Thanksgiving.

I am so grateful for all the time I get to spend in the beauty of nature.

And. My coffeewalk isn’t exactly “natural,” is it?

I mean, sure, the trees are real. The chirping birds are real. The blue sky is real. The way the rising sun makes patterns through the branches and turns the frostmelt on the fallen leaves to shining bronze and gold… all incredibly, unbelievably real.

But every day on my coffeewalk, not just today, I remind myself: that’s not the full story.

For generations and generations, up through this very morning, there have been people who gave and people who took, so that I can walk this path as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

I acknowledge with deep gratitude – and helpless sorrow – that this is the land of the Massachusett and Pennacook tribes, who are and have always been a living part of this place.

That said, I can also acknowledge with gratitude the giving intent of the descendants of colonizers who chose long ago to dedicate this particular piece of forest as a park; the city leaders who have allowed and supported its expansion over decades; the brilliant people I’m now working with at the Lowell Parks & Conservation Trust who spend their days caring for this complex network of public lands; and everyone whose tax dollars from local to federal levels and whose generous donations keep making this lovely place possible. There’s also the people who originally planned this path, the people who keep it paved, and the people who clear the broken tree limbs that block the path when storms come through; I don’t know who they are, but I see the evidence of their existence. All of that history and effort is here, under my feet and all around me.

I acknowledge with gratitude the older gent I met as he was brushing leaves from the steepest bit of trail last week so we can all walk safely. (Was his name Richard? Or Timothy? I acknowledge that I am terrible with names, and I am grateful to everyone who kindly tolerates my perpetual forgetfulness.) He’s not a volunteer in any organized sense; he just does this. It was good to have a chance to thank him in person. He shuffled his feet in the leaves and looked embarrassed.

I often think this is what privilege looks like. Being lifted up on what’s been taken from and given by so many, and yet accepting it as the natural way of the world. Walking it myself, yes; that effort is mine. But not all of it. Not all of it.

I could go on and on. (Oh wait, I already did, didn’t I?) I acknowledge with so much gratitude all the beautiful and terrible things in my life that brought me here. And so much gratitude to you, always, for reading my words and letting me know that we are together in these experiences. In trying to make meaning of the world around us.

Happy thanksgiving, my friends. Love to you all.