Gratitude

1. Merry everything and happy always! Yesterday we put on Christmas music and I wrapped the last of Eric’s presents and watched a few Christmas movies (rewatched Single All The Way and then Love Hard, both really good) and then we went to lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant. When we came home, I took a nap while Eric made an apple pie and walked Ringo, and after dinner we watched The Great British Baking Show holiday special. Today it was early morning presents, texts with people I love, talking to my mom on the phone, and not doing much of anything else. I hope that you too, kind and gentle reader, are making space for rest and ease, and that joy and love are finding their way to you.

2. Sunrise. This time of year, it’s extra.

3. Puppies and babies. Two of my favorite things.

She is the same size as Ringo, but Charlotte is only a baby (Great Dane).

4. Ringo Blue, all his quirks. I’ve mentioned before that Ringo loves to find things on his walks, pick them up, and carry them — sometimes all the way home. This week he’s found two single gloves and one pair of black knit gloves that he’s absolutely in love with. In fact, I spent a whole day washing and mending his toys, and when they were ready to come out of the dryer, he was clearly asking to play, brought me his beloved gloves. I took him to the dryer, opened it, and told him to “get a toy.” He set down his gloves and stuck his head in the dryer, had a look around, and picked the gloves back up! That was his choice. It’s like a kid who spends more time playing with the box a new toy comes in than the toy.

5. My tiny family, my tiny home, my tiny life. It doesn’t seem possible that it is already Christmas, it seemed to come so fast this year, feels like Thanksgiving was only two weeks ago, especially when today was 50 and sunny. There’s no one I’d rather spend the holidays with, or any of the regular days, even the awful ones — home is where they are.

Bonus joy: Eric being on a three week break, all the candy he made, new books and empty journals, a warm shower, clean laundry, clean sheets, down blankets and pillows, raspberries, apple pie oatmeal, naps, nuts and seeds, Eric and Ringo napping together on the couch, slowing down, knowing that slowing down is a necessary part of the process, getting in the pool, sitting in the sauna, the hydromassage chair, Christmas music, Christmas movies, all the lights, vaccines, listening to podcasts, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.

I’ve made an executive decision to rename these end of the week posts to simply “Gratitude.” I’m not consistently posting it on a Friday, a lingering nod to the posts published on Fridays elsewhere that originally inspired my practice of a weekly gratitude list.

1. The morning sky over my house. Not dissimilar to what we see on our walks, equally amazing.

2. Morning walks. Here’s something I wrote in my Wild Writing class yesterday about it:

Walking Ringo next to the river or around the ponds as the sun is coming up is church, and what I mean by church is a quiet stillness that makes me feel small and empty in the best possible way. My problems, my habits and worries, my neurosis suddenly not such a big deal. The sunrise, the water, my dog, and the quiet of the early morning, the encounters with the wild things of the world — all render the time and space sacred and our passing by, our noticing a prayer of sorts.

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Culture tells us to build, consume, accumulate, but the truth is life exists in the moments and spaces where we are unencumbered by all that, the places where we are empty and luminous, the times where we don’t know and no longer care to know. We aren’t right or safe, we aren’t striving or hoping to win. We let all that go, we float where just a moment before we were falling, sinking. We look up and catch the color of the sunrise reflecting off the clouds and it stops us just where we are, asking for nothing.

3. Practicing together. In particular, my Friday morning writing class, group, sangha met for our last session until after the new year and it was some especially magic writing, and practicing art with Calyx and her loving support of my process is one of the very best things.

4. The season of light. We got our tree up and decorated; Eric made the coconut, walnut, dark chocolate bon bons my grandma and great aunt Maggie used to make every Christmas which I hadn’t had in years; all the presents have shipped and/or are getting wrapped; Christmas music is playing in the background; and Eric is officially on his winter break.

5. My tiny family, my tiny home, my tiny life. I am so so so so so lucky, so content here with them.

Bonus joy: a negative COVID test (I didn’t really think it was anything more than a cold but Eric knew I’d feel better if I knew for sure so he got me a rapid test I could take at home — pretty good that we are almost three years into this and that’s the first test I’ve taken), getting in the pool, sitting in the sauna, the hyromassage chair, naps, raspberries, clean sheets, clean laundry, watercolors, therapy, listening to podcasts, all the new holiday movies, flowers on my desk and in the bathroom, the gingersnaps Eric made, good playlists on Spotify, texting with Chloe’ and Mom and Chris, climbing documentaries (an odd interest for Eric and I to share considering neither one of us climb), cuddling with Ringo, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.