I’m in Truro, at the tail end of our Thanksgiving celebration. All the gang is here: Bob and I and all the girls and their partners and kids: Sarah, Ariel, Julia, Stuart, and the boys, Tova and Harris, also Ruth and Jack, Rebecca and Charlotte. We couldn’t use Rob Aster’s house as we usually do because his son wanted to use it, so I went online and found this amazing five-bedroom house in Truro that was elegantly remodeled by its two gay owners.

Plenty of room for all of us, and within walking distance of the ocean, too – where people saw both whales and seals on various walks at various times.

Gathered around the Thanksgiving table last night, everyone was thinking of Miriam’s absence – the first time we’ve had Thanksgiving without her. Sad and yet in some way lovely in its inevitability that gradually, as the years pass, one by one the older ones of us will join her in being absent from the earthly table, while the young adults will take our places, the children will become adults, and more babies, as yet unknown, will come along. If you step back far enough to get the right perspective, it all becomes the patterns of a dance.

Hard to believe sometimes that I’ve arrived at a time of such happiness and blessings: what did I do to deserve this? The pleasures of the family, the pleasures of the Cape, the pleasures of contemplating the trip to India in a few weeks (aargh! a few weeks!!), and the pleasures of imagining the return home in May and gathering at the house in Wellfleet again in late June. Lucky, lucky me. And we’ve even got Obama as President!