November is the next to the last month of the year and what a year 2020 has been! How many times did I reminisce about the terror of Y2K that turned out to be such an overblown fear?  We have all learned a great deal about ourselves, our families and a lot about living safely in the time of Covid-19.

November’s full moon for me is a time to think about what I’m grateful for. While I miss our friends and families, it has been the sea for me that has heralded my spiritual balance. I am awed my grandfather’s baby sister Katie and only girl with five brothers had the courage to make the leap of life on Piney Ridge in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania to eventually retire to Honolulu, Hawaii. With a role model like that in my family, setting the goal to live on Sanibel Island did not seem so far out of reach.

I am grateful Jacques Cousteau brought the wide blue ocean to our living room via television. With those images floating through my dreams, it was easy to be inspired to visit the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California. To walk amongst the rock pools at low tide in Pismo Beach, California and to be amazed at the actual sea anemones I had seen on television and at aquariums. To take lunch alfresco beside the harbor in Morro Bay, California and to watch the sea otters with their meal as we had ours was a spectacular memory.

I am delighted by Gustav Klimt’s vision and his imagination to create his magical golden paintings. I am thankful for the Gustav Klimt paintings that did survive the Second World War. We can all see thousands of artwork today that the Monuments Men risked their lives to preserve for future generations, housed in museums around the world.

I am honored my grandmother taught me the stitches that she embroidered on doilies and pillowcases. I am grateful that while other children were learning the alphabet my mother made sure I knew how to mix watercolors to make new colors and how to hold a paintbrush. I am humbled by my older brother’s skill of metalworking and that he allowed me to observe him at his lathe while he crafted timeless jewelry in sterling silver.

I am grateful my partner in life, my husband Mike appreciated my desire to travel and to see European Art, the blue of the Caribbean Sea, and the big Pacific Ocean and he fulfilled those desires. That he learned to navigate the Paris Metro system with only a background in classic Latin is a testimony to the lengths he will go to see me happy. 

Most of all I am grateful for those moments of joy we shared with our friends and families that we have had to hold on to those memories through this long and deadly pandemic. Because of those good memories we can also have the faith that we will see them again.

My colored pencil drawing Aloha is on 20” x 26” Fabriano Tiziano pastel and charcoal paper made in Italy. Pablo pencils are by Caran d’Ache made in Switzerland.