I'm thankful because of you. Life is spacious when I look into your Pangaea-like eyes; they are so kind and generous. Your easy Nordic landscapes throw me into simple memories of whispy Northern Lights and rolling western North Dakota badlands. I am concerned about those who snicker at loss or lost fortunes, who'd rather toss the injured and battered away. I'm grateful for the Amy Tans who remind us of beauty in the feathered wing and to look for helpers who always reach out when catastrophe occurs like recent tornados across the Kansas plains. 

I'm thankful for you, whose song penetrates even the Night Hawk scoping out the would-be morsels. Even the bald eagle, which climbs higher than hikers, can bolt up Mount Blanca's rocks.  

I'm oh so thankful for you and the maze of emotions you traverse despite all the Cumbres forest logs strewn along your walk or the Conejos-driven ground blizzards. I'm so thankful for the intravenous feeding when the ache or bite must be calmed, and you are there like the traveling nurse or the lady with that lamp of long ago.  

I'm oh so thankful for your generosity and spirit worn like a duvet that covers a broken heart with Meals on Wheels. How much thankfulness can a heart hold who treasures your visits, the vast gift of a tidy kitchen with that simple promise to mend? 

Overhead, I'm thankful for the ice fog that wraps each branch and bespeckles the view with bling from the Valley where cocker spaniels romp, and elk magically appear in dale and gale and where you broaden your shoulders and spirits with each watercolor fresco on the rice paper that bears your mark. 

How thankful I am for you, who has long climbed out of monster holes, who seeks truth, justice, and the American way, and who humbles every day at the miracle of growth without alcoholic dread. 

I'm hard of hearing sometimes and can scarcely make out those cries of temperate ice that break away at the North Pole and the South and are plummeting dramatically off Iceland. 

My soul knows what lingers here in my heart and your heart chases fast driving rules and replaces a gobbling culture with one embrace for the planet and each other. So, I'm grateful for you, for your reminders to recycle and to consecrate the earth and all the creatures; one hand, one heart can bless the purple mountains and become Route 66 that slays naysayers on life's rumbling road. 

And so, after all, I'm so very happy hearing all the melodies in your voice.

Nelda Curtiss is a retired college educator and long-time local columnist. Reach her at columnsbynellie.com.