Gratitude

Because like everything, what I'm grateful for changes, so here is my current list:

I'm grateful for Tai Moses, my friend of 38 years who, though the 3000 miles between us never gets shorter, I feel closer to than ever. I'm grateful that my daughter, although she is typical in the teenage ways she challenges and aggravates me, is also kind and loyal, self possessed, confident, and radiant. I'm grateful that although my father has been gone for 16 years, he left me with a love I feel whenever I think of him, and I think of him every day still. I'm grateful, though I didn't stay married to the man I married, that he and I have a respect for one another that cannot be broken. I'm grateful that my mother, who is now 84, still walks, and works, and sings, and every so often has a second shot of vodka that makes her ridiculously and beautifully childlike. I'm grateful to have brothers, and work that I love, and for knowing I'll return to London and to Rome, and enjoy them both so much more next time around. I'm grateful to live in a beautiful home with a shiny bathroom floor and hot water when I want it-grateful for the man who's name is tattooed on my ankle, who, although we never made a life together, gave me a taste of what real love could be. I'm grateful I stopped giving myself to men who weren't there on New Year's Eve, or on my birthday, or who never made me feel like I was the only one. I am grateful to have found a man who's already thinking of how we'll spend New Year's Eve together, who shows me I am the only one, and who, if I dare to look forward, I can see on my next birthday, holding my hand on a plane to Bora Bora, that place I've been dreaming of for so long.