Gratitude Friday

1. The way the colors in the landscape are changing, the shifting light, everything turning golden.

2. The last cucumbers, the final tomatoes. Bittersweet.

3. Susan Piver and the Open Heart Project. Our retreat this past weekend was so beneficial. The whole project is so helpful and good. And Susan…well, I absolutely adore her, will forever and ever be grateful for her wisdom and her friendship.

4. Knowing what I’m doing, some of the time. I know that it’s very enlightened to “only don’t know,” but sometimes it can feel really good to know I am competent.

5. Another workshop at 27 Powers, and the loving husband who supports me going and takes care of things while I’m away. This time it’s this, with Laurie Wagner and Andrea Scher, “Opening the Creative Channel is a gathering of kindred spirits who will share stories, gorgeous food + creative exercises. We’ll write, we’ll pull out cameras and pens, we’ll put words to paper, play with color and even take a field trip, all in the service of opening the creative channel and waking up our intuition so we can hear the sound of our own music.”

Bonus Joy: The different shapes Sam can take, sometimes curled into the tiniest ball, or stretched all the way out like the tallest, longest dog who ever lived.

1. Fall weather, sunny and cool. The light is amazing and everything is tinged gold. Wool socks, soup, and flannel are all finally appropriate choices.

2. Communicating with Sam. I don’t know if we are closer because Dexter is gone or if I’m paying closer attention for some other reason, or both, but Sam understands and can communicate so much more than I realized. Although, when he stands in front of the TV, whining and talking to the various animals he sees, I don’t know if he’s the smartest dog we’ve ever had or the dumbest.

3. Clarifying my new CSU project, being happy enough with it to think that maybe I’ll be at that job longer than I used to think, that I can make it fit with the bigger sense of my life and work.

4. Where we walk. I realized yesterday, as I was Instagramming pictures of the fall colors and naming the locations on our morning walk, that we go through three parks and four natural areas on our route, that we simply open the front door and go, get to visit all these beautiful places. One thing I didn’t get a picture of yesterday was the three white-tailed deer we startled in the fog, who ran from us, leaping, tails raised high, like giant bunnies.

one of four

5. Open Heart Project. This evening, we will start our second annual virtual retreat. Susan schedules time for creating and resting, along with meditation and dharma talks and discussion. I can’t wait.

Bonus Joy: Eric. Two specific things this week made me stop and think how incredibly grateful I am for him. One is I’m reading a book Brene’ Brown recommended, Marriage Rules: A Manual for the Married and the Coupled Up, and it’s making me realize how good we have it, because so many of the issues the book works with are things we just don’t struggle with, or that we worked out already — not to say we are perfect by any means. The other was I noticed he’d recaulked the bathtub while I was away at my retreat. He’s always doing stuff like that, taking care of things, and not bothering to brag on himself for it, like I probably would. In just a few short weeks, we will have been married for 20 years. Partnering with him was the smartest thing I ever did.