Not dead, not swept away

This year my Thanksgiving cup runneth over

I

Nothing fancy or soulful to be read here: just my thanks.

Thank you! So many of you reached out to me during the recent travails here in Asheville, NC.

Some of you offered my wife and I a place to stay beyond the terrifying reach of the flood waters that swept so many people’s lives and/or livelihoods away. Some of you offered to send us supplies: food, blankets, pool noodles with which to line the top of my bucket for reasons I’m hoping to forget but can’t seem to, and have therefore decided to start drinking heavily because it literally just hurts too much to remember.

A great many of sent Actual Money, which I actually used to help people hurt by Helene.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for reaching out, for showing me love, for telling me you care that my wife and I are all right.

It was all just so moving, to be honest.

I guess that kind of stuff always is.

But you sure feel it when you need it most, don’t you?

One thing I’m super-grateful for is that I didn’t freakin’ die in the hospital. (See From Asheville, with love (and some fear). I sure almost did. Which is a weird kind of . . . mental/spiritual phenomenon. It’s the third time that’s happened to me.

Ugh. I could have done with exactly none of those times.

Then again, you know what I’ve learned from my near-death experiences? Nothing. Nothing at all. Not wiser. Not smarter. Just . . . still not dead.

You’re alive; something bad happens; you come so close to dying you’ve basically already released yourself to it; and then for some reason you end up still alive.

Anyway, I’m extremely grateful that I didn’t die this year. (I mean, you know: not yet, what with the way the latter part of this year has gone so far!) I’m grateful our house is still standing, still keeping us warm and safe and protected. I’m grateful my wife Cat and I both have jobs that didn’t disappear in the floods.

And I’m so grateful to you all. You get my emails. You open them. You read them. Sometimes you leave me the lovely/funny/warm comments.

And then I know you’re out there, living your life.

Then I know we’re all sort of together, you know, going through it all.

Going through all this . . . life we keep experiencing, come hell or high water.

I’m grateful to you. That’s all I wanted to say. I hope you have a great Thanksgiving day. Talk to you soon. Your friend, who’s feeling that particularly today, John