It's Thanksgiving, a little after sunrise. This has already become one weird winter, as Brian Wright would say.

I find myself up early. I'm wondering how today will go, my first Thanksgiving without my wife. My first Thanksgiving not being the head of my family's table (or at least, one of their tables) My first Thanksgiving in many years without our closest friends here to cook and to play music and to laugh. My first Thanksgiving without a Grandmother.

Going through divorce and death and all of those D words helps you towards one drastic determination: you are all for changing your old habits. And the kids have been stellar in helping me find a way to celebrate with them today. We'll make cinnamon rolls and omelettes this morning, just us. Amidst all the moving of her stuff; the furniture, the paintings, stacks of books and boxes and cleaning supplies we'll make an omelette bar full of cheeses, vegetables, sauces, and even a bit of sliced turkey to honor the day. The music will be on and I'll wear a tie. Hopefully it will be a new tradition, and maybe next year we can include some friends and family. But today it will be just us. And I'm looking forward to it, in a way, much more than I've ever looked forward to this holiday.

I say all this in the interest of saying what I'm thankful for. And boy am I thankful for those kids. And I guess I'm thankful for the changes, tough as they are.

In the last year, I've hit some serious lows. I'm thankful that I'm on a path of recovery and the time spent being that miserable person has given me the empathy to act with humility and respect when it counts. Let's hope those qualities take root.

Oh yeah and man, am I thankful for this thing! (And I'm looking forward to a weekend of working on it.)

There are a handful of songs I've written through the last 10 years, that have been sitting around gathering dust. Some of them are a bit too sharp and vicious, but now that my marriage is over and my grandmother is gone, the list of people I'm worried about disappointing is getting shorter and shorter.

Some of these songs are pointed straight at the heart of the rot in my relationship. If my wife hadn't decided to leave, these songs sure would have driven her away. I usually only played them when no one was home, or I was drunk enough to make friends uncomfortably sit through them. Some have chords suggested to me by my wife's new boyfriend, the new head of her table.

But some aren't that vicious at all. Some are about trying to find ways to be thankful, even for loss. And some are last ditch efforts.

Here's one of those; a demo about 5 or 6 years old. I recorded it in a rush, to feel like I accomplished something. The instruments were a mix of my little four string and keyboard tapping in Garageband. To call it a "demo" is to oversell it really. But I did record it, and all the parts are intact more or less.

 https://soundcloud.com/hummingbird-feet/the-summer-that-we-forget-demo

I'm looking forward to taking another shot at theses songs, with friends this time, as a way to begin to put to bed the last couple decades, and to be thankful for every moment from then till now, even the ones that I am not proud of.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. The sun is now up, and I've got to go start cutting up vegetables and cracking eggs and setting out a new tradition. All my best to you.