A season to be thankful
A season to be thankful
It’s Christmastime, a season that – at least in America – transcends Christian faith and envelops us all. Between shopping and decorating and eating, it’s also an opportune time to reflect on the blessings that give us joy.
A few of the things I am thankful for:
White-crowned Sparrows. Just a few miles away, on the coast, they are a year-round presence. But here in San Benito County, the small brown birds sporting bold black and white striped heads disappear each year. Ours are of the pugetensis race, and they fly to Washington and British Columbia to breed and raise young before returning each year. They typically arrive the week before my birthday, singing a distinctive song I never grow tired of.
While many birds demand travel or patient observation, these are birds of parks, yards and public places. They fill our garden and drive our dog to distraction. I love them.
Our oldest daughter returned from university last Friday, friend in tow. We stood talking for a while, and I asked about their drive home, along Highway 25 north from King City to Hollister. She remarked on something I too often take for granted – our hills. Tucked as we are between the Gabilan and Diablo ranges, we are embraced by our landscape.
As the hills turn to green, the transformation is awe-inspiring. It’s the color of a working landscape that feeds people. It is the color of life. The change to gold late next spring is no less welcome, because it completes a cycle and gives us cause for anticipation of its repetition.
I am profoundly thankful to share this place with a family I love. Our daughters express their love for us daily. My partner is a companion beyond my capacity to describe. I love them beyond measure.
I am thankful for ideas. We recently sat down and watched “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore’s documentary about global warming, and how we are the reason for it. I have written here that earth’s warming might be the result of natural or human influences. Gore, sounding like the best college professor I ever had, presented an entertaining, informative argument that can leave little doubt. That there has been no credible rebuttal speaks volumes. I know, because I’ve looked for one. Best of all, he runs contrary to much of the doomsday environmentalism and ends the film with a vision of hope, with the notion that we can effect change. See the movie.
I am grateful that I can see. It’s said that humans gather some 90 percent of their information through their eyes. Two members of our family recently had eye surgery, and in both cases it went well. But beyond gathering and processing information, our eyes reveal wonders whenever we pause to enjoy them. We read. We gaze upon one another. We see something and laugh. Last Sunday, as we left a nursery at the southern edge of Salinas, we stopped and gasped. A field just sprouting lettuce showed furrows converging in the distance. Beyond them was the Sierra de Salinas, and above that was a beautifully blue sky, punctuated with clouds. Shafts of light danced over it all. It was stunning.
I am just as glad for my sense of smell. The shortest path to memories is through my nose. The smell of a certain perfume still brings back my mother’s memory. A recent study at the University of California showed that humans are, perhaps, closer to their noses than they know. Researchers blindfolded subjects and blocked their hearing, then had them sniff along a chocolate-scented trail. The subjects did far better than any researchers imagined. Moreover, they proved that we smell in stereo. When one nostril was plugged, subjects did far worse.
I’m just as grateful for the ability to hear the voices and laughter all around me, to hear birdsong and immediately know the species responsible for the music and for music itself.
I am thankful for friends who tolerate ramblings like this and indulge these ideas.
I am humbled and thankful by the belief that species have evolved and diversified on this orb with the guidance of a Higher Authority. I believe without Him we are empty vessels.
Merry Christmas to all of you.
Mark Paxton is publisher of The Pinnacle. His e-mail address is [email protected].
