10 a.m. on Thanksgiving Monday, and there are tears. I’m awash in gratefulness for this life. Yesterday, 60 Minutes showed the devastation of Hurricane Ian in Florida, homes smashed and washed away. “Everyone on Sanibel Island is now homeless,” said one woman, who’d returned by boat – the road washed out – to pick through what was left of her house. 

The planet is burning and drowning, and as Adam MacKay showed us with biting humour in Don’t Look Up, we are paying no attention. At least, the people who should make a difference aren’t.

More horror coming from Ukraine. Another kind of horror coming from the States about its debased political climate. Here, front page story of Trudeau and Poilievre sniping viciously at each other. It’s getting colder out there. 

In here, I’m still in my dressing gown. Spent yesterday afternoon listening to CBC and cooking, as I do on Sundays. Stuffing, creamed spinach, sautéd Brussels with garlic and lemon (does anyone have a good Brussels recipe? I still have not found one), and braised leeks are ready, plus pesto pasta for the kids who don’t eat mashed potatoes. (Really?!) I used my mother’s long-handled silver stuffing spoon, the one described in my recent Globe essay, to stuff the turkey; it’s in the oven with the sweet potatoes. Sam will make the mashed, Anna the sweet. The kitchen already smells wonderful. I’m hungry again. 

As I worked, Matt Galloway was interviewing a man who discovered the almost perfectly preserved body of a 30,000 year old baby wooly mammoth in the Yukon this summer. He was overcome with emotion as he spoke, and I too, as I listened. He spoke of the reverence and respect his team were taught about the discovery by the local First Nation. Good people out there, doing good things. 

What she looked like, then.

My friend Lynn and her husband Denis celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary yesterday. I was at their wedding 51 years ago. Lynn and I have been best friends for 55 years, and yet we are both just the same. Only better. A little crankier, wrinklier, but better. 

Here in the warm, scented, silent kitchen, one small woman is overwhelmed with gratefulness for her mostly peaceful little life, for this house that has sheltered so many for decades, for the friends and family and boys and dog who will be here soon. For trees, which tolerate us. 

For what we are about to receive, may we be truly, truly thankful. 

In the Necropolis cemetery yesterday.