-->Written at age 18 (third-person, in a short story):
I know what she wants, but it's absurd. She wants to write. She wants to live in a dank, arty flat, [with] Peter or another Peter, and write, and have people say, "You can write, Jocasta,"
Written "just a few years" later:
I want to thank You (Whoever or Whatever You may be).
(I want to bless You. I even want to bless me.)
Why this change of heart, You ask? I'm not sure I can articulate all the reasons for my thankfulness,. But let me try and summarize a few . . .
I am thankful, for one thing, that my name is not "Jocasta." And that I know for sure -- no outside affirmation required -- that I can write. That I am a writer, for better or for worse; inarguably, incurably.
I am thankful that the flat in which I live is not "dank." ("Dankness" does not sound too good for my lil ole arthritic joints.)
I am thankful I had no clue, at age 18, how things would turn out for me beyond all that youthful longing and malaise. I am not sure that I could have coped with such knowledge -- that I could have summoned, at 18, even a fraction of the strength I would eventually need to go through what I have come through.
I am thankful for the strength I have found.
I am thankful for the friendships I have known -- more thankful, after all, than for the romances, the "violins and fireworks," the Peters who broke my vulnerable adolescent heart I never did live with "Peter," or any Peter. I did live with a Robert (I'm no longer entirely sure why) for a quarter-century or so..And I worked with a child psychiatrist, after law school, whose name was Peter. He was a decent, interesting guy to see for three years at the office and at various work-related outings and functions.
I am thankful for the work I have had and have done..
I am deeply thankful for my family. And my surgeons.
I am hugely thankful for the small, daily, sustaining things. For a ripe, sweet mango. For papers and paints and half a jar or so of Golden's Acrylic Matte Medium. For my intrepidly hopeful temperament. For a Presidential candidate who just might change things. For change. For a spell of summer weather at the end of April For Nancy Griffith, Debbie Friedman, Rascal Flatts, and J.S. Bach.
I am thankful for words. And for Word.
I am wildly, hugely, profoundly thankful that I am no longer 18 -- that life has turned out to be better, broader, more beautiful, more precious (albeit a whole lot harder) than I could ever have imagined back then..
