, almost.  Thanks to Spirit for reminding me.  According to astrology, it's the same for Sagittarius.  Change has been inevitable for me this year even more than usual.  I am grateful for my children all of the time not just at holidays.  It is the being together at this holiday, however that has caused me to see in a different way.  So I "take this time to take the path of thanks less traveled." as stated above.  I will close with this poem on the Creative Numerology site which sums up where I am in consciousness:


You are the person who has to decide.
Whether you'll do it or toss it aside;
You are the person who makes up your mind.
Whether you'll lead or will linger behind.
Whether you'll try for the goal that's afar,
Or just be contented to stay where you are.
Edgar A. Guest


Until next Sunday,
Merry part and merry meet again;
Blessed be!
Gypsi Mama Michelle