Thanksgiving was popping up on my calendar like a wild turkey poking its head out of the brush. Time to be grateful, I thought, as I sat down to write. Remember the fun girl you used to be and lighten up.

Forget the half-baked Medicare bill and the over-porked energy bill. Tune out the disastrous foreign policies of President Bush. Forget the photos of sobbing Turks, whose good sense to keep their noses out of the war next door was rewarded by fanatical bombers who object to their secular sensibilities. Never mind that Iraq has become a Petri dish of terrorism and Afghanistan is being retaken by the Taliban and warlords.

Don't think about the 431 mourning families who have lost loved-ones in this ill-begotten war. Stop worrying about how to engineer peace with an enemy who has no country and whose leaders can't be found. Enough fear and despair; concentrate on what's at hand, at least for Thanksgiving.

But I just couldn't get there. Maybe it was the sky that dampened my good intentions, hanging low like an over-soaked sponge. My morose worldview wouldn't lift.

Of course I'm thankful for my personal litany of obscene good fortune: great health, fine grown children and a flock of grandchildren heading home for the holidays; pre-injected turkeys for the timid and free-range ones for the foolhardy, tumbling out of coolers at the local markets; friends sharing savory favorite dishes in a house full of heat and light.

But lodged in my head is the notion of a less self-centered Thanksgiving. Aren't all those people gathered around that Norman Rockwell table thankful for things bigger than their own well-being? Maybe as a child of the postwar '50s I was, well ... basted with a particularly rich broth of peace and prosperity for all, not for a few. This year, being grateful for my own deep comforts feels especially shallow.

And then the snow started. At first lightly, a final warning to the yard procrastinators to bag the last leaf, jab the spruce tips into the still loamy pots.

In the early darkness we watched the snow flash past street lamps. The small vortex of our back yard sent billowing clouds of crystals swirling to the sky. It was a good night to stay in, to be quiet and alone.

In the morning we looked out at a different world. The snow had softened the outlines of every forgotten task. Sun glinted off that magical first blanket of white with a wink of hope. With enough squinting and imagination the neglected clump of unclipped hosta plants looked like a small Alpine village, roofs and spires heavy with snow. Even the neighbor's well-known eyesore of a yard took on the soft edges of a Japanese garden.

In his first morning walk the old dog sniffed the air and knew that it was different. No more nosing into the scent of rabbit emanating out of bare ground. For now only memories of that earthy pleasure.

And then there was the quiet. Cars squeaked by on still-crisp white roads. A child's laugh rose from some distant place. It was soothing, as if the senses, accustomed to an overload of sound and sight and scent, must now go deeper to find more subtle pleasures.

We all need the forgiving stillness that snow brings; the wonder, the rounding of the sharp edges, the time to think. Maybe a layer of snow would smother a fanatic's fire. Maybe a blanket of white would comfort the grief of the wounded. Maybe the snow's sparkle would bring hope to a child.

This Thanksgiving, maybe it could snow all over the world.

Susan Lenfestey (soolen@aol.com) is a Minneapolis writer.

© Copyright 2003 Star Tribune

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