Thanksgiving in San Juan

Today I begin a gratitude journal. I have spent 5 glorious November days with my daughter Juanita in San Juan (La Isle Verde), Puerto Rico, in the Caribbean where it is warm all year round. We took early morning long walks on the beach to breakfast at an oceanside restaurant where windows opened out onto the ocean. We dined on red beans, rice and red snapper (with head, eyes and tail still attached) in an authentic Puerto Rican restaurant in Pinones, a suburb of San Juan where the descendents of Africans brought over in the 1500's in the slave trade still live; sipped mango and strawberry daiquiris, ate Gelato, toured and shopped in Old San Juan where Ponce de Leon is buried; took taxi rides, rode the bus, ate dinner in fancy restaurants, played the slot machine in the hotel's casino, and soaked up the sun and sand under the coconut trees, their fronds swaying in the wind. Finally, on Sunday morning, I sat at the ocean's edge and let the emerald green warm high waves wash over me, tossing me to and fro. I had a bucket of sand to dig out of my swim suit, but I am not complaining. I had never been outside the U.S.A. and I am now officially a world traveler. I can still see my daughter happy at last to be lying on the beach letting the ocean wash away the strain of the long work week. I brought back souvenirs from San Juan (coconut candy and key chain) to share with co-workers.

Years ago, I was skeptical when an astrologer and psychic told me that I would be traveling and writing, and the writing would be related to the traveling. I have flown up and back to NYC so many times since then to visit my daughter who for several years until 9/11 worked in Manhattan. On that fateful morning, she was in Tower One when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. I am grateful every day that she survived that terrorist attack.

In the wee hours of Monday morning, November 8th, I arrived back in Richmond to a cold house still without telephone service or a furnace that works. And it was very cold too--in the 20's two nights this week. Surviving the winter in a cold house? Didn't like the idea. I called the oil service repairman who met me at the house on Veteran's Day, November 11th, to see if he could fix the furnace which had been blowing soot through the rooms until I finally turned it off after noticing that the walls were turning dark and my kittens' white paws were turning black. I had been so pleased that I had gotten the house painted inside before moving in October 1st. Now I would have to wash down all the walls and clean the carpets. From the November issue of my church's newsletter, I read our minister's suggestion that whenever we have to face a loss or any major change in our lives, we simply praise the situation and affirm with great enthusiam, "I can hardly wait to see what wonderful good comes from this! Thank you, God."

Though he couldn't fix the cracked furnace he said would have to be replaced at a cost of $2800, he was a good Samaritan and showed me how to operate a kerosene heater left in the house. I am in my 60th year and had never operated a kerosene heater. Because it was Veteran's Day, I asked him if he had served in the service and yes, he said had been in the Army Corps of Engineers. When I thanked him for serving our country in the army, he looked stunned for a moment. I guess he was not used to anyone thanking him for his military service. What a blessing he was to me that day. Today, I received another blessing! My telephone repairman met me and hooked up the wires inside the house so that I could at last use my telephone. I called him "magic man" but he insisted he was just the telephone repair man. I do not take these things for granted!

This weekend I will not go anywhere. I have picked apples in October at an Orchard in Nelson County. They are keeping well refrigerated in the trunk of my car. I have spent one weekend at my spiritual retreat, an ashram in Buckingham County. And I have vacationed in San Juan. This weekend, I will work on clearing out more of the clutter at the house and unpacking from the move.

I am grateful for a quiet Friday afternoon, for time to write, for a delicious meal today of fried flounder served by the guest restaurant Croaker's Spot at St. Paul's Episcopal Church for its next to last "Eyes on Richmond" luncheon, for Juanita's telephone calls to reassure me that though she was still out of the country this week, she might as well have been right in my living room. As soon as she heard her mother's anxiety about the tasks facing me, she was immediately on the phone with a contractor making arrangements for roof repair and investigating heating options. She is right now on her way back to the states from San Juan and tonight I'll get to talk to her from my telephone at home! She is become adept at bilocation. I can close up this computer and go home, affirming that wherever I am, God is and all is well.

Buenos Noches!