I look at that damnable bowtie underneath that shock of hair, and I wonder how I made it four decades past that picture without a more regular schedule of beatings. I straighten the frame just slightly on the wall, there in my parents' basement, and pace myself along the room a little farther.

"How did I get to be here?" is a theme to which I return each year, from this place, at this time. The first coat of real frost falls, and I think about winding up the year. Taking totals, balancing entries, finding where I've come to - here in this place, at this time, when I'm always up to here with giving thanks.

My mind insists on returning to that theme, though it shies away from the specifics. I have always been the type who wants to check the score, but usually because I think that I'll be winning. It's been a hard year for that, though, because I've been suspecting the score's not on my side. My paces have been so often uphill as I move myself along the way I must go in this past year - so many little things have gone so tough.

Standing by for the love of my life, through those incisions and the clean-out, and finding that she can still feel for me like she did... given enough Vicodin. Sitting with a coworker, a lad of promise, and watching his eyes, holding just enough management information to dread the moment, as we listen together to the conference call that announces the layoff of our peers. Hearing dire warnings of the disease of the year, having them run through my head as my lungs fill and rattle in the night. Keeping that face of mine in place while a lady friend drags herself through explaining to me why exactly she's pushed shut the door on a boy I'd urged her to consider. Realizing I'm without support in my work at the same time that the jobs of my colleagues, of my sponsors, of even me myself, are quite at risk, and everyone is looking right at me.

Moments aplenty when the score can't have changed, and the only news I'd get from checking the board is how much time has gone. Cold times, stinging times, times when I'm just a kid in a bowtie, wrong and sticking out and oh so very alone. This turkey of a year was stuffed with those moments, and I can't claim to have been thankful.

And yet. And yet, and yet, and yet.

The other night, I was at peace, in my home, breathing free, having tucked my giggling son into his bed. Having put him in his place of perfect safety once again, where he once again would grow for me and be just that much better when next he woke. Not free to roam that night, as I kept him safe... but boggling at what was there for me just then, were the world just different enough for me to be out in it.

I could have been seeing that lad of promise accept an award for his work, and standing to receive my own in front of those that I had worked with, and would still be working with. I could have been sitting drawing women clad, just barely, in the style of Cleopatra, meeting with a friend and the man for whom she's pulling open the door. I could have been jotting things obliquely meaningful to be read around the table, in the presence of the unveiling of an hourglass rarely seen.

All these kindred souls that would make a welcoming place for me in the end, despite all the wacky teeth-gritting stories of what I've done and who I've been, and whatever is reflected on that scoreboard in the sky. All the ways I could walk and be well-companioned.

I found myself thankful then for all that, and the smile I can't wipe from my face makes me think that I'm thankful now, here in this quiet place where so much of my history is still on display. I think this kid in the bowtie has every reason still to look on the world with a funny grin, grab on to the good things right in front of him, and make with the jazz hands.