Counting my blessings: one, two.

It must be the light, or staying up too late,  because I never "fall back" from Daylight Savings Time easily.  My intuition is off.  To simply tell the time of day requires focus.  My father in law said about his Parkinson' s disease, "transitions are hard."  He was mainly talking about making it through a doorway without freezing up, but I take it as a truism,  the human condition.  Change is hard.

Possibly, since it's the season of giving thanks, and I'm feeling pretty disheartened politically,
I have been trying to keep track of what I am thankful for.  I get lost in that, because everything
is nuanced, good, but then again,  maybe not so good.  Sometimes it takes decades to know what the true blessings are.  I weave paper and linen, and call it a House Blessing, because I think it's a good idea to make something to attract blessings, if possible.  Like my daughter, who staying home from school one day, bored and sick, wadded a bunch of tin foil around some rabbit ears antenna on my old black and white TV,  and brought in the miracle of a snowy, vaguely distinct picture.
To see TV in our valley we needed a satellite dish,  and we opted out.  Even after Sofia tinfoiled the antenna, we still saw every program through a snowstorm.  It was years before we knew what the cast of "Friends" actually looked like, not braving a blizzard on their couch, in their coffee shop.  Jennifer Aniston! Get your parka on!  By that time we'd upgraded our system to an old 10-foot tall antenna, leaning in a spruce tree in the front yard.  One of the kids, usually Carl, had to go out in any weather, and twist and turn it, until we yelled from inside the house that the picture was pretty good!
Is it any wonder that all my children have decided being urban dwellers suits them very well, thank you.

But I have blessings to count, at least 2 of them, very unambiguous ones.  First,  my magic wet-dry, tangle free, hair brush from Bed, Bath and Beyond (my brothers-in-law call it Bed, Bath, and Boredom). The brush is amazing, even miraculous, and was worth the trip, guided by my daughter, Ursula and her smart phone, to a BB&B store on the crest of the ridge in Duluth.  The Brush looks like nothing special, with flimsy plastic bristles, a little cheap.  But after I'd tried hers in my long, thick, strong hair, and it went through like butter and soft scrambled eggs, I was a Believer.  This brush allows me to wear my long hair in a "messy bun" on top of my head,  a good style  for a weaver, without dreading the brushing.  I'm  also pleased to wear a recognized hair style, as opposed to my usual "hair style"  which, if noticed at all,  surely prompts the thought, "Oh, too bad, she's letting herself go."  Oh, vanity!   Now I love to brush my hair, morning, noon and night,  no tangles, no tears!  Bed, Bath, and Beauty.  Word.

The second blessing was a gift to me from my 3 children, who pooled their money,  years ago, and bought me an iPod Shuffle, in palest aqua blue, engraved with the words, Singing Teacher, which is another story, but which makes me weep a little just seeing it.  The thing is, I don't know how to use stuff like this.  I've kept it like a little shrine, but never hoped to be able to figure out how to get any music on it.  Recently, one of the children asked to have it back,  if I wasn't ever going to use it!

 Just like that I got music, iTunes, my computer syncing, docking, etc. all figured out.  With music on the damn thing at last, I plugged in the earbuds, and took off up the road, riding my bike, empowered.  I can still hear the river, cars coming by, the wind in the trees, distant planes, but now there is a soundtrack.  It's like riding in my own music video.

I peddle along the river,  hearing "Let's Go Down to the River to Pray",  and I feel like I'm the star of something.  In the next few minutes I'm hearing "I'll Fly Away," just as an honest to goodness bald eagle flies off a branch, floats down in front of me, and glides over the river, and off across the corn stubblefield.   A crow or a red-tailed hawk would have sufficed.   Hallelujah! (I have to buy that and put it on my play list!)  You know what? Just getting to live my normal, everyday life is the blessing.