today's gratitude (life is an adventure)

I am so grateful that I did not bring my kids to Sea World today. What a horrible spectacle for a packed house of people to witness. It is beyond me why anyone would choose to work in close range with a killer whale who has been implicated in two other human fatalities. I mean, would you work closely with a PERSON with a track record like that? A woman who chose to work face to face with an enormous and dangerous animal lost her life to the whim of its violent depression, and now her six children will grow up without their mother.

I am feeling pretty sad right now, having read about what happened today, and rather contemplative.

Also, my friend who never quite adjusted to life in Cincinnati is getting her wish. She will be moving far away, and very soon. I have mixed emotions about that. I am always happy for my friends who move away from here for positive reasons. As I've said here in previous posts, I have tended, over the last decade of dwelling in Ohio, to befriend people with very few roots holding them to this city. The assumption has always been that we are just a few steps behind them from the exit door. But like my friend Alison, who also grew up in New York, and moved to Cincinnati from there, I have worked hard to make a good life for myself here, and it is now very difficult to imagine uprooting my family without a really good reason to.

But home is where the heart is, and life is an adventure. We will go where the tide takes us, and as long as we are together, I think we will always be happy. I'm so grateful to enjoy a quality of life here that makes me question whether I will ever really want to go. Especially considering how much I originally dreaded moving here, how certain I was that I could never find friends who felt like sisters, and how desperately I once was to move away...this seems almost miraculous.

When I turn onto my street to come home, I am often overwhelmed by the beauty of the place where I live. I have a very good life here, full of wonderful people and activities. As strange as this town often seems to me, as many things as it lacks, I can see that I have become a thread in the fabric of this place, woven in more and more deeply with each passing year by my friends, my children's friends, my husband's job, CCM, Yellow Springs, the Valley Temple, Hope Springs, the CSO, the new JCC, the Center for the Arts Wyoming, and most recently, my chamber orchestra. I make friends quite easily, and I am confident of my ability to ensure that my children have rich childhood experiences wherever they are.

I am about to read to Isaac from a Series of Unfortunate Events that befell three fictional orphans. I'm glad my children do not require dramatic stories of this nature to make them feel fortunate for the lives they lead. They are such happy children, and as such, they don't know how lucky they are, and that's okay. A sweet childhood is properly taken for granted while it is being lived. I'm going to go climb into a tiny little bed now and feel how great it is to be a part of that.