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On this Thanksgiving Day with 265,000 dead from Coronavirus who had planned to celebrate the holiday this year and a president who is more interested in stealing an election which he lost instead of leading the charge against a pandemic that is robbing thousands of Americans of their lives, I stare at this screen with a troubled mind.

I do give thanks that my sons have their health and they are pursuing successful lives, but I don't view the future with optimism. I'm getting old and my body is breaking down. I'm not surrendering without a fight.  

I lie before my computer, find a good boxing match on YouTube and commence my hour workout. The beauty of both walking and Yankee Yoga is that I can do them at or from my apartment and not waste time in transit back and forth to the gym.

If those are the cake, what is the frosting? The frosting is playing tennis. There is no more melodious sound than stroking the ball on the sweet spot. There is the youthful sensation of athleticism. Once in a while, I capture that flowing movement from my youth. I do give thanks to Viagra that does restore that flowing movement from my youth.

This is the first line of defense against a growing depression. You hope that a healthy body provides the foundation for a healthy mind. Physical activity at a minimum helps an individual escape negative thinking. An unhealthy mind can be inspirational artistically, but are good poems worth the life Edgar Allen Poe lived?

These are unsettling times for me with yet the breakup of another family. I have lived life on the edge, but at this stage in my existence I am not quite as dexterous as I once was and I could slip and fall. I look down and I see a bottomless pit. I fear that the bottomless pit is awaiting all of us. 

There are those who find refuge in religion and there are those who are naturally optimistic and grateful about the brief joy of consciousness. I am sympathetic to the latter philosophy except when the darkness extinguishes the light. In those moments you ask yourself: "Is consciousness worth the torture and turmoil?"

Some of my colleagues insist that I'm at my best when I turn to my confessional style. Readers want to know that someone is suffering more than they are futilely endeavoring to make sense out of this existence. 

They don't want to read about happy people surrounded by love and luxury. They pine for the lugubrious perspective. If others share their gloom, they don't feel alone and abandoned. At times they even convince themselves that their state of being is the natural human condition.

Most fiction is confessional with the protagonist baring his soul in the third person rather than the first person. As much as I am attracted to the confessional genre, I find that I am writing more lies than truths. How honest can we be? When it comes to family and friends, are we willing to divulge their secrets?

It's all about putting pen to paper. I know that I can't feel good about myself physically if I don't exercise. I know that there is no hope for me mentally if I am not writing.

I will spend this Thanksgiving alone. I can congratulate myself on making a small contribution to the containment of COVID unless I have it and in a few days I will have a high fever, artic chills and trouble breathing. Nothing exacerbates depression like paranoia.

Thanksgiving is filled with family memories. For me I have this remembrance of my father in a white T-shirt and apron in the kitchen shooing us away as he moved about preparing the turkey and the fixings. He's almost a decade gone. Reliving old memories can be worse than viewing old pictures. Too many dead people that you loved.

My guitar is standing in a corner of the front room. I think I'll play the only verse of my Thanksgiving Day Blues: I'd give thanks, but I ain't got no money. I'd give thanks, but I ain't got no money. I'd give thanks, but I ain't got no honey.

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