journal page, Cat Charissage, 2013

Dear Friends,

Those of us who are Canadians join with our American friends and family in wishing you and yours a happy Thanksgiving Day.  Now, one thing you can do today in your journal is to list some of the things you sincerely feel thankful for in your life.  If it’s a hard day, if you’re able to be reading this, you can be thankful for the fact that you’re not living in a refugee camp as too many of our brothers, sisters, and children are right now.  Be sure to include background colors on your list to represent and brighten your items.

Knowing how the holidays go for many of us, though, perhaps at the end of today you can list, one each on little pieces of paper, the things in your life that you’d LIKE to be thankful for, but don’t FEEL any gratitude for at the moment.  You know, the mother who criticized everything you cooked today, the cousin who broke your Tiffany lampshade when he punted a football in the living room, the daughter who sulked throughout the meal and wouldn’t pull out her earbuds —- those sorts of people and events.   After you list them, draw a basket in your journal, then glue the little pieces of choice people and events as though they are falling into the basket.  Then draw alongside the basket a lid for it.  The page can represent the challenges that are inescapably a part of your life, but by metaphorically putting them into the basket and closing the lid on it, these people and events do not need to obsess your thoughts nor hijack the happinesses to be found today.

A blessed thanksgiving to us all.

With love,

Cat

Day 27  of a series of daily prompts for written, visual, or art journalling, or just for pondering.  For more background information, see the Intro pagehttps://catcharissage.com/2014/10/29/announcing-sixty-days-of-visual-journalling-prompts/, or this post on visual journalling: https://catcharissage.com/2014/07/12/talking-about-journals/.